The Works of Thomas Hood; Vol. 01 (of 11): Comic and Serious, in Prose and Verse, With All the Original IllustrationsHood, Thomas
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The Works of Thomas Hood; Vol. 01 (of 11): Comic and Serious, in Prose and Verse, With All the Original Illustrations
Hood, Thomas
English poetry -- 19th century; English wit and humor; Humorous poetry, English
She came to accept him for life in her arms,
And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love,
A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove,
With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss,
Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss;
At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack,
And _Joddry_ began to look blacker than black;
“By Mumbo! by Jumbo!--why here is a man
That won’t be made happy, do all that I can;
He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed,
Let the _Rham_ take his _shangwang_ and chop off his head!”
THE DEBUTANTE.
“Inside or out, Ma’am?” asked the coachman, as he stood civilly with
the door in his hand.
“If you please, I’ll try _in_ first,” answered the woman, poking in
an umbrella before her, and then a pair of pattens--“I’m not used to
coaching, and don’t think I could keep myself on the top.”
In she came, and after some floundering, having first tried two
gentlemen’s laps, she found herself in the centre of the front seat,
where she composed herself, with something of the air of a Catherine
Hayes, getting into a sledge for a trip to Tyburn. Except for her
fear, which literally made a fright of her, I should have called her
a pretty-looking woman,--but the faces she pulled were horrible. As
the cad enclosed her luggage in the hind-boot with a smart slam,
her features underwent an actual spasm; and I heard her whisper to
herself, “somethink broke.” As she spoke thus, she started on her feet,
and the horses doing the same thing at the same moment, the timid
female found herself suddenly hugging the strange gentleman opposite,
for which she excused herself by saying, “she wasn’t accustomed to be
so carried away.”
Down she plumped again in her old place, but her physiognomy didn’t
improve. She seemed in torture, as if broken, not upon one wheel, but
upon four. Her eyes rolled, her eyebrows worked up and down, as if
trying to pump out tears that wouldn’t come,--her lips kept going like
a rabbit’s, though she had nothing to eat, and I fancied I could hear
her grinding her teeth. Her hands, meanwhile, convulsively grasped
a bundle on her lap, till something like orange-juice squeezed out
between her fingers. When the coach went on one side, she clutched
the arm of whichever of her neighbours sat highest, and at a _pinch_
she laid hold of both. At last she suddenly turned pale, and somewhat
hastily I suggested that she perhaps did not prefer to ride backwards.
“If it’s all the same to _you_, Sir, I should really be glad to change
seats.”
The removal was effected, not without some difficulty, for she
contrived to tread on all our feet, and hang on all our necks, before
she could subside. It was managed, however, and there we sat again,
vis-a-vis, if such a phrase may be used where one visage was opposed to
visages innumerable; for if her face was her fortune, she screwed as
much out of it as she could. She hardly needed to speak, but she did so
after a short interval.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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