Judge — January 28, 1882 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Revised Arabian Nights. | THE STORY OF SIDI NONMAN. | ‘Tue Caliph carefully wiped the human gore olf his scimiter on his ba to the person who had been arrested by one of the Abou Bergh’s agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Man, and de- manded of him the cause of his inhumanity whereupon the culprit gave the following ac- | count of himselt : | Myo ii Nonman, ars ago, to a handsome competence “arned by the sweat of my father’s brow. All | I needed te complete my happiness was a cabi- net appointment and a wife, In order to se- cure the latter I advertised in tne ** Personal,” | column of the New York Herald. The even- ing mail brought me four hundred and sixty: three responses from as many women who med to be positive that their sole mission in this life was to make me happy. After reading the various missives, I opened a ¢ pondence with one whose letter indicated at least possessed modesty; interview, much to my joy, showed me that she was handsome and apparently alady, We were married—and the circus overture soon commenced. ‘The very day after our wedding a little cir- cumstance occurred w At the dinnertable I be; soup with a spoon, but my wife nonchalantly drew a knitting-needle from her pocket, and harpooning a grain of rice in the soup, put it into her mouth, I urged her to use a spoon, but she merely replied that her appetite was very delicate, and besides etiquette demanded | that in hig! ty soups should be eaten with a knitting-needl I at first attributed her conduct to modesty, but as she continued this ridiculous practice of appeasing her appetite I became ang! thought this style of living would soon her to exhibit herself as a Living Skeleton in a Dime Museum, albeit, as remarkable as it 1 appear, she grew more robust. One night Amina Octavia Melinda M jane (that was her name), supposing I asleep, got out of bed, took her hair off the bureau and hastily pinned it on her head, threw on a loose wrap, and. stealthily left the room. I jumped from my couch, quickly donned my garments, and followed her. She proceeded directly to the pantry and closed the door after her, turning the key in the lock. Procuring a stepadder I peeped over the transom, and saw Amina with the cook, who, as your Majesty may know, black demon who superintends the culinary duties of the | establishment and sceretly feeds a retinue of sisters, cousins, and aunts from her master’s larder. 1 was greatly surprised to find iny high- toned wife on familiar terms with this dusky menial, and almost paralyzed when I saw the latter place on a table a large dish of boiled | bbage, a huge piece of salt pork, half a dozen cold boiled potatoes, a plate of tripe, and about half a pound of Limburger cheese, all of which Amina ravenously ate until not a particle was left. Instead of marrying an in- spired crank, as I at first suspected, T had be- sme the husband of a gourmand! y breeches, turned me is Si I succeeded, a sei nd an ich clouded our honey- moon, toned soci | my table 2” THE JUDGE. The man rho actually hat the nerve to get up before 1 drawing-room full of people, and with that cheer ong. ** There's nothing x0 9008 as a lavih I retarned to bed with feelings I can: scribe, and pretended to be sinmbering when Amina came ba She fell asleep in a minutes, but was soon wrestling with a lai and varied assortment of nightmares, the r sult of her midnight feast. Next morning I determined to journey to Chicago and procure a divorce, but first I resolved to try the virtue of words that can never die. I arose early and meditated. When breakfast ain produced her knitting-needle, cas usual iv my presence. “My dear was served Amina and — = A Conrast Evest.—Mr. Stat aires Billy a bun. Amina,” I said, in an affectionate tone, “why will you persist in slighting the delicacies on She heeded not_my query, and being unable to longer control my feelings, I angrily demanded: — Why this contemptuous abstinence and mock modesty? Aren't the orange marmalade, Charlotte russe, chicken salad, and deviled lobster now before you as palatable as boiled cabbage, cold potatoes, and Limburger cheese, devoured in the kitchen, witha coarse cook for company ?” I had no sooner made this sarcastic ob- servation than my wife became terribly en- raged and wildly tore out handfuls of the hair for which she had paid seventeen sequins. | litue | the offle She fairly foamed with passion. gretted the day 1 advertise Im retlection would have told’ me that no refined and sensible woman ever answers such advertisements, Uttering a volley of unrevised Biblical ex- pressions, my wife threw some tea into my face and fiercely exclaimed: ‘* Receive the re- ward of thy impertinent, step-ladder curiosity!” linstantly became a dog — Amina, besides being a gourmand, was a seventhadaughter- ofa-seventhalaughter enchantress. Not tent with this brutal punishment, she bel bored me with a broomstick; and as 1 dashed out of the door she suddenly slammed it, and pinched off a portion of my tail, caus: ing me to cry aloud. When in the street mis- chievous boys tied a piece of damaged tinware tomy bleeding caudalappendage; and as Iran yelping along the public thoroughfare, divers policemen, mistaking me for a rabid animal, discharged their revolvers at me, but sue- ceeded only in wounding an old apple-woman in the ankle, and lodging bullets in the tegs of several pedestrians, I finally eluded my pur- suers by darting into an editor's sanctum, whe , much to my surprise—the editor remarking that | would be handy to have about the office to on” spring poets. day a long-haired individual entered und proceeded to unroll seventeen pages of manuscript. He said he had a tittle poem entitled the ‘‘Mournful Moans of a Moaning Maiden,” which4ie would like tod: pose of for shekels, as he had not caten a square meal for five days. I was making ready to bite a piece out of the crank’s leg, when the editor returned the manuscript with the bantering remark, “Why, my very dog can write better poetry than this,” and sum- moning me to leap upon a stool at the desk, he placed a pen in my paw, and told me to dash off something Tennysonian, I leisurely dipped the pen into the ink, while the editor and the poet looked on in amazement, and in ten minutes had “da two-hundred-li epic on “The Creed of the Pessimist,” com- meneing— I bitterly re- for a pn T received a gratefal wel One rInpos lis life's as dreary a Hell ne'er be Until Death ¢ Saharw’s dust; iler the sun, something Jursts his crust.” ‘The editor, who never dreamed that a dog could so far forget his self-respect as to write poctry, was more amazed than if an adver. i ent had offered him nearly one-fourth rates for a column advertisment, while the poet, keenly feeling the stinging rebuke, slunk away, mentally resolving to forswear poetry in the future, and embark in the more useful profession of sawing wood. Sidi Nonman stopped here, and the Caliph, thinking his story only half told, asked him by what means he was restored to his former self. “Your Majesty,” replied Sidi Nonman, “T have not been restored. I am still a dog.” The Caliph was so delighted with the plausibility of the story that he drew his scimiter, and chopped off the remainder of Sidi’s tail close behind the cars; and the life of the beautiful Scheherazade spared another day. JW. comicbooks.com