Apple. “Pretty fair! I approve of that remark. As for these streets, strip them of their green guardians, and they would be dry enough to choke the wave-washed throat of Neptune himself. How can fellows walk over all creation for fine prospects—my best prospect, as a kindred spirit once said, is the prospect of a good dinner.”
Pulito. “Surely, the view from East Rock is delightful.”
Apple. “Undoubtedly, if there be two or three mountain nymphs hanging affectionately on your arm. Oh! triple horror! To toil through two long miles of dusty barrenness, and crawl a la quadrupede up a mountain of shifting sand and triturated stones, to view a few houses included between shoal water and furze hills.”
Nescio. “Methinks only a few weeks since, you escorted thither some twelve or thirteen of these same mountain nymphs.”
Apple. “To be sure I did, and therefore I can speak from experience. But it argues an unkind disposition in you, to fling a man’s errors and misfortunes in his teeth. I did perpetrate that act, and as I hope forgiveness, I am contrite therefor. We set off one morning, when it was so hot that the very clouds smoked, though I could not—for what would Jonathan Oldbuck’s ‘woman-kind’ say? ‘The ladies be upon thee, Sampson,’ thought I. I could not laugh, though there was enough that was ridiculous, for I had corns. So I went sweating along under a load of milk-and-water refreshments, like a man carrying his own gibbet. I climbed up the hill like another Sisyphus, with a train of Sirens behind me. When there what saw we. Why, through a cracked spy-glass, I saw Nescio Quod here, my own chum, coming out the bookstore—wonderful, thrilling, soul-stirring prospect! Then, lo! we had left the pine-apples a quarter of a mile from the foot of the mountain, where we had stopped to browse. Nothing would do—one lady was faint, and must have a little pine-apple juice—another sweet nymph, in an unguarded moment, said that her principal object in coming, was the pleasure of eating the pine-apples—and another rosy-cheeked, and not very sylph-like figure, remarked, that if Mr. Dumpling would be so good as to go after the basket, he should have the pleasure of her arm down the mountain. The devil of a pleasure, thought I; the sweet creature must have ‘gane daft, clean daft,’ or she would never have offered such an inducement—better for me ‘that a millstone were hanged about my neck,’ &c.—but down I must come, and down I came, and when I got down, I stayed down. I ate the pine-apples myself, and laid down under the shade till evening, when I slunk home, leaving the ladies to their other beaux. I had some excuse though, for, while ‘midway between heaven and earth,’ I stumbled over a sweet-brier, and wrenched my ankle so excruciatingly, that Pope’s line occurred to my mind with some solemnity—
‘Die of a rose in aromatic (a rheumatic) pain.’
You take, do you? I managed, however, to reset the luxed but by no means luxurious joint, and grateful for my escape, I have forsworn the ladies, and pray for grace to keep my vow.”
The laughter, long and loud, that succeeded the story of Apple’s tribulations, was a sort of clearing-up shower, and left the moral atmosphere in a temper more consonant with the seriousness of the hour. After a short breathing-space, the conversation broke forth anew, and in an entirely different channel. The sad peculiarity of our situation gave to our views, and possibly to our remarks, a tinge of bitterness and satire.
Pulito. “Well, fellows, ‘our course is run, our errand done’ within these walls, and we are to leave them for ever—and why not bid farewell with a light heart and bounding hopes. To be sure, the vexings of the world will be rather uncomfortable. A gentlemanly air, and a languid intimacy with the ‘tricksy pomp’ of literature, will not make a man a President or a millionaire.”
Apple. “The prospect is somewhat discouraging. I should have felt no misgivings at starting in the literary world a century ago, when the noble art of punning was duly appreciated and rewarded, as witness the celebrity of that great man, Dean Swift. Or I could have been content to have ruffled it with the quibbling, conceit-loving cavaliers, who basked in the smiles of Queen Bess. But now the principles of taste are sadly perverted, and this noble art, this sole distinctive mark of genius, has sought and found refuge only beneath the classic shades of College. It is truly sad to me, to think of leaving this last strong hold of wit and sentiment.”