We do not know that Kerr Mudgeon ever entered into a calculation as to the profit and loss of the operation of the rule that governed his life in intercourse with society. Indeed, we rather think not. But it is probable that in the long run, it costs as much as it comes to, if it does not cost a great deal more, thus to persist in having one’s own way in every thing. In crossing the street now, when the black and fluent mire is particularly abundant, Mr. Kerr Mudgeon insists upon the flag-stones—“as good a right as anybody,” and thus pushes others into a predicament unpleasant to their boots and detrimental to their blacking, so that their understandings become clouded, as they lose all their polish. In general, such a course as this does very well—but it will sometimes happen, as it has happened, that two Kerr Mudgeons meet—the hardest fend off—and thus our Kerr Mudgeon is toppled full length into a bed much more soft than is altogether desirable, which vexes him.
Did you, of a rainy day, ever see Kerr Mudgeon incline his umbrella to allow another umbrella to pass? We are sure you never did. Kerr Mudgeon’s umbrella is as good as anybody’s umbrella, and will maintain its dignity against all comers, though it has been torn to fragments by the sharp points of other umbrellas, which thought themselves quite as good as it could pretend to be—and so, Kerr Mudgeon got himself now and then into a fray, to say nothing of suits for assault and battery, gracefully and agreeably interspersed. Ho! ho! umbrellas!—“you wont, wont you?”
Kerr Mudgeon walks with a cane—carries it horizontally under his arm, muddy at the ferule perchance; and canes thus disposed, come awkwardly in contact with the crossing currents of persons and costumes. But what does he care for the soiled garments of the ladies or the angry countenances of offended gentlemen? Is not Kerr Mudgeon with his cane, as good as anybody else and his cane? Horizontally—he will wear it so. That’s his way.
“The world don’t improve at all,” cries Kerr Mudgeon. “They may make speeches about it, and pass resolutions by the bushel; but it is my candid opinion that it grows obstinater and obstinater every day. It never yields an inch, and a man has to push, and to scramble, and to fight forever to make any headway for himself—black and blue more than half the time. Every day shoots up all over rumpuses and rowses. But, never mind—the world needn’t flatter itself that it’s a going to conquer Kerr Mudgeon and to put him down too, as it does other people. Kerr Mudgeon knows his rights—Kerr Mudgeon is as good as anybody else. Kerr Mudgeon will fight till he dies. He was never made to yield, and he never intends to yield, so long as his name is Kerr Mudgeon. It’s a good name—never disgraced by movements of the knuckle-down character, and I’m determined to carry on the war just as all the Mudgeons did that went before me. If a horse kicks me, I’ll kick him back; and I wouldn’t get out of the way, like Mr. Daniel Tucker in the song, if a thirty-two pound shot was coming up the street, or a locomotive was a whizzin’ down the road. Stand up straight—that’s my motto. Give ’em as good as they can bring; that’s the doctrine; and while a single bit of Kerr Mudgeon remains—while any of his bones hang together, that’s him squaring off right in the centre of the track, ready for you, with his coat buttoned up and a fist in each of his hands.”
Kerr Mudgeon’s face is settled grimly into the aspect of habitual defiance. His brows are forever knitting, not socks or mittens, but frowns, and his mouth is knotted like a rope. When he looks around, it seems to be an inquiry, as to whether any gentleman present is disposed to pugilistic encounter,—if so, he can be accommodated; and the whole disposition of his garments indicates contention—war to the knife.
Kerr Mudgeon complains that he has no friends, and is beginning to stand solitary and alone, with but a dreary prospect before him, in a world that grows “obstinater and obstinater every day;” and he has yet to learn, if such learning should ever penetrate through the armor of hostility wherewith he is begirt, that perhaps, if we desire to have a smooth and easy time of it, we must ourselves begin by being smooth and easy. The belligerent ever meets with belligerents. There’s no difficulty about that. There is a sufficiency of war in every atmosphere, if you are disposed to condense it upon yourself; and no one eager to enjoy the pleasure, need wander far in search of quarrels. Kerr Mudgeon finds them everywhere—“rumpuses and rowses”—But it is a shrewd doubt whether one’s general comfort is greatly promoted by the aggravation of rudeness and roughness. It is easier to bend a little to inclement blasts, than to be snapped off by perpendicular resistance—easier to go round an obstacle than to destroy your temper and your clothing, in the exhausting effort to clamber over it; and it may be said of every quarrel in which Kerr Mudgeonism is engaged, that probably both parties are in fault, though Kerr Mudgeonism is in all likelihood, the responsible party.
Yet, “you wont, wont you?” is a great temptation to combativeness and destructiveness. Is it not, all ye people of the Kerr Mudgeon temperament?
Painted by Frankenstein Engraved by A. W. Graham