Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems. Эдгар Аллан По
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as for the editor of “The Gazette,” he was torn all to pieces in particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery that I have always, ·1370· since that time, been forced to look upon John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I cannot pretend to give all the Tea-Pot’s paragraphs verbatim, but one of them run thus:
“Oh, yes!—Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way is a genius—Oh, my! Oh, goodness, gracious!—what is this world coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!”
A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared, as follows:
“We quote from ‘The Tea-Pot’ of yesterday the subjoined paragraph:—‘Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh, goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’ Why, the fellow is all O! That accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything that he says. We really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as much there as he does here? ‘O! it is pitiful.’”
The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to desperation. What!—he, Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he, Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole paragraph—ay! a whole article—in which that contemptible vowel should not once—not even once—make its appearance. But no;—that would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He, Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. ·1371· Perish so vile a thought! The O forever! He would persist in the O. He would be as O-wy as O-wy could be.
Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great Touch-and-go, in the next “Tea-Pot,” came out merely with this simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy affair:
“The editor of the ‘Tea-Pot’ has the honor of advising the editor of ‘The Gazette’ that he, (the ‘Tea-Pot,’) will take an opportunity, in to-morrow morning’s paper, of convincing him, (the ‘Gazette,’) that he, (the ‘Tea-Pot,’) both can and will be his own master, as regards style;—he (the ‘Tea-Pot’) intending to show him, (the ‘Gazette,’) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with which the criticism of him, (the ‘Gazette,’) inspires the independent bosom of him, (the ‘Tea-Pot,’) by composing for the especial gratification (?) of him, (the ‘Gazette,’) a leading article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel—the emblem of Eternity—yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of him, (the ‘Gazette,’) shall most certainly not be avoided by his (the ‘Gazette’s’) most obedient, humble servant, the ‘Tea-Pot.’ ‘So much for Buckingham!’”
In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf ear to all entreaties for “copy,” and simply requesting his foreman to “go to the d———l,” when he (the foreman) assured him (the “Tea-Pot!”) that it was high time to “go to press:” turning a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:
“So, ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know you’re out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl,—go! You wont? Oh, poh, poh, John, don’t do so! You’ve got to go, you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow; for nobody owns you here, you know. Oh, John, John, if you don’t go you’re ·1372· no homo—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now—cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so—don’t! Don’t hollo, nor howl, nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know—but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!”
Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly, composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity, to bed.
Meantime the devil to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to his “case,” in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at “setting” the MS. “up.”
In the first place, of course,—as the opening word was “So”—he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he found that, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the foreman.
“Sir!” said he, gasping for breath, “I can’t never set up nothing without no o’s.”
“What do you mean by that?” growled the foreman, who was in a very ill-humor at being kept up so late.
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