Resolved not yet to pay the debt,
But let him take it out in hacking;
However, Mike began to stickle
In word before he used the sickle;
But mercy was not long attendant:
From words at last he took to blows
And aimed a cut at Hunks's nose;
That made it what some folks are not-
A member very independent.
Heaven knows how far this cruel trick
Might still have led, but for a tramper
That came in danger's very nick,
To put Mahoney to the scamper.
But still compassion met a damper;
There lay the severed nose, alas!
Beside the daisies on the grass,
"Wee, crimson-tipt" as well as they,
According to the poet's lay:
And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter!
Away ran Hodge to get assistance,
With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after,
But somewhat at unusual distance.
In many a little country place
It is a very common case
To have but one residing doctor,
Whose practice rather seems to be
No practice, but a rule of three,
Physician-surgeon-drug decocter;
Thus Hunks was forced to go once more
Where he had ta'en his tooth before.
His mere name made the learned man hot,-
"What! Hunks again within my door!
I'll pull his nose; "quoth Hunks, "You cannot.
The doctor looked and saw the case
Plain as the nose not on his face.
"O! hum-ha-yes-I understand."
But then arose a long demur,
For not a finger would he stir
Till he was paid his fee in hand;
That matter settled, there they were,
With Hunks well strapped upon his chair.
The opening of a surgeon's job—
His tools, a chestful or a drawerful-
Are always something very awful,
And give the heart the strangest throb;
But never patient in his funks
Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks,
Or surgeon half so like a devil
Prepared for some infernal revel:
His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling,
Just like a bolus in a box,
His fury seemed above controlling,
He bellowed like a hunted ox:
Now, swindling wretch, I'll show thee how
We treat such cheating knaves as thou;
Oh! sweet is this revenge to sup;
I have thee by the nose-it's now
My turn-and I will turn it up."
Guess how the miser liked this scurvy
And cruel way of venting passion;
The snubbing folks in this new fashion
Seemed quite to turn him topsy turvy;
He uttered prayers, and groans, and curses,
For things had often gone amiss
And wrong with him before, but this
Would be the worst of all reverses!
In fancy he beheld his snout
Turned upward like a pitcher's spout;
There was another grievance yet,
And fancy did not fail to show it,
That he must throw a summerset,
Or stand upon his head to blow it.
And was there then no argument
To change the doctor's vile intent,
And move his pity?—yes, in truth,
And that was-paying for the tooth.
"Zounds! pay for such a stump! I'd rather-
But here the menace went no farther,
For with his other ways of pinching,
Hunks had a miser's love of snuff,
A recollection strong enough
To cause a very serious flinching;
In short, he paid, and had the feature
Replaced as it was meant by nature;
For tho' by this 'twas cold to handle,
(No corpse's could have felt more horrid,)
And white just like an end of candle,
The doctor deemed and proved it too,
That noses from the nose will do
As well as noses from the forehead;
So, fixed by dint of rag and lint,
The part was bandaged up and muffled.
The chair unfastened, Hunks arose,
And shuffled out, for once unshuffled;
And as he went these words he snuffled-
“Well, this is ' paying through the nose.'”
"God help thee, said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door."
'Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers; But there are many shallow politicians
Who take their bias from bewildered journalsTurn state-physicians,
And make themselves fools'-caps of the diurnals.
One of this kind, not human, but a monkey,
Had read himself at last to this sour creed-
That he was nothing but Oppression's flunkey,
And man a tyrant over all his breed.
Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers,
But he applied their wrongs to his own seed,
And nourished thoughts that threw him into fevers.
His very dreams were full of martial beavers,
And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious,
To sever chains vexatious:
In fact, he thought that all his injured line
Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop 'em Till they had cleared a road to Freedom's shrine,— Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop
Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes
It came into his brains
To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor;
Where certain solemn sages of the nation
Were at that moment in deliberation
How to relieve the wide world of its chains,
Pluck despots down,
And thereby crown
Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation.
Pug heard the speeches with great approbation,
And gazed with pride upon the Liberators;
To see mere coal-heavers
Such perfect Bolivars-
Waiters of inns sublimed to innovators,
And slaters dignified as legislators-
Small publicans demanding (such their high sense
Of liberty) an universal license-
And pattern-makers easing Freedom's clogs―
The whole thing seemed
The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!
Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, Walked out at last, and turned into the Strand, To the left hand,
Conning some portion of the previous twaddle,
And striding with a step that seemed designed
To represent the mighty March of Mind,
Instead of that slow waddle
Of thought, to which our ancestors inclined-
No wonder, then, that he should quickly find
He stood in front of that intrusive, pile,
Where Cross keeps many a kind
Of bird confined,
And free-born animal, in durance vile-
A thought that stirred up all the monkey-bile!
The window stood ajar-
It was not far,
Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb--
The hour was verging on the supper-time,
And many a growl was sent through many a bar.
Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar,
And soon crept in,
Unnoticed in the din
Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring
With all the harshest notes that they could bring;
For like the Jews
Wild beasts refuse,
In midst of their captivity-to sing.
Lord! how it made him chafe,
Full of his new emancipating zeal,
To look around upon this brute-bastile,
And see the king of creatures in—a safe!
The desert's denizen in one small den,
Swallowing slavery's most bitter pills—
A bear in bars unbearable. And then
The fretful porcupine, with all its quills,
Imprisoned in a pen!
A tiger limited to four feet ten;
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