Zoary’s Fort is to be a femaile circus feller.
My Fort is the grate moral show bizniss & ritin choice famerly literatoor for the noospapers. That’s what’s the matter with me.
&., &., &. So I mite go on to a indefinit extent.
Twict I’ve endevered to do things which thay wasn’t my Fort. The fust time was when I undertuk to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a hole in my tent & krawld threw. Sez I, “My jentle Sir, go out or I shall fall on to you putty hevy.” Sez he, “Wade in, Old wax figgers,” whereupon I went for him, but he cawt me powerful on the bed & knockt me threw the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood the attach & flung me into a mud puddle. As I arose & rung out my drencht garmints I koncluded fitin wasn’t my Fort. Ile now rize the kurtin upon Seen 2nd: It is rarely seldum that I seek consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a certain town in Injianny in the Faul of 18—, my orgin grinder got sick with the fever & died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, & I thowt I’d hist in a few swallers of suthin strengthnin. Konsequents was I histid in so much I dident zackly know whare bowts I was. I turned my livin wild beasts of Pray loose into the streets and spilt all my wax wurks. I then bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to a Kanawl bote, there bein two other hosses hicht on also, one behind and anuther ahead of me. The driver hollerd for us to git up, and we did. But the hosses bein onused to sich a arrangemunt begun to kick & squeal and rair up. Konsequents was I fownd myself in the Kanawl with the other hosses, kickin & yellin like a tribe of Cusscaroorus savvijis. I was rescood, & as I was bein carrid to the tavern on a hemlock Bored I sed in a feeble voise, “Boys, playin hoss isn’t my Fort.”
Morul.—Never don’t do nothin which isn’t your Fort, for ef you do you’ll find yourself splashin round in the Kanawl, figgeratively speakin.
Frank R. Stockton was a nobleman among the humorists.
His quiet and often subtle humor, his delightful style and his unique originality made all his stories a joy and some masterpieces. No quotations can be given, for any Stockton story must be read in its entirety. The Lady and the Tiger is doubtless the most celebrated one, but many others are even more clever and unusual.
Francis Bret Harte, famed for his short stories, also wrote humorous verse. The Heathen Chinee is a byword in all households, and Truthful James is nearly as well known.