“Who’s the indevidjual?” inquired Cameo Calliper, Esq., looking at Fydget through a pair of lorgnettes.
Fydget returned the glance by making an opera glass with each fist, and then continued his remarks; “It’s a pity we ain’t got feathers, so’s to grow our own jacket and trousers, and do up the tailorin’ business, and make our own feather beds. It would be a great savin’—every man his own clothes, and every man his own feather bed. Now I’ve got a suggestion about that—first principles bring us to the skin—fortify that, and the matter’s done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow, beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole family once a week? The young ’uns might be soused in it every Saturday night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash brush. Then there wouldn’t be no bother a washing your clothes or yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor to make people sick, because it lets in the cold in winter and the heat in summer, when natur’ says shut up the porouses and keep ’em out. Besides, when the new invention was tore at the knees or wore at the elbows, just tell the nigger to put on the kittle and give you a dab, and you’re patched slick—and so that whole mobs of people mightn’t stick together like figs, a little sperrits of turpentine or litharage might be added to make ’em dry like a house-a-fire.”
“If that fellow don’t go away, I’ll hurt him,” said Griffinhoff sotto voce.
“Where’s a waiter?” inquired Cameo Calliper edging off in alarm.
“He’s crazy,” said Green, “I was at the hospital once, and there was a man in the place who——”
“ ’Twould be nice for sojers,” added Fyxington, as he threw away his stump, and very deliberately reached over and helped himself to a fresh cigar, from a number which Mr. Green had just brought from the bar and held in his hand—“I’ll trouble you for a little of your fire,” continued he, taking the cigar from the mouth of Mr. Green, and after obtaining a light, again placing the borrowed Habana within the lips of that worthy individual, who sat stupified at the audacity of the supposed maniac. Fydget gave the conventional grin of thanks peculiar to such occasions, and with a graceful wave of his hand, resumed the thread of his lecture, “ ’Twould be nice for sojers. Stand ’em all of a row, and whitewash ’em blue or red, according to pattern, as if they were a fence. The gin’rals might look on to see if it was done according to Gunter; the cap’ins might flourish the brush, and the corpulars carry the bucket. Dandies could fix themselves all sorts of streaked and all sorts of colours. When the parterials is cheap and the making don’t cost nothing, that’s what I call economy, and coming as near as possible to first principles. It’s a better way, too, of keeping out the rain, than my t’other plan of flogging people when they’re young, to make their hides hard and waterproof. A good licking is a sound first principle for juveniles, but they’ve got a prejudice agin it.”
“Waiter!” cried Cameo Calliper.
“Sa!”
“Remove the incumbent—expose him to the atmosphere!”
“If you hadn’t said that, I’d wopped him,” observed Griffinhoff.