Lee Blogborne
apologies to Artemus Ward
Da Hell Kat aka my loverly wife Helen has been cuttin' coupons and entering contersts for years now. You might remember she won some tickets to a world music concert a while back. Well, dis time she really hit da big time: a couple a tickets ta fly over ta London fer a week. Well, I'm not gunna bore you wid da usual long travelogue: just da high lights or in dis case just da lowlifes.
I skurcely need tell ya dat da Tower a London is very pop'lar with peeples from d' agricultooral districks, and it was chiefly dis class dat I found waitin at the gates d' other mornin.
I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In d' entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more firmer than dis one.
"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow detected my denomination.
"Alars! no," I ansered; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements, and yit we are devoid of a Tower. We had da twin towers but dere gone now. America, oh my onhappy country! thou hast not got no Tower! Well, anywat, not like dis one."
The gates opened after awhile, and we all purchist tickets and went into a waitin-room.
"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, " my name is Lee Blogborne n dis is a sad day."
"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.
"I mean it is sad to think that so many people have been killed within these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"
"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of dis institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd durin the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continued. "Look at the festiv guards, in their red flannil jackets. They are cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?"
The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is interestin. Among this collection of choice cutlery I notist the bow and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with. It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certin tribes of American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent precision that I almost sigh'd to be a Injun. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Now dey mostly run casinos. It reminded me of the trip we took trew Apache country once. Dem Apaches are so wonerfully eloquent. Our group was stopt on the plains of Texas by a band a Apaches, whose chief said, "Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinkin in the West, and Warra-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink." He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky, and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.
I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Irish, and when I hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name of Brother one minit, and the next the scalp you with their Thomashawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.
Lee Blogborne showd us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews, throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkerd from the Spanish Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them days -- which elissited from a bright eyed little girl of about twelve summers the remark that she tho't it was rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when we was in a Tower where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. Dis made Lee Blogborne stammer and turn red.
I was so blessed with the little girl's brightness that I could have kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older.
