Household Words, No. 10, June 1, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
General
Household Words, No. 10, June 1, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
English literature -- Periodicals
“Why, sir, the Baron Terroro’s eyes had the box-seat, and I strongly
suspect you’ve been and sat upon them.”
I looked involuntarily to see whether I had been sitting upon anything
except the simple cushion. Truly enough, there was an eye, which I had
crushed and flattened.
“Only one,” I said.
“Worse for you, and better for him. The other eye had time to escape,
and it will know you again, that’s certain. Well, it’s no business of
mine. Of course you’ve no appetite now for dinner? Better pay your fare,
Sir. To the Green Hippopotamus and Spectacles, where we put up, it’s
ten-and-six.”
“Is there room inside?” I enquired. It was advisable to shrink from
observation.
“Yes, Sir. The inside passengers are mostly skeleton. There’s room for
three, Sir. Inside, one-pound-one.”
I paid the money, and became an inside passenger.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
Of Divisions which occur in Skitzland—I am taken up.
Professor Essig’s Lectures on Anatomy had so fortified me, that I did
not shrink from entering the Skitzton coach. It contained living limbs,
loose or attached to skeletons in other respects bare, except that they
were clothed with broadcloth garments, cut after the English fashion.
One passenger only had a complete face of flesh, he had also one living
hand; the other hand I guessed was bony, because it was concealed in a
glove obviously padded. By observing the fit of his clothes, I came to a
conclusion that this gentleman was stuffed throughout; that all his
limbs, except the head and hand, were artificial. Two pairs of Legs, in
woollen stockings, and a pair of Ears, were in a corner of the coach,
and in another corner there were nineteen or twenty Scalps.
I thought it well to look astonished at nothing, and, having pointed in
a careless manner to the scalps, asked what might be their destination?
The person with the Face and Hand replied to me; and although evidently
himself a gentleman, he addressed me with a tone of unconcealed respect.
“They are going to Skitzton, Sir, to the hair-dresser’s.”
“Yes, to be sure,” I said. “They are to make Natural Skin Wigs. I might
have known.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir. There is a ball to-morrow night at Culmsey. But
the gentry do not like to employ village barbers, and therefore many of
the better class of people send their hair to Skitzton, and receive it
back by the return coach properly cut and curled.”
“Oh,” said I. “Ah! Oh, indeed!”
“Dinners, gentlemen!” said a voice at the window, and the waiter handed
in four stomachs, now tolerably well filled. Each passenger received his
property, and pulling open his chest with as much composure as if he
were unbuttoning his waistcoat, restored his stomach, with a dinner in
it, to the right position. Then the reckonings were paid, and the coach
started.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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