Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 | Page 4

obtain one like it short of Rome.
"You look so much like an author, Mr. BUMSTEAD, in having no overcoat, wearing your paper collar upside down, and carrying a pen behind your ear," Father DEAN is saying, "that I can almost fancy you are about to write a book about us. Well, Bumsteadville is just the place to furnish a nice, dry, inoffensive domestic novel in the sedative vein."
After two or three ineffectual efforts to seize the end of it, which he seems to think is an inch or two higher than its actual position, Mr. BUMSTEAD finally withdraws from between his right ear and head a long and neatly cut hollow straw.
"This is not a pen, Holy Father," he answers, after a momentary glance of majestic severity at Mr. SMYTHE, who has laughed. "It is only a simple instrument which I use, as a species of syphon, in certain chemical experiments with sliced tropical fruit and glass-ware. In the precipitation of lemon-slices into cut crystal, it is necessary for the liquid medium to be exhausted gradually; and, after using this cylinder of straw for the purpose about an hour ago, I must have placed it behind my ear in a moment of absent-mindedness."
"Ah, I see," said Father DEAN, although he didn't. "But what is this, Judge SWEENEY, respecting your introduction of MCLAUGHLIN to Mr. BUMSTEAD, which I have heard about?"
"Why, your Reverence, I consider JOHN MCLAUGHLIN a Character," responds the Judge, "and thought our young friend of the organ-loft might like to study him."
"The truth is," explains Mr. BUMSTEAD, "that Judge SWEENEY put into my head to do a few pauper graves with JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, some moonlight night, for the mere oddity and dampness of the thing.--And I should regret to believe," added Mr. BUMSTEAD, raising his voice as saw that the judiciary was about to interrupt--"And I should really be loathe to believe that Judge SWEENEY was not perfectly sober when he did so."
"Oh, yes--certainly--I remember--to be sure," exclaims the Judge, in great haste; alarmed into speedy assent by the construction which he perceives would be put upon a denial. "I remember it very distinctly. I remember putting it into your head--by the tumblerful, if I remember rightly."
"Profiting by your advice," continues Mr. BUMSTEAD, oblivious to the last sentence, I am going out to-night, in search of the moist and picturesque, with JOHN MCLAUGHLIN--"
"Who is here," says Father DEAN.
OLD MORTARITY, dinner-kettle in hand and more mortary than ever, indeed seen approaching them with shuffling gait. Bowing to the Holy Father, he is about to pass on, when Judge SWEENEY stops him with--
"You must be very careful with your friend, BUMSTEAD, this evening, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, and see that he don't fall and break his neck."
"Never you worry about Mr. BUMSTEAD, Judge," growls OLD MORTARITY. "He can walk further off the perpendicklar without tumbling than any gentleman I ever see."
"Of course I can, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN," says Mr. BUMSTEAD, checking another unseemly laugh of Mr. SMYTHE'S with a dreadful frown. "I often practice walking sideways, for the purpose of developing the muscles on that side. The left side is always the weaker, and the hip a trifle lower, if one does not counteract the difference by walking sideways occasionally."
A great deal of unnecessary coughing, which follows this physiological exposition, causes Mr. BUMSTEAD to breathe hard at them all for a moment, and tread with great malignity upon Mr. SMYTHE'S nearest corn.
While yet the sexton is groaning, OLD MORTARITY whispers to the Ritualistic organist that he will be ready for him at the appointed hour to-night, and shuffles away. After which Mr. BUMSTEAD, with the I hollow straw sticking out fiercely from his ear, privately offers to see Father DEAN home if he feels at all dizzy; and, being courteously refused, retires down the turnpike toward his own lodgings with military precision of step.
When night falls upon the earth like a drop of ink upon the word Sun, and the stars glitter like the points of so many poised gold pens all ready to write the softer word Moon above the blot, the organist of St. Cow's sits in his own room, where his fire keeps-up a kind of aspenish twilight, and executes upon his accordeon a series of wild and mutilated airs. The moistened towel which he often wears when at home is turbaned upon his head, causing him to present a somewhat Turkish appearance; and as, when turning a particularly complicated corner in an air, it is his artistic habit to hold his tongue between his teeth, twist his head in sympathy with the elaborate fingering, and involuntarily lift one foot higher and higher from the floor as some skittish note frantically dodges to evade him, his general musical aspect at his own hearth is that of a partially Oriental gentleman,