Puck — September 24, 1879 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

| PUCK. 454 : Alonzo’s eyes would fall upon her; as she | I mean carriage, or watched the flies steal down TALES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE, | Alonso's eye, woud fall upon bers a she | Imean carriage or watched the fie steal down rest upon her. Never, apparently, had she soundly in her chair, Iv. BUTTER-SCOTCH. A ROMANCE OF THE “L” ROAD. 1. «« Her beauty was a thing to dream about.” —Joxson. Nias had the rising; or for that matter the setting, sun shone upon a fairer maiden than Georgiana Fitzaltamont. Eighteen summers, devoted to excursions, and clam-bakes, and picnics, and eighteen winters, devoted to circuses, and dances, and peanuts, had ripened her into charming maidenhood. Her black eyes were as large and melting as those of Juno, the “‘cow-eyed queen of heaven;” her tresses of jet were immense in the day-time; her features were as delicate and regular as if they had been chiseled by Phidias, except that her nose was a trifle door-knobby ; her form was as graceful as a willow—weeping; her teeth were like thirty-two pearls, except that they were copper-toed; and her ruby lips would have made a stick of sealing-wax howl with envy—if it could howl. In brief, she was almost too sweet to live; one felt that she should be gilded and put in a glass-case, Royal blood flowed in the maiden’s veins— by the left hand, of course. Georgiana always felt that if she could only trace her ancestry beyond her grandfather she would find that she was a Plantagenet. It was, however, another case of how are the mighty fallen. Georgiana, the fairest, the very flower of the Fitzaltamont race, was compelled to earn the daily bread and butter which she devoured, by engineering a bonnet-shop in the Bowery, I, « His limbs were fashioned in no common mold, Ilis face was nobly marked, bis carriage bold.” —Rowe, At early morn, when the little birds were twittering, and the sun was stealing up the heavens, and—.in short, at 7 a.M, precisely, it was the custom of Alonzo Bermadina to enter one of the cars of the elevated road at the ragth Street station. His straight and manly form was so tall that he was compelled to bow his noble head when he entered the car. True, he might have been fatter, but you could say that of Daddy Lambert; and everybody admit- ted that Alonzo was stouter than a lamp-post. His hair and mustache were a little hot in color, but the shade of hair which one prefers is, so to speak, caviare to another. His greyish eyes appeared to be deeply sunken in his head, but that was caused by the prominence of his cheek-bones. When he gaped his mouth re- sembled a coal-hole, but all great men are large eaters. He had, what Napoleon said all great men must have, an immense nose. Alonzo was not beautiful, but there was nothing naughty about him. At seven o'clock every morning, then, this heroic youth entered a car of the Elevated Road at the 129th Street station, in order to be car- ried to the store of his employer on the Bowery, where daily, from 7.45 A.M. to 7.45 P.M., he measured tape and jumped counters. il, «Two hearts that madly yearn ‘Against each other soft to beat.” —Heraick. At 7.03 A.M. precisely the train in which Alonzo rode rolled up to the station at r2sth Street. There every day for a week had Geor- giana Fitzaltamont entered the train, aye, the very car in which Alonzo was seated. As she entered, with her willowy, graceful motion, glanced upon him, yet in reality out of the tail of her eye, she had observed that he was wearing his crimson scarf, or his black-and-tan breast-pin, orhis Pompadour shirt-bosom, as the case might be. From the day when his optics had first fallen on her, Alonzo had yearned to know her. Every morning for a week his heart had throbbed madly when she entered that car; every morning for a week he had felt that his destiny was wrapped up in that bale of calico, lace, flipperies, and gewgaws. “ How could he form her acquaintance?” was the conundrum which bothered him. Every night he sat up till midnight, chewing tobacco, without regard to the boarding-house carpet, in hopes that a solution of the conun- drum would come to his wearied brain. He thought in vain, but chance took the thing in hand, and— Iv. “Oh, give sweets to the sweet.” —MinTon. It was thus. One morning she softly entered the car. She tarried her nose a little higher than usual, and therefor did not observe care- fully what she was doing. An itinerant vendor of butter-scotches had placed his pan full of those choice edibles on the seat beside him, and had then fallen to staring out of the win- dow. Georgiana sailed down the passage-way, and flopped down on the butterscotches as innocently as if she had been sitting down on a hornet's nest at a picnic. The vendor aban- doned his observation of nature, and turned his orbs on Georgiana. “Vell, I schwears to gracious,” he cried, “if she don’t gone and sit all over de candy!” Georgiana sprang to her feet and cast one agonizing glance at the back of her dress. The sitting-down part of her frock was covered with butter-scotches, The sight was too much for her nerves, and— Alonzo's time had come, He sprang forward just in time, and she fell in a sort of half faint on his bosom, while his arm stole around her waist. In about three minutes, however, she recovered, . “It’s my best Sunday-go-to-meeting, too,” she murmured, Hewhispered in her ear that a little soap and hot water would remove the stains—he was in the trade, you see. Then Alonzo and the vendor carefully removed the butter-scotches from her dress, “Oh, vell,” said the vendor, ‘it doesn’t do no harm,” His mind was on the scotches. Well he knew that the average boy’sstomach would not have been aware of the fact, if Georgiana had sat on the scotches for a week. Can you wonder that Alonzo sat beside Georgiana, that he poured—not taffy; she had enough of that—sweet words in her ear; that when they parted on that eventful morning they were acquaintances? It is ever thus, That for which one yearns seems far beyond his reach; suddenly there come along—well, say butter-scotches, and lo! that which one craved is in his grasp. . Vv. “« Insensibly the twain move swift along, By passion led-—” —Byron, Acquaintance fast ripened into friendship. Every morning they met on the elevated road, and sneered, in light and airy converse. Soon he found his way to her home, and there list- ened to her father’s tales of other days, when the Fitzaltamont owned their own barrow— Then in the summer eves he strolled ‘neath the trees with Georgiana hanging on his arm, or, side by side, they sat on a bench in Mount Morris Park, or ‘neath the moon's clear light they rowed upon the bosom of the lovely Har. lem. The fall came, and Alonzo knew that he was mashed. He yearned, yet feared, to ask her to be his bride. The morning s¢ances made him yearn for the evening interviews; and the farewell kiss at night did not prevent him from craving to press her hand in the morning. The tortured heart, desiring what seems to it the greatest bliss, and knowing—well, in short, if a man want's a woman he'll tell her so. It happened so with Alonzo. vi. “« With throbbing heart and face grown pale, The trembing lover tells his tale.” —Scorr. ‘They had been to a variety show. It had been a charming evening, for Alonzo had pro- vided unlimited peanuts and peppermint-drops. It was the hour when churchyards yawn, when Alonzo and his darling entered a car on the elevated road. It was as good as a private car- riage, for they had the rear car entirely to themselves. Whether it was the peanuts or the pepper- mint-drops that roused Alonzo's amorous feel- ings will probably never be known, but they had ridden scarcely a block when Alonzo threw his arm around Georgiana’s waist and whis- pered in her ear: “ Darling, I love! Dost love me a little, just a little?” For one fleeting moment she looked up into his eyes, and then softly placed her head upon his coat-lappel. Madly he pressed her form to his bosom, until the brakeman came along and exclaimed: “ Look here, do you want to break that girl all into pieces?” He unfolded his arms and clasped her hand in his, “Goosey,” he murmured, “ when shall we wed?” He called her Goosey because she was a duck, “As soon as you please,” she whispered. At the r2sth Street station they debarked from that elevated railroad train, having, as the poet says, “four soles with but a single thought” —to get home. Vil. “There is a tied in the affairs of men.” —SHAKSPERE. It needs not that I should tell how a reluc- tant consent was wrung from old Fitzaltamont; it needs not that I should tell how love’s young dream was dreamed; it needs not that I should state that Alonzo was the manliest of grooms and Georgiana the fairest of brides. All that I can leave to your imagination, Nor need 1 describe the magnificent presents that were showered on the bride; you can obtain a list of the articles in the dollar-store as readily as I can. Suffice it to say that they were wed, and went on a tour to Hoboken, where they re- mained from Saturday night till Monday morn- ing. ‘Goth of them have vowed that if ever—and what can be more probable ?—if ever—I don’t see why I should not mention it—if ever they have children—there, it’s out—those little ones shall be supplied with unlimited quantities of butter-scotches, = comichooks.co)m