Prelude.

I’m the fellah that tole one day
The tale of the won’erful one-hoss-shay. 
Wan’ to hear another?  Say. 
—­Funny, wasn’it?  Made me laugh,—­
I’m too modest, I am, by half,—­
Made me laugh’S though I sh’d split,—­
Cahn’ a fellah like fellah’s own wit?—­
—­Fellahs keep sayin’,—­“Well, now that’s nice;
Did it once, but cahn’ do it twice.”—­
Don’ you b’lieve the’z no more fat;
Lots in the kitch’n ’z good ’z that. 
Fus’-rate throw, ‘n’ no mistake,—­
Han’ us the props for another shake;—­
Know I’ll try, ‘n’ guess I’ll win;
Here sh’ goes for hit ’m ag’in!

Here I thought it necessary to interpose.—­Professor,—­I said,—­you are inebriated.  The style of what you call your “Prelude” shows that it was written under cerebral excitement.  Your articulation is confused.  You have told me three times in succession, in exactly the same words, that I was the only true friend you had in the world that you would unbutton your heart to.  You smell distinctly and decidedly of spirits.—­I spoke, and paused; tender, but firm.

Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Professor’s lids,—­in obedience to the principle of gravitation celebrated in that delicious bit of bladdery bathos, “The very law that moulds a tear,” with which the “Edinburgh Review” attempted to put down Master George Gordon when that young man was foolishly trying to make himself conspicuous.

One of these tears peeped over the edge of the lid until it lost its balance,—­slid an inch and waited for reinforcements,—­swelled again,—­rolled down a little further,—­stopped,—­moved on,—­and at last fell on the back of the Professor’s hand.  He held it up for me to look at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they met mine.

I couldn’t stand it,—­I always break down when folks cry in my face,—­so I hugged him, and said he was a dear old boy, and asked him kindly what was the matter with him, and what made him smell so dreadfully strong of spirits.

Upset his alcohol lamp,—­he said,—­and spilt the alcohol on his legs.  That was it.—­But what had he been doing to get his head into such a state?—­had he really committed an excess?  What was the matter?—­Then it came out that he had been taking chloroform to have a tooth out, which had left him in a very queer state, in which he had written the “Prelude” given above, and under the influence of which he evidently was still.

I took the manuscript from his hands and read the following continuation of the lines he had begun to read me, while he made up for two or three nights’ lost sleep as he best might.

Parson TURELL’S legacy: 
Or the president’s old arm-chair. 
A mathematical story.

Facts respecting an old arm-chair. 
At Cambridge.  Is kept in the College there. 
Seems but little the worse for wear. 
That’s remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke’s day. 
(One of his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, at one hundred, years ago.)
He took lodging for rain or shine
Under green bed-clothes in ’69.