_Mayor_—I dare you to try it. I scout your threats, Charley, for I’m fortified so strongly through my supposed integrity, that they pass by me like incarcerated wind, which I can resist with a penny fan, or potato popgun. I did send to you for the legitimate keys of the Street Commissioner, which you refused me, for I despise false keys. By Juno, I would sell all the paint, and oil, and glass, and putty in my factory to the city, at a good price, before I would use false keys, or bamboozle the dear people, who think me so honest, and love me so intensely. I sent to you for the keys of Peter and Edward, which you denied me. Did not Charley err in that? Would I have treated Charley so? When Daniel is so mean as to refuse the keys of Blackwell’s Island to his Charley, be ready, Branch, with all your bombs, and dash out his honest and tender brains. _Charley_—I denied you not. It’s a dam lie. _Mayor_—I swear you did. _Charley_—I did not. I gave the keys to the Turn-key, and told him to bring them to you. O! Daniel hath rent my liver, who should overlook my trivial faults, and not magnify them so hugely. _Mayor_—I do, until you exaggerate my little peccadillos. _Charley_—Daniel hates me. _Mayor_—I dislike your didos. _Charley_—None but an owl could discern my tricks. _Mayor_—An alligator would not, unless he were hungry, and Charley was in a tree. _Charley_—Come, Whiting, and young Conover, come, and revenge yourselves on Charley, who is weary of this wicked world. Hooted by the people, and braved by a Mayor, and checked like a forger, and all his thefts detected, and found in a note-book, and recited and sung by rote, and thrown into my very jaws—O! I could cry like a crocodile, until my eyes were balls of blood and fire. There’s my keys, and razor, and scissors, and here’s my yearning belly. Within, a liver, and bladder, and frogs, and kidneys, and tripe, and sausages, tenderer than my heart, itself, which nought but worms can ever conquer. If thou are not a bogus Mayor, or cunning spoilsman, apply thy scissors, and pluck them out, and appease thy insatiate palate. I, that denied thee keys, will yield my entrails. Strike, as thou didst at poor Branch’s claim, for I do know, that when thou didst hate him worst, thou lov’dst him better than ever thou didst Charley. _Mayor_—Sheathe your scissors. Be waspish when you please,—you shall have sea-room. Be tricky when you will,—I’ll call it fun. O Charley! You are like Father Peter, who carries lightning as a withered limb bears fire,—who, tightly squeezed, shows a hasty flash, and straight is coal again. _Charley_—Hath Charley toiled, and sweat, and groaned, and grunted all his days, to be the scoff and derision of his Daniel, when clouds and sorrows fret him? _Mayor_—When I derided the honest Charley, I had the dyspepsia most horribly, with a touch of Peter’s chronic piles. _Charley_—O ginger-snaps! Do you acknowledge so much corn? Give me your fist.