The Universal Reciter Part 29

_Patrick._ Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron, sir and you'll obleege me?

_Frenchman._ Monsieur, pardon, monsieur--

_Patrick. (Angrily)._ By my sowl, if it was you was in disthress, and if it was to owld Ireland you came, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you, if you axed it, but something to put on it too, and a dhrop of dhrink into the bargain. Can't you understand your own language?

(_Very slowly._) Parley--voo--frongsay--munseer?

_Frenchman._ Oui, monsieur; oui, monsieur, mais--

_Patrick._ Then lend me the loan of a gridiron, I say, and bad scram to you.

_Frenchman (bowing and sc.r.a.ping)._ Monsieur, je ne l'entend--

_Patrick._ Phoo! the divil sweep yourself and your long tongs! I don't want a tongs at all, at all. Can't you listen to rason?

_Frenchman._ Oui, oui, monsieur: certainement, mais--

_Patrick._ Then lind me the loan of a gridiron, and howld your prate.

(_The Frenchman shakes his head, as if to say he did not understand; but Patrick, thinking he meant it as a refusal, says, in a pa.s.sion:_) Bad cess to the likes o' you! Throth, if you were in my counthry, it's not that-a-way they'd use you. The curse o' the crows on you, you owld sinner! The divil another word I'll say to you. (_The Frenchman puts his hand on his heart, and tries to express compa.s.sion in his countenance._) Well, I'll give you one chance more, you old thafe!

Are you a Christhian, at all, at all? Are you a furriner that all the world calls so p'lite? Bad luck to you! do you understand your mother tongue? Parley voo frongsay? (_Very loud._) Parley voo frongsay?

_Frenchman._ Oui, monsieur, oui, oui.

_Patrick._ Then, thunder and turf! will you lind me the loan of a gridiron? (_The Frenchman shakes his head, as if he did not understand; and Pat says, vehemently:_) The curse of the hungry be on you, you owld negarly villian! the back of my hand and the sowl of my fut to you! May you want a gridiron yourself yet! and wherever I go, it's high and low, rich and poor, shall hear of it, and be hanged to you!

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

SAMUEL FERGUSON.

This fine poem is full of points for brilliant declamation; at times there should be a flow of rapid narration, rising frequently into shouts of exultation:

Come, see the good s.h.i.+p's anchor forged--'tis at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased--though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound, And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round; All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare-- Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windla.s.s there.

The windla.s.s strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below, And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe!

It rises, roars, rends all outright--O, Vulcan, what a glow: 'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright--the high sun s.h.i.+nes not so!

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show; The roof-ribs swart, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing-monster slow Sinks on the anvil--all about the faces fiery grow.

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out--leap out;" bang, bang the sledges go; Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low-- A hailing fount of fire is struck at every quas.h.i.+ng blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hail, the rattling cinders strow The ground around: at every bound the sweltering fountains flow And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!

Let's forge a goodly anchor--a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, And I see the good s.h.i.+p riding, all in a perilous road-- The low reef roaring on her lee--the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains!

But courage still, brave mariners--the bower yet remains!

And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky-high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing--here am I."

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make sweeter music far than any steeple's chime.

But while you sling your sledges, sing--and let the burden be, "The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we:"

Strike in, strike in--the sparks begin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped.

Our anchor must soon change his bed of fiery rich array, For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor must soon change the lay of merry craftsmen here, For the "Yeo-heave-o'!" and the "Heave-away!" and the sighing seaman's cheer; When, weighing slow, at eve they go--far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cast was cast.

O, trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!

O, broad-armed diver of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?

The good s.h.i.+p weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line; And, night by night, 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play.

O, lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, once leagued in patriot band!

O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron sides would swell with pride; thou'dst leap within the sea!

Give honor to their memories who left the pleasant strand, To shed their blood so freely for love of father-land-- Who left their chance of quiet age and gra.s.sy church-yard grave So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave-- O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!

LORD DUNDREARY AT BRIGHTON.

AND THE RIDDLE HE MADE THERE.

One of the many popular delusions wespecting the Bwitish swell is the supposition that he leads an independent life,--goes to bed when he likes, gets up when he likes, d-dwesses how he likes, and dines when he pleases.

The public are gwossly deceived on this point. A weal swell is as m-much under authowity as a p-poor devil of a pwivate in the marines, a clerk in a government office, or a f-forth-form boy at Eton. Now I come under the demon--demonima--(no,--thop,--what is the word?)--dom--denom--d-denomination, that 'th it--I come under the d-denomination of a swell--(in--in fact--a _howwid_ swell--some of my friends call me, but _that'th_ only their flattewy), and I a.s.sure you a f-fellah in that capacity is so much westained by rules of f-fas.h.i.+on, that he can scarcely call his eyeglath his own. A swell, I take it, is a fellah who t-takes care that he swells as well as swells who swell as well as he, (there's thuch lot of thwelling in that thentence,--ha, ha!--it's what you might c-call a busting definition).

What I mean is, that a f-fellah is obliged to do certain things at certain times of the year, whether he likes 'em or no. For instance, in the season I've got to go to a lot of b.a.l.l.s and dwums and tea-fights in town, that I don't care a bit about, and show myself in the Park wegularly evewy afternoon; and latht month I had to victimize mythelf down in the countwy,--shooting (a bwutal sort of amus.e.m.e.nt, by the way). Well, about the end of October evewy one goes to Bwighton, n-no one knowth why,--that'th the betht of it,--and so I had to go too,--that's the wortht of it,--ha, ha!

Not that it's such a b-bad place after all,--I d-dare say if I hadn't _had_ to go I should have gone all the same, for what is a f-fellah to do who ith n't much of a sportsman just about this time? There 'th n-nothing particular going on in London. Evewything is b-beathly dull; so I thought I would just run down on the Southeastern Wailway to be--ha, ha!--Bwightoned up a bit. (Come, th-that's not bad for an impromptu!)

B-Bwighton was invented in the year 1784, by his Woyal Highness George P-Pwince of Wales,--the author of the s...o...b..ckle, the stand-up collar (a b-beathly inconvenient and cut-throat thort of a machine), and a lot of other exthploded things. He built the Pavilion down there, which looks like a lot of petrified onions from Bwobdinag clapped down upon a guard-house. There'th a jolly sort of garden attached to the building, in which the b-band plays twice a week, and evewy one turns in there about four o'clock, so I went too (n-not _too_ o'clock, you know, but f-four o'clock). I--I'm vewy fond of m-martial music, mythelf. I like the dwums and the t-twombones, and the ophicleides, and all those sort of inshtwuments,--yeth, ethpeth.e.l.ly the bwa.s.s ones,--they're so vewy exthpiring, they are. Thtop though, ith it expiring or _p-per_thpiring?--n-neither of 'em sound quite right. Oh!

I have it now, it--it's _in_thspiring,--that'th what it is, because the f-fellahs _bweathe into them_!

That weminds me of a widdle I made down there (I--I've taken to widdles lately, and weally it'th a vewy harmleth thort of a way of getting thwough the morning, and it amuthes two f-fellahs at onth, because if--if you athk a fellah a widdle, and he can't guess it, you can have a jolly good laugh at _him_, and--if he--if he _doth_ guess it, he--I mean you--no--that is the widdle--stop, I--I'm getting confuthed,--where wath I? Oh! I know. If--if he _doth_ guess it....

however it ithn't vewy likely he would--so what's the good of thupposing impwobabilities?) Well, thith was the widdle I made,--I thed to Sloper (Sloper's a fwiend of mine,--a vewy gook thort of fellah Sloper is,--I d-don't know exactly what his pwofession would be called, but hith uncle got him into a b-berth where he gets f-five hundred a year,--f-for doing nothing--s-somewhere--I forget where--but I--I know he does it),--I said to Sloper, "Why is that f-fellah with the b-ba.s.sooon l-like his own instrument?" and Sloper said, "How--how the dooth should I know?" (Ha, ha!--I thought he'd give it up!) So I said to Sloper, "Why, b-because they both get _blown_--in _time_!"

_You_ thee the joke, of course, but I don't think Sloper did, thomhow; all he thed was, "V-vewy mild, Dundreary,"--and t-tho--it was mild--thertainly, _f-for October_, but I d-don't thee why a f-fellah should go making wemarks about the weather instead of laughing at m-my widdle.

In this pwomenade that I was speaking of, you see such a lot of thtunning girls evewy afternoon,--dwessed twemendous swells, and looking like--yes, by Jove! l-like angels in cwinoline,--there 'th no other word for it. There are two or thwee always _will_ l-laugh, somehow, when I meet them,--they do now _weally_. I--I almost fancy they wegard me with intewest. I mutht athk Sloper if he can get me an introduction. Who knowth? pwaps I might make an impwession,--I'll twy,--I--I've got a little converthathional power,--and _theveral_ new wethcoats.

Bwighton is filling fast now. You see dwoves of ladies evewy day on horseback, widing about in all diwections. By the way, I--I muthn't forget to mention that I met those two girls that always laugh when they thee me, at a tea-fight. One of 'em--the young one--told me, when I was intwoduced to her,--in--in confidence, mind,--that she had often heard of me and of my _widdles_. Tho you thee I'm getting quite a weputathun that way. The other morning, at Mutton's, she wath ch-chaffing me again, and begging me to tell her the latetht thing in widdles. Now, I hadn't heard any mythelf for thome time, tho I couldn't give her any _vewy_ great novelty, but a fwiend of mine made one latht theason which I thought wather neat, tho I athked her, When ith a jar not a jar? Thingularly enough, the moment she heard thith widdle she burtht out laughing behind her pocket-handkerchief!

"Good gwacious! what'th the matter?" said I. "Have you ever heard it before?"

"Never," she said emphatically, "in that form; do, _please_ tell me the answer."

So I told her,--When it ith a door! Upon which she--she went off again in hystewics. I--I--I never _did_ see such a girl for laughing. I know it's a good widdle, but I didn't think it would have such an effect as _that_.

By the way, Sloper told me afterwards that he thought _he_ had heard the widdle before, somewhere, but it was put in a different way. He said it was: When ith a door not a door?--and the answer, When it ith ajar!

I--I've been thinking over the matter lately, and though I dare thay it--d-don't much matter which way the question is put, still--pwaps the last f-form is the betht. It--it seems to me to _wead_ better.

What do you think?