nor the pigs could put up any longer with the behavior
of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented
it by scampering all over the place, scratching and
poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling
and squalling, and flying into the faces, and running
under the petticoats of the people, and creating altogether
the most abominable din and confusion which it is possible
for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make
matters still more distressing, the rascally little
scape-grace in the steeple was evidently exerting
himself to the utmost. Every now and then one
might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the
smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man,
who was lying flat upon his back. In his teeth
the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking
about with his head, raising such a clatter that my
ears ring again even to think of it. On his lap
lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out
of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great
show, the nincompoop! of playing “Judy O’Flannagan
and Paddy O’Rafferty.”
Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the
place in disgust, and now appeal for aid to all lovers
of correct time and fine kraut. Let us proceed
in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient
order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting
that little fellow from the steeple.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
-------- all people went
Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.
—_
Bishop Hall’s Satires_.
I am — that is to say I was — a great
man; but I am neither the author of Junius nor the
man in the mask; for my name, I believe, is Robert
Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge.
The first action of my life was the taking hold
of my nose with both hands. My mother saw this
and called me a genius: my father wept for joy
and presented me with a treatise on Nosology.
This I mastered before I was breeched.
I now began to feel my way in the science, and
soon came to understand that, provided a man had a
nose sufficiently conspicuous he might, by merely
following it, arrive at a Lionship. But my attention
was not confined to theories alone. Every morning
I gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed
a half dozen of drams.
When I came of age my father asked me, one day,
If I would step with him into his study.
“My son,” said he, when we were seated,
“what is the chief end of your existence?”
“My father,” I
answered, “it is the study of Nosology.”
“And what, Robert,”
he inquired, “is Nosology?”
“Sir,” I said,
“it is the Science of Noses.”
“And can you tell me,” he demanded,
“what is the meaning of a nose?”
“A nose, my father;” I replied, greatly
softened, “has been variously defined by about
a thousand different authors.” [Here I pulled
out my watch.] “It is now noon or thereabouts
— we shall have time enough to get through with
them all before midnight. To commence then:
— The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that
protuberance — that bump — that excrescence
— that — "
