“Papa,” said dear little kinky-haired E. Taman, the peacemaker of the family, changing the subject, “why are missionaries better eating than our neighbors and enemies?”
“Probably because they are apt to be cereal-eaters,” said her father, the cannibal chief; “although one of the most delicious missionaries I ever tasted was a Boston lady who had been raised on beans. She was a Unitarian. Your Unitarians generally make good eating. There’s a good deal of the milk of human kindness in them, and that makes them excellent roasters. Now, you take a hard-shell Baptist, and you might as well eat a ‘shore dinner’ at once. They need a heap of steaming, and they’re apt to be watery when all’s said and done. But it must be confessed they have more taste than a wishy-washy agnostic.”
“I think the most unsatisfactory of the lot,” said his wife, “is your Presbyterian. He’s pretty sure to be dry and gnarly, and good for nothing but fricasseeing. But I think that for all-round use, although they haven’t the delicacy of the Unitarian, the Methodist is what you might call the Plymouth Rock of missionaries. He’s generally fat, and he hasn’t danced himself dry, and he’s good for a pot-roast or any old thing. By the way, we’re going to have one to-day. I must go and tell the cook to baste him well.”
The old grandfather, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, said at this point: “Well, as you know, in my day I have been something of an epicure, and I have tasted every variety of dish known to cannibals. I don’t care for fresh-killed meat, no matter of what denomination it is, and while I don’t wish to be considered a sectarian, yet I do think that if you want a dish that is capable of a good deal of trimming and fancy fixings’ get hold of an Episcopal missionary; and, to me, the chief beauty of the Episcopalian is that he’s apt to be a little high.”
XVIII
“BUFFUM’S BUSTLESS BUFFERS”
I was looking at a rather startling picture in the morning paper of a man who had fallen from a seventh-story window and had been instantly killed. The man in the seat next to me—we were on the elevated—said: “I’ll do away with all those accidents soon.”