The Yazoo City Whig

MISCELLANEOUS.
A Queer Customer.

"It is most amusing," said Richard Merwyn, as he relinquished the attempt to rise
from the gutter at the corner of — and
streets. "It is really astonishing how
soon this dreadful climate of America brings
on old age. I shall never survive to get
home and write a book about the place—never. Here I am, six feet two, without my
stockings, sprawling in a dirty, republican
gutter, without being able to help myself
out of it. There's a lamp winking and
blinking in my face, as if it wants to laugh,
and would, if it had a mouth, and a big
brute of a dog nosed me to see whether I
was good to eat. What a country!—what
gutters! and what liquor! I only took
nine smallers of whiskey, and what with
that and premature old age, I verily believe
I am assassinated—I'm a gone chicken!"

Mr. Merwyn now clamored so loudly that
assistance soon came.

"Silence there! what's the matter?"

"Matter yourself—I'm being done, or as
some people say, I'm doing. The march of
mind has tripped, and Richard Merwyn is
too deep in himself. Help me out—gently
—there. Ain't I in a pretty pickle? This
is what the doctors call gutta serena, isn't
it?"

"When I was at school the boys would
have called you guttural."

"They wouldn't have known much grammar, if they did. I'm a liquid—see me
drip."

"Oh! ho!" said the watch, "don't try to
be funny; I know you well enough, now
you have washed your face. You're the
chap that locked me up in my box once, and
when I burst open the door, you knocked
me heels over head, and legged it."

"That's me. I did that thing. How do
you like the ups and downs of public life.—
Isn't variety charming?"

"If it wasn't that I'm a public functionary
and mustn't give way to my feelings, I'd
crack your cocoa, and ease my mind of doing as I was done by. I'll make an example of you, however. You are my prisoner.
Hally coosha to the watch-house. That's the
Dutch for being took up."

"Well give us your arm.
Don't be afraid
of the mud. Gutter mud is very wholesome.
Look at the pigs how fat it makes'em: and
if you like fat pork why shouldn't you like
what makes pork fat? So—so—steady.—
Now I'll tell you all about t'other night. I
was passing your box in a friendly promiscuous sort of a way, I thought you were asleep
or had run down, and I turned the key to
wind you up. If a watch ain't wound up,
it can't keep either good time, or even go."

"Why, then I watched the box, and when
you come out, I boxed the watch. That's
all. It grew out of my obliging disposition."

"Ha! very obliging. Now it's my turn to
wind you up, and, to do it in the same way,
I'll take you before the watch maker, to be
cleansed and regulated. You go too fast
—but I'll put a stop to you by the regulator
and make you keep good time."

"Why, watchy, you're a wag. Why don't
you say that I was a horizontal, and that you
lifted me up like a patent lever? You're
awake now; but that night you wasn't
up to snuff, or you would have caught me;
caught a weasel asleep that time I put
fresh salt on you once."

To add one more to his vagaries, Merwyn refused to walk a step further; and sitting down on a step, loudly avowed his resolution, and declared his name was not Walker.

Whether your name be Walker or not,
you must go."

"Not without a go-cart you can't force
me to go—I'm a legal tender, and you must
take me. Haven't I got an office, or at least
a public situation, here on these steps? If
I must go, it shall be on the yankee principle of rotation; bring me a wheel barrow?
Reform me out regularly." It was procured,
and away they went. "So we go," said
Merwyn, "Charley's getting a barrow-load
of me. Gently over the stones! I don't
like bumpers, except when I get them of
porter. This is the way to Wheeling—hurra! cart before the horse!" Arriving at the
watch-house, he insisted upon being wheeled up stairs, and styled the place a barrow-
rial castle. "I'm a modest man," said he,
"and no stairer. If I can't have a ride up
I think myself entitled to a drawback." So
he attempted to escape, but was soon caught,
being as he said, like Goldsmith's works,
"beautifully chased." The punster was
soon carried aloft, and next morning sober
and penitent, paid his tipsy fine and his carriage hire with a doleful countenance.