Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough.

A miserable lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, thought it

would sound well to call for me, and peeped out, "Ingham!" A few more

wretches cried, "Ingham! Ingham!" Still Isaacs was firm; but the

Governor, anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew I would say

something, and said, "Our friend Mr. Ingham is always prepared--and

though we had not relied upon him, he will say a word, perhaps."

Applause followed, which turned Dennis's head. He rose, flattered, and

tried No. 3: "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well

said, that I will not longer occupy the time!" and sat down, looking

for his hat; for things seemed squally. But the people cried, "Go on!

go on!" and some applauded. Dennis, still confused, but flattered by

the applause, to which neither he nor I are used, rose again, and this

time tried No. 2: "I am very glad you liked it!" in a sonorous, clear

delivery. My best friends stared. All the people who did not know me

personally yelled with delight at the aspect of the evening; the

Governor was beside himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone!

Alas, it was I! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud tone, "It's all

an infernal humbug," just as Dennis, waving his hand, commanded

silence, and tried No. 4: "I agree, in general, with my friend the

other side of the room." The poor Governor doubted his senses, and

crossed to stop him--not in time, however. The same gallery-boy

shouted, "How's your mother?"--and Dennis, now completely lost, tried,

as his last shot, No. 1, vainly: "Very well, thank you; and you?"

I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, like another

Lockhard chose "to make sicker." The audience rose in a whirl of

amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis,

broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself of an

address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to fight to

come down and do so--stating, that they were all dogs and

cowards--that he would take any five of them single-handed, "Shure, I

have said all his Riverence and the Misthress bade me say," cried he,

in defiance; and, seizing the Governor's cane from his hand,

brandished it, quarter-staff fashion, above his head. He was, indeed,

got from the hall only with the greatest difficulty by the Governor,

the City Marshal, who had been called in, and the Superintendent of my

Sunday School.

The universal impression, of course, was, that the Rev. Frederic

Ingham had lost all command of himself in some of those haunts of

intoxication which for fifteen years I have been laboring to destroy.

Till this moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick. This

number of _The Atlantic_ will relieve from it a hundred friends of

mine who have been sadly wounded by that notion now for years--but I

shall not be likely ever to show my head there again.

No! My double has undone me.

We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 9, in the Third

Range, and settled on the Minister's Lot, In the new towns in Maine,

the first settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of land. I am

the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and little Paulina are my

parish. We raise corn enough to live on in summer. We kill bear's meat

enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily on my _Traces of

Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries_, which I hope to

persuade Phillips, Sampson & Co. to publish next year. We are very

happy, but the world thinks we are undone.

A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS

By Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

[From _The Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1861. Republished in _Soundings

from the Atlantic_ (1864), by Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose authorized

publishers are the Houghton Mifflin Company.]

Having just returned from a visit to this admirable Institution in

company with a friend who is one of the Directors, we propose giving a

short account of what we saw and heard. The great success of the

Asylum for Idiots and Feeble-minded Youth, several of the scholars

from which have reached considerable distinction, one of them being

connected with a leading Daily Paper in this city, and others having

served in the State and National Legislatures, was the motive which

led to the foundation of this excellent charity. Our late

distinguished townsman, Noah Dow, Esquire, as is well known,

bequeathed a large portion of his fortune to this establishment--

"being thereto moved," as his will expressed it, "by the desire of

_N. Dowing_ some public Institution for the benefit of Mankind."

Being consulted as to the Rules of the Institution and the selection

of a Superintendent, he replied, that "all Boards must construct

their own Platforms of operation. Let them select _anyhow_ and he

should be pleased." N.E. Howe, Esq., was chosen in compliance with

this delicate suggestion.

The Charter provides for the support of "One hundred aged and decayed

Gentlemen-Punsters." On inquiry if there way no provision for

_females_, my friend called my attention to this remarkable

psychological fact, namely:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FEMALE PUNSTER.

This remark struck me forcibly, and on reflection I found that _I

never knew nor heard of one_, though I have once or twice heard a

woman make a _single detached_ pun, as I have known a hen to crow.

On arriving at the south gate of the Asylum grounds, I was about to

ring, but my friend held my arm and begged me to rap with my stick,

which I did. An old man with a very comical face presently opened the

gate and put out his head.

"So you prefer _Cane_ to _A bell_, do you?" he said--and began

chuckling and coughing at a great rate.

My friend winked at me.

"You're here still, Old Joe, I see," he said to the old man.

"Yes, yes--and it's very odd, considering how often I've _bolted_,

nights."

He then threw open the double gates for us to ride through.

"Now," said the old man, as he pulled the gates after us, "you've had

a long journey."

"Why, how is that, Old Joe?" said my friend.

"Don't you see?" he answered; "there's the _East hinges_ on the one

side of the gate, and there's the _West hinges_ on t'other side--haw!

haw! haw!"

We had no sooner got into the yard than a feeble little gentleman,

with a remarkably bright eye, came up to us, looking very serious, as

if something had happened.

"The town has entered a complaint against the Asylum as a gambling

establishment," he said to my friend, the Director.

"What do you mean?" said my friend.

"Why, they complain that there's a _lot o' rye_ on the premises," he

answered, pointing to a field of that grain--and hobbled away, his

shoulders shaking with laughter, as he went.

On entering the main building, we saw the Rules and Regulations for

the Asylum conspicuously posted up. I made a few extracts which may be

interesting:

SECT. I. OF VERBAL EXERCISES.

5. Each Inmate shall be permitted to make Puns freely from eight in

the morning until ten at night, except during Service in the Chapel

and Grace before Meals.

6. At ten o'clock the gas will be turned off, and no further Puns,

Conundrums, or other play on words will be allowed to be uttered, or

to be uttered aloud.

9. Inmates who have lost their faculties and cannot any longer make

Puns shall be permitted to repeat such as may be selected for them by

the Chaplain out of the work of _Mr. Joseph Miller_.

10. Violent and unmanageable Punsters, who interrupt others when

engaged in conversation, with Puns or attempts at the same, shall be

deprived of their _Joseph Millers_, and, if necessary, placed in

solitary confinement.

SECT. III. OF DEPORTMENT AT MEALS.

4. No Inmate shall make any Pun, or attempt at the same, until the

Blessing has been asked and the company are decently seated.

7. Certain Puns having been placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_ of the

Institution, no Inmate shall be allowed to utter them, on pain of

being debarred the perusal of _Punch_ and _Vanity Fair_, and, if

repeated, deprived of his _Joseph Miller_.

Among these are the following:

Allusions to _Attic salt_, when asked to pass the salt-cellar.

Remarks on the Inmates being _mustered_, etc., etc.

Associating baked beans with the _bene_-factors of the Institution.

Saying that beef-eating is _befitting_, etc., etc.

The following are also prohibited, excepting to such Inmates as may

have lost their faculties and cannot any longer make Puns of their

own:

"----your own _hair_ or a wig"; "it will be _long enough_," etc.,

etc.; "little of its age," etc., etc.; also, playing upon the

following words: _hos_pital; _mayor_; _pun_; _pitied_; _bread_;

_sauce_, etc., etc., etc. _See_ INDEX EXPURGATORIUS, _printed for use

of Inmates_.

The subjoined Conundrum is not allowed: Why is Hasty Pudding like the

Prince? Because it comes attended by its _sweet_; nor this variation

to it, _to wit_: Because the _'lasses runs after it_.

The Superintendent, who went round with us, had been a noted punster