A PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENT.
Reading edition
BY WALTER CLARKE NICHOLS.
A partnership once, as some historians state, Was formed on the banks of the slow-flowing Nile By a young Cheshire cat, an elephant straight From the jungle, and, thirdly, an old crocodile. "For surely," the elephant plausibly said, "We can all of us turn in the forth-coming years, When sad, to the crocodile, whom we've been led To believe an exceptional expert in tears." "Quite right," quoth the latter. "We cannot begin Too early, and when we need mutual mirth We can look to our pussie, whose broad Cheshire grin Excels in duration all others on earth." "And then, when we're travelling," chimed in the cat, Who had been for some moments in solemn thought sunk, "We can carry conveniently coat, shoes, and hat, Since we'll always have with us the elephant's trunk."
Many boys and girls have seen the famous actor Joe Jefferson in his great play Rip Van Winkle, that delightful story of the Catskill fairies, and in it that weird scene where he partakes of the spirits that the elves give him, making him sleep for twenty years. Well, there is a good story told about Jefferson in that particular scene. Once being near some good fishing-grounds, he spent the day drawing in the gamy trout, and was thoroughly tired when the curtain rolled up for the evening performance. Things moved smoothly enough until he is supposed to fall asleep. Now that sleep in fiction lasts twenty years, but on the stage about two minutes. This time, however, the two minutes were lengthened out into ten, much to the amusement of the audience and provocation of the stage-manager. Jefferson had really fallen asleep, and his snores, it is said, were quite audible beyond the footlight. Several remarks were fired at him by the audience, and, finally, the stage-manager had to go beneath the stage and open a trap near where Jefferson was lying to try and wake him up.
He called and called, but it was no use, and in desperation he succeeded in jabbing a pin into him, which made Jefferson jump up with a sharp cry, and quickly realize where he was.