Black Beetles in Amber - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
FITCH _a Pelter of Railrogues_ PICKERING _his Partner, an Enemy to Sin_ OLD NICK _a General Blackwasher_ DEAD CAT _a Missile_ ANTIQUE EGG _Another_ RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Una.s.sorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance
_Scene_--The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.
_Time_--1875.
FITCH:
G.o.ds! what a steep declivity! Below I see the lazy dump-carts come and go, Creeping like beetles and about as big.
The delving Paddies--
PICKERING:
Case of _infra dig._
FITCH:
Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips Come with but scant propriety from lips Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage, For men will fancy, hearing how you pun, Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.
(_Enter Dead Cat._)
Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand; Slant your fine eye below and see it land.
(_Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw._)
DEAD CAT (_singing_):
Merrily, merrily, round I go-- Over and under and at.
Swing wide and free, swing high and low The anti-monopoly cat!
O, who wouldn't be in the place of me, The anti-monopoly cat?
Designed to admonish, Persuade and astonish The capitalist and--
FITCH _(letting go):_
Scat!
_(Exit Dead Cat.)_
PICKERING:
Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
Pat Stanford it has gra.s.sed, and Mike de Young.
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though 'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe The traitor one for leaving us!--some day We'll get, if not his place, his cart away.
Meantime fling missiles--any kind will do.
_(Enter Antique Egg.)_ Ha! we can give them an _ovation_, too!
ANTIQUE EGG:
In the valley of the Nile, Where the Holy Crocodile Of immeasurable smile Blossoms like the early rose, And the Sacred Onion grows-- When the Pyramids were new And the Sphinx possessed a nose, By a storkess I was laid In the cool papyrus shade, Where the rushes later grew, That concealed the little Jew, Baby Mose.
Straining very hard to hatch, I disrupted there my yolk; And I felt my yellow streaming Through my white; And the dream that I was dreaming Of posterity was broke In a night.
Then from the papyrus-patch By the rising waters rolled, Pa.s.sing many a temple old, I proceeded to the sea.
Memnon sang, one morn, to me, And I heard Cambyses sa.s.s The tomb of Ozymandias!
FITCH:
O, venerablest orb of all the earth, G.o.d rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw-- I freely tender thee mine own. Although As a bad egg I am myself no slouch, Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say If--whoop!-- _(Exit egg.)_ I've got the range.
PICKERING: Hooray! hooray!
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down: It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
Larry O'Crocker drops his pick and flies, And deafening odors scream along the skies!
Pelt 'em some more.
FITCH:
There's nothing left but tar-- wish I were a Yahoo.
PICKERING:
Well, you are.
But keep the tar. How well I recollect, When Mike was in with us--proud, strong, erect-- _Mens conscia recti_--flinging mud, he stood, Austerely brave, incomparably good, Ere yet for filthy lucre he began To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man, That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
_(Enter Old Nick)_.
I hope he won't return and use his arts To make us part with our immortal parts.
OLD NICK:
Make yourself easy on that score my lamb; For both your souls I wouldn't give a d.a.m.n!
I want my tar-pot--h.e.l.lo! where's the stick?
FITCH:
Don't look at _me_ that fas.h.i.+on!--look at Pick.
PICKERING:
Forgive me, father--pity my remorse!
Truth is--Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
It fills my pericardium with grief That I kept company with such a thief.
(_Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit reproachfully and withdraws in tears._)
FITCH (_excitedly_):
O Pickering, come hither to the brink-- There's something going on down there, I think!
With many an upward smile and meaning wink The navvies all are running from the cut Like lunatics, to right and left--
