Then spat on his palms, and rubbed, and stooped, and gayly clutched Sir Ball,
At the instant gripe of his burning claws, Sir Ball did screech and writhe—
"My! that's a trifle!" Sir Flatfoot said, with an air both mild and blithe.
Then braced, a-stoop, "All aboard!" he cried, with a loud and cheery call;
His wings clashed wide and beat and beat, but he couldn't lift Sir Ball.
"By George!" he grunted, with violent wafts," he's a hefty cuss, I snore!"
And with hurricane blasts of his horny vans he rose a yard, nor more.
With added tornade an ell he made—the fiend he sweats and grins—
"Why, damme!" roared he, "it never can be the weight of the villain's sins!"
In the inky gloom he made simoom, till his wind went out with a belch,
And headlong earthward down he flopped a-sprawl with horrid squelch.
He paused—he rose ; his tail was droopt, and slow sank either van;
And sooty white with amaze and spite, he scanned the ponderous man.
"If ever I knew the like of this!" he yelled, dismayed and grim:
Then, after a minute, "He'll have to stay—a derrick could never lift him."
"No matter," he added, hornet-mad, "Sir Newton was not wrong—
I'll have him yet in the natural course, for gravitation's strong."
With that he bristled his tail and dealt Sir Ball a savage flick;
Sir Ball did screech, for the harpoon edge did slash him to the quick;
And, ah, it clave his coat-tail down, and a manuscript out did fall;
And the Devil read, "A Christmas Carol. By A. M. W. Ball."
Gramercy! but Sir Flatfoot's roars of laughter shook the skies.
And he gasped and wheezed, while the sable tears ran out of his wicked old eyes,
"Well, Blair is heavy, and Tupper's a ton, and Pollok sells by the pound,
But this!—no wonder I couldn't fly—why, it's made a hole in the ground!
Well, well! with lessened avoirdupois, I guess we'll lighter ride;
So now, my boy,"—he spat on his palms—"come off and be boiled and fried."
XI.
It was the good Sir Public then, the gentle old man gray,
"Not so," he said, "such sins as his deserve a sterner way."
"How now!" retorts Sir Fiend, irate—"I'm rather more than a liar
If there's anything worse than the seething lake of brimstone and of fire!"
"Not so," Sir Public said, "there's pain compels a bitterer brine—
Let him ride, an endless passenger, on the Camden and Amboy line!
Let him feel the muscle-destroying racks, the cramps, the jolts, the jars,
The Spanish Inquisition-for-one of a seat within those cars.
Let him breathe their rank and ropy air that the life of the lungs destroys—
Let his brain grow sick with the pobbledy-wob of the tramway's corduroys—
Let him pause at the station restaurants and eat with the ravening flies,
Those sandwiches, those nightmare cakes, and oh, those nameless pies!—
Let him eat till he envies the eaters of clay and the cannibals happy and free—
And then let him drink the infernal drinks they call their coffee and tea.
Let him enter again to his torture-seat, and ride and ride and ride—
Let his feet be chillblained with the draughts while his brains by the stove are fried—
uet him joggle with cinders flaying his eyes, till he loathes the night and day—
And sharpest torment of all, for all, let him feel there's money to pay!
And never for him be the ecstacy that the worst of wretches know,
When they leave those cars at the terminus, in a blest relief from wo."
"Haw, haw!" the jovial fiend's guffaw up-belched with sulphur spoom—
"O bully for you! By George! this beats the Flying Dutchman's doom!"
