Life — January 15, 1885 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE: THE REAL MAQUIS DE LOUISVILLE. [None other Genuine.) A BRAVE MAN GONE, R. TWIGG, like other men, had suffered more or less all his life from the peculiar disregard exhibited by ladies in our crowded streets for the rights and feelings of other pedestrians and vehicles. Perhaps it was because he was rather stout, and old, and had the gout ; perhaps it was only because he was a bachelor ; at any rate he often got mad about these little accidents, and pondered over schemes of retaliation and revenge. The following heroic plan at last suggested itself to him: One afternoon a few days before Christmas, an unusually stout laboring man appeared on the corner of Broadway and Ninth street. He was dressed in blue over-alls and a tattered felt hat, and puffed rather nervously at a short clay pipe. His costume was plentifully bespattered with lime and mortar and his face and hands also bore ample evidence of his call- ing. On his shoulder he carried a long and heavy beam with great splinters sticking out from its edges. It was Mr. Twigg in disguise. He smiled ironically at_a policeman across the way, for he was a man of humor and he knew that he ought to be arrest- ed; then he pulled down the brim of his hat and started up Broadway. His eyes were fixed stolidly on the ground just in front of his feet, and the course of the beam was a straight line.“ Wood has n't much more feeling than a woman, and it’s harder” suggested Mr. Twigg to himself as the first obstacle went down before it. Then a very old lady and her near-sighted, middle-aged daughter drew near. The old lady's eyes were cast upon the lowly sidewalk, and the daughter's double convex lenses sought the zenith. As they always ran into everything coming in an opposite direction they ran into the beam. Mr. Twigg heard a cry of anguish and pressed forward with a lighter step. The beam collided next with an Irish girl, who was plunging uncertainly forward with her centre of gravity far in advance of her feet. She was hurled into the gutter. Then a haughty lady of fashion, who saw it coming but thought it would have to get out of her way like everything else, went down before it and Mr. Twigg almost shouted with delight. Then he knocked over an Italian organ- gtinder’s wife, with a child and a tin cup in her arms, and reached Fourteenth street simultaneously. He stopped for a minute to get his breath, then started down Fourteenth street for the corner of Sixth avenue. His blood was up, and he was going to beard the lion in his den. Down across Fifth avenue the beam ploughed its triumphant way. A delicious exhilarating sense of power tingled through the veins of Mr. Twigg. Every woman in that vast throng, rich or proud, selfish or careless, got out of his way or was knocked out of it. He saw the corner of Sixth avenue ahead, and settled the beam on his shoulder for the final effort. Into the surging sea of excited female faces he plunged. The beam struck with fearful force against soft human flesh—but he realized with sudden horror that his progress was growing slower. Intoxicated by the sight of an endless panorama of dolls in the window, the women had lost all sense of pain. They closed around him on all sides. The beam was held as in a vice by a dense mass of humanity. Mr. Twigg was trodden upon—an elbow struck him in the side—the point of an umbrella hit him in the face. Exhausted, wounded and heartbroken, he let the beam slip from his shoulder. It fell upon his already bruised foot—his eyes rolled in an agony of anguish—and he sank to the ground. There was a rumor that Lohengrin and the real stuffed swan was coming around in the panorama again, and the doubly excited crowd closed over him. SUB ROSA. KISS is Cupid’s self, Ja Made drunk with dewy roses. Wee thief of horrid pelf! A kiss is Cupid’s self, What time the weary elf wings in slumber closes. A kiss is Cupid’s se//, Made drunk with dewy roses! C.H.L. _A Four-IN-HAND—Four aces, comicbooks.com