Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns)Riley, James Whitcomb
General
Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns)
Riley, James Whitcomb
American wit and humor
"Little did we then dream that after ten years of varying fortune we
would to-day give utterance to this editorial, or that the steam
power-press of the _Pizenweed_ would squat this legal notice for
divorce, _a vinculo et thoro_, into the virgin page of our paper. But
such is the case. Our wife has abandoned us to our fate, and has seen
fit to publish the notice in what we believe to be the spiciest paper
published west of the Missouri River. It was not necessary that the
notice should be published. We were ready at any time to admit service,
provided that plaintiff would serve it while we were sober. We cannot
agree to remain sober after ten o'clock a. m. in order to give people a
chance to serve notices on us. But in this case plaintiff knew the value
of advertising, and she selected a paper that goes to the better classes
all over the Union. When our wife does anything she does it right.
"For ten years our wife and we have trudged along together. It has been
a record of errors and failures on our part; a record of heroic devotion
and forbearance on the part of our wife. It is over now, and with
nothing to remember that is not soaked full of bitterness and wrapped up
in red flannel remorse, we go forth to-day and herald our shame by
publishing to the world the fact, that as husband, we are a depressing
failure, while as a red-eyed and a rum-soaked ruin and all-around
drunkard, we are a tropical triumph. We print this without egotism, and
we point to it absolutely without vain glory.
"Ah, why were we made the custodian of this fatal gift, while others
were denied? It was about the only talent we had, but we have not
wrapped it up in a napkin. Sometimes we have put a cold, wet towel on
it, but we have never hidden it under a bushel. We have put it out at
three per cent a month, and it has grown to be a thirst that is worth
coming all the way from Omaha to see. We do not gloat over it. We do not
say all this to the disparagement of other bright, young drinkers, who
came here at the same time, and who had equal advantages with us. We do
not wish to speak lightly of those whose prospects for filling a
drunkard's grave were at one time even brighter than ours. We have
simply sought to hold our position here in the grandest galaxy of
extemporaneous inebriates in the wild and woolly West. We do not wish to
vaunt our own prowess, but we say, without fear of successful
contradiction, that we have done what we could.
"On the fourth page of this number will be found, among other
announcements, the advertisement of our wife, who is about to open up
the old laundry at the corner of Third and Cottonwood streets, in the
Briggs building. We hope that our citizens will accord her a generous
patronage, not so much on her husband's account, but because she is a
deserving woman, and a good laundress. We wish that we could as safely
recommend every advertiser who patronizes these columns as we can our
wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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