The Poet at the Breakfast Table | Page 7

and all its devils. There is a slight touch
of satire in his discourse now and then, and an odd way of answering
one that makes it hard to guess how much more or less he means than
he seems to say. But he is honest, and always has a twinkle in his eye to
put you on your guard when he does not mean to be taken quite literally.
I think old Ben Franklin had just that look. I know his great-grandson
(in pace!) had it, and I don't doubt he took it in the straight line of
descent, as he did his grand intellect.
The Member of the Haouse evidently comes from one of the lesser
inland centres of civilization, where the flora is rich in
checkerberries
and similar bounties of nature, and the fauna lively with squirrels,
wood-chucks, and the like; where the leading sportsmen snare patridges,
as they are called, and "hunt" foxes with guns; where rabbits are

entrapped in "figgery fours," and trout captured with the unpretentious
earth-worm, instead of the gorgeous fly; where they bet prizes for
butter and cheese, and rag-carpets executed by ladies more than seventy
years of age; where whey wear dress-coats before dinner, and cock
their hats on one side when they feel conspicuous and distinshed;
where they say--Sir to you in their common talk and have other
Arcadian and bucolic ways which are highly unobjectionable, but are
not so much admired in cities, where the people are said to be not half
so virtuous.
There is with us a boy of modest dimensions, not otherwise especially
entitled to the epithet, who ought be six or seven years old, to judge by
the gap left by his front milk teeth, these having resigned in favor of
their successors, who have not yet presented their credentials. He is
rather old for an enfant terrible, and quite too young to have grown into
the bashfulness of adolescence; but he has some of the qualities of both
these engaging periods of development, The member of the Haouse
calls him "Bub," invariably, such term I take to be an abbreviation of
"Beelzeb," as "bus" is the short form of "omnibus." Many eminently
genteel persons, whose manners make them at home anywhere, being
evidently unaware of true derivation of this word, are in the habit of
addressing all unknown children by one of the two terms, "bub" and
"sis," which they consider endears them greatly to the young people,
and recommends them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, if
these happen to accompany them. The other boarders commonly call
our diminutive companion That Boy. He is a sort of expletive at the
table, serving to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer does that
makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to get driven in like a wedge
between any two chairs where there is a crevice. I shall not call that boy
by the monosyllable referred to, because, though he has many impish
traits at present, he may become civilized and humanized by being in
good company. Besides, it is a term which I understand is considered
vulgar by the nobility and gentry of the Mother Country, and it is not to
be found in Mr. Worcester's Dictionary, on which, as is well known,
the literary men of this metropolis are by special statute allowed to be
sworn in place of the Bible. I know one, certainly, who never takes his
oath on any other dictionary, any advertising fiction to the contrary,

notwithstanding.
I wanted to write out my account of some of the other boarders, but a
domestic occurrence--a somewhat prolonged visit from the landlady,
who is rather too anxious that I should be comfortable broke in upon
the continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned--in short, I gave up
writing for that day.
--I wonder if anything like this ever happened.
Author writing,

jacks?"
"To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 't is nobl--"
--"William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?"
--"Flapjacks, an' it please thee, Anne, or a pudding, for that matter; or
what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt me and my
thought."
--Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door and
murmurs to the effect: "Ay, marry, 't is well for thee to talk as if thou
hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must swink for our masters,
while they sit in their arm-chairs growing as great in the girth through
laziness as that ill-mannered fat man William hath writ of in his books
of players' stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which hath
thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his eyes be rolling
in that mad way."
William--writing once more--after an exclamation in