The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. Marshall Pinckney Wilder
his own door. There was a light in his wife's bedroom. The good woman came to the window, alarmed at such a knocking, and howling, and clattering at her door so late at night; and the notary was too deeply absorbed in his own sorrows to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on the window-curtain.
"Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!" he exclaimed, almost breathless from terror and fatigue.
"Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of the night?" cried a sharp voice from above. "Begone about your business, and let quiet people sleep."
"Come down and let me in! I am your husband! Don't you know my voice? Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in the street!"
After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the door was opened, and the notary stalked into his domicile, pale and haggard in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to heel in an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp fell upon him, he looked like a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor was broken. On his right side was a circular spot, as large as the crown of your hat, and about as black!
"My dear wife!" he exclaimed with more tenderness than he had exhibited for many years, "Reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I am a dead man!"
Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat. Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth. It was the notary's pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! it was bare to the skin! Coat, waistcoat, and linen were burnt through and through, and there was a blister on his side as large as your hand!
The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put his pipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes! And so my story ends.
"Is that all?" asked the radical, when the story-teller had finished.
"That is all."
"Well, what does your story prove?"
"That is more than I can tell. All I know is that the story is true."
"And did he die?" said the nice little man in gosling-green.
"Yes; he died afterwards," replied the story-teller, rather annoyed by the question.
"And what did he die of?" continued gosling-green, following him up.
"What did he die of? why, he died—of a sudden!"
HOLLY SONG
Care is but a broken bubble,
Trill the carol, troll the catch;
Sooth, we'll cry, "A truce to trouble!"
Mirth and mistletoe shall match.
Happy folly! we'll be jolly!
Who'd be melancholy now?
With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!"
Polly hangs the holly bough.
Laughter lurking in the eye, sir,
Pleasure foots it frisk and free.
He who frowns or looks awry, sir,
Faith, a witless wight is he!
Merry folly! what a volley
Greets the hanging of the bough!
With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!"
Who'd be melancholy now?
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
I can not sing the old songs,
Though well I know the tune,
Familiar as a cradle song
With sleep-compelling croon;
Yet though I'm filled with music
As choirs of summer birds,
"I can not sing the old songs"—
I do not know the words.
I start on "Hail Columbia,"
And get to "heav'n-born band,"
And there I strike an up-grade
With neither steam nor sand;
"Star Spangled Banner" downs me
Right in my wildest screaming,
I start all right, but dumbly come
To voiceless wreck at "streaming."
So, when I sing the old songs,
Don't murmur or complain
If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum,"
Should fill the sweetest strain.
I love "Tolly um dum di do,"
And the "trilla-la yeep da"-birds,
But "I can not sing the old songs"—
I do not know the words.
TRIOLETS
She threw me a kiss,
But why did she throw it?
What grieves me is this—
She threw me a kiss;
Ah, what chances we miss
If we only could know it!
She threw me a kiss
But why did she throw it!
Any girl might have known
When I stood there so near!
And we two all alone
Any girl might have known
That she needn't have thrown!
But then girls are so queer!
Any girl might have known,
When I stood there so near!
WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT IT
Lyrics to Inez and Jane,
Dolores and Ethel and May;
Señoritas distant as Spain,
And damsels just over the way!
It is not that I'm jealous, nor that,
Of either Dolores or Jane,
Of some girl in an opposite flat,
Or in one of his castles in Spain,
But it is that salable prose
Put aside for this profitless strain,
I sit the day darning his hose—
And he sings of Dolores and Jane.
Though the winged-horse must caracole free—
With the pretty, when "spurning the plain,"
Should