Caricatures and cartoons -- Great Britain; English wit and humor; English wit and humor, Pictorial
"Vell, Turnips!" (I had light--very light hair) "vot are yer a looking at
now?--a com-paring that ugly phiz o' yourn with a gen'leman's?" I felt
that the last word conveyed a reproach, and my spirits rose so high as to
explode in the assertion, "I didn't speak to you!"
"O, didn't yer, Turnips?-vell, just take _that_, then; and never mind the
change!"
His hand was raised rapidly to his tray--a dark substance rose high in
the air. Blash! it came--all over my face--my collar: _the_ cherished
collar! My eyes sought the pane wherein so lately I had gazed with pride.
"One dark red stain" was too visible. I _felt_ then, and _knew_, that I
had had my face slapped--literally slapped--with a piece of _liver_!
The criminal on the gallows, exposed to the groans of the brutal mob, may
feel as degraded (no one else can) as I did, whilst weeping I pursued
my way. The very red plush smalls of him who admitted me at last into
the privacy of a house, from the gaze of grinning thousands, seemed to
mock my misery. I dared not go up-stairs. I remained below weeping; till
a kind old lady--whence should relief to the wretched come?--came to
comfort me. My face was cleansed from the stain, but remembrance could
not be washed away; I was supplied with a pretty suit from her son's
wardrobe--it could not cover my sense of degradation. Even the desired
dinner failed to bring the desired oblivion; and when two elderly ladies
who _would_ sing duets began to practise their favourite one, the words
that struck my ears were, "Flow on, thou shining _liver_!" * * *
JOHN COPUS.
The miscreant author of my woe has not escaped. For in one of
_his_ limnings in whose vehicle I ride, there may be seen, with a
malicious grin on his face, such as he wore after the consummation
of my woe, contemplating the capture of poor Oliver Twist by
the interesting Nancy, and her ruffian Bill Sikes--a _butcher's
boy_. Note him well--_the_ butcher's boy. Hair--corduroys--and
_tray_!--J. C.
*** Our sensitive and acutely-suffering correspondent who so keenly
remembers the woes of his boyhood, has, by the force of his memory,
recalled to our own recollection another specimen of the tray-carrying
fraternity. We subjoin his portrait, for the benefit of every juvenile
diner-out who entertains a horror of liver! The artist insists that it
_is_ a portrait, and no invention.
[Illustration]
TWO OF A TRADE.
"With such a dear companion at my side."---WORDSWORTH.
Oh! marvellous Boy, what marvel when
I met thy Dog and thee,
I marvell'd if to dogs or men
You traced your ancestry!
If changed from what you once were known,
As sorrow turns to joy,
The Boy more like the Dog had grown,
The Dog more like the Boy.
It would a prophet's eyesight baulk,
To see through time's dark fog,
If on four legs the Boy will walk,
Or if on two the Dog.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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