The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, part 3 | Page 5

some trouble in gitting hisself acknowledged as Juke in France, as the Orleans Dienasty and Borebones were fernest him, but he finally conkered. Elizy knowd him right off, as one of his ears and a part of his nose had bin chawed off in his fights with opposition firemen during boyhood's sunny hours. They lived to a green old age, beloved by all, both grate and small. Their children, of which they have numerous, often go up onto the Common and see the Fountain squirt.
This is my 1st attempt at writin a Tail & it is far from bein perfeck, but if I have indoosed folks to see that in 9 cases out of 10 they can either make life as barren as the Desert of Sarah, or as joyyus as a flower garding, my object will have been accomplished, and more too.
3.2. MARION: A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL.
I.
--, Friday, --, 1860.
On the sad sea shore! Always to hear the moaning of these dismal waves!
Listen. I will tell you my story--my story of love, of misery, of black despair.
I am a moral Frenchman.
She whom I adore, whom I adore still, is the wife of a fat Marquis--a lop-eared, blear-eyed, greasy Marquis. A man without soul. A man without sentiment, who cares naught for moonlight and music. A low, practical man, who pays his debts. I hate him.
II.
She, my soul's delight, my empress, my angel, is superbly beautiful.
I loved her at first sight--devotedly, madly.
She dashed past me in her coupe. I saw her but a moment--perhaps only an instant--but she took me captive then and there, forevermore.
Forevermore!
I followed her, after that, wherever she went. At length she came to notice, to smile upon me. My motto was en avant! That is a French word. I got it out of the back part of Worcester's Dictionary.
III.
She wrote me that I might come and see her at her own house. Oh, joy, joy unutterable, to see her at her own house!
I went to see her after nightfall, in the soft moonlight.
She came down the graveled walk to meet me, on this beautiful midsummer night--came to me in pure white, her golden hair in splendid disorder--strangely beautiful, yet in tears!
She told me her fresh grievances.
The Marquis, always a despot, had latterly misused her most vilely.
That very morning, at breakfast, he had cursed the fishballs and sneered at the pickled onions.
She is a good cook. The neighbors will tell you so. And to be told by the base Marquis--a man who, previous to his marriage, had lived at the cheap eating-houses--to be told by him that her manner of frying fishballs was a failure--it was too much.
Her tears fell fast. I too wept. I mixed my sobs with her'n. "Fly with me!" I cried.
Her lips met mine. I held her in my arms. I felt her breath upon my cheek! It was Hunkey.
"Fly with me. To New York! I will write romances for the Sunday papers--real French romances, with morals to them. My style will be appreciated. Shop girls and young mercantile persons will adore it, and I will amass wealth with my ready pen."
Ere she could reply--ere she could articulate her ecstasy, her husband, the Marquis, crept snake-like upon me.
Shall I write it? He kicked me out of the garden--he kicked me into the street.
I did not return. How could I? I, so ethereal, so full of soul, of sentiment, of sparkling originality! He, so gross, so practical, so lop-eared!
Had I returned, the creature would have kicked me again.
So I left Paris for this place--this place, so lonely, so dismal.
Ah me!
Oh dear!
3.3. A ROMANCE.--WILLIAM BARKER, THE YOUNG PATRIOT.
I.
"No, William Barker, you cannot have my daughter's hand in marriage until you are her equal in wealth and social position."
The speaker was a haughty old man of some sixty years, and the person whom he addressed was a fine-looking young man of twenty-five.
With a sad aspect the young man withdrew from the stately mansion.
II.
Six months later the young man stood in the presence of the haughty old man.
"What! YOU here again?" angrily cried the old man.
"Ay, old man," proudly exclaimed William Barker. "I am here, your daughter's equal and yours?"
The old man's lips curled with scorn. A derisive smile lit up his cold features; when, casting violently upon the marble center table an enormous roll of greenbacks, William Barker cried--
"See! Look on this wealth. And I've tenfold more! Listen, old man! You spurned me from your door. But I did not despair. I secured a contract for furnishing the Army of the -- with beef--"
"Yes, yes!" eagerly exclaimed the old man.
"--and I bought up all the disabled cavalry horses I could find--"
"I see! I see!" cried the old man. "And good beef they make, too."
"They do! they do! and the profits are immense."
"I should say