Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 39, December 24, 1870.

Chapter I: Front Matter

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Vol. II. No. 39.

PUNCHINELLO

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1870.

PUBLISHED BY THE

PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY,

83 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

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MAN AND WIVES.

A TRAVESTY.

By MOSE SKINNER,

CHAPTER SIXTH.

ANN'S RECEPTION.

The next morning, as ANN was eating breakfast, who should drive up in a covered wagon but the Hon. MICHAEL.

"Just as I expected," said she. "They've found out where I am, and they'll come out here and try to pump me about it. But I don't envy 'em their job. Come in," she added, in answer to the Hon. MICHAEL'S somewhat timid knock.

"How'd'do, ANN," said he. "Sister-in-law said you was here, and I thought I'd come over and see you. Besides," he continued, in evident embarrassment, "there's one or two things I thought you'd like to know."

"Well?" said she, as he paused. "Out with it, old fellow. Don't be bashful."

"Oh! I ain't," he replied, rubbing his knees nervously. "Well, in the fust place, the old lady is awfully down on you, says you've disgraced the family, and she disowns you, and all that sort of humbug, but I shet her up by telling her that whatever she said agin _you_, she said agin _me_." He looked at ANN admiringly, and, taking from his pocket a large package of red and white candy, handed it to her. Then he turned very red in the face, looked hard at the ceiling, and repeated Mrs. LADLE'S message all over again.

"First thing, _told_," said he.

It was plain to ANN that he had really come with the intention of making love to her, but was anxious to find how the land lay first. But she didn't give him any encouragement. Under existing circumstances, she didn't think 'twould be right.

"Well," said she, "anything else?"

"Oh yes, I believe so,--ah--BELINDA sends love, and is jest about crazy to see you, and hear all about it. Shouldn't wonder a bit if she was over here afore the day's over."

He moved his chair nearer hers, glanced at her furtively, and sighed deeply.

"Second thing, told," said he.

"Well, I'm much obliged to you. Items of gossip are victuals and drink to our sex, you know. Don't be in a hurry," she continued, seeing that he showed no signs of going. "Looking for your hat? Yes, here it is. Let me put it on for you," she added in her gentle, winning way. "Good-by. To think," she added, looking after him, "that the old pill should get spoony on _me_!"

Sure enough, in the afternoon up drove BELINDA.

"Awful glad to see you, ANN dear," said she, kissing her. "I'm dying to know all about it. As soon as I found out where you were, I rushed out and hitched up the old mare myself. But I knew she'd never go so far from home without an object in view to urge her. So I fastened a bag of oats in front of her head. Didn't she just streak it? The idea of her chasing them oats five miles before she caught 'em! She's out there now eating 'em, propped up by a couple of fence-rails. But tell me, quick, are you really married, as you said you'd be in that letter you left on my wash-stand?"

"Yes, I am," replied ANN.

"Where's your husband? Who is he? Do tell me all about it. Does he look like anybody I know?"

"Well, I should say he did." answered ANN, grinning. "You see it's a sort of a joke, BELINDA. You wouldn't see the point now, half as well as you will after you're married to ARCHIBALD. Then I'll tell you. Oh, it's too rich!" And she laughed immoderately.

"Oh, I can't wait. Tell me now. If you will, I'll give you my new _piqué_ and that bracelet. Come, why can't you?"

"Because I don't choose to," replied ANN coolly.

"Seems to me you're mighty short about it anyhow. Putting on airs, ain't you, because you got married before I did?"

"Well, you needn't think nobody can get a fellow but you. Pooh, I could cut _you_ out, any time."

"Oh, you _could_, could you?" returned BELINDA in high disdain. "Perhaps you'd better try it on, with them freckles and that mole. I don't think your husband, whoever he is, can brag much of his taste in the female line. I'm sure _I_ don't want to see him, so you can keep him locked up, you jealous thing. It's some old rowdy, I s'pose, that nobody else would look at. I hate you, and always did. Don't never come near me. There!" And she left in high dudgeon.

As she drove off, ANN stood by the window watching her. She soliloquized, "So you think, Miss BELINDA, do you, 'that I'd better try it on, with them freckles and that mole!' I think I _have_ tried it on, and pretty effectually too. Just wait till you're married to BLINKSOP, that's all."

By dark she began to look impatiently for TEDDY, for she felt sure he'd find JEFFRY somewhere. It was nine o'clock, however, before he made his appearance.

"Did you find him?" she inquired eagerly.

"I did, mum, sure, and a hard pull I had of it. I beat the whole town through, and at last I found him a rollin' bowly alleys, and I giv him your letther. Sich dreadful swears as he giv, mum, a walkin' up and down an' a crushing his fingers like, and a bitin' his teeth together, and then he stops in front of me, and says in an awful theatur voice, 'Tell her,' says he, 'that I'll come,' and he giv me a kick, mum, as boosted me clear to the sidewalk, and I see plainly as he had more remarks of that same kind to deliver, and I edged off at about five miles an hour. Goodnight to ye, mum."

ANN slept calmly and sweetly that night, for the one cherished idea of her innocent girlhood was about to be consummated, and she smiled in her sleep and thought she saw her mother.

JEFFRY MAULBOY kept his word. He was there at noon of the next day. And the minister that was to marry them, and the lawyer that was to divorce them, were there also.

At one o'clock they were man and wife, sworn to love, honor, and obey each other till death did them part. At a quarter of two o'clock they were man and woman, sworn to love, honor, and obey anybody they wanted to, for a divorce did them part. And they went their separate ways.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

WHERE IS ANN?

BELINDA returned from the Half-Way House, firmly determined to find out all about that affair of ANN'S. Any woman would naturally feel curious about it, and BELINDA really cannot be blamed for showing a little feeling. "To think." said she, "after all my bragging that I'd be married first, and the times I've twitted her of being too homely to get a beau, that she should step out and get married right under my very nose, and I not know anything about it, or even who she's married. Oh, it's _too_ much. But I'll find out, if I die for it, and if there _is_ anything about it that ain't straight, won't I crow over her?"

The Hon. MICHAEL was also very anxious to find out about it. With the affectionate ardor of a grass widower of fifty-five, in a State where divorces sprout like mushrooms, he was loath to believe that ANN was utterly lost to him. No, he would find her, he would follow her if necessary to the world's end, living only in this hope, and when at last the goal was reached, and her adored form greeted his vision, he would pour out his wealth of love, bending his ear to catch the sweet response, and then, and only then, would everything be lovely.

And so it comes that he and BELINDA, each with a different motive, take counsel together in reference to the same end.

BELINDA'S first step was to send ARCHIBALD to the Half-Way House, for a full description of the man that called there for ANN.

"Be smart for once in your life," said she, "and find out _something_."

Then she and the Hon. MICHAEL started off to find out what direction ANN took after leaving the Half-Way House. They interviewed every carriage-driver, depot-master, and hotel-keeper for miles around, but without the slightest success. They finally came across a farmer, however, who said be drove a woman to the station below. To their eager inquiries as to her appearance, he could say nothing further, than he thought she wore a dress, and was quite sure, though not certain, that she had on either a shawl, or some other outside garment. He remembered her distinctly, because the half-dollar she gave him turned out to be counterfeit, and he got rid of it by giving it to a blind beggar; after which, he said, he sneaked round the corner, and laughed till he was red in the face, to think how slick that beggar was fooled.

This might be ANN, they thought, but to make sure, they telegraphed to six different stations, promising a small reward in case their pursuit was successful. In due time the answers came, all very much alike, and to the effect that a woman, answering their description, was seen to take such and such a train, and that the reward would reach them at the following address, etc.; at which they went home rather discouraged, to see what ARCHIBALD had accomplished.

He said he went to the Half-way House, and questioned Mrs. BACKUP and TEDDY for four hours, without finding out the first thing. "You're a numskull," said BELINDA. "If I hadn't got any more brains than you have, I'd swap myself off for a dog, and then kill the dog."

"I don't believe the folks there would tell, anyhow," said the Hon. MICHAEL; "she's probably hired 'em to keep mum."

Now the fact was, ARCHIBALD hadn't been near the Half-way House at all. There wasn't money enough in the State to hire him to do so, after the fearful ordeal he had there passed through. So he hid in the woods all day, and rehearsed this terrible falsehood, making himself miserable by repeating those extracts from the catechism which refer to the future abode of liars.

Though thus foiled in their active investigations, they still held long consultations on the absorbing topic, and in which, to ARCHIBALD'S horror, he is often obliged to participate. He has had it on his tongue's end forty times to tell BELINDA all about his forced marriage with ANN at the Half-way House. He has even dreamed, on two separate nights, that he has done so, but he woke up both times in a cold, clammy sort of ooze, and it has naturally shaken his confidence, and so the words stick in his throat. And he remembers ANN'S horrible threat of coming for him when she wants him, and he makes it a point of doing all his out-door business before dark, and the bare mention of her name will make him start and glare wildly about him. And still BELINDA courts him more persistently than ever, and it is a scene calculated to touch the most rugged nature to watch them together, she smoothing his hair, and calling him her "Tootsy-pootsy," or reading poetry to him, stopping between each verse to cast languishing glances at him, and he bearing it all with that haggard, imbecile look peculiar to an over-courted man. And as their wedding-day approaches is it any wonder that poor ARCHIBALD looks forward to it as a condemned criminal to the scaffold, and watches day by day the setting of the sun with the same air of grim despair. Once he tried to run away, but BELINDA, in ambush, flanked him and led him home. Then she sent for his trunk, and made him board there. And so he is floating along in a hopeless sort of daze, a wretched victim of diabolical circumstances.

JEFFRY MAULBOY is visiting his brother JUDAS, at Terre Haute. He has signed articles of agreement for the great Prize Fight with SANDY MCCORMICK, known for his prowess in the Ring as the "nasty masher." The fight will take place some time during the winter, and JEFFRY will go into training early in September. And the papers are full of biographical sketches of the two combatants, together with comments on their weight, general appearance, and a list of fights heretofore participated in, with vague speculations as to the number of eyes, fragments of ears, &c., each one is supposed to possess, preserved in alcohol as trophies. And when JEFFRY appears in public the masses regard him with respectful admiration, and _gamins_ applaud. And when he gets home he finds a brigade of those literary drummers, known as reporters, sitting on his doorsteps, from beneath whose classic foreheads there glares a wild and hungry eye, to be pacified only by a satisfactory interview. The last exploit of the "Champion Nine" sinks into insignificance beside this great, this momentous event, and the man who walked a hundred miles in twenty-four hours is nowhere. He realizes the cruel fact that Fame is fickle, and he makes one desperate effort to grasp it, by offering determinedly to walk around the world in ninety days, stopping for his gruel only at Hong Kong.

(To be concluded.)

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NUISANCE ABATED.

G.F.T.--the apostle of Highfalutin, the most egregious nuisance of modern times--has come to grief. We have the pleasure of announcing that (for the present at least) we are relieved from our very natural anxiety lest TRAIN should re-appear on the American _tapis._ It seems that he is even more intolerable in France than he is in this country. He had only got as far as Lyons, in the course of his airy progress through the new Republic, when the authorities concluded that about the most sensible thing they could do with their guest would be to lock him up. It gives us pleasure to write that they did so.

They don't know how great is the favor they have conferred on the world by this humane act. We shall ever remember the magistrates of Lyons with feelings of regard, for the judicious energy displayed by them in this matter.

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Ehau! France.

Unhappy France! Well may her children weep over the misfortunes that have befallen her. But alas! TITTERS cannot cure them.

* * * * *

THE OYSTER-SUPPER CRITIC.

He has a heavy head of hair;
His heavy hands are cleanly kidded;
He twists a heavy dark moustache,
And even his eyes are heavy-lidded.
He babbles in a heavy style,
And heavily grows analytic,
This literary heavy-weight,
This heavy oyster-supper critic.

He chatters about love of "art,"
This actor's "method," that one's "school,"
And pits the stock against the star,
With Contrast as his favorite rule.
He freights the columns of the press
With praise and blame alike mephitic,
And names the burden a _critique_--
And that's the oyster-supper critic.

To-day he dines with _opera-bouffe_,
To-morrow breakfasts with burlesque,
And tights and tinsel, face to face,
Encounters, pink and picturesque.
Nor frown, if, in next week's review,
His gropings after the artistic
Should crop out into verse, and take
The form of some SWINBURNIAN distich.

At night he flits from box to box
Or stands and gossips in the lobby,
With jest and gesture fast and free,
And _tout-ensemble_ neat and nobby.
And whilst he eyes the _debutante_,
And first resolves to praise, then damn her,
New York no other critic boasts
So good at heart, so bad at grammar.

But should some fair friend grace the stage,
Of praise he is not too abstemious,
But shares, alas! in all the faults
That genius has--without the genius!
His prejudices (like those words
That LINDLEY MURRAY terms "enelitic")
Cling close, and grow a part of him.
To form the oyster-supper critic.

The manager's his bosom-friend;
The agents love him like a brother.
His golden rule's to treat himself
As he'd be treated by another.
Though, in a business way, he sells
Impartial puffs for filthy lucre,
There's not, at the dramatic cards,
A rival whom, he cannot euchre.

He makes translations from the French,
Of "interest contemporaneous,"
And ekes a modest salary out
By bribes and bonuses extraneous.
He loves to "buzz" some British _blonde_
Who from a prince received her "breedin'"
And ever since has lived like EVE,
Unclothed (but _not_ ashamed) in Eden.

Widows and orphanesses fair,
Upon the stage, are all his go.
But, _off_, the widow he likes most
Is mentioned as the _Veuve_ CLICQUOT.
Like VATHEK lost in ERLIS' hall,
Upborne on shoulder-blades Afritic,
He bears, within, a perjured heart,
This sensual oyster-supper critic.

SPIFFKINS.

* * * * *

Two Men

JULES FAVRE is said to possess fair administrative abilities, but GAMBETTA--

* * * * *

IT IS WHISPERED BY JENKINS THAT A "PASSING BELLE" OF MADISON AVENUE HAS RESORTED TO A NOVEL EUROPEAN FASHION BY EXHIBITING A CAST OF HER--WELL, "INFERIOR ANATOMY," AS A DRAWING-ROOM ORNAMENT.]

* * * * *

OUR PORTFOLIO.

Harrowing effects of the uncertainty of war news--Shocking waste of literary ammunition--A bill against the Provisional Government for damages.

TOURS, TENTH WEEK OF THE REPUBLIC, 1870.

It was late in the afternoon when the intelligence arrived of a decisive victory for the army of General PALADINES, who had been manoeuvring for nearly a fortnight to draw the Germans into a sort of _cul-de-sac_ formed by the extension of the French lines from Le Mans to Nogent and Etamps.

It came from such an authentic source, and had about it such appearances of probability, that I immediately retired to the silence of my chamber for the purpose of preparing a graphic review of the French situation, a review in fact for which I had long sought some such opportunity. I had made considerable progress with my paper, and was about to enter upon that branch of the subject devoted to discussing the bearings of such a victory upon the future prospects of France, when a tap at my door was heard, and the red head of my landlady's first-born appeared.

"Monsieur is wanted down stairs," said the boy, with an alarmed look. I hurried down and out into the street, only to be met by a messenger from the Hotel de Ville, with the information that later despatches contradicted the victory. The shock to my feelings can only be appreciated by a writer who feels that he has consumed thirty or forty pages of foolscap in vain. I had been over two hours at that work. I had put all the brains I possessed in it. Many of the sentences so pleased me that I had turned back with pardonable conceit to read them over and admire them: but now, like a destroying angel, came the news that shook from beneath my beautiful superstructure its very foundations, and left me nothing but the humiliation of so much time and labor lost.

I went back to my room, and cast myself on the bed in deep affliction. If I had been a single man I believe I could have hanged myself without a pang. Sheer mortification soon lulled me to sleep, however, and when a second banging at my door awakened me it was nightfall, and there were sounds of rapid movement and confusion outside. I put my head out of the window and heard a voice below, shouting:

"The Germans are coming!"

"S'death!" said I to myself, "what am I going to do?" My last stitch of clothing, save what I had on my back, was in the hands of the _blanchisseuse_, and PIERRE of the carrot "top" had possession of my only pair of trousers for the purpose of cleaning them the following morning. It would not have been a pleasant paragraph for me to read in the newspapers that a correspondent bearing my name had been captured _in puris naturalibus_. It would never do for an American to be taken _sans culottes_, and then have the story of his surprise reviewed by English and Yankee critics.

I don't know what I might have done in my distress; but kind fortune favored me, for the landlady, anticipating the probability of my being disturbed by the commotion, knocked at the door to say that it was a false alarm, and that the Germans, though victorious, had halted ten or twelve miles from the city. Promptly, therefore, I dashed into the midst of another review of the French situation, predicated upon the late French defeat. It was what I might call a perfect "stinger." It used France up completely. The _grande nation_ wasn't left a peg to stand on; and as for King WILLIAM, I proved him to be a butcher of the most surpassing kind. In the short space of two hours I had covered forty-three pages more of foolscap, and was about entering on my forty-fourth, when there came a banging at my door for the third time, and a despatch was handed me announcing that there _had been no battle at all!_

From early childhood I had been taught that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," and, although the present circumstances clearly left me no escape from the conviction that I must be an especial favorite of Heaven, they could not prevent me from compensating my pent-up agony of soul by literally eating seven and a half pages of my last "review." I never knew before what "living on literary diet" meant, but I am wiser now, and do not regret the "dread ordeal" by which I came to know all I do know. Revenge occurred to me as the natural impulse of a man in such a situation; but upon whom was I to be revenged? The government had given currency to all these wild rumors; but it had too many heads for me to punch. The job was bigger than I cared to undertake. The thought occurred to me that I might present a bill of damages. Their sense of justice would allow its fairness. I had been the dupe of false intelligence, the victim of a series of frauds perpetrated to "regulate" the popular feeling. I did not debate the thought, but took my resolution immediately, and drew up the following.

LA NOTE.

Provisional Government of France.
To DICK TINTO, Correspondent, &c., Dr.
Francs.

To thirty-seven pages foolscap paper, consumed in writing
Review of French situation, &c., upon basis of reported
French victory near Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.17

To Forty-three pages foolscap paper, consumed in writing
Review of French situation, &c., upon basis of reported
German victory near Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.95

To astonishment and grief occasioned by report that there had
been no battle at all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00

To landlady's boy with red head, by name PIERRE, for carrying
messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.10

To general wear and tear of nervous system, consequent upon
agitation resulting from uncertainty as to what to believe . 500.00
______

Grand total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656.22

I could not conceal from myself that the bill for damages was altogether too small; but as France is poor, and the demands upon her exchequer are great, I determined to send it just as it was, and wait in patience for the result. I did so, and have been waiting ever since. The recollection of what the Judge told JOHN BUNYAN when he sent him to jail keeps me up: "Patient waiting, JOHN," observed the philosophic magistrate, "is no loss." I try to fancy that I combine the patience of BUNYAN with the philosophy of the Judge, and in that belief subscribe myself, Bill-iously yours,

DICK TINTO.

* * * * *

GETTING MARRIED WITHOUT A MASTER.

IN FOUR EASY LESSONS.

Despond not, ye bachelors--anybody can get married. It's as easy as rolling off from the roof of a six-story house, and quite as beneficial to the system. I have known people who did this little business without intending to accomplish it, but they never crowed over it; and I have known others who have intentionally done it three or four times. But everybody cannot do this work as it should be done. It's all very well for you to have an elegant creature of your own, dressed in a white robe and a blue ribbon; but, if you did not win her in the proper manner, you feel degraded every time you gaze on her. Style is everything in this business. For the benefit of the rising generation I have written this little treatise, which will elucidate all the mysteries of the marriage business, and will make every man his own guide to wedded bliss.

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Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 39, December 24, 1870.Chapter I: Front Matter

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