FACETIÆ
The Old Cock
Many years ago the only inn at Keswick was called the “Cock,” and was much frequented by the visitors to the Lake district. But the late excellent Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Richard Watson, happening to reside in the neighborhood, and being universally esteemed and loved, the landlord, out of compliment to his lordship, changed his sign to the “Bishop’s Head.” Another inn was shortly after opened in the village, and the proprietor selected the “Cock” as his sign. The landlord of the old inn, finding that the rival establishment, owing to its name, threatened to deprive him of many of his customers, in consequence of the guide-books recommending the “Cock” as the best inn, wrote under the bishop’s head at his door, “This is the original Old Cock,” to the great amusement of the bishop, who used to relate the story with much glee.
Already had One
The following story is told by General Harry Heth: “One day General Gordon and I were ordered to attack General Grant’s lines near Petersburg, and we accordingly moved out toward the front. Gordon, you know, was a preacher, and a man of pious devotional habits. Just before the action began, he said, ‘General, before we go into action, would it not be well to engage in prayer?’ ‘Certainly,’ I replied, and he and his staff retired into a little building by the roadside, and I and my staff prepared to follow. Just then I caught sight of my brother, who was with some artillery a little way down the road, and, thinking to have him join us, I called out to him by name. ‘Come,’ said I, pointing to the building we were just entering. ‘No, thank you,’ he answered, ‘I have just had one.’”
Ask Papa
A stanza went the rounds among the public men of Washington, the authorship of which, from the fact that it was first heard among senators and cabinet officers, is credited to various statesmen. Secretary Shaw recited it at a cabinet meeting, and was said to be its author, but he disclaimed the honor. It is:
“‘Go ask papa,’ the maiden said,
The young man knew papa was dead;
He knew the life papa had led;
He understood when the maiden said,
‘Go ask papa.’”
Too Mild
When his friends secured for him a commission in the army they confidently expected him to develop a military genius of the first order.
Great was their chagrin, then, when, in the thick of his first battle, a courier having dashed up and asked him how long he could hold his position, he did not reply:
“Till hell freezes over!”
But merely:
“As long as may be necessary!”
Now, of course, there was nothing for his friends to do, in simple justice to themselves, but advise him to resign and engage in trade.
The Eye of the Fly
Sydney Smith jokes have a delicate flavor of age, but an anecdote in “Memories of Half a Century” has not been told so often as some of the classic tales. Sydney was a guest at the dinner of an archdeacon, and a fellow-guest, whose hobby was natural history, was a bore, if once started on his subject. Smith promised to try to keep him in check. The naturalist got his opening.
“Mr. Archdeacon,” said he, “have you seen the pamphlet written by my friend, Professor Dickenson, on the remarkable size of the eye in a common housefly?”
The archdeacon courteously said he had not. The bore pursued his advantage.
“I can assure you it is a most interesting pamphlet, setting forth particulars, hitherto unobserved, as to the unusual size of that eye.”
“I deny the fact!” said a voice from the other end of the table. All smiled, save the bore.
“You deny the fact, sir?” said he. “May I ask on what authority you condemn the investigations of my most learned friend?”
“I deny the fact,” replied Smith, “and I base my denial on evidence wedded to immortal verse well known to every scholar, at least, at this table.”
The emphasis laid on scholar nettled the naturalist by its implication. “Well, sir,” he said, “will you have the kindness to quote your authority?”
“I will, sir. The evidence is those well known, I may say immortal, lines:
“‘Who saw him die?’
‘I,’ said the fly,
‘With my little eye!’”
The guests roared, and during the rest of the dinner nothing further was heard on the subject of natural history.
Yale’s Way
Once when President Dwight was at the head of Yale he was asked to lead in prayer at some religious gathering in Boston. Among his hearers was President Eliot, of Harvard. President Dwight ended his supplication by repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and spoke a certain part of it as follows: “Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.” At the close of the meeting President Eliot, of Harvard, was greeted by a friend, who said, “Dwight seemed a little lame on the Lord’s Prayer. He put earth ahead of heaven. Did you notice it?” “Yes,” replied Eliot, “but I didn’t pay any attention to it. That’s the way they are taught to say it down at New Haven.”
Canard
A canard, meaning in French, a duck, has come to mean in English a hoax or fabricated newspaper story. Its origin is amusing. About fifty years ago a French journalist contributed to the French press an experiment, of which he declared himself to have been the author. Twenty ducks were placed together, and one of them, having been cut up into very small pieces, was gluttonously gobbled up by the other nineteen. Another bird was then sacrificed for the remainder, and so on, until one duck was left, which thus contained in its inside the other nineteen! This the journalist ate. The story caught on, and was copied into all the newspapers of Europe.
Sothern’s Practical Joke
A Dublin paper relates, as follows, one of the practical jokes of Edward A. Sothern, the comedian: He called upon an undertaker one day, and ordered, on a most elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a funeral. Before the preparations could have gone far, he reappeared with great solicitude to ask how they were progressing. Again, at a brief interval, he presented himself, with an anxious face, to inquire when he could count upon possession of the body—a question which naturally amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss to discover his meaning. “Of course, you provide the body,” said Sothern. “The body?” cried the undertaker. “Why, do you not say,” exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a card of the shop, “‘All things necessary for funerals promptly supplied?’ Is not a body the first necessity?”
High Art Advertising
That German tradesmen are rapidly rising to the higher flights of the advertising art is shown by the following ingenious paragraphs from the advertisements in the Berliner Tageblatt and the Wiener Vorstadt-Zeitung: “A German Knightly landowner wishes to find a female life-companion who resembles, externally as well as in character, the heroine of Sacher-Masoch’s novel, ‘Frau von Soldan,’ published in the April number of Auf der Höhe, by E. L. Morgenstern, Leipzig. Address Karl Egger, Beiderwiese, near Passau.” An enterprising Viennese tailor has hit upon this: “How to become a houseowner: Quite lately a gentleman made his fortune on the Weiden in an astonishing and absolutely original manner. At my shop he purchased a morning suit for ten florins, a dress suit for nineteen florins, a pair of summer trousers for three florins, and a complete costume for his little son at the low figure of three florins and a half. Having reflected that, had he bought these articles in any other shop, he would have been obliged to pay at least twenty florins more for them, he resolved to invest his savings to that amount in a ticket for the Crown Prince Rudolph Lottery. At the next drawing his number came out the first prize of twenty thousand florins, which sum this lucky person forthwith invested in a comfortable mansion. Thus, through dealing at my establishment, he became a houseowner and a wealthy man.”
An Admissible Explanation
The late Dr. Yandell was fond of telling the following joke: A lady patient one morning greeted him with the remark, “Doctor, I had such a singular dream about you last night.” “Indeed. What was it?” “Why, I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I knocked at the Golden Gate, and was answered by Peter, who asked my name and address and told the recording angel to bring his book. He had considerable difficulty in finding my name, and hesitated so long over the entry when he did find it, that I was terribly afraid something was wrong; but he suddenly looked up and asked, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I told him again. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you have no business here. You’re not due these ten or fifteen years yet.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Dr. Yandell said——’ ‘Oh, you’re one of Yandell’s patients, are you? That accounts for it. Come right in! Come right in! That man’s always upsetting our calculations in some way.’”
Second- or Third-Rate
Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, tells this joke on himself with keen relish. It was at the time when there was a vacancy in the bishopric, and Dr. Brooks was the most prominent candidate. Mr. Lawrence, then the Dean of the Theological School, in Cambridge, was walking with President Eliot of Harvard University, and the two were discussing the situation. “Don’t you hope Brooks will be elected?” asked the Dean. “No,” said Dr. Eliot; “a second- or third-rate man would do just as well; and we need Brooks in Boston and Cambridge.” Phillips Brooks was elected, and a little later Dr. Eliot and Mr. Lawrence again discussed the matter. “Aren’t you glad Brooks was elected?” queried the Dean. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Dr. Eliot, “if he wanted it; but, to tell the truth, Lawrence, you were my man.”
The Wounded Amazon
Gibson’s Wounded Amazon is a poem in marble, but how many of its admirers would ever suspect the grotesque suggestiveness of which it was the outgrowth? “Yes,” said Gibson to a friend who went to his studio to see the statue in clay, “I call it a Wounded Amazon, but that statue is a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now, how do you think I found that pose? I was going along the street, and I found a girl catching a flea. Yes, I did; she was catching a flea! I stopped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose—a very pretty pose indeed,’ and I took it down. Then I thought it over; I sat up and worked it out, and there it stands now as my Wounded Amazon. But it is the very pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A very pretty pose it is, you see; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to keep his eyes always open.”
Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity
A friend read to Mr. William M. Evarts the statement of a newspaper that, in reply to the question “What part of the turkey will you have?” Mr. Evarts answered that it was “quite inconsequential to one of his recognized abstemiousness and supersensitive stomachic nervation whether he be tendered an infinitesimal portion of the opaque nutriment of the nether extremities, the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy cleavage from the cardiac region.” Mr. Evarts said that this was an attempt at condensing one of his despatches protesting against the dismemberment of Turkey. It was founded on an incident which occurred at one of his Thanksgiving dinners at home. “I had a roasted New England goose, well stuffed with sage, with plenty of apple-sauce and the usual accompaniments. At the close of the meal I said, ‘My children, you now see the difference between the condition of affairs before and after dinner. You then saw a goose stuffed with sage; now you see a sage stuffed with goose.’”
Worse than Worst
Two comedians having laid a wager as to which of them sang the best, they agreed to refer it to an arbitrator. A day was accordingly set, and both parties executed to the best of their abilities. When they had finished, he proceeded to give judgment in the following manner: “As for you, sir,” addressing himself to the first, “you are the worst singer I ever heard in all my life.” “Ah,” said the other, “I knew I should win the wager.” “Stop, sir,” said the arbitrator; “I have a word to say to you before you go, which is this, that as for you, you cannot sing at all.”
A Poet-farmer in a Fix
Long Island has a poet named Bloodgood H. Cutter, who, when an infant, “lisped in numbers.” He is a member of the agricultural profession, a practical farmer, and alternates between cultivation of his extensive family manor and his favorite muse monthly. One day the Long Island Byron, when on the way to the New York market, had the misfortune to break his tackling through the antics of his spirited team, that was drawing a big load.
Just at this moment, as the poet was in the road lugubriously viewing his ruptured tackling and broken traces, there appeared on the spot a wagon-load of his neighbors on their way home. “By Jove!” said S., “there is our rhyming neighbor Cutter, broke down; bet you the dinners all round at Tony’s that when we stop he will tell his trouble in good rhythm.” “Done,” said B. “I take that bet. Drive up and decide it.” Bloodgood looked around, saw a chance of relief, and his countenance radiating like an Edison lamp, opened his lips thusly:
“Glad to see your smiling faces;
I’ve broke down and want relief;
Come and help me mend these traces,
Or my trip will come to grief.
I’ve a load of pink-eyed beauties,
Rare potatoes—sure to sell—
Don’t forget your Christian duties,
Pious work, you know, pays well.”
A roar went up that could have been heard a mile. “All right, Bloodgood, that Christian duty shall be ‘did.’” They fixed him up and he went on his way rejoicing. In due time Tony Miller’s elegant dinner for four was partaken of, and B. footed the bill.
A Venerable Joke
The framework of jokes is handed down from one generation to another, like andirons and spinning-wheels. For instance, a Hartford paper, learning that there is a coin in Southern Russia so small that it takes two hundred and fifty of them to be worth one dollar, remarks that they must be very convenient for charitable purposes. The joke appears in every age, without much alteration. It is first noticed in English literature after the ascension of James I. to the throne had brought in a horde of hungry Scotch place-hunters, to the great disgust of the English, who wanted all the places themselves. Jokes at the expense of the Scotch, of course, became very popular, and this was one of the most popular: “Why are they coining farthings again?” “To give Scotchmen an opportunity to subscribe to benevolent objects.”
The Graduate
He could quote from musty pages, delve in geologic ages, and relax himself in synthesis and such;
Could construct an exegesis, startle with a subtle Thesis, and involve a tortured subject overmuch.
He was great in mathematics, as applied to hydrostatics, or eternal revolution of the spheres;
His chronology was reckoned from the minimum of second to the undiscovered maximum of years.
He was constantly amazing with philology and phrasing, with vocabulistic plenitude and ease;
He was by his fellows quoted, as a lexicon is noted, his attainments were superlative degrees.
On Commencement his oration was received with an ovation, oh, his temporary glory was immense;
While the complimenting flowers fell around in fragrant showers, and the fever of the moment was intense.
But behold the fellow later from his sheltering Alma Mater reach his educated fingers for some necessary cash;
All the wisdom he may utter doesn’t turn to bread and butter, and his Theses do not count for daily hash.
Coldblooded Criticism
Mr. Longfellow sent this little verse to the Columbus, Ohio, school children, who celebrated his birthday:
“If any thought of mine, e’er sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold
By every friendly sign and salutation.
With the compliments and good wishes of
H. W. Longfellow.”
Whereupon a Cincinnati paper chaffed the poet in this fashion: “Certainly, Mr. Longfellow; but if you sung it you told it, didn’t you? It is rather your point to tell a thing in singing it! Why, then, ‘sung or told?’ And why the back in the third line? Break that back. Could one repay you forward? And is not a sign also a salutation?”
Mock Heroics
Out rode from his wild, dark castle
The terrible Heinz von Stein;
He came to the door of a tavern,
And gazed on the swinging sign.
He sat himself down at a table,
And growled for a bottle of wine;
Up came with a flask and a corkscrew
A maiden of beauty divine.
Then, seized with a deep love-longing,
He uttered, “O damosel mine,
Suppose you just give a few kisses
To the valorous Ritter von Stein!”
But she answered: “The kissing business
Is entirely out of my line;
And I certainly will not begin it
On a countenance ugly as thine!”
Oh, then the bold knight was angry,
And cursed both coarse and fine;
And asked, “How much is the swindle
For your sour and nasty wine?”
And fiercely he rode to the castle,
And set himself down to dine:
And this is the dreadful legend
Of the terrible Heinz von Stein.
Charles G. Leland.
Unwilling Willingness
Dr. Guernsey, in an article on faith cure, in the Medical Times, cites a case in which will power appears to have successfully supplied the place of faith. Among the parishioners of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, was an invalid lady, who finally took to her bed, where she continued to receive her pastor’s visits. One bitter cold night she sent for him to console her dying moments, and declared herself ready to depart in peace. “If it is His will,” she said, “that I shall go to hell, I can still say, ‘Thy will be done.’” The physician who was present became a little impatient. “Well,” said he, “if that is God’s will, and both you and your family are reconciled to it, I do not know that I ought to object.” In a moment the woman was on her feet shouting, “I won’t die and I won’t go to hell!” She afterward enjoyed comfortable health for years.
Companion Pictures
The Rev. Dr. John Hall once suggested that an artist might paint “Enchantment” as “a bright young girl, on the deck of an ocean steamer at the wharf, chattering to the friends around her, grandly directing her bouquets to be sent to her room, full of the joys of the voyage and her first trip to Europe.” He adds that a companion picture might be called “Disenchanted,” representing the same girl, “like Jonah, gone down to the sides of the ship, not like him, asleep, but with great inward trouble, like that in the venerable sea story, ‘The first hour I feared I would die; the second hour I feared I would not.’ The faded bouquets, disordered garments, and a very crowded foreground would complete the scene.”
Juxtaposition
Dr. Henry Gibbons describes a kiss as “the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction.” Upon this, a newspaper editor remarked, “A kiss may be one of those things, but it doesn’t taste like it. We once heard a young man describe a kiss as ‘bully,’ and he had quite as much experience in the osculatory business as Dr. Gibbons, but he didn’t have so much education.”
Niagara
An American tourist was visiting Naples and saw Vesuvius during an eruption. “Have you anything like that in the New World?” was the question of an Italian spectator. “No,” replied Jonathan; “but I guess we have a mill-dam that would put it out in five minutes.”
Compliant Courts
Edwin Booth, as Richelieu, once said, in a Chicago theatre,—
“France, my mistress, France, my wedded wife,
Who shall proclaim divorce ’twixt me and thee?”
And, after a solemn pause, somebody in the gallery said, “Most any Chicago Judge.”
A Modern Judge on Portia’s Judgment
The Home Secretary lately ventured to assert that Lord Bramwell entertained so vast a reverence for all kinds of property that if he had been called upon to decide the legal dispute in “The Merchant of Venice,” he would infallibly have declared that Antonio’s pound of flesh must be given to his creditor. Lord Bramwell, with the frankness which usually characterizes him, has met Sir William Harcourt’s little joke by an answer delivered from the judicial bench. In the course of an Appeal Court case the learned judge took occasion to respond to the witty illustration of the Home Secretary. Far from expressing the slightest shame or penitence for the views which he holds as to the sacredness of property of all descriptions, Lord Bramwell actually seems to glory in them. The session of the Court of Appeal was probably the earliest opportunity that was presented to him of answering Sir William Harcourt’s banter; but at all events, he seized on the opportunity and turned it to the best account. Portia’s statement of the case would, Lord Bramwell tells us, have induced him to give the pound of flesh to the usurer, except for one little flaw in her argument. The flesh had not been “appropriated,” and could not, therefore, be regarded as property to which Shylock had a good legal right until it had been cut from Antonio’s quivering body. Supposing Lord Bramwell to have been sitting in banco with the Doge of Venice on the occasion of the famous trial, and the pound of flesh had been lying on a table ready cut; in that case the decision of the English judge would have been in favor of the plaintiff’s claim to the possession of the horrible piece of “property.” But then, as Lord Bramwell truly remarks, in order to get the flesh, assault, and even murder, would have had to be committed, and therefore the contract was null and void from the beginning. The moment Shylock had advanced toward his victim, knife in hand, he would have been technically guilty of an assault with intent, and would have been obliged to appear at the police court of the period next morning to hear what the sitting magistrate thought of the offence.
A Legal Dilemma
At an examination for admission to the bar of Ohio, the examiner propounded this question: “A great many years ago there lived a gentleman named Lazarus, who died possessed of chattels, real and personal. After this event to whom did they go?” The student replied, “To his administrators and his heirs.” “Well, then,” continued the examiner, “in four days he came to life again; inform us, sir, whose were they then?” Which interesting inquiry we submit to the lawyers. I am not a lawyer, but I see no difficulty in the inquiry. Lazarus died and was buried. As soon as he died, his property, if he left no will, vested in his heirs. The law gives no man the right to die for four days and then come to life again. Legally Lazarus couldn’t rise. I have no doubt the Supreme Court would decide that the Lazarus who rose was not the Lazarus who died; he was a new Lazarus. The new Lazarus would, of course, feel within himself that he was the old Lazarus, and go around boring his legal friends talking about his legal wrongs; but every lawyer would leave him as quickly as possible, saying, in parting, “It’s a hard case; but if your heirs can prove your death, and they came in legally under the statute, there is no way to make them disgorge. All you can do is this—you’re a young fellow about sixty; hire out as a clerk, try to save something from your salary so as to go into business again, build up a grand estate, and perhaps your heirs will recognize your identity.”
Virgil’s Æneid Dissected
In an English college journal our old and highly polished friend P. Virgilius Maro is quite thoroughly shaken up. After a little general discussion of the poet, the writer proceeds to quote a large number of passages in which Virgil is inconsistent and oftentimes contradictory. Take, for instance, the following:
“Down comes blind Cyclops to the shore—
‘Postquam altos tetigit fluctus, et ad æquora venit,
Luminis effusi fluidum lavit inde cruorem.’
‘He washes with its water the gore that trickled from his scooped-out eye.’ Now would anybody but a madman go and bathe a bleeding wound in the sea—the sea, of all places? Why, he would have made his head smart for a year; but Virgil wanted him down on the shore, and must make him do something. Note, too, ‘fluidum cruorem.’ Now, in line 645 of the same book (III), the fugitive tells Æneas that they put out the Cyclops’s eye three months ago, and so, according to Virgil, the wound bleeds incessantly for three months (three days of bleeding would, according to modern doctors, have taken the life of even a stout Cyclops), and then the giant comes down to the shore and bathes in salt water.... Again, in the celebrated athletic sports in Book V., everybody is rewarded with a prize. One man gets a prize because he comes in first; the second man gets one because he would have been first if something hadn’t happened, and the last man gets one because he fell down. The only parallel to such a practice is one afforded by Artemus Ward, who, in command of a volunteer force, makes all his men captains, to prevent jealousy. In V, 456, Virgil, after carefully telling us that Dares is wonderfully nimble and Entillus wonderfully slow, lets the slow man chase the fast one, æquore toto, hitting him all the while.”
Relative Size
Before the ocean leviathans of the Cunard and White Star steamship lines were built, an inquirer asked whether the “Great Eastern” was the largest vessel ever built. The editor replied, “An impression has got abroad that she is, but such is not the case. The ‘Mayflower,’ in which the Pilgrim fathers came to this country, was the largest ship that ever ploughed the waters. The old furniture scattered over this country, brought over by the ‘Mayflower,’ would fill the ‘Great Eastern’ a dozen times or more.”
The Cardinal’s Curse
“The Jackdaw of Rheims” is better known than the majority of the “Ingoldsby Legends,” with the dreadful curse which the cardinal called down upon the thief who had stolen his ring:
The Cardinal rose with a dignified look.
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
He cursed him in sleeping that very night,
He should dream of the devil and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking;
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!
In twitting again at Holy Church, Mr. Barham makes Pope Gregory, in setting a penance for Sir Ingoldsby Bray, break out in the following extraordinary though highly entertaining dog Latin:
O turpissime! Vir nequissime!
Sceleratissime!—quissime!—issime!
Never, I trow, have the Servi servorum
Had before ’em such a breach of decorum,
Such a gross violation of morum bonorum,
And won’t have again sæcula sæculoram!
The Berners Street Hoax
In point of audacity and ingenuity in the line of practical joking, Theodore Hook is unrivalled. The most famous of his hoaxes was played on Mrs. Tottingham, an old lady living at No. 54 Berners Street, Oxford Road, London. The date of its occurrence was November, 26, 1810, so long since that the elders have forgotten it, and the later generations have never heard of it. For the sake of the latter, it is worth while to recall such a laughable incident.
In walking down Berners Street one day with a companion, their attention was attracted to the neat and modest appearance of the house referred to. “I’ll bet you a guinea,” said Theodore, “that in one week that nice quiet dwelling shall be the most famous in all London.” The bet was taken. In the course of the next four or five days, Hook wrote and despatched more than a thousand letters, conveying orders to tradesmen of every sort, all to be executed on one particular day, and as nearly as possible at one fixed hour. From wagons of coal and potatoes to books, prints, feathers, ices, jellies, tarts, anything and everything available was ordered from rival dealers scattered from Wapping to Lambeth, from Whitechapel to Paddington. In 1810 Oxford Road was not approachable from Westminster, or Mayfair, or from the city, otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes. Imagine the crash and jam and tumult that followed! Hook had provided himself with a temporary lodging on the opposite side of the street, and there, with a couple of trusty allies, he watched the development of the drama. But, for prudential reasons, some of the dramatis personæ were seldom, if ever, alluded to afterwards. Hook had no objection to open references to the arrival of the Lord Mayor and his chaplain, invited to take the death-bed confession of a peculating common councilman, but he would rather have buried in oblivion that precisely the same sort of liberty was taken with the Governor of the Bank of England, the Chairman of the East India Company, the Lord Chief Justice, a cabinet minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. They all obeyed the summons—every pious and patriotic feeling had been most movingly appealed to. We are not sure that they all reached Berners Street, but the Duke of York’s military punctuality and crimson liveries brought him to the point of attack before the poor widow’s astonishment had risen to terror and despair. No assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial revolution was a greater godsend to the newspapers than this daring piece of mischief. In Hook’s own theatrical world he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped either him or his confidants. Beyond that circle the affair was serious. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons, scores of whom had been cheated of valuable hours. Attorneys, teachers of all kinds (male and female), hair-dressers, tailors, preachers, and philanthropists had been victimized, and were vociferous in their complaints. The tangible material damage done was itself considerable. Beer casks and wine casks were overturned, glass and china were smashed, harpsichords and coach-panels were broken, and men and horses, under the resistless pressure of a countless multitude, were thrown down and trampled upon. It was a field-day for the pickpockets. A fervent hue and cry arose for the detection of the trickster, but he disappeared and did not return to his accustomed haunts until the storm had blown over.
The Point of View
The girl stood on the roller skates,
But then she could not go;
She was afraid to tempt the fates,
Because she wobbled so.
She called aloud, “Say, Chawley, say:
Do come; help me along!”
But Chawley went the other way,
Because his legs went wrong;
There came a crash—a thunder sound;
The girl, oh, where was she?
Ask of the giddy youth around,
Who viewed her hosiery.
Vicissim
A class of schoolgirls, highly educated on the newest principles, were pouring forth to the Bishop of Manchester a list of Latin words, with the English equivalents, and they came to the word which we elders should call vicissim, “We-kiss-im,” said the girls; “we-kiss-im—by turns.” “Oh, do you?” answered the bishop; “then I don’t wonder at your adopting the new pronunciation.”
Jack and Jill
’Twas not on Alpine snow nor ice,
But honest English ground;
Excelsior! was their device;
But sad the fate they found.
They did not climb for love nor fame,
But followed Duty’s call;
They were together in their aim,
But parted in their fall.
High Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle
Heard ye that mirthful melody? Remote
It rose; and straight the strain, approaching near,
Caught of the careful cat the critic ear—
Proud dame, in tortoise decked or tabby coat,
The villain vermin’s vixen vanquisher.
Her frolic paw the festive fiddle smote,
Which, as high Hesper poured his glittering glance,
Inspired the not unawkward cow to dance
Above the beamy moon; all this beheld
The dog diminutive, while its strange romance
With laughter loud his simple bosom swelled:
The dish, high heaped with food of savory store,
Kissed the bright spoon by kindred love impelled,—
Such is the nursery tale of infant lore.
Mary’s Little Lamb
Mary possessed a diminutive sheep,
Whose external covering was as devoid of color as the congealed aureous fluid which occasionally presents insurmountable barriers to railroad travel on the Sierras;
And everywhere that Mary peregrinated
The juvenile Southdown was certain to get up and get right after her.
It tagged her to the alphabet dispensary one day,
Which was in contravention of established usage;
It caused the other youthful students to cachinnate and skyfungle
To perceive an adolescent mutton in an edifice devoted to the dissemination of knowledge.
And so the preceptor ejected him from the interior.
And he continued to roam in the immediate vicinity,
And remained in the neighborhood until Mary
Once more became visible.
“What causes the juvenile sheep to hanker after Mary so?”
Queried the inquisitive children of their tutor.
“Why, Mary bestows much affection upon the little animal to which the wind is tempered when shorn, you must be aware,”
The preceptor with alacrity responded.
The Meeting
They met; ’twas in the starry depths
Of August’s cloudless sky;
Fair Luna trod her silvery path
In matchless majesty:
The cricket chirped, the firefly
Pursued his fitful dance.
’Twas in the balmy slumb’rous night
That those two met by chance.
With throbbing heart and beating pulse
He spoke in accents low,
And in her glancing eye there came
A deeper, warmer glow:
Then up the apple tree she flew
And there vindictive spat,
For “he” was “Jack” my terrier,
And “she” our neighbor’s cat.