But there is a point beyond which hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and Henry had passed that point.  He waited patiently till he was naked of scalp and deaf of ear.  He endured without repining the bent back, the sightless eyes, and the creaking joints incident to over-maturity.  But when he saw a man perish of senility, who in infancy had called him “Old Hank,” Mr. Wolfe thought patience had ceased to be commendable, and he abandoned his post of duty without being regularly relieved.

It is to be hoped he will be hotly punished for it.

....  One day an obscure and unimportant person pitched himself among the rolling porpoises, from a ferry-boat, and an officious busy-body, not at once clearly apprehending that the matter was none of his immediate business, hied him down to the engineer and commanded that official to “back her, hard!” As it is customary upon the high seas for such orders to emanate from the officer in command, that particular boat kept forging ahead, and the unimportant old person carried out his original design-that is, he went to the bottom like an iron wedge.  Rises the press in its wrath and prates about a Grand Jury!  Shrieks an intelligent public, in chorus, at the heartless engineer!

Meantime the pretty fish are running away with choice bits of God’s image at the bottom of the bay; the cunning crab makes merry with a dead man’s eye, the nipping shrimp sweetens himself for the table upon the clean juices of a succulent corpse.  Below all is peace and fat feasting; above rolls the sounding ocean of eternal Bosh!

....  There is war!  The woman suffrage folk go up against one another, because that a portion of them cleave to the error that the Bible is a collection of fables.  These will probably divest themselves of this belief about the time that Mr. Satan stands over them with a toasting-fork, points significantly to a glowing gridiron, and says to each suffrager: 

“Madame, I beg your pardon, but you will please retire to the ladies’ dressing-room, disrobe, unpad, lay off your back-hair; and make yourself as comfortable as possible while some fresh coals are being put on the fire.  When you have unmade your toilet you may touch that bell, and you will be nicely buttered and salted for the iron.  A polite and gentlemanly attendant will occasionally turn you, and I shall take pleasure in looking in upon you once in a million years, to see that you are being properly done.  Exceedingly sultry weather, Madame.  Au revoir.”

....  The funeral of the Rev. Father Byrne took place from the Church of the Holy Cross.  The ceremonies were of the most solemn and impressive character, and were keenly enjoyed by the empty benches by which the Protestant clergy were ably represented.  Why turned ye not out, O Biblethump, and Muddletext, and you, Hymnsing?  Is it thus that the Master was wont to treat the dead?