Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 - Various
Three men are to meet at dinner in the Bumsteadian apartments on this
Christmas Eve. How has each one passed the day?
MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON, in his room in Gospeler's Gulch, reads Southern
tragedies in an old copy of the _New Orleans Picayune,_ until two
o'clock, when he hastily tears up all his soiled paper collars, packs a
few things into a travelling satchel, and, with the latter slung over
his shoulder, and a Kehoe's Indian club in his right hand, is met in the
hall by his tutor, the Gospeler.
"What are you doing with that club, Mr. MONTGOMERY?" asks the Reverend
OCTAVIUS, hastily stepping back into a corner.
"I've bought it to exercise with in the open air," answers the young
Southerner, playfully denting the wall just over his tutor's head with
it "After this dinner with Mr. DROOD, at BUMSTEAD'S, I reckon I shall
start on a walking match, and I've procured the club for exercise as I
go. Thus:" He twirls it high in the air, grazes Mr. SIMPSON'S nearer
ear, hits his own head accidentally, and breaks the glass in the
hat-stand.
"I see! I see!" says the Gospeler, rather hurriedly. "Perhaps you _had_
better be entirely alone, and in the open country, when you take that
exercise."
Rubbing his skull quite dismally, the prospective pedestrian goes
straightway to the porch of the Alms-House, and there waits until his
sister comes down in her bonnet and joins him.
"MAGNOLIA," he remarks, hastening to be the first to speak, in order to
have any conversational chance at all with her, "it is not the least
mysterious part of this Mystery of ours, that keeps us all out of doors
so much in the unseasonable winter month of December,[1] and now I am
peculiarly a meteorological martyr in feeling obliged to go walking for
two whole freezing weeks, or until the Holidays and this--this
marriage-business, are over. I didn't tell Mr. SIMPSON, but my real
purpose, I reckon, in having this club, is to save myself, by violent
exercise with it, from perishing of cold."
"Must you do this, MONTGOMERY?" asks his colloquial sister,
thoughtfully. "Perhaps if I were to talk long enough with you--"
"--You'd literally exhaust me into not going? Certainly you would," he
returns, confidently. "First, my head would ache from the constant
noise; then it would spin; then I should grow faint and hear you less
distinctly; then your voice, although you were talking-on the same as
ever, would sound like a mere steady hum to me; then I should become
unconscious, and be carried home, with you still whispering in my ear.
But do _not_ talk, MAGNOLIA; for I must do the walking-match. The
prejudice here against my Southern birth makes me a damper upon the
festivities of others at this general season of forgiveness to all
mankind, and I can't stand the sight of that DROOD and Miss POTTS
together. I'd better stay away until they have gone."
He pauses a moment, and adds: "I wish I were not going to this dinner,
or that I were not carrying this club there."
He shakes her hand and his own head, glances up at the storm-clouds now
gathering in the sky, goes onward to Mr. BUMSTEAD'S boarding-house,
halts at the door a moment to moisten his right hand and balance the
Indian club in it, and then enters.
EDWIN DROOD'S day before merry Christmas is equally hilarious. Now that
the Flowerpot is no longer on his mind, the proneness of the masculine
nature to court misfortune causes him to think seriously of Miss
PENDRAGON, and wonder whether _she_ would make a wife to ruin a man? It
will be rather awkward, he thinks, to be in Bumsteadville for a week or
two after the Macassar young ladies shall have heard of his matrimonial
disengagement, as they will all be sure to sit symmetrically at every
front window in the Alms-House whenever he tries to go by; and he
resolves to escape the danger by starting for Egypt, Illinois,
immediately after he has seen Mr. DIBBLE and explained the situation to
him. Finding that his watch has run down, he steps into a jeweler's to
have it wound, and is at once subjected to insinuating overtures by the
man of genius. What does he think of this ring, which is exactly the
thing for some particular Occasions in Life? It is made of the metal for
which nearly all young couples marry now-a-days, is as endless as their
disagreements, and, by the new process, can be stretched to fit the
Second wife's hand, also. Or look at this pearl set. Very chaste, really
soothing; intended as a present from a Husband after First Quarrel.
These cameo ear-rings were never known to fail. Judiciously presented,
in a velvet case, they may be depended upon to at once divert a young
Wife from Returning to her Mother, as she has threatened. Ah! Mr. DROOD
cares for no more jewelry than his watch, chain and seal-ring? To be
sure! when Mr. BUMSTEAD was in yesterday for the regular daily new
crystal in his own watch--how _does_ he break so many!--_he_ said that
his beloved nephews wore only watches and rings, or he would buy paste
breastpins for them. Your oroide is now wound up, Mr. DROOD, and set at
twenty minutes past Two.
"Dear old JACK!" thinks EDWIN to himself, pocketing his watch as he
walks away; "he thinks just twice as much of me as any one else in the
world, and I should feel doubly grateful."
As dusk draws on, the young fellow, returning from a long walk, espies
an aged Irish lady leaning against a tree on the edge of the turnpike,
with a pipe upside-down in her mouth, and her bonnet on
wrong-side-afore.
"Are you sick?" he asks kindly.
"Divil a sick, gintlemen," is the answer, with a slight catch of the
voice,--"bless the two of yez!"
EDWIN DROOD can scarcely avoid a start, as he thinks to himself, "Good
Heaven! how much like JACK!"
"Do you eat cloves, madame?" he asks, respectfully.
"Cloves is it, honey? ah, thin, I do that, whin I'm expectin' company.
Odether-nodether, but I've come here the day from New York for nothing.
Sure phat's the names of you two darlints?"
"EDWIN," he answers, in some wonder, as he hands her a currency stamp,
which, on account of the large hole worn in it, he has been repeatedly
unable to pass himself.
"EDDY is it? Och hone, och hone, machree!" exclaims the venerable woman,
hanging desolately around the tree by her arms while her bonnet falls
over her left ear: "I've heard that name threatened. Och, acushla
wirasthu!"
Believing that the matron will be less agitated if left alone, and,
probably, able to get a little roadside sleep, EDWIN DROOD passes onward
in deep thought. The boarding-house is reached, and _he_ enters.
J. BUMSTEAD'S day of the dinner is also marked by exhilarating
experiences. With one coat-tail unwittingly tucked far up his back, so
that it seems to be amputated, and his alpaca umbrella under his arm, he
enters a grocery-store of the village, and abstractedly asks how
strawberries are selling to-day? Upon being reminded that fresh fruit is
very scarce in late December, he changes his purpose, and orders two
bottles of Bourbon flavoring-extract sent to his address. And now he
wishes to know what they are charging for sponges? They tell him that he
must seek those articles at the druggist's, and he compromises by
requesting that four lemons be forwarded to his residence. Have they any
good Canton-flannel, suitable for a person of medium complexion?--
No?--Very well, then: send half a pound of cloves to his house before
night.
There are Ritualistic services at Saint Cow's, and he renders the
organ-accompaniments with such unusual freedom from reminiscences of the
bacchanalian repertory, that the Gospeler is impelled to compliment him
as they leave the cathedral.
"You're in fine tone to-day, BUMSTEAD. Not quite so much volume to your
playing as sometimes, but still the tune could be recognized."
"That, sir," answers the organist, explainingly, "was because I held my
right wrist firmly with my left hand, and played mostly with only one
finger. The method, I find, secures steadiness of touch and precision in
hitting the right key."
"I should think it would, Mr. BUMSTEAD. You seem to be more free than
ordinarily from your occasional indisposition."
"I am less nervous, Mr. SIMPSON," is the reply. "I've made up my mind to
swear off, sir.--I'll tell you what I'll do, SIMPSON," continues the
Ritualistic organist, with sudden confidential affability. "I'll make an
agreement with you, that whichever of us catches the other slipping-up
first in the New Year, shall be entitled to call for whatever he wants."
"Bless me! I don't understand," ejaculates the Gospeler.
"No matter, sir. No matter!" retorts the mystic of the organ-loft,
abruptly returning to his original gloom. "My company awaits me, and I
must go."
"Excuse me," cries the Gospeler, turning back a moment; "but what's the
matter with your coat?"
The other discovers the condition of his tucked-up coat-tail with some
fierceness of aspect, but immediately explains that it must have been
caused by his sitting upon a folding-chair just before leaving home.
So, humming a savage tune in make-belief of no embarrassment at all in
regard to his recently disordered garment, Mr. BUMSTEAD reaches his
boarding-house. At the door he waits long enough to examine his
umbrella, with scowling scrutiny, in every rib; and then _he_ enters.
Behind the red window-curtain of the room of the dinner-party shines the
light all night, while before it a wailing December gale rises higher
and higher. Through leafless branches, under eaves and against chimneys,
the savage wings of the storm are beaten, its long fingers caught, and
its giant shoulder heaved. Still, while nothing else seems steady, that
light behind the red curtain burns unextinguished; the reason being that
the window is closed and the wind cannot get at it.
At morning comes a hush on nature; the sun arises with that innocent
expression of countenance which causes some persons to fancy that it
resembles Mr. GREELEY after shaving; and there is an evident desire on
the part of the wind to pretend that it has not been up all night.
Fallen chimnies, however, expose the airy fraud, and the clock blown
completely out of Saint Cow's steeple reveals what a high time there has
been.
Christmas morning though it is, Mr. MCLAUGHLIN is summoned from his
family-circle of pigs, to mount the Ritualistic church and see what can
be done; and while a small throng of early idlers are staring up at him
from Gospeler's Gulch, Mr. BUMSTEAD, with his coat on in the wrong way,
and a wet towel on his head, comes tearing in amongst them like a
congreve rocket.
"Where's them nephews?--where's MONTGOMERIES?--where's that umbrella?"
howls Mr. BUMSTEAD, catching the first man he sees by the throat, and
driving his hat over his eyes.
"What's the matter, for goodness sake?" calls the Gospeler from the
window of his house. "Mr. PENDRAGON has gone away on a walking-match. Is
not Mr. DROOD at home with you?"
"Norrabit'v it," pants the organist, releasing his man's throat, but
still leaning with heavy affection upon him: "m'nephews wen 'out with 'm
--f'r li'lle walk--er mir'night; an' 've norseen'm--since."
There is no more looking up at Saint Cow's steeple with a MCLAUGHLIN on
it now. All eyes fix upon the agitated Mr. BUMSTEAD, as he wildly
attempts to step over the tall paling of the Gospeler's fence at a
stride, and goes crashing headlong through it instead.
(_To be Continued_.)
[Footnote 1: In the original English story there is, considering the
bitter time of year given, a truly extraordinary amount of solitary
sauntering, social strolling, confidential confabulating,
evening-rambling, and general lingering, in the open air. To "adapt"
this novel peculiarity to American practice, without some little
violation of probability, is what the present conscientious Adapter
finds almost the artistic requirement of his task.]
* * * * *
ALL HAIL!
The most fearful weapon yet brought into the field of war--if we are to
believe newspaper correspondents--is the revolving grape-shot gun known
as the "hail-thrower," a piece of ordnance said to be in use by the
French and Prussian armies, alike. If half we hear about the
"hail-thrower" be true, 'twere better for all concerned to keep out of
hail of it. Many a hale fellow well met by that fearful hail storm must
go to grass ere the red glare of the war has passed away. "Where do you
hail from?" would be a bootless question to put when the "hail-thrower"
begins to administer throes to the breaking ranks. Worse than that; it
would probably be a headless question.
* * * * *
"THE PERFECT CURE."
A newspaper paragraph states that, in Minnesota, they have a very
summary way of restoring the consciousness of pigs that have been
smitten by the summery rays of the sun. They simply open piggy's head
with a pick-axe or other handy instrument, introduce a handful or two of
salt, close up the head again, and piggy is all right. But this, after
all, is simply a new application of the old practice of Curing pork with
salt.
* * * * *
Con by a Son of a Gun.
Why are the new breech-loaders supplied with needles?
To keep their breeches in repair, of course.
* * * * *
Con by a Carpet-Shaker.
Why is a large carpet like the late rebellion?
Because it took such a lot of tax to put it down.
* * * * *
ADVICE TO PICNIC PARTIES.
At this culminating period of the summer season, it is natural that the
civic mind should turn itself to the contemplation of sweet rural
things, including shady groves, lunch-baskets, wild flowers, sandwiches,
bird songs, and bottled lager-bier.
The skies are at their bluest, now; the woods and fields are at their
greenest; flowers are blooming their yellowest, and purplest, and
scarletest. All Nature is smiling, in fact, with one large,
comprehensive smile, exactly like a first-class PRANG chromo with a
fresh coat of varnish upon it.
Things being thus, what can be more charming than a rural excursion to
some tangled thicket, the very brambles, and poison-ivy, and possible
copperhead snakes of which are points of unspeakable value to a picnic
party, because they are sensational, and one cannot have them in the
city without rushing into fabulous extra expense. It is good, then, that
neighbors should club together for the festive purposes of the picnic,
and a few words of advice regarding the arrangement of such parties may
be seasonable.
If your excursion includes a steamboat trip, always select a boat that
is likely to be crowded to its utmost capacity, more especially one of
which a majority of the passengers are babies in arms. There will
probably be some roughs on board, who will be certain to get up a row,
in which case you can make the babies in arms very effective as
"buffers" for warding off blows, while the crowd will save you from
being knocked down.
Should there be a bar on board the steamer, it will be the duty of the
gentlemen of the party to keep serving the ladies with cool beverages
from it at brief intervals during the trip. This will promote
cheerfulness, and, at the same time, save for picnic duty proper the
contents of the stone jars that are slumbering sweetly among the
pork-pies and apple-dumplings by which the lunch-baskets are occupied.
Never take more than one knife and fork with you to a picnic, no matter
how large the party may be. The probability is that you may be attacked
by a gang of rowdies and it is no part of your business to furnish them
with weapons.
Avoid taking up your ground near a swamp or stagnant water of any kind.
This is not so much on account of mosquitoes as because of the small
saurian reptiles that abound in such places. If your party is a large
one, there will certainly be one lady in it, at least, who has had a
lizard in her stomach for several years, and the struggles of the
confined reptile to join its congeners in the swamp might induce
convulsions, and so mar the hilarity of the party.
To provide against an attack by the city brigands who are always
prowling in the vicinity of picnic parties, it will be judicious to
attend to the following rules:
Select all the fat women of the party, and seat them in a ring outside
the rest of the picnickers, and with their faces toward the centre of
the circle. In the event of a discharge of missiles this will be found a
very effective _cordon_--quite as effective, in fact, as the feather
beds used in the making up of barricades.
Let the babies of the party be so distributed that each, or as many as
possible of the gentlemen present, can have one at hand to snatch up and
use for a fender should an attack at close quarters be made.
If any dark, designful strangers should intrude themselves upon the
party, unbidden, the gentlemen present should by no means exhibit the
slightest disposition to resent the intrusion, or to show fight, as the
strangers are sure to be professional thieves, and, as such, ready to
commit murder, if necessary. Treat the strangers with every
consideration possible under the circumstances. Should there be no
champagne, apologize for the absence of it, and offer the next best
vintage you happen to have. Of course, having lunched, the strangers
will be eager to acquire possession of all valuables belonging to the
party. The gentlemen, therefore, will make a point of promptly handing
over to them their own watches and jewelry, as well as those of their
lady friends.
Having arrived home, (we assume the possibility of this,) refrain,
carefully, from communicating with the police on the subject of the
events of the day. The publicity that would follow would render you an
object of derision, and no possible good could result to you from
disclosure of the facts. But you should at once make up your mind never
to participate in another picnic.
* * * * *
A CHANCE FOR OUR ORGAN GRINDERS.
The famous _mitrailleur_, or grape-thrower, with which LOUIS NAPOLEON
has already commenced to astonish the Prussians, suggests congenial work
for the numerous performers on the barrel-organ with which our large
cities are at all times infested. It is worked with a crank, exactly
after the manner of the too-familiar street instrument; and might easily
be fitted with a musical cylinder arranged for the performance of the
most inspiriting and patriotic French airs. Should Italy, at present
neutral, take side with France hereafter, she should at once withdraw
her wandering minstrels from all parts of the world, and set them to
work on the "double attachment" engine of L.N. Nothing could be more
appropriate for working the _mitrailleur_ than a corps of barrel-organ
grinders from the land of the Grape.
* * * * *
THE ORIGIN OF PUNCHINELLO.
MR. PUNCHINELLO: Though aware that you "belong to Company G," and must
not be bothered, I wish to ask whether you are descended from the famous
chicken-dealer of Sorrento, who sold fowls in Naples, and was well-known
in that fun-loving city for the humor of his speech and the oddity of
his form. He was called "PULCINELLA," I believe, the name being the same
as that of his wares.
If not to this celebrated wag, perhaps you trace your origin to Mr.
PUCCIO D'ANELLO, who so delighted a company of actors at Aceria, with
his jokes and gibes, that they invited him to join them, and soon
discovered that they had found a Star.
If neither of these classical wags was your ancestor, may I ask, who the
deuce _did_ you come from? Yours, truly,
CURIOSO.
* * * * *
RECIPE TO BE TESTED.
We see that they have been "firing cannon in the fields near Paris, to
bring on a rain." If there is any virtue in this recipe, they are likely
to get some moist weather to the north-eastward of Paris, to say the
least. The firing in that quarter may even lead to a Reign in Paris such
as France has not lately seen. We would not go so far as to _predict_
anything of this sort. Oh, no; for we are aware that the moment we
should do so, NAPOLEON would lick the Prussians on purpose to show the
world that we didn't hit it that time.
* * * * *
THE WATERING PLACES.
Punchinello's Vacations.
When one wants to see the great people who are to be seen nowhere else,
one goes to the celebrated White Sulphur Springs of Virginia; and, very
correctly supposing that there might be persons there who would like to
see him, Mr. PUNCHINELLO took a trip to the aforesaid springs. He found
it charming there. There was such a chance to study character. From the
parlors where Chief-Justice CHASE and General LEE were hob-nobbing over
apple-toddies and "peach-and-honey," to the cabins where the wards of
the nation were luxuriating in picturesque ease beneath the shade of
their newly-fledged angel of liberty, everything was instructive to the
well-balanced mind.
Here, too, in these fertile regions, were to be seen those exquisite
floral creations known as mint-juleps, the absence of which in our
Northern agricultural exhibitions can never be sufficiently deplored.
Witness the beauty of the design and the ingenious delicacy of the
execution of one of the humblest of the species.
From experience in the matter, Mr. P. is prepared to say, that not only
as an exponent of the beauties of nature, but as a drink, a mint-julep
is far superior to the water which gives thin resort its celebrity. Why
people persist in drinking that vilest of all water which is found at
the fashionable springs, Mr. P. cannot divine. If it is medicine you
want, you can get your drugs at any apothecary's, and he will mix them
in water for you for a very small sum extra. And the saving in expense
of travel, board and extras, will be enormous.
But in spite of this fact, there were plenty of distinguished-looking
people at the White Sulphur. Mr. P. didn't know them all, but he had no
doubt that one of them was General LEE; one PHIL. SHERIDAN; another
Prof. MAURY; another GOLDWIN SMITH; and others Governor WISE; HENRY WARD
BEECHER, WADE HAMPTON, WENDELL PHILLIPS, RAPHAEL SEMMES, and LUCRETIA
MOTT. One man, an incognito, excited Mr. P.'s curiosity. This personage
was generally found in the society of LEE, JOHNSTON, POPE, HAMPTON,
GREELEY, and those other fellows who did so much to injure the Union
cause during the war. One day Mr. P. accosted him. He was an oddity, and
perhaps it would be a good idea to put his picture in the paper.
"Sir!" said Mr. P., with that delicate consideration for which he is so
noted, "why do you pull your hat down over your eyes, and what is your
object in thus concealing your identity? Come sir! let us know what it
all means."
The _incognito_ glanced at Mr. P. with the corner of his eye, and
perceiving that he was in citizen's dress, pulled his hat still further
over his face.
"My business," said he, "is my own, but since the subject has been
broached, I may as well let _you_ know what it is."
"You know me, then?" said Mr. P.
"I do," replied the other, and proceeding with his recital, he said,
"You may have heard that a number of negro squatters were lately ejected
from a private estate in this State, after they had made the grounds to
blossom like the rose, and to bring forth like the herring."
"Yes, I heard that," said Mr. P.
"Well," said the other, "I happened to have some land near by, and I
invited those negroes to come and squat on my premises--"
"Intending to turn them off about blossoming time?" said Mr. P.
"Certainly, certainly," said the other, "and I am just waiting about
here until they put in a wheat crop on part of the land. I can then sell
that portion, right away."
"Well, Mr. BEN BUTLER," said Mr. P., "all that is easily understood, now
that I know who you are; but tell me this, why are you so careful to
cover your face when in the company of civilians or ladies, and yet go
about so freely among these ex-Confederate officers?"
"Oh," said the other, "you see I don't want to be known down here, and
some of the women or old men might remember my face. There's no danger
of any of the soldiers recognizing me, you know."
"Oh, no," cried Mr. P. "None in the world, sir."
"And besides," said the modest BUTLER, "it's too late now for me to be
spooning around among the women."
"That's so," said Mr. P. "Good-bye, BENJAMIN. Any news from Dominica?"
"None at all," said the other, "and I don't care if there never is. I am
opposed to that annexation scheme now."
"Sold your claims?" said Mr. P. The incognito winked and departed.
That evening at supper Mr. P. remarked that his biscuits were rather
hard, and he blandly requested a waiter to take one of them outside and
crack it. The elder PEYTON, who runs the hotel, overheard Mr. P.'s
remark, and stepping up to him, said:
"Sir, you should not be so particular about your food. What you pay me,
while you stay at my place, is my charge for the water you drink. The
food and lodging I throw in, gratis."