Mayor—I dislike your didos.
Charley—None but an owl could discern my tricks.
Mayor—An alligator would not, unless he were hungry, and Charley was in a tree.
Charley—Come, Whiting, and young Conover, come, and revenge yourselves on Charley, who is weary of this wicked world. Hooted by the people, and braved by a Mayor, and checked like a forger, and all his thefts detected, and found in a note-book, and recited and sung by rote, and thrown into my very jaws—O! I could cry like a crocodile, until my eyes were balls of blood and fire. There’s my keys, and razor, and scissors, and here’s my yearning belly. Within, a liver, and bladder, and frogs, and kidneys, and tripe, and sausages, tenderer than my heart, itself, which nought but worms can ever conquer. If thou are not a bogus Mayor, or cunning spoilsman, apply thy scissors, and pluck them out, and appease thy insatiate palate. I, that denied thee keys, will yield my entrails. Strike, as thou didst at poor Branch’s claim, for I do know, that when thou didst hate him worst, thou lov’dst him better than ever thou didst Charley.
Mayor—Sheathe your scissors. Be waspish when you please,—you shall have sea-room. Be tricky when you will,—I’ll call it fun. O Charley! You are like Father Peter, who carries lightning as a withered limb bears fire,—who, tightly squeezed, shows a hasty flash, and straight is coal again.
Charley—Hath Charley toiled, and sweat, and groaned, and grunted all his days, to be the scoff and derision of his Daniel, when clouds and sorrows fret him?
Mayor—When I derided the honest Charley, I had the dyspepsia most horribly, with a touch of Peter’s chronic piles.
Charley—O ginger-snaps! Do you acknowledge so much corn? Give me your fist.
Mayor—Take it, with its nails and knuckles.
Charley—O, Daniel!