Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 | Page 5

agonizingly laboring to cast from him some furious animal full of strange sounds. Thus engaging in desperate single combat with what, for making a ferocious fight before any recognizable tune can he rescued from it, is, perhaps, the most exhausting instrument known to evening amateurs and maddened neighborhoods, Mr. BUMSTEAD passes three athletic hours. At the end of that time, after repeatedly tripping-up its exasperated organist over wrong keys in the last bar, the accordeon finally relinquishes the concluding note with a dismal whine of despair, and retires in complete collapse to its customary place of waiting. Then the conquering performer changes his towel for a hat which would look better if it had not been so often worn in bed, places an antique black bottle in one pocket of his coat and a few cloves in the other; hangs an unlighted lantern before him by a cord passing about his neck, and, with his umbrella under his arm, goes softly down stairs and out of the house.
Repairing to the marble-yard and home of OLD MORTARITY, which are on the outskirts of Bumsteadville, he wanders through mortar-heaps, monuments brought for repair, and piles of bricks, toward a whitewashed residence of small demensions with a light at the window.
"JOHN McLAUGHLIN, ahoy!"
In response, the master of the mansion promptly opens the door, and it is then perceptible that his basement, parlor, spare-bedroom and attic are all on one floor, and that a couple of pigs are spending the season with him. Showing his visitor into this ingeniously condensed establishment, he induces the pigs to retire to a corner, and then dons his hat.
"Are you ready, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN?"
"Please the pigs, I am, Mr. BUMSTEAD," answers MCLAUGHLIN, taking down from a hook a lantern, which, like his companion's, he hangs from his neck by a cord. "My spirits is equal to any number of ghosts to-night, sir, if we meet 'em."
"Spirits!" ejaculates the Ritualistic organist, shifting his umbrella for a moment while he hurriedly draws the antique bottle from his pocket. "You're nervous to-night, J. MCLAUGHLIN, and need a little of the venerable JAMES AKER'S West Indian Restorative.--I'll try it first to make sure that I haven't mistaken the phial."
He rests the elongated orifice of the diaphanous flask upon his lips for a brief interval of critical inspection, and then applies it thoughtfully to the mouth of OLD MORTARITY.
"Some more! Some more!" pleads the aged MCLAUGHLIN, when the Jamaican nervine is abruptly jerked from his lips.
"Silence! Com on," is the stern response of the other, who, as he moves from the house, and restores the crystal antiquity to its proper pocket, eats a few cloves by stealth. His manner plainly shows that he is offended at the quantity the old man has managed to swallow already.
Strange indeed is the ghastly expedition to the place of skulls, upon which these two go thus by night. Not strange, perhaps, for Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, whose very youth in New York, where he was an active politician, found him a frequent nightly familiar of the Tombs; but strange for the organist, who, although often grave in his manner, sepulchral in his tones, and occasionally addicted to coughin', must be curiously eccentric to wish to pass into concert that evening with the dead heads.
Transfixed by his umbrella, which makes him look like a walking cross between a pair of boots and a hat, Mr. BUMSTEAD leads the way athwart the turnpike and several fields, until they have arrived at a low wall skirting the foot of Gospeler's Gulch. Here they catch sight of the Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON and MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON walking together, near the former's house, in the moonlight, and, instantaneously, Mr. BUMSTEAD opens his umbrella over the head of OLD MORTARITY, and drags him down beside himself under it behind the wall.
"Hallo! What's all this?" gasps Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, struggling affrightedly in his suffocating cage of whalebone and alpaca. "What's this here old lady's hoop-skirt doing on me?"
"Peace, wriggling dotard!" hisses BUMSTEAD, jamming the umbrella tighter over him. "If they see us they'll want some of the West Indian Restorative."
Mr. SIMPSON and MONTGOMERY have already heard a sound; for they pause abruptly in their conversation, and the latter asks: "Could it have been a ghost?"
"Ask it if it's a ghost," whispers the Gospeler, involuntarily crossing himself.
"Are you there, Mr. G.?" quavers the raised voice of the young Southerner, respectfully addressing the inquiry to the stone wall.
No answer.
"Well," mutters the Gospeler, "it couldn't have been a ghost, after all; but I certainly thought I saw an umbrella. To conclude what I was saying, then,--I have the confidence in you, Mr. MONTGOMERY, to believe that you will attend the dinner of Reconciliation on Christmas eve, as you have promised."
"Depend on me, sir."
"I shall; and have become surety for your punctuality to that