The Complete Works of Artemus Ward; Miscellaneous (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...enjoy themselves " The old scamp said all this with a perfectly grave countenance. The man with the "wonderful calf with five legs and a huming head," and "the philosophical lung-tester," were there. Then there was the Flying Circus and any number of other ingenious contrivances to relieve young ladies and gentlemen from the rural districts of their spare change. A young man was bitterly bewailing the loss of his watch, which had been cut from his pocket by some thief. "You ain't smart," said a middle-aged individual in a dingy Kossuth hat with a feather in it, and who had a very you-can't-fool-me look. "I've been to the State Fair before, I want yer to understan, and knows my bizniss aboard a propeller. Here's MY money," he exultingly cried, slapping his pantaloons' pocket. About half an hour after this we saw this smart individual rushing frantically around after a policeman. Somebody had adroitly relieved him of HIS money. In his search for a policeman he encountered the young man who wasn't smart. "Haw, haw, haw," violently laughed the latter; "by G-, I thought you was smart-I thought you'd been to the State Fair before." The smart man looked sad for a moment, but a knowing smile soon crossed his face, and drawing the young man who wasn't smart confidentially toward him, said- "There wasn't only fifteen cents in coppers in my pocket-my MONEY is in my boot-they can't fool me-I'VE BEEN TO THE STATE FAIR BEFORE " 7.8. THE WIFE. "Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swooned, nor uttered cry. All her maidens, watching, said, 'She must weep, or she will die.'" The propriety of introducing a sad story like the following, in a book intended to be rather cheerful in its character, may be questioned; but it so beautifully illustrates the firmness of woman when grief and despair have taken possession of "the chambers of her heart," that we cannot...