3. These peremptory tripartite brethren arrived at Greenwich, wishing to aggrandize themselves by indulging in exemplary relaxation, indicatory of implacable detestation of integral tergiversation and exoteric intrigue. They fraternized with a phrenological harlequin who was a connoisseur in mezzotint and falconry. The piquant person was heaping contumely and scathing raillery on an amateur in jugular recitative, who held that the Pharaohs of Asia were conversant with his theory that morphine and quinine were exorcists of bronchitis.
4. Meanwhile, the leisurely Augustine of Cockburn drank from a tortoise-shell wassail cup to the health of an apotheosized recusant, who was his supererogatory patron, and an assistant recognizance in the immobile nomenclature of interstitial molecular phonics. The contents of the vase proving soporific, a stolid plebeian took from its cerements a heraldic violoncello, and, assisted by a plethoric diocesan from Pall Mall, who performed on a sonorous piano-forte, proceeded to wake the clangorous echoes of the Empyrean. They bade the prolyx Caucasian gentlemen not to misconstrue their inexorable demands, while they dined on acclimated anchovies and apricot truffles, and had for dessert a wiseacre’s pharmacopoeia. Thus the truculent Pythagoreans had a novel repast fit for the gods.
5. On the subsidence of the feast they alternated between soft languors and isolated scenes of squalor, which followed a mechanist’s reconnaissance of the imagery of Uranus, the legend of whose incognito related to a poniard wound in the abdomen received while cutting a swath in the interests of telegraphy and posthumous photography. Meantime an unctuous orthoepist applied a homeopathic restorative to the retina of an objurgatory spaniel (named Daniel) and tried to perfect the construction of a behemoth which had got mired in pygmean slough, while listening to the elegiac soughing of the prehistoric wind.
SELECT READING.
1. Geoffrey, surnamed Winthrop, sat in the depot at Chicago, waiting for his train and reading the Tribune, when a squadron of street Arabs (incomparable for squalor) thronged from a neighboring alley, uttering hideous cries, accompanied by inimitable gestures of heinous exultation, as they tortured a humble black-and-tan dog.
2. “You little blackguards!” cried Winthrop, stepping outside and confronting them, adding the inquiry, “Whose dog is that?”
3. “That audacious Caucasian has the bravado to interfere with our clique,” tauntingly shrieked the indisputable little ruffian, exhibiting combativeness.
4. “What will you take for him?” asked the lenient Geoffrey, ignoring the venial tirade.
5. “Twenty-seven cents,” piquantly answered the ribald urchin, grabbing the crouching dog by the nape.
6. “You can buy licorice and share with the indecorous coadjutors of your condemnable cruelty,” said Winthrop, paying the price and taking the dog from the child. Then catching up his valise and umbrella he hastened to his train. Winthrop satisfied himself that his sleek protege was not wounded, and then cleaned the cement from the pretty collar, and read these words; “Leicester. Licensed, No. 1880.”