Produced by David Widger
THE BAD BOY AT HOME,
AND HIS EXPERIENCES IN TRYING TO BECOME AN EDITOR.
THE FUNNIEST BOOK OF THE AGE.
BY
Walter T. Gray
1885
J. S. Ogilvie & Company.
CHAPTER I.
WHY HE CHEWSES A PERFESSHUN.--HYFALUTIN PROLOG, WITH SUM
BARE POSSIBILITIES.--PROSPECTUS OF THE “DAILY BUSTER.”
Mister Diry:
I've been intending ever since I got home from Yourope, to begin ritin'
in a diry, but I ain't had no time, cos my chum Jimmy and me has been
puttin' in our days havin' fun. I've got to give all that sorter thing
up now, cos I've accepted a persisshun in a onherabel perfesshun, and
wen I get to be a man, and reech the top rung of the ladder, I'm goin'
to mak' New York howl.
Pa, he wanted me to go to skule, but I culdn't see it a tall, cos
a feller wot's alwus goin' to skule don't never kno nothin' but
base-ballin' and prize fitin' wen 'he gets thru. All them fellers wot
rite in dirys begin by usin a lot of hyfalutin wurds wot sound orful big
but don't meen nothin; so I guess I'll be in the fashun, so here goes:
You're only a quire of “common noose” paper, Mr. Diry, so you needn't
put on so menny airs over your cleen wite dress, wot only needs a
morocker lether mantel and gilt braceletts to make you look like you
b'longed to the Astor house dude.
We all know you was maid of rags, and them rags might once have bean
in the mazey, lacey laberinths of wite linnin wot audashusly pressed
'gainst the tender form of Lillyan, the dudine.
If you warn't there you mite have ben all ablaze with chane stitches and
crushed oniyun stripes, closely incircling a cupple of been-poles--no,
not eggsactly been-poles, but the sharpley, shadderly lower lims of
Sarah Jane Burnhard, the actress wot got mashed on Dam-all-her.
Then, agen, you mite have ben on some infantile prospecktive Preserdent,
but you didn't stay on him long, cos baby's and safety-pins maid you
tired.
Enyway you've got a histery, cos them littel black spots on your rite
bussum looks like they mite wunce hav ben part of Mrs. Dr. Walker's
patent backackshun, maskuline, dress-reform trowsers, wot she sent
to the paper-mill to get ground up inter paper to mak books for the
enlitenin of the wimmin of our country.
How's that for high, Mr. Diry? My muse come playguey neer running away
with me, so I had to wistle “down brakes,” and slow her up. Now I'll
begin to record my doins on your pages, so that, shuld the toes of my
boots be applide to the patent bucket early in my useful carreer, the
hull wurld'll kno wot a treassure socieaty has lost. I ain't givin you
eny biled lasses candie, but don't you let your memmerizin orgins lose
site of the fact that I, Georgie, the Bad Boy wot's ben to Yourope,
ain't no slouch.
My pa sez I'm a geneyus. I guess he's 'bout rite, ony he orter sed I was
a buddin' one, 'cos my hankerin' after a perfeshunal carrieer has led me
to axcept a posishun in the publick-opinyun-moldin' shop wots known as
the _Daily Buster_, Joe Gilley, edittur and proprieat-her. Subskripshun
price, $5 per yare. No trubbel to sine receits.
N.B.--Speshell arrangements with ex-Senater Satan enabels us to give our
delinkent subskribers cheap excurshun rates to the Hot Sulfur Baths, via
the Haydies Short Line, our fitin' edit-her corndoctor. This paper is
run on red-hot indypendant principels, in a spicey, sparklin' manher. In
pollyticks our motto is: “Onhest men, regardless of partie, candy-dates
with barr'ls xcepted.”
The above is the prospecktus of the journalistick venture in wich I
have mbarked in the capacerty of typergraffickal devil. So now Mr.
Diry, look out for the brakers.