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Show THE ODD FELLOWS LODGE. 39 the light, made too short a turn and went right through the show window, pitching Wolfe by a double summersault amid the wreck of matter and the crash of glass. "When the clerk asked 'why all this celebration,' he said 'it's in honor of my being made an Odd Fellow. It was worse than Gilpin's race. I would prefer taking my initiation in installments if it was not so odorous.' The goat walked off looking dejected and forlorn. Wolfe paid the damages, purchased ~some liniment and a bottle of rose water, and made for home in double-quick time to wash up; for the air was redolent of him. He entered by the back way, sent his suit to the steam dyers, his linen to the laundry, and deliberated seriously about dropping himself in the cistern for a quiet bath. " After much scrubbing and fumigation he was again presentable; but his clothes were a total loss, for the steam dyer thought he must have caught some contagious disease, and so -made a burnt offering of his suit; while the laundry was converted for a time into an undertaking establishment and had a burying in the back yard. " Next morning when the earnest workers came poking around, he assumed an air of offended dignity and said he had been made a victim of a base conspiracy. He folded his arms on the back of a chair and rested his chin on them after the style of Raphael's cherubs, and asked- "' Where do you fellows expect to go when you die ?' "Now," said Mr. Clark, "that will break the monotony of your book and make it vastly more entertaining." " For freshest wits I know will soon be wearie Of any book, how grave so e'er it be, Except it have odd matter, strange and merrie, Well sauc'd with lies and glared all with glee.'" |
