“Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music. It flows
along so nicely. I have nearly caught the rhymes myself. Say them over
just once more, and then I'll have them, sure.”
I said them over. Then Mr. ------ said them. He made one little mistake,
which I corrected. The next time and the next he got them right. Now a
great burden seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That torturing jingle
departed out of my brain, and a grateful sense of rest and peace
descended upon me. I was light-hearted enough to sing; and I did sing
for half an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward. Then my
freed tongue found blessed speech again, and the pent talk of many
a weary hour began to gush and flow. It flowed on and on, joyously,
jubilantly, until the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my friend's
hand at parting, I said:--
“Haven't we had a royal good time! But now I remember, you haven't said
a word for two hours. Come, come, out with something!”
The Rev. Mr.------ turned a lack-lustre eye upon me, drew a deep sigh,
and said, without animation, without apparent consciousness:
“Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the
passenjare!”
A pang shot through me as I said to myself, “Poor fellow, poor fellow!
he has got it, now.”
I did not see Mr.------ for two or three days after that. Then, on
Tuesday evening, he staggered into my presence and sank dejectedly into
a seat. He was pale, worn; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes to
my face and said:--
“Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made in those heartless
rhymes. They have ridden me like a nightmare, day and night, hour after
hour, to this very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the torments
of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden call, by telegraph, and
took the night train for Boston. The occasion was the death of a valued
old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon. I
took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the discourse. But I
never got beyond the opening paragraph; for then the train started
and the car-wheels began their 'clack, clack-clack-clack-clack!
clack-clack!--clack-clack-clack!' and right away those odious rhymes
fitted themselves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and
set a syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack
the car-wheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had been
chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting with headache. It seemed
to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I undressed and
went to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and--well, you
know what the result was. The thing went right along, just the same.
'Clack-clack clack, a blue trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for an
eight-cent fare; clack-clack-clack, a buff trip slip, clack clack-clack, for a
six-cent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on punch in the presence of
the passenjare!' Sleep? Not a single wink! I was almost a lunatic when
I got to Boston. Don't ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could,
but every solemn individual sentence was meshed and tangled and woven in
and out with 'Punch, brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence
of the passenjare.' And the most distressing thing was that my delivery
dropped into the undulating rhythm of those pulsing rhymes, and I could
actually catch absent-minded people nodding time to the swing of it with
their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I
got through the entire assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in
solemn unison, mourners, undertaker, and all. The moment I had finished,
I fled to the anteroom in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course
it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the
deceased there, who had arrived from Springfield too late to get into
the church. She began to sob, and said:--
“'Oh, oh, he is gone, he is gone, and I didn't see him before he died!'
“'Yes!' I said, 'he is gone, he is gone, he is gone--oh, will this
suffering never cease!'
“'You loved him, then! Oh, you too loved him!'
“'Loved him! Loved who?'
“'Why, my poor George! my poor nephew!'
“'Oh--him! Yes--oh, yes, yes. Certainly--certainly. Punch--punch--oh,
this misery will kill me!'
“'Bless you! bless you, sir, for these sweet words! I, too, suffer in
this dear loss. Were you present during his last moments?'
“'Yes. I--whose last moments?'
“'His. The dear departed's.'
“'Yes! Oh, yes--yes--yes! I suppose so, I think so, I don't know! Oh,
certainly--I was there--I was there!'
“'Oh, what a privilege! what a precious privilege! And his last
words--oh, tell me, tell me his last words! What did he say?'
“'He said--he said--oh, my head, my head, my head! He said--he said--he
never said anything but Punch, punch, punch in the presence of the
passenjare! Oh, leave me, madam! In the name of all that is generous,
leave me to my madness, my misery, my despair!--a buff trip slip for a
six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare--endu--rance can
no fur--ther go!--PUNCH in the presence of the passenjare!”
My friend's hopeless eyes rested upon mine a pregnant minute, and then
he said impressively:--
“Mark, you do not say anything. You do not offer me any hope. But, ah
me, it is just as well--it is just as well. You could not do me any
good. The time has long gone by when words could comfort me. Something
tells me that my tongue is doomed to wag forever to the jigger of that
remorseless jingle. There--there it is coming on me again: a blue trip
slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a--”
Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank into a peaceful trance
and forgot his sufferings in a blessed respite.
How did I finally save him from an asylum? I took him to a neighboring
university and made him discharge the burden of his persecuting rhymes
into the eager ears of the poor, unthinking students. How is it with
them, now? The result is too sad to tell. Why did I write this article?
It was for a worthy, even a noble, purpose. It was to warn you, reader,
if you should came across those merciless rhymes, to avoid them--avoid
them as you would a pestilence!