The neighbors cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don’t
know what they all would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all,
there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Giant in Spanish
trunks and a ruff, who was half the height of the house, and was run up
with a line and pulley to a pole of the roof, so that his Ed was coeval
with the parapet. Then there was the canvas representin the pictur of
the Albina lady, showin her white ’air to the Army and Navy in correct
uniform. Then there was the canvas representin the pictur of the Wild
Indian scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then there was the
canvas representin the pictur of a child of a British planter seized by
two Boa-Constrictors,--not that we never had no child, nor no
Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvas representin the
pictur of the Wild Ass of the Prairies,--not that we never had no wild
asses, nor wouldn’t have had ’em as a gift. Last there was the canvas
representin the pictur of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with
George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as his Majesty
couldn’t with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of
the House was so covered with canvases that there wasn’t a spark of
daylight ever visible on that side. “MAGSMAN’S AMUSEMENTS,” fifteen foot
long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor winders. The
passage was a arbor of green baize and garden stuff. A barrel-organ
performed there unceasing. And as to respectability,--if threepence
ain’t respectable, what is?
But the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth
money. He was wrote up as “Major Tpschoffki, of the Imperial
Bulgraderian Brigade.” Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, and it never
was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular
rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that
account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name
(which was very dubious), was Stakes.
He was an uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as
he was made out to be, but where’s your dwarf as is? He was a most
uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had
inside that Ed nobody never knowed but himself; even supposin himself to
have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for him
to do. The kindest little man as never growed!--spirited, but not proud.
When he travelled with the Spotted Baby, though he knowed himself to be
a nat’ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby’s spots to be put onto him
artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heard him give
a ill name to a giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong
language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of
the ’art; and when a man’s ’art has been trifled with by a lady, and the
preference giv to a Indian, he ain’t master of his actions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account