Short Fiction Edgar Allan Poe (books for men to read .txt) 📖

no homo⁠—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now⁠—cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so⁠—don’t! Don’t hollo, nor howl nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know⁠—but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!”

Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly, composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity to bed.

Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran upstairs to his “case,” in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at “setting” the MS. “up.”

In the first place, of course⁠—as the opening word was “So,”⁠—he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity⁠—but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he found that, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar predicament. Awestricken, his first impulse was to rush to the foreman.

“Sir!” said he, gasping for breath, “I can’t never set up nothing without no o’s.”

“What do you mean by that?” growled the foreman, who was in a very ill humor at being kept so late.

“Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a little un!”

“What⁠—what the d⁠⸺⁠l has become of all that were in the case?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said the boy, “but one of them ere G’zette devils is bin prowling ’bout here all night, and I spect he’s gone and cabbaged ’em every one.”

“Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,” replied the foreman, getting purple with rage “but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s a good boy⁠—you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their i’s and (d⁠⸺⁠n them!) their izzards.”

“Jist so,” replied Bob, with a wink and a frown⁠—“I’ll be into ’em, I’ll let ’em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that ere paragrab? Mus go in tonight, you know⁠—else there’ll be the d⁠⸺⁠l to pay, and⁠—”

“And not a bit of pitch hot,” interrupted the foreman, with a deep sigh, and an emphasis on the “bit.” “Is it a very long paragraph, Bob?”

“Shouldn’t call it a wery long paragrab,” said Bob.

“Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! we must get to press,” said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work; “just stick in some other letter for o; nobody’s going to read the fellow’s trash anyhow.”

“Wery well,” replied Bob, “here goes it!” and off he hurried to his case; muttering as he went: “Considdeble vell, them ere expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d⁠⸺⁠n all their gizzards! Vell! this here’s the chap as is just able for to do it.” The fact is that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in the old times long enough to render the substitution in question an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

“I shell have to x this ere paragrab,” said he to himself, as he read it over in astonishment, “but it’s jest about the awfulest o-wy paragrab I ever did see:” so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to press it went x-ed.

Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by reading in The Teapot, the following extraordinary leader:

“Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx!⁠—sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl⁠—gx! Yxu wxn’t? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu knxw, sx gx at xnce, and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx hxmx⁠—nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy, lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw⁠—cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx⁠—dxn’t! Dxn’t hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw⁠—but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!”

The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical