Puck — July 10, 1878 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. ‘ARIES. Domestic interior ches M. Jabez Simpkins. Scene: Mrs. S.’s boudoir, ‘Time: After dinner. Dramatis personze: Simpkins, Mrs. S., and a muscular Irish maid. Mrs. Simpkins merely desires to change her dress, THE SERENADE. A ROMANCE, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”— Bovercaunr. CHAPTER I. GIVING A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SMIGGLEBOTTOM CASTLE AND ITS ENVIRONS; TOGETHER WITH 'T SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL DRAMATIS. OF THE STORY. It is moonlight. Not that that fact has any bearing upon the story, but we mention it that the gentle reader may not imbibe the idea that it is gaslight. All is still, not a sound disturbs the solemn stillness of the hour. The castle is hushed in sleep. So is the forest. Even the solitary policeman slumbers upun his beat: dreams sweetly of his loved ones at home. ‘The sad notes of the catamount may be heard as he wooes his dusky mate, and the low ripple of the waterfall, piercing with fiendish shrieks the environed midnight air. ‘The language in the above sentence is very fine. We have been offered fabulous sums for it by the Weekly Fickpocket and Fireman's Com- panion, but have spurned the base proposal. Additional copies may be had upon application at this office—one dime.] But hush! hark! hist! What footsteps are those approaching through the neighboring forest. ‘hey draw nearer and nearer. A youth emerges and appears before the castle gates— he is a troubadour. It is evident that he is a troubadour, for he wears a last summer's straw hat, and a last winter’s coat, and a two years last October's unkempt locks. He also carries a lute. Seating himself upon a mossy rock-grown fell, beside a murmuring dell,- he exclaims: “Aha! I see no light in yon ivied casement; perchance my lady sleeps,” and proceeds to pour forth his impassioned soul, thus: “Sleep on, sweet one, my lady fair, sleep on, ‘The night is chill, but I don’t care, sleep on.” “By my halidome,” cries the youth, “my lay awakes naught but the slumbering echoes, bechism‘on it! I’ faith, by my father’s beard, | it’s too bad. I'll e’en try once more.” ‘Then, smiting the lute again, he resumes: “0 fly with me, o'er the moonlit sea, Where the billows break, and the mountains quake, O fly with me! O fly with m-e-e-e!” As he finishes this plaintive song, a light ap- pears at the window, he again attempts to warble, but is prevented in a remarkable man- ner, as will be shown in the sequel. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH THE HISTORY IS AT LAST BROUGHT TO AN UNHAPPY CONCLUSION; SHOWING THE DIRE. WRATH OF A GRIZZLED BELDAME, AND HER OPINIONS UPON OUR HERO, The reader must now consent to be wafted, upon the wings of fancy, to a room in the | castle, wherein may be scen moving to and fro a grizzled beldame. She appears to be en- gaged in placing the portable furniture of the room in close proximity to the window, and ever and anon, as she pauses and listens to the bewitching strains from without, may be heard to mutter: “Oh! it's you, is it? Just wait one minute. Ha! ha! ha! hm! hm!” Finally, her arrangements being complete, she takes her place at the window, just as our troubadour, giving his lute a few preliminary smites, begins: “There's a land where the turtle-dove bloometh.”” ‘Then, with hideous din, awakening the slum- bering forest, and causing the neighbors for two blocks around to think an earthquake is running off with a volcano, comes crashing | through the circumambient air, and alighting upon our ’s head, the following articles, | to wit, , namely: A basin of water, a basin, three empty bot- tles, a bureau-drawer, two chairs, a volume of | poems (very heavy and dangerous), a pound of Babbitt’s best, and three of nitro-glycerine. And a voice, clarion-like, rang out through the blue ether, and its accents may besyllabled: “So you've come again, have ye? Didn't I tell ye I wouldn’t have you hangin’ ‘round here | any more? ‘Talk about taking my Mary Ann o'er the moonlit sea! Why, ye haven’t enough | money to pay her fare in a ferry boat! Ye haven't earned a cent fortwo years, and your mother keeps a little trimmin’ store, and you're a lazy—get along out o’ this or I'll call the pileece! p'deece? P'LEECE!” If this our tale should dry one tear of anguish, or cast one ray of hope upon the down.in-the-mouthed we will rest content (pro- vided we receive our usual stipend for it), Hem. Locu, IN THE MOVEMENT. “ Where going to-night, Fan?” “ Aw—Gilmore’s, rather think.” “How is it there, Sunday nights, old girl? Cana fellow take her husband ?” SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY. ‘Tuere is something peculiarly charming and beautiful about Sunday in the country. The church-bells toll their sombre invitation to wor- ship; the flowers nod to and fro in the lazy breeze, and butterflies wing from hedge to hedge, and the bees hum in the drowsy noon- day. It is sweet, while drinking all these sim- | ple beauties, with which nature has so lavishly garnished the fields, and watching the old folks start off for church, to sneak off into the woods behind the house in quest of the festive sunfish, with somesandwiches in one pocket and a bot- tle of water in the other. ‘THE YOUNG IDEA. ‘Tracuer, (fo Skeptical Pupil):—" Now, sir, are you convinced that ‘Iwo and ‘Two make Four?” Skepticat Pupit:—‘ No, sir.” ‘TEACHE! “‘ What do they make, then?” Skepticat Pupit, (¢riumphantly):—‘* Twenty-two 1”