The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
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The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
I'd been to the Beefanham theatre the previs evenin, and probly the
drammer I saw affected me, because I'm not in the habit of goin on as
per above. I like the Beefanham theatre very much indeed, because
there a enthoosiastic lover of the theatre like myself can unite the
legitermit drammer with fish. Thus, while your enrapterd soul drinks
in the lorfty and noble sentences of the gifted artists, you can eat
a biled mack'ril jest as comfor'bly as in your own house. I felt
constrained, however, to tell a fond mother who sot immegitly behind
me, and who was accompanied by a gin bottle, and a young infant--I felt
constrained to tell that mother, when her infant playfully mingled a
rayther oily mack'ril with the little hair which is left on my vener'ble
hed, that I had a bottle of scented hair oil at home, which on the whole
I tho't I preferred to that which her orfspring was greasin me with.
This riled the excellent feamale, and she said:
"Git out! You never was a infank yourself, I spose! Oh no! You was
too good to be a infank, you was! You slid into the world all ready
grow'd, didn't you? Git out!"
"No, Madam," I replied, "I too was once a infant! I was a luvly child.
People used to come in large and enthoosiastic crowds from all parts of
the country to see me, I was such a sweet and intel'gent infant. The
excitement was so intens, in fack, that a extra hotel was startid in the
town to accomodate the peple who thronged to my cradle." Havin finished
these troothful statemints, I smilt sweetly on the worthy female. She
said:
"Drat you, what do you come a-chaffin me for?" and the estymible woman
was really gettin furis, when I mollyfied her by praisin her child, and
by axin pardin for all I'd said.
"This little gal," I observed, "this surprisingly lively gal when--" the
mother said,
"It's t'other sect is he, Sir: it's a boy."
"Wall," I said, "then this little boy, whose eye is like a eagle
a-soaring proudly in the azure sky, will some day be a man, if he don't
choke hisself to death in childhood's sunny hours with a smelt or a
bloater, or some other drefful calamity. How surblime the tho't, my
dear Madam, that this infant as you fondle on your knee on this night,
may grow up into a free and independent citizen, whose vote will be
worth from ten to fifteen pounds, accordin as suffrage may range at that
joyous perid!"
Let us now return, jentle reader, to the lan'lord of the Green Lion, who
we left in the bar in a state of anxiety and perspire. Rubbin his hot
face with a red handkercher, he said, "Is the strange bein a American?"
"He is."
"A Gen'ral?"
"No."
"A Colonial?"
"No."
"A Majer?"
"Not a Majer."
"A Capting?"
"He is not."
"A leftenant?"
"Not even that."
"Then," said the lan'lord of the Green Lion, "you ar deceeved! He is no
countryman of yours."
"Why not?" I said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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