“And now—ha! ha!—ho! ho!—he! he!—come off!” shrieked Mr. Kerr Mudgeon; “Now you’ve done all the mischief you could, come off.” Kerr Mudgeon divested himself of the fractured, but now humbled, penitent and discomfitted coat, and following up his first success, like an able tactician, he danced in a transport of joy upon its mangled fragments and its melancholy remains. Ghastly moment of triumph o’er a foe. Alas, Kerr Mudgeon be merciful to the vanquished when incapacitated for the war.
But no—coolness comes not on the instant—not to the Kerr Mudgeons. They have no relationship to the Kew Cumbers. They disdain the alliance; and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat had been conquered only—not punished.
“That’s what you get by being obstinate,” added he, as he kicked the expiring coat about the room, knocking down a lamp, upsetting an inkstand, and doing sundry other minor pieces of mischief all of which, of course, he charged to the account of the coat, as aforesaid—It was coat’s fault altogether. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon is not naturally in a passion. He would not have been in a passion had it not been for the coat—not he—the coat was the incendiary cause; and we trust that every coat, frock or body—sack-coat or any other of the infinite variety of coats now in existence, with all other coats that are to be, may take timely example and salutary warning from the doleful fate of Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat, that there may be no sewing of tares, and an exemption from rent. A coat is never improved by participation in battle.
And this unhappy coat, which has thus fallen a victim to its incapacity to adapt itself to the form and pressure of circumstances, is by no means a singular case in the experience of Mr. Kerr Mudgeon. We mention it rather as a symbol and as an emblem of the trials and vexations that ambuscade his way through life, to vex him at unguarded moments and shake him from his propriety. Boots, it will appear, have served him just so, particularly on a warm morning when unusual effort fevers one for the day. Did you ever see Kerr Mudgeon in a contest with his boots, when the leather, like a sturdy sentinel, refused ingress to Kerr Mudgeon’s heel and declared that there “was no admission” to the premises, in despite of coaxings, of soap, and of the pulverizations of soap-stone? If you never saw that sight, you ought to see it, before you shuffle off this mortal coil—indeed you ought, as Kerr Mudgeon toils and pants at the reluctant boots, in the vain effort “to grapple them to his sole, with hooks of steel.” Then it is most especially that a Kerr Mudgeon is “lovelily dreadful,” like ocean in a storm. Whether Salt Petre will explode or not, just set the Kerr Mudgeons at a tight boot, and you shall hear such explosions of tempestous wrath as were never heard under other circumstances. The Gun Cotton is like lambs-wool in the comparison, as Kerr Mudgeon hops about in a state of betweenity, the boot half on, half off, declining either to go forward or to retreat. We pity that boot should Kerr Mudgeon find a failure to his deep intent. It has sufferings in store—a species of storage which is never agreeable.
Corks, too—did you ever dwell upon a Kerr Mudgeon endeavoring to extract a cork, without the mechanical appliances of a screw? The getting out of corks with one’s fingers is always more or less of a trial. There is donkeyism in corks; and those that will yield a little, are generally sure to break. Concession, conciliation, and compromise demand under these circumstances, that if the cork will not come out, it should be made to go in, to employ the ingenuity of future ages in fishing it up with slip-knots and nooses. But Kerr Mudgeon with a cork—he never, “Mr. Brown,” can be prevailed upon to “give it up so;” not even if you find the cork-screw for him. Rather would he hurt his hand, loosen his teeth, break his penknife or twist a fork into an invalid condition, than allow himself to be ingloriously baffled by the contemptible oppugnation and hostility of a cork and a bottle, thirsty and impatient as he may be for the imbibation of the contents thereof. If all else fail—Kerr Mudgeon enraged, and the bystanders in an agony of nervousness at the scene—“smack” goes the bottle’s neck against a table or “whack” over the back of a chair—“you wont, wont you!”—or in the more protracted and aggravating case, “smash!” goes the whole bottle to the wall, for the embellishment of paper hangings and the improvement of carpeting—Victoria!
Something is always the matter, too, with the bureau when he would open or shut a drawer.—Either it will not come out or it wont go in. That drawer must take the consequences; and doors—lucky are they to escape a fractured panel, if doors prove refractory, as doors sometimes will.—Nobody can open a door so featly as a Kerr Mudgeon.
“You wont, wont you?” and so he appeals to the ultima ratio regum—the last reasoning of Kings—which means as many of thumps, cuffs and kicks as may be requisite to the purpose. It is a knock-down argument.
Pooh! pooh!—how you talk of the efficacy of the soft answer in the turning away of wrath.—Nonsense, Mr. George Combe, that wrath to the wrathful is only fuel to the flame. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon has no faith in passive resistance and in other doctrines of that sort. Smite his cheek, and then see what will come of the smitation. Go to him if you want “as good as you give,” and you will be sure to obtain measure, exact, yea, and running over.
And so Mr. Kerr Mudgeon has always a large stock of quarrel on hand, unsettled and neat as imported—feuds everywhere, to keep him warm in the winter season. A good hater is Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—a bramble bush to scratch withal.
“Try to impose on me,” says Kerr Mudgeon, “I’d like to see ’em at it. They’ll soon find I’m not afraid of anybody;” and he therefore seeks to impress that fact with distinctness on everybody’s mind; and, in consequence, if anybody has unexpended choler about him—a pet rage or so, pent up, or a latent exasperation—make him acquainted with Kerr Mudgeon, and observe the effect of the contact of such a spark as Mudgeon with an inflammable magazine. Should you find yourself peevish generally, and a little crusty or so, to those around you—primed, as it were, for contention, should it be fairly offered, stop as you go to business, at Kerr Mudgeon’s. He will accommodate you, and you will feel much better afterward, you will—“calm as a summer morning,” as the politicians have it.