Chapter 27
Section 27 of Humorous Readings and Recitations. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lynda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Humorous Readings and Recitations. Edited by Leopold Wagner. section 27 the dream of the bilious beetle by arthur shirley twas in the grimy winter time an evening cold and damp and four and twenty work us boys all of one ill-fed stamp were blowing on blue finger tips bent double with the cramp
and when the skilly poured out fell into each urchin's pan they swallowed it at such a pace as only boyhood can but the beetle sat remote from all a bilious-looking man his hat was off red vest apart to catch the evening breeze he thought that that might cool his brow it only made him sneeze so pressed his side with his hand and tried to seem as if at ease Heave after heave his waistcoat gave, To him was peace denied. It tortured him to see them eat, He couldn't, though he tried. Good fare had made him much too fat, And rather Google-eyed.
At length he started to his feet, Some hurried steps he took. Now up the ward, now down the ward, With wild, deceptic look. And lo, he saw a workus boy Who read a penny book You beastly brat, what's is you're at?
I warn, tis no good What's this, the life of turpin bold Or death of Robin Hood? It's hesses on the crumpet, sir As a hearticle of food
He started from that boy as though in's ear he'd blown a trumpet. His hand he pressed upon his chest, then with his fist did thump it, and down he sat beside the brat and talked of the crumpet. How now and then that muffin man whom tradition tells. By pastry trade fortunes had made, and come out awful swells.
while their old patrons suffered worse than irving in the bells and well i know said he forsooth for plenty have i bought the sufferings of foolish folk who eat more than they ought with pepsin pills and liver pads is their consumption fraught oh oh my boy my pauper boy take my advice tis best shun all such tempting tasty things though nice beyond all question unless you wish like me to feel the pangs of indigestion one who had ever made me long a muffin man and old i watched into a public house he called for whiskey cold and for one moment left his stock within green bays enrolled i crept up to them thinking what an appetite i'd got i gloated o'er them lying there elastic and all hot i thought of butter laid on thick and then i prigged the lot
I took them home, I toasted them, perhaps upward of a score, and never had so fine a feast on luscious fare before. And now, I said, I'll go to bed and dream of eating more. All night I lay uneasily and rolled from side to side, at first without one wink of sleep, no matter how I tried,
And then I dreamt I was a bus, and curdled full inside. I was a bus by nightmares drawn on to some giddy crest, Now launched like lightning through the air, Now stopped and now compressed. I felt a million muffin men were seated on my chest.
I heard their bells, their horrid bells, In sound as loud as trumpets. O curses on ye, spongy tribe, ye cruffins and ye mumpets! I must be mad, I mean to say, ye muffins and ye crumpets! Then came a chill like wenham ice, then hot as hot as steam.
I could not move a single limb, I could not even scream. you pauper brat remember that all this was but a dream the boy gazed on his troubled brow from which big drops were oozing and for the moment all respect for his dread function losing made this remark will blow me tight our beetles been a boozing That very week before the beak They brought that beetle burly. He pleaded guilty in a tone
Dispectantly surly, And he lives still at Pentonville With hair not long or curly. End of section 27 Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C.
