The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862

I remember also a debating society in the little village of R–, which numbered some really very worthy and intelligent members, but of course included some that were otherwise, among whom was a silly young fellow, who had mistaken his proper calling—(he should have been a wood-chopper), and was suffering under an attack at medicine. The question for debate on one occasion was—Is conscience an infallible guide? Being expected to take part in the discussion, he was bent on thorough preparation, and ransacked his preceptor's professional library—(almost as poor a place as a lawyer's) for a work on conscience. He found abundance of matter, however, for a lengthy chapter on the subject, as he supposed, occurring in several of the dusty octavos, and he thumbed the leaves with most patient assiduity. He had misspelled the word however, and was reading all the while on consciousness—a subject which would very naturally occur in some departments of medicine. But it was all one to him, he didn't see the difference, and the ridiculous display he made to us of his 'cramming' on consciousness can be better imagined than described.

Years after found me inside college walls—but colleges in the West, be it remembered, sometimes include preparatory departments, into which, by the courtesy of the teachers, many young men are admitted who would hardly make a respectable figure in the poorest country school, but who by dint of honest toil finally do themselves great credit.

I 'happened in' on a number of such, one evening, whose affinities had drawn them together with a view to forming a debating society, to be made exclusively of their own kind. I listened with much interest and pleasure to the preliminaries of organization, and smiled, when they were about to 'choose a question,' to see them bring out the same old coaches mentioned in the beginning of this article; when one of their number arose, evidently dissatisfied with the old beaten track, and seemed bent on opening a new vein. He was a good, honest, patient fellow, but his weakness in expressing himself was, that, although his delivery was very slow, he didn't know how he was going to end his sentences when he began them. 'Mr. President,' said he, 'how would this do? Suppose a punkin seed sprouts in one man's garden, and the vine grows through the fence, and bears a punkin on another man's ground—now—(a long pause)—the question is—whose punkin—does it belong to?' The poor fellow subsided, as might be supposed, amid a roar of voices and a crash of boots.

There is a legal axiom which would settle the pumpkin-vine query—that of cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum—'ownership in the soil confers possession of everything even as high as heaven.' Our friends in Dixie seem determined to prove that they have also fee simple in their soil downwards as far as the other place, and by the last advices were digging their own graves to an extent which will soon bring them to the utmost limit of their property!

Does the reader remember Poor Pillicoddy, and the mariner who was ever expected to turn up again? Not less eccentric, as it seems to us, is the re-apparition chronicled in the following story by a friend:—

TURNING UP AGAIN!

'You were all through that Mexican war, and out with Walker in Niggerawger.—Well, what do you think 'bout Niggerawger? Kind of a cuss'd 'skeeter hole, ain't it?'

'Tain't so much 'skeeters as 'tis snaiks, scorpiums and the like,' answered the gray-moustached corporal. 'It's hot in them countries as a Dutch oven on a big bake; and going through them parts, man's got to move purty d–d lively to git ahead of the yaller fever; it's right onto his tracks the hull time.'

'Did you git that gash over your nose out there?'

'Yes, I got that in a small scrimmage under old GRAY EYES. 'Twas next day after a fight though, cum to think on it. We'd been up there and took a small odobe hole called Santa Sumthin', and had spasificated the poperlashun, when I went to git a gold cross off an old woman, and she up frying-pan of frijoles and hit me, so!' Here the corporal aimed a blow with his pipe at the face of the high private he was talking with;—the latter dodged it.

'That was a big thing, that fight at Santa Sumthin'; the way we went over them mud walls, and wiped out the Greasers, was a cortion. I rac'lect when we was drawed up company front, afore we made the charge, there was a feller next me in the ranks—I didn't know him from an old shoe, 'cause he'd ben drafted that morning into us from another company. Says he,—

'We're going into hair and cats' claws 'fore long, and as I'm unbeknownst amongst you fellers, I'd like to make a bargain with you.'

'Go it,' says I; 'I'm on hand for ennything.'

'Well,' says he, 'witchever one of us gits knocked over, the tother feller 'll look out for him, and if he ain't a goner 'll haul him out, so the doctor can work onto him.'

'Good,' says I, 'you may count me in there; mind you look after ME!'

The fight began, and when we charged, the fust thing I knowed the feller next me, wot made the bargain, he went head over heels backwards; and to tell the honest trooth, I was just that powerful egsited I never minded him a smite, but went right ahead after plunder and the Greasers, over mud walls and along alleys, till I got, bang in, where I found something worth fighting about it. 'Bout dusk, when we was all purty full of agwadenty, they sent us out to bury our fellers as was killed in the scrimmage; and as we hadn't much time to spare, we didn't dig a hole more'n a foot or two deep, and put all our fellers in, in a hurry. Next morning airly, as I was just coming out of a church where I'd ben surveyin' some candle-stix with a jack-knife to see ef they were silver, [witch they were not,—hang em!]—as I was coming out of the church I felt a feller punch me in the back—so I turned round to hit him back, when I see the feller, as had stood by me in the ranks the day before, all covered over with dirt, and mad as a ringtail hornet.

'Hello!' said I.

'Hello! yourself,' said he. 'I want ter know what yer went and berried me for, afore I was killed for?'

I never was so put to for a answer afore in all my life, 'cause I wanted to spasificate the feller, so I kind of hemmed, and says I—'Hm! the fact was, this dirty little hole of a town was rayther crowded last night, and I—just to please you, yer know—I lodged you out there; but I swear I was this minute going out there to dig you up for breakfuss!'

'If that's so,' said he, 'we won't say no more 'bout it; but the next time you do it, don't put a feller in so deep; for I had a oncommon hard scratch turning up again!'

    H.P.L.

We are indebted to the same writer for the following Oriental market-picture—we might say scene in a proverb:

PROVERBIALLY WISE.

ACHMET sat in the bazaar, calmly smoking: he had said to himself in the early morning,—'When I shall have made a hundred piastres I will shut up shop for the day, and go home and take it easy, al'hamdu lillah!' Now a hundred piastres in the land of the faithful, where the sand is and the palms grow, is equal to a dollar in the land of Jonathan: and the expression he concluded his sentence with is equivalent to—Praise be to Allah!

Along came a blind fakir begging; then ACHMET gave him five paras, although his charity was unseen; neither did he want it to be seen, for he said to himself,—

'Do good and throw it into the sea—if the fishes don't know it, God will.'

And as he handed the poor blind fakir the small coin, he said to him, in a soothing voice,—

'Fa'keer' (which in the Arabic means poor fellow), 'the nest of a blind bird is made by Allah.'

Then along came SULIMAN BEY, who was high in office in the land of Egypt, and was wealthy, and powerful, and very much hated and feared. And ACHMET bowed down before him, and performed obeisance in the manner of the Turks, touching his own hand to his lips, his breast, his head:—and the SULIMAN BEY went proudly on. Then ACHMET smiled, and YUSEF, who had a stall in the bazaar opposite to him, winked to ACHMET, saying, in a low voice,—

'Kiss ardently the hands which you can not cut off:'– and they smiled grimly one unto the other.

'Did you hear the music in the Esbekieh garden yesterday?' asked YUSEF of ACHMET. 'I think it was horrible.'

'It cost nothing to hear it,' quoth ACHMET: 'there was no charge made.'

'Aio! true,' answered YUSEF; 'but there were too many drums; I wouldn't have one if I were Pacha.'

'Welcome even pitch, if it is gratis.'

'Wanting to make the eyebrows right, pull out the eyes,' said ACHMET, contentedly. 'And as for your disliking the music,—A cucumber being given to a poor man, he did not accept it because it was crooked!'—'Come, let us shut up shop and go to the mosque. It is fated that we sell no goods to-day. Wajadna bira'hmat allah ra'hah—By the grace of Allah we have found repose!'

Our correspondent gives us a pun in our last number over again. It is none the worse, however, for its new coat, as set forth in

GETTING AHEAD OF TIME.

'Well now, I declare, this is too bad. Here it is five minutes past ten and BUDDEN ain't here. Did anybody ever know that man to keep an engagement?'

'Yes,' replied the Doctor to the Squire, 'I knew him to keep one.'

'Let it out,' said the Squire.

'An engagement to get married.'

'Hm!' replied the Squire, looking over his spectacles with the air of one who had been deceived. At this moment JERRY BUDDEN, a jolly-looking, fat, middle-aged man entered the office quietly and coolly, having all the air of one who arrived half an hour before the appointed time of meeting.

'Got ahead of time this morning, any way,' said Jerry.

'The devil you did!' spoke the Squire, testily; 'you are seven minutes behind time this morning; you would be behindhand to-morrow and next day, and so on as long as you live. Confound it, Jerry, you make me mad with your laziness and coolness. Ahead of time! why look at that watch!'—Here the Squire, pulling out a plethoric-looking, smooth gold watch, about the size of a bran biscuit, held it affectionately in the palm of his right hand. 'Look at that watch!'

'Nice watch,' said Jerry, 'very nice watch. The best of watches will sometimes get out of order though. How long since you had it cleaned?'

The Squire looked indignant, and broke out, 'I've carried that watch more'n thirty year; I have it cleaned regularly, and it is always right to a minute, always! It's you that want regulating.'

'Can't help it,' spoke Jerry; 'I got ahead of time this morning.'

'Bet you a hat on it,' said the Squire.

'Done!' answered Jerry. And, putting his hand in his pocket, he deliberately produced the torn page of an old almanac, and, pointing to part of an engraving of the man with an hour-glass, said to the Squire,—

'Hain't I got a Head of Time—this morning?'