The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
"Half-a-dollar. We charge twenty-five cents for LOOKIN at the
landlord and fifty cents for speakin to him. If you want supper, a
boy will show you to the dinin-room for twenty-five cents. Your
room bein in the tenth story, it will cost you a dollar to be shown
up there."
"How much do you ax for a man breathin in this equinomikal tarvun?"
sed I.
"Ten cents a Breth," was his reply.
Washinton hotels is very reasonable in their charges. [N.B.--This
is Sarkassum.]
I sent up my keerd to the Prints, and was immejitly ushered before
him. He received me kindly, and axed me to sit down.
"I hav cum to pay my respecks to you, Mister Napoleon, hopin I see
you hale and harty."
"I am quite well," he sed. "Air you well, sir?"
"Sound as a cuss!" I answerd.
He seemed to be pleased with my ways, and we entered into
conversation to onct.
"How's Lewis?" I axed, and he sed the Emperor was well. Eugeny was
likewise well, he sed. Then I axed him was Lewis a good provider?
did he cum home arly nites? did he perfoom her bedroom at a
onseasonable hour with gin and tanzy? Did he go to "the Lodge" on
nites when there wasn't any Lodge? did he often hav to go down town
to meet a friend? did he hav a extensiv acquaintance among poor
young widders whose husbands was in Californy? to all of which
questions the Prints perlitely replide, givin me to understand that
the Emperor was behavin well.
"I ax these question, my royal duke and most noble hiness and
imperials, becaws I'm anxious to know how he stands as a man. I
know he's smart. He is cunnin, he is long-heded, he is deep--he is
grate. But onless he is GOOD he'll come down with a crash one of
these days and the Bonyparts will be Bustid up agin. Bet yer
life!"
"Air you a preacher, sir?" he inquired slitely sarkasticul.
"No, sir. But I bleeve in morality. I likewise bleeve in Meetin
Houses. Show me a place where there isn't any Meetin Houses and
where preachers is never seen, and I'll show you a place where old
hats air stuffed into broken winders, where the children air dirty
and ragged, where gates have no hinges, where the wimin are
slipshod, and where maps of the devil's "wild land" air painted
upon men's shirt bosums with tobacco-jooce! That's what I'll show
you. Let us consider what the preachers do for us before we aboose
'em."
He sed he didn't mean to aboose the clergy. Not at all, and he was
happy to see that I was interested in the Bonypart family.
"It's a grate family," sed I. "But they scooped the old man in."
"How, Sir?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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