The Cecil Whig

Here She Goes, There She Goes,

The following amusing and well told story was published in one of the city papers of Gotham, about a dozen years ago. It occasioned at the time a good deal of merriment:

Not long since, two stylish-looking persons put up for the night in the upper part of the city. On the morrow, after ordering their bill, they sent for the landlord, who was not long in waiting on his aristocratic guests.

"I wish to purchase that old clock up stairs will you sell it?" asked the elder, while the younger lit a cigar, and cast his eyes over the columns of a newspaper which lay upon the table. The landlord, who had set no great value upon the clock, except as an heir-loom, began to suspect that it might possess the virtue of Martin Hewwood's chair, and be filled with coin; and almost involuntarily the three ascended to the room which contained it.

"The fact is," said the elder, "I once won twenty pounds with a clock like that."

"Twenty pounds!" ejaculated the landlord.

"Yes! You see there was one like it in a room down in Essex, and a fellow bet me he could keep his fore-finger swinging with the pendulum for an hour, only saying, 'Here she goes, there she goes.' He couldn't do it. I walked the money out of him in no time."

"You did! You couldn't walk it out of me. I bet you ten pounds I can do it on the spot!"

"Done!" cried the knowing one.

The clock struck eight, and with his back to the table and the door, the landlord popped into a chair-

"Here she goes, there she goes!" and his finger waved in curve, his eyes fully fixed on the pendulum. The fellows behind interrupted, "Where's the money? Plank the money!"

The landlord was not to lose in that way. His fore-finger slowly and surely went with the pendulum, and his left hand disengaged his purse from his pocket, which he threw behind him on the table. All was silent; the dapper man at length exclaimed-

"Shall I deposit the money in the hands of the waiter?"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" was the only answer.

One of the wags left the room. The landlord heard him go down stairs; but he was not to be disturbed by that trick. Presently the waiter entered, and touching him upon the shoulder, asked,

"Mr. B., are you crazy? What are you doing?"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" he responded, his hand waving the fore-finger as before.

The waiter rushed down stairs: he called one of the neighbors and asked him to go up. They ascended, and the neighbor, seizing him gently by the collar, in an imploring voice said

"Mr. B--, do not sit here. Come, come down stairs; what can possess you to sit here?"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" was the sole reply, and the solemn face and the slowly moving finger settled the matter. He was mad!

"He is mad," whispered the friend in a low voice; "we must go for a doctor."

The landlord was not to be duped, he was not to be deceived, although the whole town came to interrupt him.

"You had better call up his wife," added the friend.

"Here she goes, there she goes!" repeated the landlord, and his hand still moved on.

In a minute his wife entered full of agony of soul.

"My dear," she kindly said, "look on me. It is your wife who speaks!"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" and his hand continued to go, but his wife wouldn't go; she would stay, and he thought she was determined to conspire against him and make him lose the wager. She wept, and she continued-

"What cause have you for this? Why do you do so? It is your wife-"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" and his finger seemed to be tracing her airy progress. for anything she could ascertain to the contrary.

"My dear," she still continued, thinking that the thought of his child whom he fondly loved, would tend to restore him, "shall I call up your daughter?"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" the landlord again repeated, his eyes becoming more and more fixed and glazed, from the steadiness of the gaze. A slight smile, which had great effect upon the minds of those present, played upon his face, as he thought upon the many unsuccessful resorts to win him from his purpose and of his success in baffling them. The physician entered. He stood by the side of the busy man. He looked at him in silence, shook his head, and to the anxious inquiry of the wife answered

"No, madam! The fewer persons here the better. The maid had better stay away; do not let the maid-"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" yet again, in harmony with the waving finger, issued from the lips of the landlord.

"A consultation, I think, will be necessary," said the physician. "Will you run for Dr. A?"

The kind neighbor buttoned up his coat and hurried from the room.

In a few minutes Dr. A with another medical gentleman entered.

"This is a sorry sight," said he to the doctor with him.

"Indeed it is sir;" was the reply.

"It is a sudden attack, one of the"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" was the sole reply. The physicians stepped into a corner and consulted together.

"Will you be good enough to run for a barber? We must have his head shaved and blistered," said Dr. A

"Ah, poor dear husband," said the lady, "I fear he will never know his miserable wife."

"Here she goes, there she goes!" said the landlord, with a little more emphasis, and a more nervous, yet determined waving of the finger in concert with the pendulum; for the minute hand was near the twelve-that point which was to put ten pounds into his pocket, if the hand arrived at it without suffering himself to be interrupted.

The wife, in a low, bewailing tone, continued her utterances-

"No! never; nor his daughter."

"Here she goes, there she goes!" shouted the landlord, as the minute hand at the desired point.

The barber arrived: he was naturally a talkative man, and when the doctor made some casual remark, reflecting upon the quality of the instrument he was about to use, he replied-

"Ah, ha! Monsieur, you say ver bad to razor—'tes beautiful—ch?—look—look—very fine, isn't he?"

"Here she goes, there she goes!" screamed the landlord. his hand waving on—on, his face gathering a smile, and his whole frame in readiness to be convulsed with joy.

The barber was amazed. "Here she goes, there she goes!" he responded, in the best English he could use. Vare? vare shall I begin? Vat his dat he say?

"Shave his head at once!" interrupted the doctor, while the lady sank into a chair.

"Here she goes, there she goes!" for the last time cried the landlord, as the clock struck the hour of nine, and he sprang from his seat in an ecstasy of delight, screaming at the top of his voice, as he skipped about: the room-

"I've won it!—I've won it!"
"What?" said the waiter.

"What?" echoed the doctors.

"What?" re-echoed the wife.

"Why, the wager—ten pounds!"

But casting his eyes around the room, and missing the young men who induced him to watch the clock, he asked—

"Where are those young men who supped here last night? eh? quick—where are they?"

"They went away in their phaeton nearly an hour ago, sir?" was the reply of the waiter.

The truth flashed like a thunderbolt through his mind. They had taken his pocket book with twenty-one pounds therein, and decamped—a couple of swindling sharpers, with wit to back them.