Life — December 11, 1884 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

FABLES FOR THE TIMES. THE LEARNED MULE, YOUNG Kentucky Mule, having received an education in Paris, came home with an incurable habit of interlarding his conversation with French phrases and sentences; and would often paralyze the family by | speaking French altogether. One day the young Mule went to bed with a sick headache and immediately sent for a Fox who had just graduated in medicine. The sick animal received the physician with a wild stare, saying as he did so,— “ Bonjour, mon amt, je vats mourtr ; peut-ttre—" “Ah! potatoes !! they are very—" “Ah, monchéer Rénard,vous vous trompes; je ne veux pas dire les pommes-de-terre.” “Been on another ‘tear,’ eh? Well, so “much the worse.” The invalid’s mind seemed to wander as he | cried out: “Fe suts tout-a-fait accablé de ce mal-de- | téte terrible.” “Yes, but you must have eaten them green.” “Ah, diable!! vous ne me comprenes pas!” “Were any members of your family ever affected in the same way?” “ Pas gue je sache,” ‘ 4 “ Ah, your pa had it, did Ke? Then prob- | ably it runs%in the family; but I wouldn't have supposed that the governor ever had a spell of sickness in his life.” “ Mon cher ami, je vats mourtr.” “Yes, when you get a little better. do you feel ?” “Ah, mon cher Rénard, il y a deux jours que je suis triste, malheureux, mélan- coligue.” “Ah, melons, colic !” cried the doctor with the enthusiasm of discovery ; “ the poor fellow has the cholera morbus! he may get sick in French, but I'll cure him in English.” With these words the physician pried opened the patient's mouth, poured a quart of emetic down his throat, and followed it up two hours later with a blue-mass pill as large as a water melon. > MoRAt :—This Fable teachessthat, if you were born and raised in the United States, it will not damage your standing in society to speak English, if you understand the language. How CHRISTMAS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. ’ WAS the night before next Christmas that your cor- respondent entered the snowy portals of the home of Presidents, as the honored guest of the incipient ex-ness who now occupies the Presidential chair. The President himself was absent, and probably was not aware of my presence, but I was there. Hardly had I crossed the threshold when I ran against a wizen-faced little individual whom I at first sup- posed to be a wax statue of Mrs. Hayes’s husband, but who | subsequently turned out to be none other than my good friend Santa Claus himself, pack on his back, and clad in his new winter soot fresh from the chimney corner. He received me coldly at first, as was natural, the Repub- | lican furnaces having ceased to warm the building, but later under the influences of some old Bourbon left in the wine | cellar by the last Democratic incumbent, mixed with the con- tents of a half bottle of soda, the sole remaining relic of the Hayes regime, discovered behind the book-case, where Rutherford no doubt concealed it, Santa warmed and chatted quite entertainingly until the clock in the neighboring steeple chimed out an hour that made the children’s friend take to his heels lest he should for the first time in the history of the world fail in going the entire rounds. Santa gone, I sauntered into the red-room, and laying my- self down on the sofa, was soon lost in sleep. I was shortly awakened by the sound of the most entrancing | music, and lo! the whole room was ablaze with light, and | dancing a cotillion whom should I see but Gen. George