"Sure thing," answered Gus Plum, after a moment of thought. He struck an attitude. "My subject is a most profound one, first broached by Cicero to Henry Clay, during the first trip of the beloved pair to Coney Island."
"Hurrah! Hooroo!" came from one of the club members.
"Cicero had been speaking to just such a crowd of convicts as I am now addressing—thieves, murderers, and those who had failed to shovel the snow from their sidewalks during the months of July and August," continued Gus Plum.
"Convicts is good," murmured Roger.
"The boat running to Coney Island had slowed up to a walk, which caused Cicero to grow impatient, as he wanted a ride on the shoot-the-chutes. Henry Clay, along with Napoleon and a Roman sausage-maker named Hannibal, were in the bow of the craft trying to solve the fifteen puzzle by the aid of a compass and a book on etiquette. Suddenly a great commotion arose to a height of a mile or more. The boat sank to the bottom of the sea, turned over three times, and came to the surface again. A shriek arose from one of the ladies, Cleopatra's waiting-maid: 'I have lost my knitting overboard.' 'Man the pumps!' cried Cicero, and then tied his sandals around his neck for a life-preserver. Henry Clay drew a Henry Clay from his pocket and began to smoke vigorously. Hannibal said he would turn cannibal if the boat went down again. Cleopatra said she would die happy if only they would start up the phonograph, and Homer did so, with that beautiful ode entitled, 'Why Eat Turkey When Corned Beef Is So Cheap?'"
"Where's the pail that leaked?" came from the crowd.
"Stick to the subject."
"Is the boat leaking yet?"
"Be not afraid," answered Gus Plum, solemnly. "By the chronometer I have still seven minutes before the boat and pail sink out of sight forever. However, the pail was there, sitting, like a hen, on the larboard mast, filled with gooseberries, which Pocahontas had picked at dawn, in company with General Grant and King Henry the Sixty-second. Looking at this pail, John Paul Jones slapped his sailor thigh and asked, 'Why is a gooseberry?' a question which has come resounding down the ages—— Oh, thunder! Do you want to blow me to pieces!"
Crack! bang! crack! boom! came four loud reports, and the fire was scattered in all directions. Bang! came another report, and Dave received some burning fagots in the face. Gus Plum was hurled from the rock upon which he had been standing. Boom! came a report louder than any of the rest, and what was left of the camp-fire flew up in the air as if a volcano were under it.