The chivalric Don Quixote, having become a monomaniac on the subject of chivalry, bestrode his Rosinante, and, attended by his squire, started out to perform chivalrous deeds.
Lord C. has been absent since February, 1870; it is said that he has been traveling incognito, but it is certain that in Italy he has retained his cognomen. He is now at Modena awaiting the recovery of his Cicerone, when he intends to visit Genoa and Milan.
The obesity of the florid-faced prebendary is observed to increase with his prebend.
I have heard much of the gamins of Gotham, but I never realized what the gallows-deserving rascals were till I settled in New York City. I opened business as a pharmaceutist on a corner that was a favorite haunt of theirs. Such a crowd of tatterdemalions as stood in front of my show-window the first day I made my display of Parisian fancy goods, baffles description. One had the hooping cough, and every now and then would hoop till the perspiration rolled down his face; then he would shriek out the daily newspapers, in a voice like a calliope. One dirty-faced gourmand ate papaws till he had to gape for breath, and would shoot the seeds and throw the skins at his hundred comrades, half of them coming in my front door. Another, dressed in ragged jean, his face covered with soot, played the jew's-harp hour after hour, with as much pride in his ability as Paganini at his violin. Another, a tall, jaundice visaged youth with an embryo beard of about a dozen hairs, covered nearly to his heels with his great-grandfather's surtout, in the lapel of which was pinned a death's-head, danced upon the iron cellar door till it roared like distant artillery.
Then there were many other "partners" bearing such sobriquets as "Sore Snoot," "Pig Eye," "Limpy," etc., improvising irrational songs, boxing, wrestling, indulging in raillery and ribald jests, pitching quoits, meawing like cats, howling at my patrons and driving reputable patronage away. Every now and then they would send in little, saucy, precocious urchins, who offered to patronize me by asking for two cents' worth of jujube paste, tolu or licorice, or some Samaritan salve for Jim Biles' sore nose. At last, when the sun had reached the horizon, as a finale of the day's progress, one of the young villains hurled a bowlder through my French plate-glass, which, after its flight through a lot of citrate of magnesia, cochineal and quinine, finally spilled a large bottle of red ink all over my new pharmacopœia. Springing over the débris, I rushed to the door with implacable anger flashing from my eyes. But one glance at that imperturbable crowd showed me how impotent I was. One of them with placid countenance and stolid indifference simply accosted me with, "Say, Mister, are you going to see the 'Naiad Queen' to-night?"
I left that store in less than a fortnight.