Along the banks, at early dawn,
Trudged Nobbs and Nobbs's son,
With rod and line, resolved that day
Great fishes should be won.
At last they came unto a bridge,
Cried Nobbs, "Oh! this is fine!"
And feeling sure 'twould answer well,
He dropp'd the stream a line.
"We cannot find a fitter place,
If twenty miles we march;
Its very look has fix'd my choice,
So knowing and--so arch!"
He baited and he cast his line,
When soon, to his delight,
He saw his float bob up and down,
And lo! he had a bite!
"A gudgeon, Tom, I think it is!"
Cried Nobbs, "Here, take the prize;
It weighs a pound--in its own scales,
I'm quite sure by its size."
He cast again his baited hook,
And drew another up!
And cried, "We are in luck to-day,
How glorious we shall sup!"
All in the basket Tommy stow'd
The piscatory spoil;
Says Nobbs, "We've netted two at least,
Albeit we've no toil."
Amazed at his own luck, he threw
The tempting bait again,
And presently a nibble had--
A bite! he pull'd amain!
His rod beneath the fish's weight
Now bent just like a bow,
"What's this?" cried Nobbs; his son replied,
"A salmon, 'tis, I know."
And sure enough a monstrous perch,
Of six or seven pounds,
He from the water drew, whose bulk
Both dad and son confounds.
"O! Gemini!" he said, when he
"O! Pisces!" should have cried;
And tremblingly the wriggling fish
Haul'd to the bridge's side.
When, lo! just as he stretched his hand
To grasp the perch's fin,
The slender line was snapp'd in twain,
The perch went tumbling in!
"Gone! gone! by gosh!" scream'd Nobbs, while Tom
Too eager forward bent,
And, with a kick, their basket quick
Into the river sent.
THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. I.
Those wags who are so fond of playing off their jokes upon others,
require great skill and foresight to prevent the laugh being turned
against themselves.
Jim Smith was an inveterate joker, and his jokes were, for the most part,
of the practical kind. He had a valuable tortoiseshell cat, whose beauty
was not only the theme of praise with all the old maids in the
neighbourhood, but her charms attracted the notice of numerous feline
gentlemen dwelling in the vicinity, who were, nocturnally, wont to pay
their devoirs by that species of serenades, known under the cacophonous
name of caterwauling.
One very ugly Tom, (who, it was whispered abroad, was a
great--grandfather, and scandalously notorious for gallantries unbecoming
a cat of his age) was particularly obnoxious to our hero; and, in an
unlucky moment, he resolved to 'pickle him,' as he facetiously termed it.
Now his process of pickling consisted in mixing a portion of prussic acid
in milk. Taking the precaution to call in his own pet and favorite, he
placed the potion in the accustomed path of her long-whiskered suitor.
Tom finding the coast clear slipped his furry body over the wall, and
dropped gently as a lady's glove into the garden, and slily smelling the
flower-borders, as if he were merely amusing himself in the elegant study
of botany, stealthily approached the house, and uttering a low plaintive
'miau,' to attract the attention of his dear Minx, patiently awaited the
appearance of his true-love.
Minx heard the voice she loved so well, and hurried to meet her ancient
beau. A slight noise, however, alarmed his timidity, and he scaled the
wall in a twinkling.
Presently the screams of the maid assured him that 'something had taken
place;' and when he heard the words, "Oh! the cat! the cat!" he felt
quite certain that the potion had taken effect. He walked deliberately
down stairs, and behold! there lay Miss Minx, his own favorite,
struggling in the agonies of death, on the parlor rug. The fact is, he
had shut the doors, but forgotten that the window was open, and the
consequence was, the loss of poor Minx, who had drunk deep of the
malignant poison designed for her gallant.
This was only one of a thousand tricks that had miscarried.
Having one day ascertained that his acquaintance, Tom Wilkins, was gone
out 'a-shooting,' he determined to way-lay him on his return.
It was a beautiful moonlight night in the latter end of October.
Disguising himself in a demoniac mask, a pair of huge wings, and a forked
tail, he seated himself on a stile in the sportsman's path.
Anon he espied the weary and unconscious Tom approaching, lost in the
profundity of thought, and though not in love, ruminating on every miss
he had made in that day's bootless trudge.
He almost, touched the stile before his affrighted gaze encountered this
'goblin damned.'
His short crop bristled up, assuming the stiffness of a penetrating hair
brush.
For an instant his whole frame appeared petrified, and the tide and
current of his life frozen up in thick-ribbed ice.
Jim Smith, meanwhile, holding out a white packet at arm's length,
exclaimed in a sepulchral tone,
"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?"
THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. II.
Awfully ponderous as the words struck upon the tightened drum of Tom's
auriculars, they still tended to arouse his fainting spirit.
"Mer-mer-mercy on us!" ejaculated he, and shrank back a pace or two,
still keeping his dilating optics fixed upon the horrible spectre.
"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?" repeated Jim Smith.
"Mur-mur-der!" screamed Tom; and, mechanically raising his gun for action
of some kind appeared absolutely necessary to keep life within him, he
aimed at the Tempter, trembling in every joint.
Jim, who had as usual never calculated upon such a turning of the tables,
threw off his head--his assumed one, of course, and, leaping from the
stile, cried aloud--
"Oh! Tom, don't shoot--don't shoot!--it's only me--Jim Smith!"
Down dropped the gun from the sportsman's grasp.
"Oh! you fool! you--you--considerable fool!" cried he, supporting
himself on a neighbouring hawthorn, which very kindly and considerately
lent him an arm on the occasion. "It's a great mercy--a very great
mercy, Jim--as we wasn't both killed!--another minute, only another
minute, and--but it won't bear thinking on."
"Forgive me, Tom," said the penitent joker; "I never was so near a corpse
afore. If I didn't think the shots were clean through me, and that's
flat."
"Sich jokes," said Tom, "is onpardonable, and you must be mad."
"I confess I'm out of my head, Tom," said Jim, who was dangling the huge
mask in his hand, and fast recovering from the effects of his fright.
"Depend on it, I won't put myself in such a perdicament again, Tom. No,
no--no more playing the devil; for, egad! you had liked to have played
the devil with me."
"A joke's a joke," sagely remarked Tom, picking up his hat and fowling
piece.
"True!" replied Smith; "but, I think, after all, I had the greatest cause
for being in a fright. You had the best chance, at any rate; for I could
not have harmed you, whereas you might have made a riddle of me."
"Stay, there!" answered Tom; "I can tell you, you had as little cause for
fear as I had, you come to that; for the truth is, the deuce a bit of
powder or shot either was there in the piece!"
"You don't say so!" said Jim, evidently disappointed and chop-fallen at
this discovery of his groundless fears. "Well, I only wish I'd known it,
that's all!"--then, cogitating inwardly for a minute, he continued--"but,
I say, Tom, you won't mention this little fright of yours?"
"No; but I'll mention the great fright--of Jim Smith--rely upon it," said
Tom, firmly; and he kept his word so faithfully, that the next day the
whole story was circulated, with many ingenious additions, to the great
annoyance of the practical joker.