Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 by Various
page 21 of 78 (26%)
page 21 of 78 (26%)
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the "Old Shoe," and the "Glider," on account of its incredible ease of
motion; and that, owing to its exquisite abbreviation of travel to the emotions, those who rode in it had actually been known to dispute that they had ridden even half the distance for which they were charged. Did he know where Mr. DIBBLE, the lawyer, lived, in Nassau Street, near Fulton? If she meant lawyer DIBBLE, near Fulton Street, in Nassau, next door but one to the second house below, and directly opposite the building across the way, there was just one span of buckskin horses in the city that could take a carriage built expressly for ladies to that place, as naturally as though it were a stable. It was a place that he--the hackman--always associated with his own mother, because he was so familiar with it in childhood, and had often thought of driving to it blindfolded for a wager. Proud to learn that her guardian was so well known in the great city, and delighted that she had met a charioteer so minutely familiar with his house of business, FLORA stepped readily into the providential hack, which thereupon instantly began Rocking-Chair-ing, Old-Shoe-ing, and Gliding. Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous combination in the present case gave the Flowerpot a confused impression that her whole ride was a startling series of incessant sharp turns around obdurate street corners, and kept her plunging about like an early young Protestant tossed in a Romish blanket. Instinctively holding her satchel aloft, to save its fragile contents from fracture, she rocked, shoed and glided all over the interior of the vehicle, without hope of gaining breath enough for even one scream, until, nearly unconscious, and, with her bonnet driven half-way into her chignon, she was helped out by the hackman at her guardian's door. |
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