Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite HumoristPeck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite Humorist
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor
telling him that I had heard that in his lifetime he was very cruel to his
boy, a bright little fellow who was at the head of his class in Sunday
school and a pet wherever he was known, when Pa interrupted me and said,
'Doctor, please take that carving knife off my stomach, for it makes me
nervous. As for that boy of mine, he is the condemndest little whelp in
town, and he isn't no pet anywhere. Now, you let up on this dissectin'
business, and I will make it all right with you.' We held another
consultation and then I told Pa that we did not feel that it was doing
justice to society to give up the body of a notorious drunkard, after we
had paid twenty dollars for the corpse. If there was any hopes that he
would reform and try and lead a different life, it would be different, and
I said to the boys, 'gentlemen, we must do our duty. Doc, you dismember
that leg, and I will attend to the stomach and the upper part of body. He
will be dead before we are done with him. We must remember that society
has some claim on us, and not let our better natures be worked upon by the
_post mortem_ promises of a dead drunkard.' Then I took my icicle and
began fumbling around the abdomen portion of Pa's remains, and my chum
took a rough piece of ice and began to saw his leg off, while the other
boy took hold of the leg and said he would catch it when it dropped off.
Well, Pa kicked like a steer. He said he wanted to make one more appeal to
us, and we acted sort of impatent but we let up to hear what he had to
say. He said if we would turn him loose he would give us ten dollars more
than we paid for his body, and that he would never drink another drop as
long as he lived. Then we whispered some more and then told him we thought
favorably of his last proposition, but he must swear, with his hand on the
leg of a corpse we were then dissecting that he would never drink again,
and then he must be blindfolded and be conducted several blocks away from
the dissecting room, before we could turn him loose. He said that was all
right, and so we blindfolded him, and made him take a bloody oath, with
his hand on a piece of ice that we told him was a piece of another corpse,
and then we took him out of the house and walked him around the block four
times, and left him on a corner, after he had promised to send the money
to an address that I gave him. We told him to stand still five minutes
after we left him, then remove the blindfold, and go home. We watched him,
from behind a board fence, and he took off the handkerchief, looked at the
name on a street lamp, and found he was not far from home. He started off
saying 'That's a pretty narrow escape old man. No more whisky for you.' I
did not see him again until this morning, and when I asked him where he
was last night he shuddered and said 'none of your darn business. But I
never drink any more, you remember that.' Ma was tickled and she told me I
was worth my weight in gold. Well, good day. That cheese is musty." And
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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