As Boston anywhere allowed;
It was a club of wicked men--
The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten;
They drank their soda colored green,
They talked of "Art," and "Philistine,"
They wore buff "wescoats," and their hair
It used to make the waiters stare!
They were so shockingly behaved
And Boston thought them _so_ depraved,
Policemen, stationed at the door,
Would raid them every hour or more!
They used to smoke (!) and laugh out loud (!)
They were a very devilish crowd!
They formed a Cult, far subtler, brainier,
Than ordinary Anglomania,
For all as Jacobites were reckoned,
And gaily toasted Charles the Second!
(What would the Bonnie Charlie say,
If he could see that crowd to-day?)
Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub
Was Regent of the Orchids' Club;
A wild Bohemian was he,
And spent his money fast and free.
He thought no more of spending dimes
On some debauch of pickled limes,
Than you would think of spending nickels
To buy a pint of German pickles!
The Boston maiden passed him by
With sidelong glances of her eye,
She dared not speak (he _was_ so wild),
Yet worshipped this Lotharian child.
Fitz-Willieboy was so _blase_,
He burned a _Transcript_ up one day!
The Orchids fashioned all their style
On Flubadub's infernal guile.
That awful Boston oath was his--
_He_ used to 'jaculate, "Gee Whiz!"
He showed them that immoral haunt,
The dirty Chinese Restaurant;
And there they'd find him, even when
It got to be as late as ten!
He ate chopped _suey_ (with a fork)
You should have heard the villain talk
Of one _reporter_ that he knew (!)
An artist, and an actor, too!!!
The Orchids went from bad to worse,
Made epigrams--attempted verse!
Boston was horrified and shocked
To hear the way those Orchids mocked;
For they made fun of Boston ways,
And called good men Provincial Jays!
The end must come to such a story,
Gone is the wicked Orchids' glory;
The room was raided by police,
One night, for breaches of the Peace
(There had been laughter, long and loud,
In Boston this is not allowed),
And there, the sergeant of the squad
Found awful evidence--my God!--
Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub,
The Regent of the Orchids' Club,
Had written on the window-sill,
This shocking outrage--"Beacon H--ll!"
A LETTER FROM HOME[4]
_From the Princess Boo-Lally, at Gumbo Goo, South Sea Islands, to Her
Brother, Prince Umbobo, a Sophomore at Yale._
BY WALLACE IRWIN
"It is spring, my dear Umbobo,
On the isle of Gumbo Goo,
And your father, King Korobo,
And your mother long for you.
"We had missionaries Monday,
Much the finest of the year--
Our old cook came back last Sunday,
And the stews she makes are _dear_.
"I've the _loveliest_ string of knuckles
Which dear Father gave to me,
And a pair of shin-bone buckles
Which I _so_ wish you could see.
"You remember Mr. Booloo?
He is coming over soon
With some friends from Unatulu--
We all hope they'll call at noon.
"Mr. Booloo's rather slender,
But we'll fix him up with sage,
And I think he'll be quite tender
For a fellow of his age.
"Genevieve O-loola's marriage
Was arranged so _very_ queer--
Have you read 'The Bishop's Carriage'?
Don't you think it's just _too dear_?
"I am hoping next vacation
I may visit you a while.
In this out-of-way location
It's _so_ hard to know the style.
"Will you try and match the sample
I enclose--be sure it's green.
Get three yards--that will be ample.
Velvet, mind, not velveteen.
"Gentle mother worries badly,
And she thinks it is a shame
That a man like Dr. Hadley
Lets you play that football game.
"For the way they hurt each other
Seems so barbarously rude--
No, you've not been raised, dear brother,
To do anything so crude.
"And those horrid meals at college--
Not what you're accustomed to.
It is hard, this quest for knowledge,
But be brave.
"Your sister, Boo."
"P.S.--
"If it's not too great a bother
And a mental overtax,
Would you send your poor old father,
C.O.D., a battle-axe?"
[Footnote 4: From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin.
Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co.]
THE COURTIN'
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in--
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The old queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young
Fetched back f'om Concord busted.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.
'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur;
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A 1,
Clear grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells--
All is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice bed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hundred ring,
She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some_!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper--
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder.
"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"
"Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'--"
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."
To say why gals act so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin';
Mebby to mean _yes_ an' say _no_
Comes nateral to women.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call agin";
Says she, "Think likely, Mister";
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her.
When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin',
Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.
THE TOWER OF LONDON
BY ARTEMUS WARD
Mr. Punch, _My Dear Sir_:--I skurcely need inform you that your
excellent Tower is very pop'lar with pe'ple from the agricultooral
districks, and it was chiefly them class which I found waitin at the
gates the other mornin.
I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the
entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more firmer than
this one.
"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow
detected my denomination.
"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements,
and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America oh my onhappy country! thou
hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon."
The gates was opened after a while, and we all purchist tickets, and
went into a waitin-room.
"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is a sad
day."
"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.
"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed within
these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"
"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like
it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion
were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for
those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own
relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd
during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnered.
"Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil jackets. They are
cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?"
A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the
armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about
twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see
that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.
Traters, I will here remark, are a onfornit class of peple. If they
wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a
country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become
statesmen and heroes.
Take the case of Gloster, afterward Old Dick the Three, who may be seen
at the Tower on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's
case. Mr. G. was a conspirator of the basist dye, and if he'd failed, he
would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and
became great. He was slewed by Col. Richmond, but he lives in history,
and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in
conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the
Warder's able and bootiful lectur.
There's one king in this room who is mounted onto a foaming steed, his
right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name.
The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is
interestin. Among this collection of choice cuttlery I notist the bow
and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with.
It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certain tribes of
American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent precision
that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky Mountain
regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. Catlin
have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it so. Our
party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones, whose
chief said:
"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the
west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor
red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink."
He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky,
and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.
I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the
main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when I
hear philanthropists be-wailin the fack that every year "carries the
noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of
it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name
of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their
Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.
At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of
Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye
flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as
if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth
with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theater,
where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core
is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens
the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he
conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is _Troo to the Core_,
notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very
nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet.
The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews,
throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkered from the Spanish
Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them
days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve
summers the remark that she tho't it _was_ rich to talk about the
crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower where
so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder
stammer and turn red.
I was so pleased with the little girl's brightness that I could have
kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older.
I think my companions intended makin a day of it, for they all had
sandwiches, sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who had wanted us to drop
a tear afore we started to go round, fling'd such quantities of sassige
into his mouth that I expected to see him choke hisself to death; he
said to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the poor prisoners writ their
onhappy names on the cold walls, "This is a sad sight."
"It is indeed," I anserd. "You're black in the face. You shouldn't eat
sassige in public without some rehearsals beforehand. You manage it
orkwardly."
"No," he said, "I mean this sad room."
Indeed, he was quite right. Tho' so long ago all these drefful things
happened, I was very glad to git away from this gloomy room, and go
where the rich and sparklin Crown Jewils is kept. I was so pleased with
the Queen's Crown, that it occurd to me what a agree'ble surprise it
would be to send a sim'lar one home to my wife; and I asked the Warder
what was the vally of a good, well-constructed Crown like that. He told
me, but on cypherin up with a pencil the amount of funs I have in the
Jint Stock Bank, I conclooded I'd send her a genteel silver watch
instid.
And so I left the Tower. It is a solid and commandin edifis, but I deny
that it is cheerful. I bid it adoo without a pang.
I was droven to my hotel by the most melancholly driver of a
four-wheeler that I ever saw. He heaved a deep sigh as I gave him two
shillings.
"I'll give you six d.'s more," I said, "if it hurts you so."
"It isn't that," he said, with a hart-rendin groan, "it's only a way I
have. My mind's upset to-day. I at one time tho't I'd drive you into the
Thames. I've been readin all the daily papers to try and understand
about Governor Eyre, and my mind is totterin. It's really wonderful I
didn't drive you into the Thames."
I asked the onhappy man what his number was, so I could redily find him
in case I should want him agin, and bad him good-by. And then I tho't
what a frollicsome day I'd made of it.
Respectably, etc.
ARTEMUS WARD.
--_Punch_, 1866.
SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY
MR. PUNCH, _My Dear Sir_:--I was a little disapinted at not receivin a
invitation to jine in the meetins of the Social Science Congress....
I prepared an Essy on Animals to read before the Social Science meetins.
It is a subjeck I may troothfully say I have successfully wrastled with.
I tackled it when only nineteen years old. At that tender age I writ a
Essy for a lit'ry Institoot entitled, "Is Cats to be trusted?" Of the
merits of that Essy it doesn't becum me to speak, but I may be excoos'd
for mentionin that the Institoot parsed a resolution that "whether we
look upon the length of this Essy, or the manner in which it is written,
we feel that we will not express any opinion of it, and we hope it will
be read in other towns."
Of course the Essy I writ for the Social Science Society is a more
finisheder production than the one on Cats, which was wroten when my
mind was crood, and afore I had masterd a graceful and ellygant stile of
composition. I could not even punctooate my sentences proper at that
time, and I observe with pane, on lookin over this effort of my youth,
that its beauty is in one or two instances mar'd by ingrammaticisms.
This was inexcusable, and I'm surprised I did it. A writer who can't
write in a grammerly manner better shut up shop.
You shall hear this Essy on Animals. Some day when you have four hours
to spare, I'll read it to you. I think you'll enjoy it. Or, what will be
much better, if I may suggest--omit all picturs in next week's _Punch_,
and do not let your contributors write eny thing whatever (let them have
a holiday; they can go to the British Mooseum;) and publish my Essy
intire. It will fill all your collumes full, and create comment. Does
this proposition strike you? Is it a go?
In case I had read the Essy to the Social Sciencers, I had intended it
should be the closin attraction. I intended it should finish the
proceedins. I think it would have finished them. I understand animals
better than any other class of human creatures. I have a very animal
mind, and I've been identified with 'em doorin my entire perfessional
career as a showman, more especial bears, wolves, leopards and
serpunts.
The leopard is as lively a animal as I ever came into contack with. It
is troo he cannot change his spots, but you can change 'em for him with
a paint-brush, as I once did in the case of a leopard who wasn't
nat'rally spotted in a attractive manner. In exhibitin him I used to
stir him up in his cage with a protracted pole, and for the purpuss of
makin him yell and kick up in a leopardy manner, I used to casionally
whack him over the head. This would make the children inside the booth
scream with fright, which would make fathers of families outside the
booth very anxious to come in--because there is a large class of parents
who have a uncontrollable passion for takin their children to places
where they will stand a chance of being frightened to death.
One day I whacked this leopard more than ushil, which elissited a
remonstrance from a tall gentleman in spectacles, who said, "My good
man, do not beat the poor caged animal. Rather fondle him."
"I'll fondle him with a club," I ansered, hitting him another whack.
"I prithy desist," said the gentleman; "stand aside, and see the effeck
of kindness. I understand the idiosyncracies of these creeturs better
than you do."
With that he went up to the cage, and thrustin his face in between the
iron bars, he said, soothingly, "Come hither, pretty creetur."
The pretty creetur come-hithered rayther speedy, and seized the
gentleman by the whiskers, which he tore off about enuff to stuff a
small cushion with.
He said, "You vagabone, I'll have you indicted for exhibitin dangerous
and immoral animals."
I replied, "Gentle Sir, there isn't a animal here that hasn't a
beautiful moral, but you mustn't fondle 'em. You mustn't meddle with
their idiotsyncracies."
The gentleman was a dramatic cricket, and he wrote a article for a
paper, in which he said my entertainment wos a decided failure.
As regards Bears, you can teach 'em to do interestin things, but they're
onreliable. I had a very large grizzly bear once, who would dance, and
larf, and lay down, and bow his head in grief, and give a mournful wale,
etsetry. But he often annoyed me. It will be remembered that on the
occasion of the first battle of Bull Run, it suddenly occurd to the
Fed'ral soldiers that they had business in Washington which ought not to
be neglected, and they all started for that beautiful and romantic city,
maintainin a rate of speed durin the entire distance that would have
done credit to the celebrated French steed _Gladiateur_. Very nat'rally
our Gov'ment was deeply grieved at this defeat; and I said to my Bear
shortly after, as I was givin a exhibition in Ohio--I said, "Brewin, are
you not sorry the National arms has sustained a defeat?" His business
was to wale dismal, and bow his head down, the band (a barrel origin and
a wiolin) playing slow and melancholy moosic. What did the grizzly old
cuss do, however, but commence darncin and larfin in the most joyous
manner? I had a narrer escape from being imprisoned for disloyalty.
DISLIKES
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
I want it to be understood that I consider that a certain number of
persons are at liberty to dislike me peremptorily, without showing
cause, and that they give no offense whatever in so doing.
If I did not cheerfully acquiesce in this sentiment towards myself on
the part of others, I should not feel at liberty to indulge my own
aversions. I try to cultivate a Christian feeling to all my
fellow-creatures, but inasmuch as I must also respect truth and honesty,
I confess to myself a certain number of inalienable dislikes and
prejudices, some of which may possibly be shared by others. Some of
these are purely instinctive, for others I can assign a reason. Our
likes and dislikes play so important a part in the order of things that
it is well to see on what they are founded.
There are persons I meet occasionally who are too intelligent by half
for my liking. They know my thoughts beforehand, and tell me what I was
going to say. Of course they are masters of all my knowledge, and a good
deal besides; have read all the books I have read, and in later
editions; have had all the experiences I have been through, and more
too. In my private opinion every mother's son of them will lie at any
time rather than confess ignorance.
I have a kind of dread, rather than hatred, of persons with a large
excess of vitality; great feeders, great laughers, great story-tellers,
who come sweeping over their company with a huge tidal wave of animal
spirits and boisterous merriment. I have pretty good spirits myself, and
enjoy a little mild pleasantry, but I am oppressed and extinguished by
these great lusty, noisy creatures, and feel as if I were a mute at a
funeral when they get into full blast.
I can not get along much better with those drooping, languid people,
whose vitality falls short as much as that of the others is in excess. I
have not life enough for two; I wish I had. It is not very enlivening to
meet a fellow-creature whose expression and accents say, "You are the
hair that breaks the camel's back of my endurance, you are the last drop
that makes my cup of woe run over;" persons whose heads drop on one side
like those of toothless infants, whose voices recall the tones in which
our old snuffling choir used to wail out the verses of
"Life is the time to serve the Lord."
There is another style which does not captivate me. I recognize an
attempt at the _grand manner_ now and then, in persons who are well
enough in their way, but of no particular importance, socially or
otherwise. Some family tradition of wealth or distinction is apt to be
at the bottom of it, and it survives all the advantages that used to set
it off. I like family pride as well as my neighbors, and respect the
high-born fellow-citizen whose progenitors have not worked in their
shirt-sleeves for the last two generations full as much as I ought to.
But _grand-père oblige_; a person with a known grandfather is too
distinguished to find it necessary to put on airs. The few Royal Princes
I have happened to know were very easy people to get along with, and had
not half the social knee-action I have often seen in the collapsed
dowagers who lifted their eyebrows at me in my earlier years.
My heart does not warm as it should do towards the persons, not
intimates, who are always _too_ glad to see me when we meet by accident,
and discover all at once that they have a vast deal to unbosom
themselves of to me.
There is one blameless person whom I can not love and have no excuse for
hating. It is the innocent fellow-creature, otherwise inoffensive to me,
whom I find I have involuntarily joined on turning a corner. I suppose
the Mississippi, which was flowing quietly along, minding its own
business, hates the Missouri for coming into it all at once with its
muddy stream. I suppose the Missouri in like manner hates the
Mississippi for diluting with its limpid, but insipid current the rich
reminiscences of the varied soils through which its own stream has
wandered. I will not compare myself to the clear or the turbid current,
but I will own that my heart sinks when I find all of a sudden I am in
for a corner confluence, and I cease loving my neighbor as myself until
I can get away from him.
UNCLE SIMON AND UNCLE JIM
BY ARTEMUS WARD
Uncle Simon he
Clumb up a tree
To see
What he could see,
When presentlee
Uncle Jim
Clumb up beside of him
And squatted down by he.
THE LITTLE MOCK-MAN
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
The Little Mock-man on the Stairs--
He mocks the lady's horse 'at rares
At bi-sickles an' things,--
He mocks the mens 'at rides 'em, too;
An' mocks the Movers, drivin' through,
An' hollers "Here's the way _you_ do
With them-air hitchin'-strings!"
"Ho! ho!" he'll say,
Ole Settlers' Day,
When they're all jogglin' by,--
"You look like _this_,"
He'll say, an' twis'
His mouth an' squint his eye
An' 'tend like _he_ wuz beat the bass
Drum at both ends--an' toots and blares
Ole dinner-horn an' puffs his face--
The Little Mock-man on the Stairs!
The Little Mock-man on the Stairs
Mocks all the peoples all he cares
'At passes up an' down!
He mocks the chickens round the door,
An' mocks the girl 'at scrubs the floor,
An' mocks the rich, an' mocks the pore,
An' ever'thing in town!
"Ho! ho!" says he,
To you er me;
An' ef we turns an' looks,
He's all cross-eyed
An' mouth all wide
Like Giunts is, in books.--
"Ho! ho!" he yells, "look here at _me_,"
An' rolls his fat eyes roun' an' glares,--
"_You_ look like _this!_" he says, says he--
The Little Mock-man on the Stairs!