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"Now," Bill resumed, "we wanted, besides, to make you a little gift, Mr. Wade, to remember the day by. So we got up a subscription, and every man put in his dime. Here's the present, hand 'em over, Perry! We Dunderbunk boys give 'em to you, one for all, and hope you'll like 'em and beat the world skating, as you do in all the things we've knowed you try.
"And there's something better yet," Bill resumed. "Dunderbunk used to be full of crying women. They've stopped crying now." Here the whole assemblage, Chairman and all, burst into an irrepressible cheer. "But I'm making my speech as long as a lightning-rod," said the speaker. "I'll put on the brakes, short. I guess Mr.
From Cohoes to Spuyten Duyvil, on both sides of the river, all the skaters swore at the weather, as profane persons no doubt did when the windows of heaven were opened in Noah's time. The skateresses did not swear, but savagely said, "It is too bad," and so it was. Wade, loaded with the blessings of his Directors, took the train next morning for Dunderbunk.
That is to say, five of the ten are pick-pockets; the other five, pockets to be picked. It happened that the Dunderbunk Directors were all honest and foolish but one. He, John Churm, honest and wise, was off at the West, with his Herculean shoulders at the wheels of a dead-locked railroad. These honest fellows did not wish Dunderbunk to fail for several reasons.
I am chief cook and confectioner where you see the smoking top of that tall chimney up-stream." "Why, of course! What a dolt I was, not to think of you, when Churm told us an Athlete, a Brave, a Sage, and a Gentleman was the Superintendent of Dunderbunk; but said we must find his name out for ourselves. You remember, Mary. Miss Damer is Mr. Churm's ward."
"Hurrah!" cries Wade, halting in front of the men, who, some on the Foundry wharf, some on the deck of our first acquaintance at Dunderbunk, the tug "L Ambuster," were putting on their skates or watching him, "Hurrah! the skates are perfection! Are you ready, Bill?" "Yes," says Tarbox, whizzing off rings, as exact as Giotto's autograph.
He came into Dunderbunk recently as executor of his friend Damer, a year ago bored to death by a silly wife. Churm's bristly aspect and incisive manner made him a sharp contrast to Brummage. The latter personage was flabby in flesh, and the oppressively civil counter-jumper style of his youth had grown naturally into a deportment of most imposing pomposity.
Wade in by acclamation," cried the Directors. "But, gentlemen," Churm interposed, "if I give him my blank check, he must have carte blanche, and no one to interfere in his management." Every Director, from President Brummage down, drew a long face at this condition. It was one of their great privileges to potter in the Dunderbunk affairs and propose ludicrous impossibilities.
How Dunderbunk cheered this wondrous display! How delighted the whole population was to believe they possessed the best skater on the North River! How they struggled to imitate! How they tumbled, some on their backs, some on their faces, some with dignity like the dying Caesar, some rebelliously like a cat thrown out of a garret, some limp as an ancient acrobate!
The world was all ready to move, and only waited for a fresh supply of wheels, cranks, side-levers, walking-beams, and other such muscular creatures of iron, to push and tug and swing and revolve and set Progress a-going. Dunderbunk was to have its full share in supplying the demand. It was well understood by this time that the iron Wade made was as stanch as the man who made it.
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