Page 33
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Jump to navigationJump to searchinged there a cuckoospit less eminent than the redritualhoods of
Maccabe and Cullen) where, a veritable Napoleon the Nth, our
worldstage's practical jokepiece and retired cecelticocommediant
in his own wise, this folksforefather all of the time sat, having the
entirety of his house about him, with the invariable broadstretched
kerchief cooling his whole neck, nape and shoulderblades and in
a wardrobe panelled tuxedo completely thrown back from a shirt
well entitled a swallowall, on every point far outstarching the
laundered clawhammers and marbletopped highboys of the pit
stalls and early amphitheatre. The piece was this: look at the lamps.
The cast was thus: see under the clock. Ladies circle: cloaks may
be left. Pit, prommer and parterre, standing room only. Habituels
conspicuously emergent.
A baser meaning has been read into these characters the literal
sense of which decency can safely scarcely hint. It has been blur-
tingly bruited by certain wisecrackers (the stinks of Mohorat are
in the nightplots of the morning), that he suffered from a vile
disease. Athma, unmanner them! To such a suggestion the one
selfrespecting answer is to affirm that there are certain statements
which ought not to be, and one should like to hope to be able to
add, ought not to be allowed to be made. Nor have his detractors,
who, an imperfectly warmblooded race, apparently conceive him
as a great white caterpillar capable of any and every enormity in
the calendar recorded to the discredit of the Juke and Kellikek
families, mended their case by insinuating that, alternately, he lay
at one time under the ludicrous imputation of annoying Welsh
fusiliers in the people's park. Hay, hay, hay! Hoq, hoq, hoq!
Faun and Flora on the lea love that little old joq. To anyone who
knew and loved the christlikeness of the big cleanminded giant
H. C. Earwicker throughout his excellency long vicefreegal exis-
tence the mere suggestion of him as a lustsleuth nosing for trou-
ble in a boobytrap rings particularly preposterous. Truth, beard
on prophet, compels one to add that there is said to have been
quondam (pfuit! pfuit!) some case of the kind implicating, it is
interdum believed, a quidam (if he did not exist it would be ne-
cessary quoniam to invent him) abhout that time stambuling ha-
