The Fiends Delight | Page 2

the stalwart form of a
certain policeman passes her door, her clean, delicate face assumes an
expression which can only be described as frozen profanity. The Strong
Young Man of Colusa.
Professor Cramer conducted a side-show in the wake of a horse-opera,
and the same sojourned at Colusa. Enters unto the side show a powerful
young man of the Colusa sort, and would see his money's worth.
Blandly and with conscious pride the Professor directs the young man's
attention to his fine collection of living snakes. Lithely the blacksnake
uncoils in his sight. Voluminously the bloated boa convolves before
him. All horrent the cobra exalts his hooded head, and the spanning
jaws fly open. Quivers and chitters the tail of the cheerful rattlesnake;
silently slips out the forked tongue, and is as silently absorbed. The
fangless adder warps up the leg of the Professor, lays clammy coils
about his neck, and pokes a flattened head curiously into his open
mouth. The young man of Colusa is interested; his feelings transcend
expression. Not a syllable breathes he, but with a deep-drawn sigh he
turns his broad back upon the astonishing display, and goes
thoughtfully forth into his native wild. Half an hour later might have
been seen that brawny Colusan, emerging from an adjacent forest with
a strong faggot.
Then this Colusa young man unto the appalled Professor thus: "Ther
ain't no good place yer in Kerloosy fur fittin' out serpence to be subtler
than all the beasts o' the field. Ther's enmity atween our seed and ther

seed, an' it shell brooze ther head." And with a singleness of purpose
and a rapt attention to detail that would have done credit to a lean
porker garnering the strewn kernels behind a deaf old man who plants
his field with corn, he started in upon that reptilian host, and
exterminated it with a careful thoroughness of extermination.

The Glad New Year.

A poor brokendown drunkard returned to his dilapidated domicile early
on New Year's morn. The great bells of the churches were jarring the
creamy moonlight which lay above the soggy undercrust of mud and
snow. As he heard their joyous peals, announcing the birth of a new
year, his heart smote his old waistcoat like a remorseful
sledge-hammer.
"Why," soliloquized he, "should not those bells also proclaim the
advent of a new resolution? I have not made one for several weeks, and
it's about time. I'll swear off."
He did it, and at that moment a new light seemed to be shed upon his
pathway; his wife came out of the house with a tin lantern. He rushed
frantically to meet her. She saw the new and holy purpose in his eye.
She recognised it readily-she had seen it before. They embraced and
wept. Then stretching the wreck of what had once been a manly form to
its full length, he raised his eyes to heaven and one hand as near there
as he could get it, and there in the pale moonlight, with only his
wondering wife, and the angels, and a cow or two, for witnesses, he
swore he would from that moment abstain from all intoxicating liquors
until death should them part. Then looking down and tenderly smiling
into the eyes of his wife, he said: "Is it not well, dear one?" With a face
beaming all over with a new happiness, she replied:
"Indeed it is, John-let's take a drink." And they took one, she with sugar
and he plain.

The spot is still pointed out to the traveller. The Late Dowling, Senior.
My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been spending the day very
agreeably in his counting-room with some companions, and at night
retired to the domestic circle to ravel out some intricate accounts.
Seated at his parlour table he ordered his wife and children out of the
room and addressed himself to business. While clambering wearily up
a column of figures he felt upon his cheek the touch of something that
seemed to cling clammily to the skin like the caress of a naked oyster.
Thoughtfully setting down the result of his addition so far as he had
proceeded with it, he turned about and looked up.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but you have not the advantage of my
acquaintance."
"Why, Jake," replied the apparition-whom I have thought it useless to
describe--"don't you know me?"
"I confess that your countenance is familiar," returned my friend, "but I
cannot at this moment recall your name. I never forget a face, but
names I cannot remember."
"Jake!" rumbled the spectre with sepulchral dignity, a look of
displeasure crawling across his pallid features, "you're foolin'."
"I give you my word I am quite serious. Oblige me with your name,
and favour me with a