"Who would have believed," soliloquizes MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON, "that even a scalawag Northern spoon-thief, like our scurrilous contemporary, would get so mad at being reminded that he must be married some day!"
"Whoever says that I'm mad," is the answer, "lies deliberately wilfully, wickedly, with naked intent to defame and malign."
But here a heavy hand suddenly smites EDWIN in the back, almost snapping his head off, and there stands spectrally between them Mr. BUMSTEAD, who has but recently found his way out of the back-yard in Gospeler's Gulch, by removing at least two yards of picket fence from the wrong place, and wears upon his head a gingham sun-bonnet, which, in his hurried departure through the hall of the Gospeler's house, he has mistaken for his own hat. Sustaining himself against the fierce evening breeze by holding firmly to both shoulders of his nephew, this striking apparition regards the two young men with as much austerity as is consistent with the flapping of the cape of his sun-bonnet.
"Gentlelemons," he says, with painful syllabic distinctness, "can I believe my ears? Are you already making journalists of yourselves?"
They hang their heads in shame under the merciless but just accusation. "Here you are," continues BUMSTEAD, "a quartette of young fellows who should all be friends. NEDS, NEDS! I am ashamed of you! MONTGOMERIES, you should not let your angry passions rise; for your little hands were never made to bark and bite." After this, Mr. BUMSTEAD seems lost for a moment, and reclines upon his nephew, with his eyes closed in meditation. "But let's all five of us go up to my room," he finally adds, "and restore friendship with lemon tea. It is time for the North and South to be reconciled over something hot. Come."
Leaning upon both of them now, and pushing them into a walk, he exquisitely turns the refrain of the rejected National Hymn—
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"'Twas by a mistake that we lost Bull Bun, When we all skedaddled to Washington, And we'll all drink atone blind, Johnny fill up the bowl?" |
Thus he artfully employs music to soothe their sectional animosities, and only skips into the air once as they walk, with a "Whoop! That was something like a snake!"
Arriving in his room, the door of which he has had some trouble in opening, on account of the knob having wandered in his absence to the wrong side, Mr. BUMSTEAD indicates a bottle of lemon tea, with some glasses, on the table, accidentally places the lamp so that it shines directly upon EDWIN'S triangular sketch of FLORA over the mantel, and, taking his umbrella under his arm, smiles horribly at his young guests from out his sun-bonnet.
"Do you recognize that picture, PENDRAGONS?" he asks, after the two have drunk fierily at each other. "Do you notice its stereoscopic effect of being double?"