* * * * *

[Illustration:  “WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?”

Servant. “MASSA FENTON AND MASSA CONKLIN HAVE SENT DIS YERE FOUNDLIN’ TO YER, TO TOOK KEER OF FOR A FEW WEEKS.”

Matron Greeley. “O:  DEAR, DEAR!  AND IF IT SHOULD DIE ON MY HANDS, WHO’S TO PAY THE FUNERAL EXPENSES?”]

* * * * *

HIRAM GREEN AMONG THE FAT MEN.

The “Last Gustive” attends the Annual Clam-Bake.

Empires may totter and Dienastys pass in their checks.

Politicians may steal the Goddess of Liberty poorer than JOB’S old
Maskaline Gobbler.

J. FISK, Jr., may set the heel of his bute down onto the neck of Rail Rodes—­Steambotes—­ballet gals, and all that sort o’ thing, and this mundane speer will jog along, as slick as a pin, and no questions asked.

But deprive a Fat man of his little clam-bake, and it would be full as pleasant as settin’ down onto a Hornet’s nest, when the Hornet family were all to home.

That’s so.

Another cargo of clams has gone to that born whence no clam returns, onless you ram your finger down your throte, or take an Emetick.

In the words of Commodore PERRY, who is, alas! no more.

“The misfortenit bivalves meet the Fat man, and they’re his’n.”

Altho’ I’me not much on the fat order myself, I received an invitation to attend the grate Clam-bake.  Mrs. GREEN put me up a lunch to eat on the cars, and robin’ myself in a cleen biled shirt, I sholdered my umbreller and left Skeensboro.

The seen at Union Park was sublime with plenty of Ham fat.  If all flesh is grass, thought I, when old tempus fugit comes along with his mowin’ masheen to cut this crop of fat men, I reckon he will have to hire some of his nabor’s barns, to help hold all of his hay.

Great mountins of hooman flesh were bobbin’ about like kernals of corn on a red hot stove, remindin’ me of a corn field full of punkins set up on clothes pins.

The little heads on top of the great sweating bodies, looked as if they were sleev buttons drove in the top of the Punkins.

When a fat man laffs, his little head sinks down into his shirt collar, and disappears in the fat, like a turtle’s head when you tickle his nose with a sharp stick.

And then to see them eat clams.  I’ve seen men punish clams by the bushel—­by the barrel—­but never did I see men shovel clams in by the cart load before.

“Gee-whitaker,” said I, to a Reporter of a N.Y.  Journal, “them critters must have a dredful elastic stomack.”

“Yes,” said he, “when Fat-men get clam hungry, the sea banks has to give up her clams, and the grocery keepers furnish the seasonin’.”

“Wall,” said I, “if the Sea has many such runs on her clam-banks as this, she will have to put on her shutters soon, and go into lickerdation.”

“In which state,” said he laffin’, “it would be exceedin’ly clam-etous.”