"Yours
respecful
"Eli Perkins,"
"his letter."
My friend Mr. D.T.T. Moore, of the "Rural New Yorker," thinks if I "keep on" I will get in the Poor House in about two years.
If you think the honest old farmers of Barclay County want me, I will come.
Truly Yours,
Charles F. Browne.
1.34. BUSTS.
There are in this city several Italian gentlemen engaged in the bust business. They have their peculiarities and eccentricities. They are swarthy-faced, wear slouched caps and drab pea-jackets, and smoke bad cigars. They make busts of Webster, Clay, Bonaparte, Douglas, and other great men, living and dead. The Italian buster comes upon you solemnly and cautiously. "Buy Napoleon?" he will say, and you may probably answer "not a buy." "How much giv-ee?" he asks, and perhaps you will ask him how much he wants. "Nine dollar," he will answer always. We are sure of it. We have observed this peculiarity in the busters frequently. No matter how large or small the bust may be, the first price is invariably "nine dollar." If you decline paying this price, as you undoubtedly will if you are right in your head, he again asks, "how much giv-ee?" By way of a joke you say "a dollar," when the buster retreats indignantly to the door, saying in a low, wild voice, "O dam!" With his hand upon the door-latch, he turns and once more asks, "how much giv-ee?" You repeat the previous offer, when he mutters, "O ha!" then coming pleasantly towards you, he speaks thus: "Say! how much giv-ee?" Again you say a dollar, and he cries, "take 'um—take 'um!"—thus falling eight dollars on his original price.
Very eccentric is the Italian buster, and sometimes he calls his busts by wrong names. We bought Webster (he called him Web-STAR) of him the other day, and were astonished when he called upon us the next day with another bust of Webster, exactly like the one we had purchased of him, and asked us if we didn't want to buy "Cole, the wife-pizener!" We endeavored to rebuke the depraved buster, but our utterance was choked, and we could only gaze upon him in speechless astonishment and indignation.
1.35. A HARD CASE.
We have heard of some very hard cases since we have enlivened this world with our brilliant presence. We once saw an able-bodied man chase a party of little school-children and rob them of their dinners. The man who stole the coppers from his deceased grandmother's eyes lived in our neighborhood, and we have read about the man who went to church for the sole purpose of stealing the testaments and hymn-books. But the hardest case we ever heard of lived in Arkansas. He was only fourteen years old. One night he deliberately murdered his father and mother in cold blood, with a meat-axe. He was tried and found guilty. The Judge drew on his black cap, and in a voice choked with emotion asked the young prisoner if he had anything to say before the sentence of the Court was passed on him. The court-room was densely crowded and there was not a dry eye in the vast assembly. The youth of the prisoner, his beauty and innocent looks, the mild, lamblike manner in which he had conducted himself during the trial—all, all had thoroughly enlisted the sympathy of the spectators, the ladies in particular. And even the Jury, who had found it to be their stern duty to declare him guilty of the appalling crime—even the Jury now wept aloud at this awful moment.