Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870

Excerpt

AN ADAPTATION,

BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CHAPTER XII.

A NIGHT OF IT WITH MCLAUGHLIN.

Judge SWEENEY, with a certain supercilious consciousness that he is figuring in a novel, and that it will not do for him to thwart the eccentricities of mysterious fiction by any commonplace deference to the mere meteorological weaknesses of ordinary human nature, does not allow the fact that late December is a rather bleak and cold time of year to deter him from taking daily airings in the neighborhood of the Ritualistic churchyard. Since the inscription of his epitaph on his late wife upon her monument therein, the churchyard is to him a kind of ponderous work of imagination with marble leaves, to which he has contributed the most brilliant chapter; and when he sees any stranger hovering about a part of the outer railings from whence the inscription may be read, it is with all the swelling pride of an author who, having procured the publication of some dreary article in a magazine, is thrown into an ecstacy of vanity if he sees but one person glance at that number of the periodical on a news-stand.

Since his first meeting with Mr. BUMSTEAD, on the evening of the epitaph-reading, Judge SWEENEY has cultivated that gentleman's acquaintance, and been received at his lodgings several times with considerable cordiality and lemon-tea. On such occasions, Mr. BUMSTEAD, in his musical capacity, has sung so closely in Judge SWEENEY'S ear as to tickle him, a wild and slightly incoherent Ritualistic stave, to the effect that Saint PETER'S of Rome, with pontifical dome, would by ballot Infallible be; but for making Call sure, and Election secure, Saint Repeater's of Rum beats the See. With finger in ear to allay the tickling sensation, JUDGE SWEENEY declares that this young man smelling of cloves is a person of great intellectual attainments, and understands the political genius of his country well enough to make an excellent Judge of Election.

Walking slowly near the churchyard on this particular freezing December evening, with his hands behind his bank, and his eyes intent for any envious husband who may be "with a rush retiring," monumentally counselled, after reading the Epitaph, Judge SWEENEY suddenly comes upon Father DEAN conversing with SMYTHE, the sexton, and Mr. BUMSTEAD. Bowing to these three, who, like himself, seem to find real luxury in open-air strolling on a bitter night in midwinter, he notices that his model, the Ritual Rector, is wearing a new hat, like Cardinal's, only black, and is immediately lost in wondering where he can obtain one like it short of Rome.

"You look so much like an author, Mr. BUMSTEAD, in having no overcoat, wearing your paper collar upside down, and carrying a pen behind your ear," Father DEAN is saying, "that I can almost fancy you are about to write a book about us. Well, Bumsteadville is just the place to furnish a nice, dry, inoffensive domestic novel in the sedative vein."

After two or three ineffectual efforts to seize the end of it, which he seems to think is an inch or two higher than its actual position, Mr....