Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) by Nye and Riley (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📗
- Author: Nye and Riley
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The forthcoming number of the Century will be eagerly snapped up by Mr. Burns' friends who are familiar with his pleasing and graphic style of writing. He describes with wonderful power the sense of utter exhaustion which came over him and the feeling of bitter disappointment when he realized that he was too far away to participate in the battle and too fatigued to make a further search for suitable arbitrators.[Pg 201]
While Cigarettes to Ashes TurnI.
"He smokes—and that's enough," says Ma—
"And cigarettes, at that!" says Pa.
"He must not call again," says she—
"He shall not call again!" says he.
They both glare at me as before—
Then quit the room and bang the door,—
While I, their willful daughter, say,
"I guess I'll love him, anyway!"
II.
At twilight, in his room, alone,
His careless feet inertly thrown
Across a chair, my fancy can
But worship this most worthless man!
I dream what joy it is to set
His slow lips round a cigarette,
With idle-humored whiff and puff—
Ah! this is innocent enough!
To mark the slender fingers raise
The waxen match's dainty blaze,
Whose chastened light an instant glows
[Pg 203][Pg 202]On drooping lids and arching nose,
Then, in the sudden gloom, instead,
A tiny ember, dim and red,
Blooms languidly to ripeness, then
Fades slowly, and grows ripe again.
III.
I lean back, in my own boudoir—
The door is fast, the sash ajar;
And in the dark, I smiling stare
At one window over there,
Where some one, smoking, pinks the gloom,
The darling darkness of his room!
I push my shutters wider yet,
And lo! I light a cigarette;
And gleam for gleam, and glow for glow,
Each pulse of light a word we know,
We talk of love that still will burn
While cigarettes to ashes turn.
[Pg 204]
"Whatever the weather may be," says he—
"Whatever the weather may be—
Its plaze, if ye will, an' I'll say me say—
Supposin' to-day was the winterest day,
Wud the weather be changing because ye cried,
Or the snow be grass were ye crucified?
The best is to make your own summer," says he,
"Whatever the weather may be," says he—
"Whatever the weather may be!"
"Whatever the weather may be," says he—
"Whatever the weather may be,
Its the songs ye sing, an' the smiles ye wear
That's a-makin' the sunshine everywhere;
An' the world of gloom is a world of glee,
[Pg 205]Wid the bird in the bush, an' the bud in the tree,
Whatever the weather may be," says he—
"Whatever the weather may be!"
"Whatever the weather may be," says he—
"Whatever the weather may be,
Ye can bring the spring, wid its green an' gold,
An' the grass in the grove where the snow lies cold,
An' ye'll warm your back, wid a smiling face,
As ye sit at your heart like an owld fireplace,
Whatever the weather may be," says he,
"Whatever the weather may be!"
[Pg 206]
I am writing this at an imitation hotel where the roads fork. I will call it the Fifth Avenue Hotel because the hotel at a railroad junction is generally called the Fifth Avenue, or the Gem City House, or the Palace Hotel. I stopped at an inn some years since called the Palace, and I can truly say that if it had ever been a palace it was very much run down when I visited it.
Just as the fond parent of a white-eyed, two-legged freak of nature loves to name his mentally-diluted son Napoleon, and for the same reason that a prominent horse owner in Illinois last year socked my name on a tall, buckskin-colored colt that did not resemble me, intellectually or physically, a colt that did not know enough to go around a barbed-wire fence, but sought to shift himself through it into an untimely grave, so this man has named his sway-backed wigwam the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
It is different from the Fifth Avenue in many ways. In the first place there is not so much travel and business in its neighborhood. As I said before, this is where two railroads fork. In fact that is the leading industry here. The growth of the town is naturally slow, but it is a healthy growth. There is nothing in[Pg 207] the nature of dangerous or wild-cat speculation in the advancement of this place, and while there has been no noticeable or rapid advance in the principal business, there has been no falling off at all and these roads are forking as much to-day as they did before the war, while the same three men who were present for the first glad moment are still here to witness the operation.
Sometimes a train is derailed, as the papers call it, and two or three people have to remain over as we did all night. It is at such a time that the Fifth Avenue Hotel is the scene of great excitement. A large codfish, with a broad and sunny smile and his bosom full of rock salt, is tied in the creek to freshen and fit himself for the responsible position of floor manager of the codfish ball.
A pale chambermaid, wearing a black jersey with large pores in it through which she is gently percolating, now goes joyously up the stairs to make the little post-office lock-box rooms look ten times worse than they ever did before. She warbles a low refrain as she nimbly knocks loose the venerable dust of centuries and sets it afloat throughout the rooms. All is bustle about the house.
Especially the chambermaid.
We were put in the guests' chamber here. It has two atrophied beds made up of pains and counterpanes.
This last remark conveys to the reader the presence of a light, joyous feeling which is wholly assumed on my part.
The door of our room is full of holes where locks have been wrenched off in order to let the coroner in.[Pg 208] Last night I could imagine that I was in the act of meeting, personally, the famous people who have tried to sleep here and who moaned through the night and who died while waiting for the dawn.
I have no doubt in the world but there is quite a good-sized delegation from this hotel, of guests who hesitated about committing suicide, because they feared to tread the red-hot sidewalks of perdition, but who became desperate at last and resolved to take their chances, and they have never had any cause to regret it.
We washed our hands on doorknob soap, wiped them on a slippery elm court-plaster, that had made quite a reputation for itself under the nom-de-plume of[Pg 209] "Towel," tried to warm ourselves at a pocket inkstand stove, that gave out heat like a dark lantern and had a deformed elbow at the back of it.
The chambermaid is very versatile, and waits on the table while not engaged in agitating the overworked mattresses and puny pillows up-stairs. In this way she imparts the odor of fried pork to the pillow-cases and kerosene to the pie.
She has a wild, nervous and apprehensive look in her eye, as though she feared that some herculean guest might seize her in his great strong arms and bear her away to a justice of the peace and marry her. She certainly cannot fully realize how thoroughly secure she is from such a calamity. She is just as safe as she was forty years ago, when she promised her aged mother that she would never elope with any one.
Still, she is sociable at times and converses freely with me at table, as she leans over my shoulder, pensively brushing the crumbs into my lap with a general utility towel, which accompanies her in her various rambles through the house, and she asks what we would rather have—"tea or eggs?"
This afternoon we will pay our bill, in accordance with a life-long custom of ours, and go away to permeate the busy haunts of men. It will be sad to tear ourselves away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel at this place; still, there is no great loss without some small gain, and at our next hotel we may not have to chop our own wood and bring it up stairs when we want to rest. The landlord of a hotel who goes away to a political meeting and leaves his guests to chop their own wood, and then charges them full price for the rent of a boisterous and tempest-tossed bed, will never[Pg 210] endear himself to those with whom he is thrown in contact.
We leave at 2:30 this afternoon, hoping that the two railroads may continue to fork here just the same as though we had remained.[Pg 211]
McFeeters' FourthIt was needless to say 'twas a glorious day,
And to boast of it all in that spread-eagle way
That our forefathers had since the hour of the birth
Of this most patriotic republic on earth!
But 'twas justice, of course, to admit that the sight
Of the old Stars-and-Stripes was a thing of delight
In the eyes of a fellow, however he tried
To look on the day with a dignified pride
That meant not to brook any turbulent glee,
[Pg 212]Or riotous flourish of loud jubilee!
So argued McFeeters, all grim and severe,
Who the long night before, with a feeling of fear,
Had slumbered but fitfully, hearing the swish
Of the sky-rocket over his roof, with a wish
That the urchin who fired it were fast to the end
Of the stick to forever and ever ascend;
Or to hopelessly ask why the boy with the horn
And its horrible havoc had ever been born!
Or to wish, in his wakefulness, staring aghast,
That this Fourth of July were as dead as the last!
So, yesterday morning, McFeeters arose,
With a fire in his eyes, and a cold in his nose,
And a gutteral voice in appropriate key
With a temper as gruff as a temper could be.
He growled at the servant he met on the stair,
Because
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