Part 22 (1/2)
”One half is here, the other half Is near Columbia placed: Oh! Sally, I have got the whole Atlantic for my waist.
”But now adieu--a long adieu!
I've solved death's awful riddle, And would say more, but I am doomed To break off in the middle.”
TABLE-TALK OF JOHN SELDEN [Sidenote: _John Selden_]
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.
'Tis sometimes unreasonable to look after respect and reverence, either from a man's own servant, or other inferiors. A great lord and a gentleman talking together, there came a boy by, leading a calf with both his hands: says the lord to the gentleman, ”You shall see me make the boy let go his calf”; with that he came towards him, thinking the boy would have put off his hat, but the boy took no notice of him. The lord seeing that, ”Sirrah,” says he, ”do you not know me, that you use no reverence?” ”Yes,” says the boy, ”if your Lords.h.i.+p will hold my calf, I will put off my hat.”
King James said to the fly, ”Have I three kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my eye?”
HOW MARK WAS SOLD [Sidenote: _Mark Twain_]
It is seldom pleasant to tell on one's self, but sometimes it is a sort of relief to a man to make a sad confession. I wish to unburden my mind now, and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long to bring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour balm upon my wounded heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I believe it is the correct expression to use in this connection--never having seen any balm.) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the young gentlemen of the Clayonian Society? I did, at any rate. During the afternoon of that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referred to, and he said he had an uncle who, from some cause or other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And, with tears in his eyes, this young man said, ”Oh, if I could only see him laugh once more! Oh, if I could only see him weep!” I was touched. I could never withstand distress.
I said: ”Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you.”
”Oh, if you could but do it! If you could but do it, all our family would bless you for ever more, for he is so very dear to us. Oh my benefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those parched orbs?”
I was profoundly moved. I said: ”My son, bring the old party round. I have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if there is any laugh in him; and, if they miss fire, I have got some others that will make him cry or kill him, one or the other.” Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him in full view, in the second row of benches that night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones; I dosed him with bad jokes, and riddled him with good ones; I fired old, stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones; I warmed up to my work, and a.s.saulted him on the right and left, in front and behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoa.r.s.e and sick, and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once--I never started a smile or a tear! Never a ghost of a smile, and never a suspicion of moisture! I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with one despairing shriek--with one wild burst of humour, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him!
Then I sat down bewildered and exhausted.
The president of the society came up and bathed my head with cold water, and said: ”What made you carry on so towards the last?”
I said I was trying to make that confounded old fool laugh, in the second row.
And he said: ”Well, you were wasting your time, because he is deaf and dumb, and as blind as a badger!”
Now, was that any way for that old man's nephew to impose on a stranger and orphan like me? I simply ask you, as a man and a brother, if that was any way for him to do?
NEW-MADE HONOUR [Sidenote: _Ingoldsby_]
(Imitated from Martial)
A Friend I met, some half hour since-- ”_Good-morning_, Jack!” quoth I; The new-made Knight, like any Prince, Frowned, nodded, and pa.s.sed by; When up came Jem--_”Sir John, your Slave!”_ ”Ah, James; we dine at eight-- Fail not”--(low bows the supple knave)-- ”Don't make my lady wait.”
The King can do no wrong? As I'm a sinner, He's spoilt an honest tradesman and my dinner.
FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY
[Sidenote: _Anon._]