Q. K. Philander Doesticks

“ As soon as the first expression of surprise was over, the Higholdboy, comprehending that something unusual had taken place, ordered the company to be seated. In obedience to this peremptory order from the most noble officer of the club, the Elephantines each took a seat, but as the inglorious young man before-mentioned had made the chairs exceedingly treacherous and insecure, by cutting off one leg of each, the immediate consequence of the attempt was another general sprawlification upon the floor, executed in a masterly manner by the entire strength of the company. ”

“ Mr. Van Dam amused himself by blacking the faces of all the pictures in the room with charcoal. Dennis employed himself for an hour and a half in whittling off with a jack-knife one leg of every chair in the apartment, so as to make it four inches shorter than the rest. Wagstaff collected all the books he could find, and piled them into a shaky pyramid, which he was preparing to push over with a broomstick upon the head of the unconscious Higholdboy. ”

“ Doesticks will always be with us. We have only to step into our library, and behold there is the ubiquitous Doesticks! We take him by the hand—we listen to the thoughts that breathe—the quaint philosophy—the piquant illustration! Doesticks all over—Doesticks in every page—in every line! Do you wish to make the acquaintance of Doesticks? Every body does."—New York Railway Journal. ”

“ And then Wagstaff struck in, and Dennis took a long breath, and he struck in; and they waked up a couple of children, and they struck in; and Dennis put his wooden leg on the tail of a dog, and he struck in; and the locomotive put on the final touch, by shrieking with a frightful yell, as if it had boiled down into one, the squalls of eleven hundred freshly-spanked babies. ”

“ This is emphatically a work of our age. Its life is its TRUTH. Its breath its FACT. It is history in the guise of fiction, history whose accuracy is attested by public records and State documents. Each character is a living reality. ”

“ John swore the Ghost looked as if he hadn't had any dinner, and said he was perfectly certain his ghostship had been refreshing his invisible bowels with a mug of ale, behind the scenes, because when he came on the last time, with the broomstick in his hand, he could see the foam on his whiskers.
One of the richest and most incomprehensible scenes ever witnessed on the modern stage was the final one between Hamlet and the Ghost, who, finding the weather chilly, had done his best to mitigate his sufferings by putting on an overcoat. ”

“ The rheumatic engine held back with all its power, and seemed, for the moment, endowed with a kind of obstinate vitality. Now it threw its wheel round a lamp-post, then it tumbled against the curb-stone, then it ran its tongue into an awning, then affectionately embraced with its projecting arms a crockery-wagon, and finally, with a kind of inanimate dogged determination not to go ahead, in turning a short corner, it leaped triumphantly astride a hydrant, where it stuck. The men tugged, but the engine held fast; the frantic man in the red shirt came tearing back ”

“ He accepted, and presently he proposed punch, and made a remark about cobbler. Punch I had heard mentioned as the prince of good fellows, and I was anxious to make his acquaintance. Cobbler I had only heard of as a man of lapstones and leather aprons, and I did not particularly desire to know him. On receiving an introduction to Punch, I was amazed to find that he was not an individual but a drink—a luscious combination of fragrant ingredients. ”

“ Who knows where he will lay his bones? Few and short will the prayers be said, and nobody'll feel any sorrow: but they'll cram him into his clay-cold bed, and bury somebody else on the top of him to-morrow; the minister will come, put on his robe and read the service; the choir'll sing a hymn; earth to earth and dust to gravel, and that'll be the last of Peter Knight."
The Higholdboy consulting with those members of the club who were still awake, it was resolved forthwith to put Peter Knight down stairs. ”

“ For my life I could not conceive why that amiable individual's proclivities in matters of apparel should lead him to wear a garment of so ridiculous a cut. I had just come to the sage conclusion that it was because every donkey in the country chooses to have his hips appear high or low to suit the caprice of Broadway tailors, when at that moment the amiable person, together with his long-tailed coat, was driven from my mind. ”

“ Boggs was fearful, Van Dam was afraid, Spout was cautious, Quackenbush would a little rather not, but Dropper's courage failed not, and he walked boldly into the outer temple, followed by his timid associates. Here they discovered a long counter, and a glass show-case, in which were displayed queer shoes, quaint tooth-picks, funny pipes, and singular ornaments. A glass jar, filled with a rose-pink fluid was also on the counter. A tall gentleman with a ferocious moustache, and a diminutive red cap, without a front-piece, met them. Mr. Quackenbush's curiosity was in a single direction ”

“ I am a modest man, and I am unwilling to stand here to be fooled with (enthusiastic applause) ; Mr. Dropper, if you don't shut up your mouth, I'll knock your moustache down your throat (tremendous applause) . Mr. Spout, you are the Higholdboy of this club, but I'll hit you with a brick if you don't keep better order. (Cries of "Order!" "Order!") If you'll stop your blasted noise, there will be no trouble about order. ”

“ He belongs to a class of beings in New York, a few specimens of which are familiar to those who frequent the principal thoroughfares, and are known by the ornithological appellation of "gutter-snipes." I have often talked with him, but he knows nothing of his own history; or, if he does, chooses not to reveal it. He is a monomaniac, but perfectly harmless, and calls himself Nicholas Quail. I have learned from other sources a few facts of his history. He sleeps anywhere and everywhere, and eats in the same localities. Nobody ever harms him, all being familiar with his whims. ”

“ John Spout, who was in a philosophic mood, remarked that it was a curious study to observe the various abortive efforts of aspiring carpenters to represent the human form divine, in the three-cornered wooden men, which stand for "pistol-galleries;" and the inexplicable Turks, the unheard of Scotchmen, and the Indians of every possible and impossible tribe, which are supposed to hint "tobacco and cigars."
The ambitious carpenter first hews out a distorted caricature of a man, which he passes over to the painters to be embellished. ”

“ They were lying about loose in the cars, after the ordinary fashion of people on a tedious railway journey; curled up in some such ungraceful and uneasy positions as the tired beasts of a strolling menagerie probably assume in their cages during their forced marches across the country. To carry out the parallel, the conductor came along at irregular intervals, and with deliberate and premeditated malignity, stirred up the passengers, as if they were actually animals on exhibition, and he really was their keeper, and wanted to make them growl. ”

“ Dropper was bewildered.
"It is a positive fact," continued Spout. "Why, bless your innocent eyes, a woman of fashion no more knows the names of the individuals who attend her grand party, than she knows who took tea last night with the man in the moon. She merely orders music and provisions, makes out a list of a few persons she must have, has her rooms actually measured, allows eight inches square to a guest; thus having estimated the number that can crowd into her house, she multiplies it by two, which gives the amount of invitations to be issued, after which she leaves the rest to Brown. ”

“ For three months, gentlemen, all my spare time was employed in perambulating Broadway, and standing at the entrance of the theatre, in hopes of meeting my deliverer. Many are the short and red-haired gentlemen whom I have vainly pursued. A half hour since, as I was riding down Broadway in a stage, I saw my deliverer turning the corner of this street, in company with three other gentlemen. ”

“ The sun was more brilliant; the moon shed a less melancholy light; lager bier tasted better; oysters appeared fatter; peanuts seemed always roasted just enough, and, in fact, he felt quite satisfied with life, and the world generally, and resolved to postpone indefinitely a purpose he had entertained of buying three cents' worth of arsenic. But a day or two before the scene [Pg 286] in the Police Court in which he figured, he found himself in a stage, and directly opposite was the identical object of his admiration and affection. ”

“ I saw the identical elephant to be seen every evening, and with which you are all familiar, and I began to think about eleven o'clock that I should be compelled to retire to rest without having seen anything worthy of note. ”

“ Teutonic target company turn into Broadway from Courtlandt street—'The Lager Bier Invincibles, Capt Conrad Künzmüller.' Suddenly find ourselves smashed up amid a perfect labyrinth of carts, stages, buggies, wagons, horses, mules, cotton bales, boxes, furniture, drivers, policemen, passengers, pedestrians, &c. A wagonload of dirt on our port side—wagon-driver unsophisticated; unused to driving in New York. In advance a cart having two bales of hay on board. Our horses, having nothing else to do, make efforts to get at the hay. ”

“ Spout's idea was quite ingenious.
Under these circumstances, each member determined to make himself as comfortable as the time, the place, and the conveniences would admit of.
Mr. Boggs was lying flat on his back, trying to drink a hot whisky-punch without breaking the tumbler, spilling the liquor, or getting the sugar inside his whiskers. Mr. Overdale was learning "juggling without a master," and was endeavoring to spin plates on his whalebone cane. In striving to acquire this elegant accomplishment, he had broken all the dishes in the premises. ”

“ Remington Dropper commenced:
"Gentlemen of the Elephant Club," said he, "the subject which I have to present for your consideration this evening is a remarkable instance of the genus homo which I accidentally came across in my peregrinations a few evenings since. I was returning home from the theatre, and in passing a door-way in Broadway, I discovered a man seated on the stone step, with his form reclining against the door-casing. The gas-light shone directly in his face, which revealed to me the fact that he was asleep. ”

“ Spout continued: "Let your arm," said he, "hang in an easy position from the right shoulder. Now let the digits of your other hand point 'over the left.' Now then, Mr. John I. Cake, late of the State of Illinois, but now encircled with, the moral atmosphere of Wall street, you do solemnly swear, by the sacred horn spoons, that you desire to become a member of the Elephant Club, that you are willing, on becoming a member, to do as you please, unless it pleases you to do something else; that you will never kick a big Irishman's dog, unless you think you are smart enough to thrash his master ”

“ Each member of the club began to feel himself sufficiently etherealized to aspire to a position in a Mahomedan heaven, where he could be surrounded by the spirits of numberless beautiful houris, when the attention of Mr. Spout was attracted to a young gentleman, seated on a divan, in the rear of the apartment. [Pg 69]
He was smoking a ponderous chibouk, and the cloudy volumes sent forth from his mouth hung about his form, quite obscuring him from sight. ”

“ But in thinking upon this subject, I have foreseen that, by the adoption of any of the ordinary plans, we saddle ourselves with a useless machinery, which will hinder the successful accomplishment of the object we desire. We have no time to spare in discussing rules of order, the adoption of which invariably makes disorder the rule. ”

“ Dropper had his hat knocked over his eyes, and thereupon, his indignation being roused, he hit out, right and left. His first vigorous blow inflicted terrific damage upon the amiable countenance of his best friend, Mr. Van Dam, and the very first kick he gave upset Mr. John Spout upon the protruding stomach of a man who had been knocked down with a spanner. John quickly recovered himself, and hit Van Dam a clip in the sinister optic, which placed that useful member in a state of temporary total eclipse. The battle became general, and each man waged an indiscriminate war upon his neighbor. ”

“ If each hair had possessed as many roots as a scrub oak sapling, and had grown the wrong way, with the roots out, there couldn't have been more; or if each individual hair had been grafted with a score of thrifty shoots, and each of them, in turn, had given off a multitude of sandy-colored sprouts, and each separate sprout had taken an unconquerable aversion to every other sprout, and was striving to grow in an independent direction of its own, there wouldn't have been a more abundant display of hair, growing towards a greater variety of hitherto unknown points of compass. ”

“ But whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the cuffs and bruises of this bloody Dutchman or to take arms against his red-haired highness, and by informing end him? I go and it is done. Villain, here's at thy heart! His name, your Honor, is Bobblesnoffkin in the Bowery. That's Shakspeare mixed."
"Young man, whose shirt has escaped from all control, and now hangs loose, the posterior section of which has also sustained a serious, and, I fear, irremediable fracture, I have another question to propound; answer upon your life. Have you got a home?" ”

“ Its inimitable fun sticks to us long after we have shut the book—its rollicking humor comes back to us in gusts."—Boston Chronicle.
"Doesticks is an original genius. His book is just the thing to pick up at odd moments, when time hangs heavy, and the mind seeks to be amused."—Gazette and Democrat, Reading, Pa.
"The essays of the rich, racy, humorous, and original Doesticks will be read by thousands."—New Orleans Bee.
"Doesticks' fun is not of the artificial, spasmodic order, it arises from a keen perception of the humorous side of things."—New York Tribune. ”