“’Oh—him! Yes—oh,
yes, yes. Certainly—certainly.
Punch—punch—oh, this misery
will kill me!’
“’Bless you! bless you, sir, for these
sweet words! I, too, suffer in this dear loss.
Were you present during his last moments?’
“‘Yes. I—whose last moments?’
“‘His. The dear departed’s.’
“’Yes! Oh, yes—yes—yes!
I suppose so, I think so, I don’t know!
Oh, certainly—I was there I was there!’
“’Oh, what a privilege! what a precious
privilege! And his last words —oh,
tell me, tell me his last words! What did he
say?’
“’He said—he said—oh,
my head, my head, my head! He said—he
said—he never said anything but Punch,
punch, punch in the presence of the passenjare!
Oh, leave me, madam! In the name of all that
is generous, leave me to my madness, my misery, my
despair!—a buff trip slip for a six-cent
fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare—endu—rance
can no fur—ther go!—Punch
in the presence of the passenjare!”
My friend’s hopeless eyes rested upon mine a
pregnant minute, and then he said impressively:
“Mark, you do not say anything. You do
not offer me any hope. But, ah me, it is just
as well—it is just as well. You could
not do me any good. The time has long gone by
when words could comfort me. Something tells
me that my tongue is doomed to wag forever to the jigger
of that remorseless jingle. There—there
it is coming on me again: a blue trip slip for
an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a—”
Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank into
a peaceful trance and forgot his sufferings in a blessed
respite.
How did I finally save him from an asylum? I
took him to a neighboring university and made him
discharge the burden of his persecuting rhymes into
the eager ears of the poor, unthinking students.
How is it with them, now? The result is too
sad to tell. Why did I write this article?
It was for a worthy, even a noble, purpose. It
was to warn you, reader, if you should came across
those merciless rhymes, to avoid them—avoid
them as you would a pestilence.
Let me refresh the reader’s memory a little.
Nearly a hundred years ago the crew of the British
ship Bounty mutinied, set the captain and his officers
adrift upon the open sea, took possession of the ship,
and sailed southward. They procured wives for
themselves among the natives of Tahiti, then proceeded
to a lonely little rock in mid-Pacific, called Pitcairn’s
Island, wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything
that might be useful to a new colony, and established
themselves on shore. Pitcairn’s is so far
removed from the track of commerce that it was many
years before another vessel touched there. It
had always been considered an uninhabited island;
so when a ship did at last drop its anchor there,
