AN EPISTLE
FROM
SAMUEL SOFTLY, ESQ. TO HIS FRIEND, RICHARD GUBBINS, ESQ. OF TOOLEY
STREET.
O! DICK!
Such a misfortin' has you never heard on as come upon your friend. I'll
jist give you a breef houtline of the circumstantials as near as my
flurry vill let me. T'other mornin' I vips up my gun for to go
a-shootin', and packin' up my hammunition, and some sanwidges, I bids
adoo to this wile smoky town, vith the intention of gettin' a little
hair. Vell! on I goes a-visshin' and thinkin' on nothin', and happy as
the bumblebees as vos a-numming around me. Vell! a'ter an hour or more's
valking, not an house nor a brick vos wisible.
Natur', in all her werdur', vos smilin' like a fat babby in its maternal
harms! But, as somebody has it--
"Man never ain't, but al'ays to be bless'd,"
and I'm bless'd if that ain't true too, as you shall see presently. Vell!
I pops at von bird and then at another; but vether the poor creturs vos
unaccustom'd to guns, and so vos frighten'd, I don't know, but somehow I
couldn't hit 'em no-how.
Vell! and so I vos jist a-chargin' agin ven a great he-fellow, in a ruff
coat and partic'lar large viskers, accostes me (ciwilly I must say, but
rayther familler)--
"Birds shy?" says he.
"Werry;--ain't hit nothin'," says I.
"I'll tell you vot it is, young gentleman," says he, "it's the unevenness
o' the ground!"
"D've think so?" says I.
"Sure on it," says he; "I'm a hold sojer! Know this 'ere place, and have
picked up many a good dinner in it. Look at them fe'l'fares yonder,"
says he, "on'y let me have a slap at 'em for you, and see if I don't
finish some on 'em in the twinkling of a pig's visper."
In course I felt obleeged by sich a hoffer, and hands him the gun. Vell!
I vos a-follerin' him quite pleased, ven he visks round, and puttin' the
muzzle o' the hinstrument fist agin my vescoat, says he, "Now you've lent
us your gun, you may as vell lend us your votch. I can't shoot any think
for you till I sees vot's o'clock!"
Here vas a go!--but I see vot vas a clock in a hinstant--and no mistake.
So I cotch'd hold on the two butiful chased seals and tugs it out.
"That's the time o' day!" says he, a-cockin' his hugly heye at the dial;
"and now," says he, "as you seems frightened at the gun, I shall jist put
it out o' harm's way."
And with that he chucks it splash, into a duck-pond, and hoff marches my
hold sojer in a jiffy! I vos putrified! and fell to a-blubberin' like a
hinfant.
O! Dick, vot's to be done?
You know I ham, at any rate,
Yours truly,
S. SOFTLY.