“So with pipes and puffs for a chorus, thus Yoomy sang:—
Care is all stuff:—
Puff! Puff:
To puff is enough:—
Puff! Puff!
More musky than snuff,
And warm is a puff:—
Puff! Puff!
Here we sit mid our puffs,
Like old lords in their ruffs,
Snug as bears in their muffs:—
Puff! Puff!
Then puff, puff, puff;
For care is all stuff,
Puffed off in a puff:—
Puff! Puff!
“Ay, puff away,” cried Babbalanja, “puff; puff, so we are born, and so die. Puff, puff, my volcanos: the great sun itself will yet go out in a snuff, and all Mardi smoke out its last wick.”
“Puffs enough,” said King Media, “Vee-Vee! haul down my flag. There, lie down before me, oh Gonfalon! and, subjects, hear,—when I die, lay this spear on my right, and this pipe on my left, its colors at half mast; so shall I be ambidexter, and sleep between eloquent symbols.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
They Visit An Extraordinary Old Antiquary
“About prows there, ye paddlers,” cried Media. “In this fog we’ve been raising, we have sailed by Padulla, our destination.”
Now Padulla, was but a little island, tributary to a neighboring king; its population embracing some hundreds of thousands of leaves, and flowers, and butterflies, yet only two solitary mortals; one, famous as a venerable antiquarian: a collector of objects of Mardian vertu; a cognoscenti, and dilettante in things old and marvelous; and for that reason, very choice of himself.
He went by the exclamatory cognomen of “Oh-Oh;” a name bestowed upon him, by reason of the delighted interjections, with which he welcomed all accessions to his museum.
Now, it was to obtain a glimpse of this very museum, that Media was anxious to touch at Padulla.
Landing, and passing through a grove, we were accosted by Oh-Oh himself; who, having heard the shouts of our paddlers, had sallied forth, staff in hand.