Her for six hundred dollars to thee,"
I love her and so she loves me,"
Says he,
"Her mother was worth that to me."
Which I quote from a sweet ballad I recently found among some rebel leave-ings at Yorktown.
These conservative patriots, my boy, remind me of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward. A high moral chap, my boy, and full of venerable dignity. One night the virtuous cuss doing business next door to him, having just got a big insurance on his stock, and thinking himself safe for a flaming speculation, set fire to his own premises and then called "Murder" on the next corner. Out came the whole Fire Department, only stopping to have two fights and a scrimmage on the way, and pretty soon the water was pouring all over every house in the street except the one on fire. The high moral chap stuck his head out of the window, and says he:
"This here fire ain't in my house, and I don't want no noise around this here residence."
Upon this, some of our gallant firemen, who had just been into a fashionable drinking-shop not more than two blocks off, to see if any of the sparks had got in there, called to the chap to let them into his house, so that they might get at the conflagration more easily.
"Never!" said the chap, shaking his nightcap convulsively; "I didn't set fire to Joneses, and I can't have no Fire Department running around my entries."
"See here, old blue-pills," says one of the firemen, pleasantly, "if you don't let us in, your own crib will go to blazes in ten minutes."