The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 293 pages of information about The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4.
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 293 pages of information about The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4.
nor the pigs could put up any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and running under the petticoats of the people, and creating altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is possible for a reasonable person to conceive.  And to make matters still more distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost.  Every now and then one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke.  There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back.  In his teeth the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it.  On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing “Judy O’Flannagan and Paddy O’Rafferty.”

Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust, and now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and fine kraut.  Let us proceed in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little fellow from the steeple.

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LIONIZING

-------- all people went
Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.

      —­_ Bishop Hall’s Satires_.

I am — that is to say I was — a great man; but I am neither the author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe, is Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge.

The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with both hands.  My mother saw this and called me a genius:  my father wept for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology.  This I mastered before I was breeched.

I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently conspicuous he might, by merely following it, arrive at a Lionship.  But my attention was not confined to theories alone.  Every morning I gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed a half dozen of drams.

When I came of age my father asked me, one day, If I would step with him into his study.

“My son,” said he, when we were seated, “what is the chief end of your existence?”

    “My father,” I answered, “it is the study of Nosology.”

    “And what, Robert,” he inquired, “is Nosology?”

    “Sir,” I said, “it is the Science of Noses.”

“And can you tell me,” he demanded, “what is the meaning of a nose?”

“A nose, my father;” I replied, greatly softened, “has been variously defined by about a thousand different authors.” [Here I pulled out my watch.] “It is now noon or thereabouts — we shall have time enough to get through with them all before midnight.  To commence then:  — The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance —­ that bump — that excrescence — that — "

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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.