Puck — December 4, 1878 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK. i THE PUNSTER’S LAST PUN-ISHMENT. He looked away to the dim horizon, ‘As he bung, black-capped, on the gallows-tree; ‘And he said, ‘This here is a big cap-size-an’ Oh, would I were where the swallows be— ‘The cocktail swallows and cobbler punches, ‘That fill men’s souls with delly.spree. «T'd have killed myself with mince-meat pizen, Have gone to the land where life's a-still But I couldn't go back on my sweet old Liz T held myself in by a monstrous (s)will. ‘What though the Drs. all called me Punjab, ‘And swote my blood hire lotus pill? 4 What though the tail or heads his bill, ob! Or the cobbler’s sole gives me cipher size? T'll soon be under the w! ‘Shem hammer Japheth—Aere he lies. Be that my epitaph in big letters. Letter rip. Thus a punster dies!” ‘They dropped him there in the golden morning, Round he curled like a jamping G— ‘With a Gordian knot his neck adorning, And a Punic murmur backwards. Freel! So they wrote on his tomb, in hieroglyphics, « Dam as cus—here lieth he.” THEYOUNG ENGINEER; OR, BATTLING AGAINST ODDS. TRANSLATED, CONDENSED AND ADAPTED FROM THE “Young Pirate's Own,” & PAPER YOR YOUTHS. PART I. Tue TRouse Becins. IGHT! Darkness mantles the earth, It generally does in the night-time, But no matter. The “Young Engineer” steed and bounds away. The rails tremble beneath the massive drivers. But the “ Young Engineer” doesn’t care. He lets them tremble. ‘The express car attached to the engine is full of gold and greenbacks clear up to the roof. A sworn messenger, armed with a Gat- ling gun and a harpoon, sits on the skylight to guard the treasure. Suddenly an oil train on fire comes swoop- ing down the grade at the rate of ninety-seven miles a second. ‘The “ Young Engineer" sees the peril, and goes it one better. He puts on all steam; the iron Rarus obeys. It fairly fies. The momentum is so great that the pon- derous driving wheels as they turn on the rails tear them from the ties and throw them a mile to the rear! This saves them. Ha! The “ Young Engineer" is triumphant! But stay! A dark form is seen climbing over the tender. It is the double-dyed villain of the story. We wanted him to come up the steps like other people, but he preferred to climb over the tender, In each hand he carries a Remington rifle and in his teeth an unsheathed bowie-knife. “Stop or I fire!” he shouts, “Fire and be hanged,” replies the “ Young Engineer,” drawing a sixteen-shooter from his vest pocket and plugging the double-dyed vil- lain in nine different places. He drops at the feet of the “ Young Engi- neer,”’ a corpse. Stooping over, our hero grasps the body, flings it in the blazing furnace, and on thun- ders the train through the black night. Let her thunder if she wants to. We can’t help it. mounts his iron SPASM II. “Synpie, Ou! Synpiel” Night again. All the events in this story happened in the night-time. This time it is an awful dark night. The “Young Engincer,” through some unex- plained freak of circumstances is bowling down the Mississippi river in a clam sloop, when a cry for help hits him ker-slap in the left ear. It is a female voice. Great Hevings! A female buficting the waves and struggling with the dark waters on such a night as this. She may be young and beautiful and a mil- lion-heiress—who knows? The ‘Young Engineer’ stands on his head and listens. Then, taking off his undershirt, he plunges into the river and strikes out for the maiden, all forlorn, who owns the voice. He reaches her and buoys her up with a toothpick just in time to save her froma watery grave. At this critical moment a deep-dyed villain seated on the back of a shark, and armed with a javelin, comes bearing down upon them. ‘This isn’t the villain we killed off in the first chapter, This is a different villain altogether. The “ Young Engineer” sees him. “Ah, ha! That's your little game, is it?” he says. Calmly removing his chest-protector, he hands it to the maiden for a life-preserver; then diving beneath the water he takes off his right boot, draws a sub-marine torpedo from the toe, and coming up beneath the shark and its rider, he explodes the machine with a kick and blows the deep-dyed villain to the four winds of the earth, “Saved! saved!" shrieks Syndie, hangii the chest-protector for dear life, and smiling in the direction of our hero, We have got several more villains to kill off in the next chapter, so we will leave the inter- esting couple toget ashore the best way they can. ‘Tra-la-la, Syndie! PAROXY: Tue PLor THICKE: More night. A band of triple-dyed villains are seated in an old log hut in the mountains, They are holding a consultation. Suddenly the “Young Engineer” appears on the scene with drawn rapier, stabs the sentinels through the gizzard, and then mounting a camelopard, rides leisurely away, playing “Tim Finnegan's Wake” on a nickel-plated Jews-harp. * { TIT. ‘On Ye Brave!” The scene changes We are now in the private office of a rich but unscrupulous railroad magnate. He, too, is a villain of the deepest dye. ‘The door opens and his man Friday enters, “Well, how goes the battle?” inquires the railroad magnate. “ Bad—I may say d—d bad!” replies Friday. “« How so ?”” “ Our plans have been foiled.” “Foiled—by whom ?” “The Young Ergineer!” “He must die!" “T only wish he would.” “Tsay he must die—he shad/ die.” “ Allright, sir; I'll acquaint him with your wishes in the matter when I see him, Shall I go now?” “Yes, go!” And the four-fold villain, Friday, went. He went in search of the “ Young Engineer.” While he is searching we will dive into the startling mysteries of the next chapter. FINAL KICK, Tue Last or THe VILLAINS.—THE “ Younc ENGINEER” COMES OUT ON Top oF THE HEAP EVERYTHING LOVELY AND SERENE, Still night! It is pretty much the same kind of a night it was two chapters ago. Dark as the realms of Pluto, or more so if anything. A gang of double-dyed villains are hanging around as usual. There are fifteen of them this time. They are all mounted on Indian ponies, and are gathered in a group beneath a sycamore- tree in Arizona discussing the excise law. ‘The noise of an approaching express-train can be heard in the distance, The villains smile in chorus, There is a pile of dynamite nine feet high on the track. Great Hevings! sengers ? Just then the “ Young Engineer” happens along. He sees the danger. “T'll save the train, or perish in the attempt!” cjaculates the “ Young Engineer,” and away he dashed on his coal-black steed. The villains fire a volley of grape and can- nister and start in porsuit, ‘They gain on our hero. “Tsee I've got to kill somebody to make this chapter interesting,” he says. And, turning in his saddle. he picks off the villains one by one until the last pursuer bites the dust. Reaching the railroad track he puts the spurs to his noble steed and charges right into the approaching train. ‘The shock kills the horse, throws the rider through the headlight, and stops the train, Saved again! Who will warn the pas- Engineer” did it! ‘The passengers gather around our hero and present him with an orvide watch and chain, and twenty-five cents in cash in acknowledge- ment of his bravery. With tears in his eyes he accepts the testi- monial; and just then Syndie, who happens to be on the train, emerges from the sleeping car in her night-cap, turns a hand spring and kisses the “ Young Engineer” right on the end of his nose. At this highly interesting juncture a gray- haired villain creeps from under a bridge and approaches the young couple with a deadly boomerang poised aloft in his right hand. ‘The “Young Engineer" sees the peril, and drawing a hairpin from among Syndie’s sunny locks, he stabs the would be assissin to the heart. This winds up the villains. We had quite an assortment of them on the start, but the supply has run out, ‘The deep-dyed, double-twisted villains have all been conquered, and nothing remains for the “Young eer” to do but get married and settle down. He concludes to do it. Waving the gory hairpin aloft, he hooks on to Syndie’s ieft wing and tows her away in search of a Justice of the Peace. The train kindly waits for them, and after the fatal words have been said, they board the sleeping car for Chicago. ‘That is about all. Hurrah for the “ Young Engineer!” Three cheers for Syndie!! Vice has been circumvented and virtue has been rewarded, with interest at ten per cent.; so what more does the reader want ? Right here we drop the curtain. W.S. G. comicbooks.com