gentlemen were enjoying themselves down under the eaves, and when Jim got
almost to that chimney he made a pass at the cats, and his heels flew up
and he shot down and crashed through those vines, and lit in the midst of
the ladies and gentlemen, and sat down in those hot saucers of candy.
There was a stampede, of course, and he came up-stairs dropping pieces of
chinaware and candy all the way up, and when he got up there–now anybody
in the world would have gone into profanity or something calculated to
relieve the mind, but he didn’t; he scraped the candy off his legs,
nursed his blisters a little, and said, “I could have ketched them cats
if I had had on a good ready.”
[Does any reader know what a “ready” was in 1840? D.W.]
OBITUARY POETRY
ADDRESS AT THE ACTORS’ FUND FAIR, PHILADELPHIA, in 1895
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,–The–er this–er–welcome occasion gives me an–
er–opportunity to make an–er–explanation that I have long desired to
deliver myself of. I rise to the highest honors before a Philadelphia
audience. In the course of my checkered career I have, on divers
occasions, been charged–er–maliciously with a more or less serious
offence. It is in reply to one of the more–er–important of these that
I wish to speak. More than once I have been accused of writing obituary
poetry in the Philadelphia Ledger.
I wish right here to deny that dreadful assertion. I will admit that
once, when a compositor in the Ledger establishment, I did set up some of
that poetry, but for a worse offence than that no indictment can be found
against me. I did not write that poetry–at least, not all of it.
CIGARS AND TOBACCO
My friends for some years now have remarked that I am an inveterate
consumer of tobacco. That is true, but my habits with regard to tobacco
have changed. I have no doubt that you will say, when I have explained
to you what my present purpose is, that my taste has deteriorated, but I
do not so regard it.
Whenever I held a smoking-party at my house, I found that my guests had
always just taken the pledge.
Let me tell you briefly the history of my personal relation to tobacco.
It began, I think, when I was a lad, and took the form of a quid, which I
became expert in tucking under my tongue. Afterward I learned the
delights of the pipe, and I suppose there was no other youngster of my
age who could more deftly cut plug tobacco so as to make it available for
pipe-smoking.
Well, time ran on, and there came a time when I was able to gratify one
of my youthful ambitions–I could buy the choicest Havana cigars without
seriously interfering with my income. I smoked a good many, changing off
from the Havana cigars to the pipe in the course of a day’s smoking.
At last it occurred to n1e that something was lacking in the Havana
cigar. It did not quite fulfil my youthful anticipations.
I experimented. I bought what was called a seed-leaf cigar with a
Connecticut wrapper. After a while I became satiated of these, and I
searched for something else, The Pittsburg stogy was recommended to me.
It certainly had the merit of cheapness, if that be a merit in tobacco,
and I experimented with the stogy.
Then, once more, I changed off, so that I might acquire the subtler
flavor of the Wheeling toby. Now that palled, and I looked around New
York in the hope of finding cigars which would seem to most people vile,
but which, I am sure, would be ambrosial to me. I couldn’t find any.
They put into my hands some of those little things that cost ten cents a
box, but they are a delusion.
I said to a friend, “I want to know if you can direct me to an honest
tobacco merchant who will tell me what is the worst cigar in the New York
market, excepting those made for Chinese consumption–I want real
tobacco. If you will do this and I find the man is as good as his word,