BY JOSEPH C. NEAL.
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There; now!
You see—do you not?—Nay, you may almost hear it, if you listen attentively. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—great many of the Kerr Mudgeons about, in various places—but this Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—going to a party as he was—desirous too, as people generally are on such occasions, of looking particularly well—and all ready, to his own infinite satisfaction—all ready except the final operation of putting on his bettermost coat—has torn that important article of gentlemanly costume—one may work without a coat, you know, and work all the easier for the relief; but it is not altogether polite to leave it at home on a peg when you go to a party. Torn his coat—not through his own fault, as Mr. Kerr Mudgeon would tell you explicitly enough—he never is, never was, never can be in fault—but because of that coat’s ill timed and provoking resistance to the operation of being donned. The coat might have known—who is ever thus to be trifled with in the process of dressing? Yes, the coat must have known. Ah, coats and the makers of coats have much to answer for. Kerr Mudgeon is ruffled, ruffles of this sort, causing a man to look none the handsomer or the more amiable for the ruffle. Such ruffles are not becoming.
“Ho! ho! wont go on, hey?” cried Mr. Kerr Mudgeon, and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon panted and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon blew, on the high pressure principle, until the steam of his wrath had reached its highest point.
It is a fearful moment with the Kerr Mudgeons, when it is manifest that something must break—a blood vessel or the furniture, or the peace of the commonwealth. Why will things animate and inanimate conspire to bring about such a crisis? Kerr Mudgeons would be sweet tempered if you would only permit them.
The coat positively refused to go on any further—the contumacious raiment. What could Kerr Mudgeon do in such a strait of perverse broad cloth?
“Tell me you wont go on,” muttered Kerr Mudgeon, setting his teeth, as a rifleman sets his trigger; “I’ll make you go on, I will,” shouted he.—
There’s no such word as fail with Mr. Kerr Mudgeon. Something is sure to be done when he is once fairly roused to the work. It is a rule of his to combat like with like; and so—and so—stamping his foot determinedly, and gathering all his forces for a grand demonstration against the obstinacy of tight sleeves, he carried his point as he proposed to carry it, by a rushing coup de main, to the material detriment of the fabric.—But what of that? Was it not a victory for Kerr Mudgeon? The coat had yielded to the force of his will; and if the victory had been gained at cost, is it not always so with victories?—Glory—is that to be had for nothing?—No—depreciate the cost of glory, and pray tell me what becomes of glory?—It is glory no longer. A luxury, to be a luxury, must be beyond the general reach—too expensive for the millions—too costly for the masses.