Twice-told Tales

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James R. Osgood, 1878

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Page 167 - ... you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout...
Page 10 - Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession, the crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied, at that period, that New England might have a John Rogers of her own to take the place of that worthy in the Primer. "The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholomew!" cried others. "We are to be massacred, man and male child!
Page 166 - Welcome, most rubicund sir ! You and I have been great strangers hitherto ; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man ! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the...
Page 106 - Old folks have their notions," said she, " as well as young ones. You've been wishing and planning and letting your heads run on one thing and another till you've set my mind a wandering too. Now, what should an old woman wish for when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you.
Page 165 - I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain ; for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am and to keep people out of the...
Page 159 - It is but in the next street!" he sometimes says. Fool! it is in another world. Hitherto he has put off his return from one particular day to another; henceforward he leaves the precise time undetermined. Not to-morrow, — probably next week, — pretty soon. Poor man ! The dead have nearly as much chance of revisiting their earthly homes as the self-banished Wakefield.
Page 270 - My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger, " may I reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment ?" Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken, might possibly be traced back to...
Page 169 - Look ! how rapidly they lower the watermark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking vessel. An ox is your true toper.
Page 13 - This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's cry to introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. The intervening space was empty — a paved solitude between lofty edifices which threw almost a twilight shadow over it.
Page 172 - There are two or three honest friends of mine — and true friends, I know, they are — who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal...

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