Kitabı oku: «The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII», sayfa 2
"Yes, I know, old fellow," Carrington replied soothingly, for he saw that Holt was half hysterical from excitement. "He's always robbing me, this chap is. It's a habit with him. I've come rather to like it. Walk along with us, and I'll tell you all about it."
They turned the corner and walked down the side street, but only Holt talked: of his sleepless nights and tireless days solving his first crime case. A carriage drove up to the curb and Mrs. Presidio stepped out. At a wink from Presidio Carrington stepped in.
"Betty," said Presidio to his wife, "shake hands with an old friend of mine and of Mr. Carrington's. I want you to know him. Mr. Holt, shake hands with Madame Courvatal, my wife."
"Why, Mr. Holt, glad to meet you personally!" exclaimed Betty. "This is the gent, Willie, I've told you about: comes to the show every night just before our turn, and goes out as soon as we are off."
"Glad you like the turn so much," Presidio said, smiling oddly. Holt, with his hand to his brow was gasping. The carriage door opened and Carrington's head emerged: "Oh, Holt, come here."
Holt, with a painfully dazed expression, went to the carriage. "My dear," Carrington said to some one inside who was struggling to hide, "this is Mr. Francis Holt; one of my oldest and dearest friends. He's the discreetest fellow I know and will arrange the whole matter in a minute. You must, darling! Fate has offered us a chance for life's happiness, and as I say—Holt, like a good fellow, go into the parsonage and explain who I am, and who Miss Caroline Curtis is. Your people know all the Curtises, and we're going to get married, and—don't protest, darling!—like a good chap, Holt, go and—for God's sake, man, don't stare like that! You know us, and can vouch for us. Tell the parson that the Curtises and Carringtons are always marrying each other. Holt! will you move?"
An hour later a little banquet was served in the private dining-room of a hotel, and Mrs. Carrington was explaining, between tears and laughter, how good, kind Madame Courvatal had told her that everything was ready for a wedding, and that she would be a cruel woman, indeed, not to make such a loving lover happy; and she couldn't make up her mind to say yes, and it was hard to say no—just after receiving Porter's despairing note.
"My note, dear?" asked Carrington, but Presidio coughed so loudly she did not hear her husband's question. Holt drank to the bride and groom several times before he began soberly to believe he was not in a dream. Mr. and Mrs. Presidio beamed broadly, and declared that life without romance was no kind of a life for honest folk to live.
"Holt!" exclaimed Carrington, when the train carriage was announced, "you've been a brick about all this. I don't know how to show my appreciation."
"I'll tell you how," suggested Presidio. "Let Mr. Holt be the one to tell Mr. Curtis. He deserves the privilege of informing the governor."
"The very thing, Holt, old chap!" cried Carrington. "Will you do it?"
"You're awfully kind," answered Holt, "but I think this old friend could do it with more art and understanding."
"What, my Willie?" cried Willie's wife. "He'll do it to the Queen's taste. Won't you, Willie?"
"I will, in company with Mr. Holt—my friend and your admirer. He sits in front every night," he added, in explanation to Carrington.
As the carriage with the happy pair drove away to the station, Presidio, with compulsive ardor, took the arm of Mr. Francis Holt; and together they marched up the avenue to inform Mr. Curtis of the marriage of his daughter.
TWO CASES OF GRIP
BY M. QUAD
"What's this! What's this!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he came home the other evening and found Mrs. Bowser lying on the sofa and looking very much distressed.
"The doctor says it's the grip—a second attack," she explained. "I was taken with a chill and headache about noon and—"
"Grip? Second attack? That's all nonsense, Mrs. Bowser! Nobody can have the grip a second time."
"But the doctor says so."
"Then the doctor is an idiot, and I'll tell him so to his face. I know what's the matter with you. You've been walking around the backyard barefoot or doing some other foolish thing. I expected it, however. No woman is happy unless she's flat down about half the time. How on earth any of your sex manage to live to be twenty years old is a mystery to me. The average woman has no more sense than a rag baby."
"I haven't been careless," she replied.
"I know better! Of course you have! If you hadn't been you wouldn't be where you are. Grip be hanged! Well, it's only right that you should suffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to utter one word of pity."
Mrs. Bowser had nothing to say in reply. Mr. Bowser ate his dinner alone, took advantage of the occasion to drive a few nails and make a great noise, and by and by went off to his club and was gone until midnight. Next morning Mrs. Bowser felt a bit better and made a heroic attempt to be about until he started for the office.
The only reference he made to her illness was to say:
"If you live to be three hundred years old, you may possibly learn something about the laws of health and be able to keep out of bed three days in a week."
Mrs. Bowser was all right at the end of three or four days, and nothing more was said. Then one afternoon at three o'clock a carriage drove up and a stranger assisted Mr. Bowser into the house. He was looking pale and ghastly, and his chin quivered, and his knees wabbled.
"What is it, Mr. Bowser?" she exclaimed, as she met him at the door.
"Bed—doctor—death!" he gasped in reply.
Mrs. Bowser got him to bed and examined him for bullet holes or knife wounds. There were none. He had no broken limbs. He hadn't fallen off a horse or been half drowned. When she had satisfied herself on these points, she asked:
"How were you taken?"
"W-with a c-chill!" he gasped—"with a c-chill and a b-backache!"
"I thought so. Mr. Bowser, you have the grip—a second attack. As I have some medicine left, there's no need to send for the doctor. I'll have you all right in a day or two."
"Get the doctor at once," wailed Mr. Bowser, "or I'm a dead man! Such a backache! So cold! Mrs. Bowser, if I should d-die, I hope—"
Emotion overcame Mr. Bowser, and he could say no more. The doctor came and pronounced it a second attack of the grip, but a very mild one. When he had departed, Mrs. Bowser didn't accuse Mr. Bowser with putting on his summer flannels a month too soon; with forgetting his umbrella and getting soaked through; with leaving his rubbers at home and having damp feet all day. She didn't express her wonder that he hadn't died years ago, nor predict that when he reached the age of Methuselah he would know better than to roll in snow-banks or stand around in mud puddles. She didn't kick over chairs or slam doors or leave him alone. When Mr. Bowser shed tears, she wiped them away. When he moaned, she held his hand. When he said he felt that the grim specter was near, and wanted to kiss the baby good-by, she cheered him with the prediction that he would be a great deal better next day.
Mr. Bowser didn't get up next day, though the doctor said he could. He lay in bed and sighed and uttered sorrowful moans and groans. He wanted toast and preserves; he had to have help to turn over; he worried about a relapse; he had to have a damp cloth on his forehead; he wanted to have a council of doctors, and he read the copy of his last will and testament over three times.
Mr. Bowser was all right next morning, however. When Mrs. Bowser asked him how he felt he replied:
"How do I feel? Why, as right as a trivet, of course. When a man takes the care of himself that I do—when he has the nerve and will power I have—he can throw off 'most anything. You would have died, Mrs. Bowser; but I was scarcely affected. It was just a play spell. I'd like to be real sick once just to see how it would seem. Cholera, I suppose it was; but outside of feeling a little tired, I wasn't at all affected."
And the dutiful Mrs. Bowser looked at him and swallowed it all and never said a word to hurt his feelings.
ALPHABET OF CELEBRITIES
BY OLIVER HERFORD
E is for Edison, making believe
He's invented a clever contrivance for Eve,
Who complained that she never could laugh in her sleeve.
O is for Oliver, casting aspersion
On Omar, that awfully dissolute Persian,
Though secretly longing to join the diversion.
R's Rubenstein, playing that old thing in F
To Rollo and Rembrandt, who wish they were deaf.
S is for Swinburne, who, seeking the true,
The good, and the beautiful, visits the Zoo,
Where he chances on Sappho and Mr. Sardou,
And Socrates, all with the same end in view.
W's Wagner, who sang and played lots,
For Washington, Wesley and good Dr. Watts;
His prurient plots pained Wesley and Watts,
But Washington said he "enjoyed them in spots."
NONSENSE VERSES
BY GELETT BURGESS
1
The Window has Four little Panes:
But One have I;
The Window-Panes are in its sash,—
I wonder why!
2
My Feet they haul me 'round the House;
They hoist me up the Stairs;
I only have to steer them and
They ride me everywheres.
3
Remarkable truly, is Art!
See—Elliptical wheels on a Cart!
It looks very fair
In the Picture up there;
But imagine the Ride when you start!
4
I'd rather have fingers than Toes;
I'd rather have Ears than a Nose
And as for my hair,
I'm glad it's all there,
I'll be awfully sad when it goes!
5
I wish that my Room had a floor;
I don't so much care for a Door,
But this walking around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!
THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ
BY IRONQUILL
Before a Turkish town
The Russians came,
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.
They got up close
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.
And then the Turks,
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.
THE GOAT
BY R.K. MUNKITTRICK
Down in the cellar dark, remote,
Where alien cats the larder note,
In solemn grandeur stands the goat.
Without he hears the winter storm,
And while the drafts about him swarm,
He eats the coal to keep him warm.
IN DEFENSE OF AN OFFERING
BY SEWELL FORD
Gracious! You're not going to smoke again? I do believe, my dear, that you're getting to be a regular, etc., etc. (Voice from across the reading table.)
A slave to tobacco! Not I. Singular, the way you women misuse nouns. I am, rather, a chosen acolyte in the temple of Nicotiana. Daily, aye, thrice daily—well, call it six, then—do I make burnt offering. Now some use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earth finely carved and decked with silver and gold. My particular censer, as you see, is a plain, honest briar, a root dug from the banks of the blue Garonne, whose only glory is its grain and color. The original tint, if you remember, was like that of new-cut cedar, but use—I've been smoking this one only two years now—has given it gloss and depth of tone which put the finest mahogany to shame. Let me rub it on my sleeve. Now look!
There are no elaborate mummeries about our service in the temple of Nicotiana. No priest or pastor, no robed muezzin or gowned prelate calls me to the altar. Neither is there fixed hour or prescribed point of the compass towards which I must turn. Whenever the mood comes and the spirit listeth, I make devotion.
There are various methods, numerous brief litanies. Mine is a common and simple one. I take the cut Indian leaf in the left palm, so, and roll it gently about with the right, thus. Next I pack it firmly in the censer's hollow bowl with neither too firm nor too light a pressure. Any fire will do. The torch need not be blessed. Thanks, I have a match.
Now we are ready. With the surplus breath of life you draw in the fragrant spirit of the weed. With slow, reluctant outbreathing you loose it on the quiet air. Behold! That which was but a dead thing, lives. Perhaps we have released the soul of some brave red warrior who, long years ago, fell in glorious battle and mingled his dust with the unforgetting earth. Each puff may give everlasting liberty to some dead and gone aboriginal. If you listen you may hear his far-off chant. Through the curling blue wreaths you may catch a glimpse of the happy hunting grounds to which he has now gone. That is the part of the service whose losing or gaining depends upon yourself.
The first whiff is the invocation, the last the benediction. When you knock out the ashes you should feel conscious that you have done a good deed, that the offering has not been made in vain.
Slave! Still that odious word? Well, have it your own way. Worshipers at every shrine have been thus persecuted.
HE AND SHE
BY IRONQUILL
When I am dead you'll find it hard,
Said he,
To ever find another man
Like me.
What makes you think, as I suppose
You do,
I'd ever want another man
Like you?
THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Do not trust thy body with a physician. He'll make thy foolish bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a body a sennight after.
Shirley.
You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the city of Périgueux, an honest notary-public, the descendant of a very ancient and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those old weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your great-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition; the father of a family, though not the head of it,—for in that family "the hen over-crowed the cock," and the neighbors, when they spake of the notary, shrugged their shoulders, and exclaimed, "Poor fellow! his spurs want sharpening." In fine,—you understand me, gentlemen,—he was hen-pecked.
Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest, far beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little Café Estaminet, a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite game of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all the floating chitchat of the day; laughed when he was in merry mood; found consolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to his opinions, without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction.
Now, the notary's bosom-friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who lived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings at the Estaminet. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors by comparing them with those sold at other places.
As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently happened, that, after a long session at the Estaminet, the two friends grew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.
Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish, phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the very deuse with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped through his bed-curtains, and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked and tippled,—why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made the house too hot for him,—he retreated to the tavern; she broke his long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons,—he substituted a short-stemmed one, which, for safe-keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket.
Thus the unhappy notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with his bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He imagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession all the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an alarming symptom,—every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognostic of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, and then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or reason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, "Do let me alone; I know better than you what ails me."
Well, gentlemen, things were in this state, when, one afternoon in December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused him from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, and growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for the notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine-dealer's house.
When he arrived, he found everything in the greatest confusion. On entering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he met the housekeeper—for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor—running up and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling aloud for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he thought this a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him.
When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his hand and exclaimed,—
"Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over with me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that—that passport of mine. Ah, grand diable! how hot it is here! Water,—water,—water! Will nobody give me a drop of cold water?"
As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick man's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.
As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop and the card-table.
"Take care! take care! There, now—Credo in—Pop! ting-a-ling-ling! give me some of that. Cent-é-dize! Why, you old publican, this wine is poisoned,—I know your tricks!—Sanctam ecclesiam catholicam—Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have a tierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven! By St. Anthony, capot! You are lurched,—ha! ha! I told you so. I knew very well,—there,—there,—don't interrupt me—Carnis resurrectionem et vitam eternam!"
With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhile the notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that was passing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his courage by a glass of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert; and the idea of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quiet these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe and began to prepare for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to him and said,—
"Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading."
"What disorder?" exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise.
"Two died yesterday, and three to-day," continued the apothecary, without answering the question. "Very sickly time, sir,—very."
"But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here so suddenly?"
"What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure."
"And is it contagious?"
"Certainly!"
"Then I am a dead man!" exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into his waistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair. "I am a dead man! Now don't deceive me,—don't, will you? What—what are the symptoms?"
"A sharp, burning pain in the right side," said the apothecary.
"O, what a fool I was to come here!"
In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him;—he was not a man to be reasoned with; he answered that he knew his own constitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home without delay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in had returned to the city, and the whole neighborhood was abed and asleep. What was to be done? Nothing in the world but to take the apothecary's horse, which stood hitched at the door, patiently waiting his master's will.
Well, gentlemen, as there was no remedy, our notary mounted this raw-boned steed and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night was cold and gusty, and the wind right in his teeth. Overhead the leaden clouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly-risen moon seemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in the surf; now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon its bosom and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the road-side groaned with a sound of evil omen; and before him lay three mortal miles, beset with a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and spur, the steed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in a tremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long, hard trot; while the rider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death, urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence.
In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right and left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions of the notary had so far subsided, that he even suffered the poor horse to walk up hill; but these apprehensions were suddenly revived again with tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed to pierce him like a needle.
"It is upon me at last!" groaned the fear-stricken man. "Heaven be merciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch, after all? He! get up,—get up!"
And away went horse and rider at full speed,—hurry-scurry,—up hill and down,—panting and blowing like a whirlwind. At every leap the pain in the rider's side seemed to increase. At first it was a little point like the prick of a needle,—then it spread to the size of a half-franc piece,—then covered a place as large as the palm of your hand. It gained upon him fast. The poor man groaned aloud in agony; faster and faster sped the horse over the frozen ground,—farther and farther spread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture the storm commenced,—snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and cold were naught to him; for, though his arms and legs were frozen to icicles, he felt it not; the fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed to die,—not of cold, but of scarlet fever!
At length, he knew not how, more dead than alive, he reached the gate of the city. A band of ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner of the street, seeing the notary dash by, joined in the hue and cry, and ran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night, and only here and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story. But on went the notary, down this street and up that, till at last he reached his own door. There was a light in his wife's bedroom. The good woman came to the window, alarmed at such a knocking, and howling, and clattering at her door so late at night; and the notary was too deeply absorbed in his own sorrows to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on the window-curtain.
"Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!" he exclaimed, almost breathless from terror and fatigue.
"Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of the night?" cried a sharp voice from above. "Begone about your business, and let quiet people sleep."
"Come down and let me in! I am your husband! Don't you know my voice? Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in the street!"
After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the door was opened, and the notary stalked into his domicile, pale and haggard in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to heel in an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp fell upon him, he looked like a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor was broken. On his right side was a circular spot, as large as the crown of your hat, and about as black!
"My dear wife!" he exclaimed with more tenderness than he had exhibited for many years, "Reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I am a dead man!"
Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat. Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth. It was the notary's pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! it was bare to the skin! Coat, waistcoat, and linen were burnt through and through, and there was a blister on his side as large as your hand!
The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put his pipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes! And so my story ends.
"Is that all?" asked the radical, when the story-teller had finished.
"That is all."
"Well, what does your story prove?"
"That is more than I can tell. All I know is that the story is true."
"And did he die?" said the nice little man in gosling-green.
"Yes; he died afterwards," replied the story-teller, rather annoyed by the question.
"And what did he die of?" continued gosling-green, following him up.
"What did he die of? why, he died—of a sudden!"
