At the end of the second day Bull Dogge grumbled to himself; the third
he spoke "out in meeting;" the fourth he growled audibly; the fifth he
had an hour's swear to himself in his own room; the sixth, seventh, and
eighth, he preserved a dignified silence; but his silence was ominous,
on the ninth day we both left.
Our next landlady had a gigantic mouth, but her nose was a magnificent
failure. We stayed with her a week, and left because she seemed to be
possessed of the idea that one sausage was enough for two men. For a
month longer we ran the gauntlet of all the model boarding-houses. We
were entrapped by all kinds of alluring promises, and perpetually
swindled without any regard to decency; we had a taste of Yankee,
French, Dutch, and, I have mentioned it before, (ye gods!), _Irish_; and
we lived four days in an establishment presided over by a red-eyed
darkey, with a wife the color of a new saddle.
At last one day in an agony of despair I exclaimed, "Where, O where can
humbugged humanity find a decent place to feed?" Echo answered, "In the
eating-houses." We resolved to try it, and the result is glorious. We
have achieved a victory, sir, an heroic, unexpected victory.
And now farewell, all scrawny landladies, ye snuffy beldames, with your
wooden smiles; farewell, ye viviparous bedsteads, ye emaciated feather
beds, and ye attenuated bolsters; a long good-bye to scant blankets and
mattresses stuffed with shavings; farewell to hirsute butter and to
ancient bread; good-bye (I say it with a tear,) ye immortal, everlasting
beef; farewell to sloppy coffee and to azure milk (Damphool says, not
yet); farewell ye antediluvian pies, and you lilliputian puddings;
farewell you two-inch napkins, and ye _holy_ table-cloths; farewell ye
empty grates and rusty coal-scuttles; farewell ye cracked mirrors which
make a man look like a drunken Satyr; farewell ye respectable chairs
with dislocated limbs; farewell ye fractured teacups, ye broken forks,
and knives with handsaw edges; farewell, in fact, all ye lodging houses,
where you _can't_ have a latch-key, and where you _can_ tell when they
get a new hired girl by the color of the hairs in the biscuit.
(I noticed this last remarkable fact a long time since.)
Give us joy, for we have found a place where things are done up right,
where we can choose our own viands, where the beef is positively tender,
where there are no little red ants in the sugar, where the potatoes are
not waxy, and where, if anything goes wrong, we can inflate the waiter.
In fact, we are suited; if anything runs short, "John gets particular
_fits_" and "nuthin' shorter;" where we can eat _when_ we please, and
call for _what_ we please; where charges are moderate, and it is
permitted to grumble at the waiter for nothing.
And here, in this Elysian spot, have Bull Dogge and I taken our daily
bread (beans and butter included) for the past month, "without fear and
without reproach."
As our poetical friend, Thomas Plus, has remarked,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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