Mr. Hobgobb [pp. 222-225]

Mr. Hobgobb.
"I'll give you a tune," slaid he, gener ously.
" Do-I shlall be charmed!" and I
closed my book.
lie immediately commenced something
which he called "Jordan's a hard road to
travel," and ferily, in making the sound
an echo of the sense, (if any sense there
were,) he beat Pope all to fiddlesticks.
The thing wailed and groaned along,
staggering, stumbling, limping.
"Delightful!" hoping to arrest him
with a compliment. But on he went.
On, on!
"They should build a railroad over
Jordan!" I exclaimed, when, after a half hour's sawing, he ceased.
Hle looked hard at me.
"I don't believe you liked that'ere,"
said he.
"That air!" cried I. "It was a real
surfeit of melody!"
"Let me give you another," he proposed.
All my protestations could not save
me. He began to tune up.
Tink, tink! plang. plang! Bang!
Thank the gods! thank Orpheus! thank
Tiniotheus! the bridge of his instrument
split and fell! "Now," thought I, "he
is on the other side of Jordan, the pons
asinorum is down, and hlie will trouble
me no more-for hlie cannot get to me!"
But, ye powers! with a devilish ingenuity he managed to repair and re-erect
his bridge, and over it the ass marched
in triumph!
"I'll give you Pop goes the Weasel,"
said he; and at it he went-singing,
too! lie kindly informed me that,
"Queen Victoria's very sick,
Prince Albert's got the mrneasles,
The children have the wvhooping-cough,
And pop! goes the Weasel!"
Republican as I am, I was nevertheless shocked at his evident hilarity in recounting the calamities which had so cruelly befallen the Royal house of Britain.
Thinks 1, he must be a Jacobin or a Jacobite, a radical, a red-republican, or an
anarchist. Wretch I to gloat thus over
the ills of Royalty!
"P,,! goes the Weasel," sang hlie, and
pop! thank heaven! went one of his
strings. IIe tried to mnend it, but couldn't
-notwsithstanding my active assistance!
I condoled with him-I surpassed him
infinitely in expressions of profound re gret. "Thus," said I, sighing lugubri ously, "thus are all earthly ties, and
cords, and-and-strings, snapped by our
inexorable fate!"
"It's chilly weather," said Mr. Hob gobb, decidedly, "and I screwed it too
tight."
" Like poor old uncle Ned," I observed,
"we shall have to hang up the fiddle and
the basw.
'The harp that once through Tara's halls,
The soul of music shled,
Now lhangs as niJute on Tara's walls,
As if that souil were fled."'
"I will go purchase a string," avowed
Hobg,obb.
"My dear sir," I cried, "do not ex pose yourself to the inclemency of this
night."
"I shall not mind it," he rejoined emphatically, preparing to go,
"My fine fellow," I said, interposing
again with infinite earnestness of nman-,
ner, "the streets are dark, muddy and
difficult; the wind blows keenly from
the North, and the rain falls rapidly from
above; stores that keep catgut are not
near so,umerous as those that keep
rotgut. You are a stranger, too,-therefore, my friend, allow me to send a servant for this thing."
lIe submitted readily to my importunity, and,ffered me the wherewithal to
buy the needed article.
"No," said I, "it is for my enjoyment, and you must really permit me to
furnish it."
I proceeded to the head of the stairs,
which was at a considerable distance
from my room, and called Joe. Joe soon
appeared, black as ink, with hair kinked
so tightly that he could shut neither his
eyes nor his mouth. I took Joe into a
corner.
223
1860.]