Judge — 1891 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

GONE TO THE DOGS. Pur—"* Well OrneR Dor id Graveyard, what's the matter with you?” Oh, only another tie-up on the line.” eve; I plunged boldly into the vortex of city dissipation. I played pool for drinks, and sampled the various brands of stimulants in every ward from Harlem to the Battery ; and when night came, I found myself—there, why should I blush to own it?) [ama rustic ; and, as such, the outcome was in- evitable. I found myself in the Bowery. I walked along that wondrous and crowded thoroughfare with head erect and firm step. I felt as if owned it. I turned a deaf ear to the wiles of the bunco men; I was not to be had. At last, at last, some works of art displayed in front of a door attracted my atten- tion; a brass band discoursing delicious music arrested my foot steps. The palatial doors of the mansion stood invitingly open. I paid my dime and entered. Shall I pause to dilate on all the wonders, natural, unnatural and monstrous, that I beheld in that enchanting palace. Better not: anyone can see them for a dime, and what I have to tell concerns what mortal eyes save mine have never seen, and will, I trust, never see—and time presses. I wandered on, examining novelties of all kinds till my brain fairly reeled beneath the unaccustomed strain—perhaps the liquor I had taken, spurred into activity by the heat and brilliance of the place, may have had something to do with it. I found a seat in a retired corner ; I closed my eyes a moment to avoid the glare ; I nodded, roused myself violently, nodded again, and finally slept. How long I slept Ido not know; but when I awoke, it was with an instant keenness of perception, and a sudden rallying of all my faculties that showed I must have been startled into wakefulness by something out of the common. The place seemed deserted ; the glare of the evening was superseded by the dim light of a few scattered gas jets turned low, and out of the obscurity a gigantic figure advanced towards me. “ What are you doing here?” he asked ; and his voice was a shrill treble, so utterly out of keeping with the bulky shape from which it issued that I actually started. “What are you doing here? Are you a freak?” I attempted to explain. I said I had been having a little freak, but the giant interrupted me. “You've been having a little freak, have you? Well, where is it? Trot it out. I'd like to see it.” At this utterly absurd and inconsequent request I could only stare. “Come here, mother!” piped out fellow that says he's a little freak—— “Freak! Nonsense!" wheezed a woman, waddling towards MILITARY Mrs. Meacuim—‘* Come heah, an’ he pulled ’m off’n his s'pendahs !”" the big man. “Here's a Danks, goin’ down t’ de arm'ry t drill CLARINDA—"'I doan’ care nuffin’ "bout dat trash now. arsked him t” gub me some buttons fo" ANNUAL. me. What a woman! Incomparably the fattest human being I ever beheld. “He's no freak ; he don’t know what it is. How did you get here, anyhow?” I attempted to explain that I had fallen asleep, and must have been inadvertently locked up when the museum closed for night ; but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I could not utter a word. “Sulky, eh?” shrilled the big man. “If you don’t speak when you’re spoken to, I'll sit on you!” wheezed the fat woman. Out of the terror which this tremendous threat conjured up, | found voice to explain my situation. “Why, he’s an outsider!" croaked the woman, in a voice like that of an asthmatic bullfrog on a foggy night: “come here, all of you; look at this!” And in a moment I was surrounded by such an assemblage of thin men and fat women, and bearded ladies, and living skele- tons, and tattoed beings and monstrosities of any and every kind that my brain whirled again. I am convinced that it was at that moment the color of my hair began to change. “Oh, what a lark!" said an infinitesimally small dwarf, in a voice that was like the roaring of Niagara. “Are youa freak?” “What is a freak?" I asked in desperation. ‘I'm a freak,” bellowed dwarf ; “we're all freaks.” “Oh, freaks of nature,” I mused. “T should say you were.” “You don’t seem to have any- thing out of the common,” remarked a boy with a skin like a crocodile. I owned that I had not, and for the first time in my life, blushed be- cause I was not malformed, when T heard a chorus of indignant con- tempt around me. “Not a freak ?"” said one. “Not even six fingers !” “Not an extra toe!" “We can all see he has only one head.” “Blessed if I think he’s even blind!” All of which led by different roads to the unanswerable inquiry, What was I doing here? My ex- planation was not satisfactory, and the outraged freaks proceeded to avenge their invaded solitude. Clasped in the bony arms of the living skeleton, I was hurled to the ground, where the fat woman seated herself squarely on my face. The alligator-boy rasped my flesh with his scaly hide; the bearded woman kissed me; the tattooed the 1EANNESS, Cllindy! Heah’s yo" fren’ Mistah T done ear-rings d’ larst time he wuz heah, A RAPID-TRANSIT ACCESSORY. Grimes—"* Watcher doin’ wid der roller?” Hoxey— Every time I've been in to dat nabob’s I've come out on me head, an’ dey's got th’ longest flight of stone steps you ever see.” comicbooks.com