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101

OR,

Whittlings of Jonathan's Jark-Kuife.

VOLUME ONE.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY T. W. STRONG,

98 NASSAU STREET.

1852.

P432.1

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WAL, you see I am as good as my word. I told you that I would put my first volume through the press, and I've done it, in good style, I guess. And I mean to begin another-right off the reel. Nothing on airth puts a feller to his stumps like undertakin' to write a Book, only it come kinder nateral to me, as I an't a feller of the common chop, not by no means, I calkelate.

Sez I to myself, when I began this volume, "If this don't take the rag off the bush, I'll be 'tarnally whipped for a fool." And I guess I won't be whipped. No, sir-ree. For if I haven't cracked the

I'll

go hide my head under a cabbage-leaf, feeling awful streaked. But knowing what I have done, and how well I have done it, I feel terrible harnsome, I

ar Dest jokes, and told the best stories,

tell yeou.

Now, I feel pretty tall, jest about these ere times, I swanny, to see this ere volume in print, and bound up so nicely, and folks say "Why, Jonathan, is all this your wit?" So that I feel all run to head like a seed onion. And Jemimer is kinder puzzled about it. Sez she

"What makes people talk about you so?"

"Gal!" sez I, "you don't know anything about it, I'm a literary genius!' "A What?" sez she, and then she bust out a larfin'. I swow, she looked dreadful pooty, though she was so provokin'.

"Git eout, gal," sez I," or the dorg'll riz his back at yer, for he feels kinder riled to see you so tarnal impudent."

"Wal," sez she, "if you're a literary genius, I never seed one afore, and I didn't know what the animal was like."

I could have got all-fired wrathy with her, if I hadn't seen that she was eenamost larfin' with joy at my success, and that she only said what she did to plague me.

"Come and give me a kiss, gal!" I cried out-and she gave me such a smack, 'twas like a cannon on Independence Day.

"Don't make such a coot of yourself," sez she, "jest as if I warn't as glad as you can be."

And I swow, the dorg came dancing round us, for all the world like one o' them gals at Niblo's.

Wal, I shall cut slick away at my second volume, and if Jemimer should have gone to nussing by that time, we shall have awful fun with the babby. I shall have more picters, and better ones; and more jokes, that will set you all a larfin, so that you will have to call in your neighbors to stop you, and then they'll have to laugh too, and I don't know what'll come of it, for I shall be so terrible funny, there'll be no stopping me. Though my first volume is as good as butter, it'll be nothing to my second one-not a priming. I shall have such a hull grist o' good things in it, as was never seed afore. I swan to man, if I don't whip all creation, London Punch, and all on 'em.

Wal, reader, I kinder think we part very good friends, don't we?

Here's wishin' you a happy New Year, when it comes along. Jest imagine that I am standin' up parpendickerler, and a bowin' to you like a corn-stalk in a hurricane. And so, good bye, till I get another grip of your hand.

Jonathan, overpowered by his exertions of the "Preface," is carried off, still faintly expressing his sentiments, amid showers of bouquets and thunders of applause.

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