Part 8 (1/2)
The next morning Mr. Slimmer proceeded calmly to the office for the purpose of embalming in sympathetic verse the memories of other departed ones. As he came near to the establishment he observed a crowd of people in front of it, struggling to get into the door. Ascending some steps upon the other side of the street, he overlooked the crowd, and could see within the office the clerks selling papers as fast as they could handle them, while the mob pushed and yelled in frantic efforts to obtain copies, the presses in the cellar meanwhile clanging furiously.
Standing upon the curbstone in front of the office there was a long row of men, each of whom was engaged in reading _The Morning Argus_ with an earnestness that Mr. Slimmer had never before seen displayed by the patrons of that sheet. The bard concluded that either his poetry had touched a sympathetic chord in the popular heart, or that an appalling disaster had occurred in some quarter of the globe.
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He went around to the back of the office and ascended to the editorial rooms. As he approached the sanctum, loud voices were heard within. Mr.
Slimmer determined to ascertain the cause before entering. He obtained a chair, and placing it by the side door, he mounted and peeped over the door through the transom. There sat Colonel Bangs, holding _The Morning Argus_ in both hands, while the fringe which grew in a semicircle around the edge of his bald head stood straight out, until he seemed to resemble a gigantic gun-swab. Two or three persons stood in front of him in threatening att.i.tudes. Slimmer heard one of them say:
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”My name is McGlue, sir!--William McGlue! I am a brother of the late Alexander McGlue. I picked up your paper this morning, and perceived in it an outrageous insult to my deceased relative, and I have come around to demand, sir, WHAT YOU MEAN by the following infamous language:
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”'The death-angel smote Alexander McGlue, And gave him protracted repose; He wore a checked s.h.i.+rt and a Number Nine shoe, And he had a pink wart on his nose.
No doubt he is happier dwelling in s.p.a.ce Over there on the evergreen sh.o.r.e.
His friends are informed that his funeral takes place Precisely at quarter-past four.'
”This is simply diabolical! My late brother had no wart on his nose, sir. He had upon his nose neither a pink wart nor a green wart, nor a cream-colored wart, nor a wart of any other color. It is a slander! It is a gratuitous insult to my family, and I distinctly want you to say _what do you mean_ by such conduct?”
”Really, sir,” said Bangs, ”it is a mistake. This is the horrible work of a miscreant in whom I reposed perfect confidence. He shall be punished by my own hand for this outrage. A pink wart! Awful!
sir--awful! The miserable scoundrel shall suffer for this--he shall, indeed!”
”How could I know,” murmured Mr. Slimmer to the foreman, who with him was listening, ”that the corpse hadn't a pink wart? I used to know a man named McGlue, and _he_ had one, and I thought _all_ the McGlues had.
This comes of irregularities in families.”
”And who,” said another man, addressing the editor, ”authorized you to print this hideous stuff about my deceased son? Do you mean to say, Bangs, that it was not with your authority that your low comedian inserted with my advertis.e.m.e.nt the following scandalous burlesque?
Listen to this:
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”'Willie had a purple monkey climbing on a yellow stick, And when he sucked the paint all off it made him deathly sick; And in his latest hours he clasped that monkey in his hand, And bade good-bye to earth and went into a better land.
”'Oh! no more he'll shoot his sister with his little wooden gun; And no more he'll twist the p.u.s.s.y's tail and make her yowl, for fun.
The p.u.s.s.y's tail now stands out straight; the gun is laid aside; The monkey doesn't jump around since little Willie died.'
”The atrocious character of this libel will appear when I say that my son was twenty years old, and that he died of liver complaint.”
”Infamous!--utterly infamous!” groaned the editor as he cast his eyes over the lines. ”And the wretch who did this still remains unpunished!
It is too much!”
”And yet,” whispered Slimmer to the foreman, ”he told me to lighten the gloom and to cheer the afflicted family with the resources of my art; and I certainly thought, that idea about the monkey would have that effect, somehow. Bangs is ungrateful!”
Just then there was a knock at the door, and a woman entered, crying.
”Are you the editor?” she inquired of Colonel Bangs.
Bangs said he was.