Volume II Part 2 (1/2)
Behind ye yer shoulders Stick out like two bowlders; Yer s.h.i.+ns is as thin As a pair of pen-holders!
Wan--two!
Wan--two!
Yer belly belongs on yer back, ye Jew!
Wan--two!
Time! Mark!
I'm dhry as a dog--I can't shpake but I bark!”
Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: ”Me heart it ud gladden To blacken yer eye.
Ye're gettin' too bold, ye Compel me to scold ye-- 'T is halt! that I say-- Will ye heed what I told ye?
Wan--two Wan--two!
Be jabers, I'm dhryer than Brian Boru!
Wan--two!
Time! Mark!
What's wur-ruk for chickens is sport for the lark!”
Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: ”I'll not stay a gadd'n Wid dagoes like you!
I'll travel no farther, I'm dyin' for--wather; Come on, if ye like-- Can ye loan me a quarther?
Ya-as, you, What--two?
And ye'll pay the potheen? Ye're a daisy!
Whurroo!
You'll do!
Whist! Mark!
The Rigiment's flatthered to own ye, me spark!”
THE BEECHER BEACHED
BY JOHN B. TABB
Were Harriet Beecher well aware Of what was done in Delaware, Of that unwholesome smell aware,
She'd make all heaven and h.e.l.l aware, And ask John Brown to tell her where Henceforth she best might sell her ware.
OUR BEST SOCIETY
BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, what a fine thing our society would be! If to lavish money upon _objets de vertu_, to wear the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the height of the fas.h.i.+on; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius; to give superb banquets, at which your guests laugh, and which make you miserable; to drive a fine carriage and ape European liveries, and crests, and coats-of-arms; to resent the friendly advances of your baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you being yourself a cobbler's daughter); to talk much of the ”old families” and of your aristocratic foreign friends; to despise labor; to prate of ”good society”; to travesty and parody, in every conceivable way, a society which we know only in books and by the superficial observation of foreign travel, which arises out of a social organization entirely unknown to us, and which is opposed to our fundamental and essential principles; if all this were fine, what a prodigiously fine society would ours be!
This occurred to us upon lately receiving a card of invitation to a brilliant ball. We were quietly ruminating over our evening fire, with Disraeli's Wellington speech, ”all tears,” in our hands, with the account of a great man's burial, and a little man's triumph across the channel. So many great men gone, we mused, and such great crises impending! This democratic movement in Europe; Kossuth and Mazzini waiting for the moment to give the word; the Russian bear watchfully sucking his paws; the Napoleonic empire redivivus; Cuba, and annexation, and Slavery; California and Australia, and the consequent considerations of political economy; dear me! exclaimed we, putting on a fresh hodful of coal, we must look a little into the state of parties.
As we put down the coal-scuttle, there was a knock at the door. We said, ”come in,” and in came a neat Alhambra-watered envelope, containing the announcement that the queen of fas.h.i.+on was ”at home” that evening week.
Later in the evening, came a friend to smoke a cigar. The card was lying upon the table, and he read it with eagerness. ”You'll go, of course,”