There is a cockroach that makes his home on our desk that has got more
sense than a delinquent subscriber. He--if it is a he one; we are not
clear as to that--comes out and sits on the side, of the paste-dish, and
draws in a long breath. If the paste is fresh he eats it, and wiggles
his polonaise as much as to thank us, and goes away refreshed. If
the paste is sour, and smells bad, he looks at us with a mournful
expression, and goes away looking as though it was a mighty mean trick
to play on a cockroach, and he runs about as though he was offended.
When a package of wedding cake is placed on the desk he is the first one
to find it out, and he sits and waits till we cut the string, when he
goes into it and walks all over the cake till he strikes the bridal
cake, when he gets onto it, stands on his head and seems to say, “Yum,
yum,” and is tickled as a girl with a fresh beau.
There is human nature in a cockroach. When a man comes in and sits
around with no business, on our busy day, and asks questions, and stays
and keeps us from working, the cockroach will come out and sit on the
inkstand and look across at the visitor as much as to say:
“Why don't you go away about your business and leave the poor man alone,
so he can get out some copy, and not keep us all standing around here
doing nothing?”
But when the paper is out, and there is a look of cheerfulness about
the place, and we are anxious to have friends call, the cockroach flies
around over the papers and welcomes each caller as pleasantly as he can,
and seems to enjoy it.
One day the paste smelled pretty bad, and we poured about a spoonful of
whisky in it, and stirred it up. The cockroach came out to breakfast,
and we never saw a person that seemed to enjoy the meal any more than
the cockroach did. It seemed as though he couldn't get enough paste.
Pretty soon he put one hand to his head and looked crosseyed. He tried
to climb down off the paste-dish, and fell over himself and turned
a flip-flap on the blotting paper. Then he looked at us in a sort of
mysterious way, winked one eye as much as to say: “You think you are
smart, don't you, old baldy?”
Then he put one hand to his forehead as if in meditation, and staggered
off into a drawer, coming out presently with his arm around another
cockroach, and he took him to the paste-pot, and _he_ filled up, too,
and then they locked arms and paraded up and down on the green cloth of
the desk, as though singing, “We won't go home till morning,” and they
kicked over the steel pens, and acted a good deal like politicians after
a caucus.
Finally, some remark was made by one of them that didn't suit, and they
pitched in and had the worst fight that ever was, after which one rushed
off as if after a policeman, and the other, staggered into his hole, and
we saw no more of our cockroach till the next morning, when he came
out with one hand on his head and the other on his stomach, and after
smelling of the paste and looking sick, he walked off to a bottle of
seltzer water and crawled up to the cork and looked around with an
expression so human that we uncorked the bottle and let him in, and he
drank as though he had been eating codfish. Since that day he looks at
us a little suspicious, and when the paste smells a little peculiar he
goes and gets another cockroach to eat some of it first, and he watches
the effect.
Now, you wouldn't believe it, but that cockroach can tell, the minute he
sees a man, whether the man has come in with a bill, or has come in to
pay money. We don't know how he does it, but when a man has a bill the
cockroach begins to look solemn and mournful, and puts his hands to his
eyes as though weeping. If a man comes in to pay money, the cockroach
looks glad, a smile plays around his mouth, and he acts kitteny. He acts
the most human when ladies come into the office. If a book agent comes
in, he makes no attempt to show his disgust.
One day an old person came in with a life of Garfield and laid it on
the table, opened to the picture of the candidate, and left it. The
cockroach walked through the violet ink and got his feet all covered,
and then he walked all over that book, and left his mark. The woman saw
the tracks, and thought we had signed our name, and she said she was
sorry we had written our signature there, because she had another book
for subscribers' names.
When a handsome lady comes in, the cockroach is in his element, and
there is a good deal of proud flesh about him. He puts his thumbs in the
arm-holes of his vest and walks around.
One day we put our face up to a deaf young lady to speak to her, and the
cockroach looked straight the other way, and seemed to be looking over
an old copy of the _Christian Statesman_; but when he found we only
yelled at the lady, he winked as much as to say:
“Well, how did I know?”
O, that cockroach is a thoroughbred!