Part 37 (2/2)

ALL (_singing_):

O bribery's great-- 'Tis a pillar of State, And the people they are free.

FEEGOBBLE:

It smashes my slate!

NOZZLE:

It is thievery straight!

RINGDIVVY:

But it's been the making of me!

NOZZLE:

I judge by certain shrewd sensations here In these callosities I call my thumbs-- thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins, Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all The cuticle and tickling through the nerves-- That some malign and awful thing draws near.

(_Enter Hayseed._)

Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all The grangers I have decently interred, Rolled into one!

FEEGOBBLE:

Plead, phantom.

RINGDIVVY:

You've the floor.

HAYSEED:

From the margin of the river (Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it) Where I cherished once the pumpkin, And the summer squash promoted, Harvested the sweet potato, Dallied with the fatal melon And subdued the fierce cuc.u.mber, I've been driven by the slickens, Driven by the slimes and tailings!

All my family--my Polly Ann and all my sons and daughters, Dog and baby both included-- All were swamped in seas of slickens, Buried fifty fathoms under, Where they lie, prepared to play their Gentle prank on geologic Gents that shall exhume them later, In the dim and distant future, Taking them for melancholy Relics antedating Adam.

I alone got up and dusted.

NOZZLE:

Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!

What dire distress have you prepared for us?

RINGDIVVY:

Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky My craw with filth to fill, Into your honorable body I Would introduce a bill.

<script>