United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Cheerily, though there were none abroad to see it, shone the Maypole light that evening. Blessings on the red deep, ruby, glowing red old curtain of the window; blending into one rich stream of brightness, fire and candle, meat, drink, and company, and gleaming like a jovial eye upon the bleak waste out of doors!

I was studying at the University, and being coached in anatomy by my old friend Solling. He was an amusing fellow, this Solling. Full of jokes and whimsical ideas, and equally merry, whether he was working at the dissecting table or brewing a punch for a jovial crowd. He had but one fault if one might call it so and that was his exaggerated idea of punctuality.

So passed one doleful hour. I mentioned breakfast, and Bob shuddered, while Coney rushed from the room. What a pleasant thing is a jovial night! "Let's see if we can manage some champagne," said Darbishire, and the "merry" three were soon mournfully gazing on a costly magnum.

At the dinner the Captain made a neat speech referring to the pleasant relations during the voyage and the separation which was shortly to take place. The judge, in behalf of the passengers, responded in a jovial vein. "Three cheers for the Captain" were given with enthusiasm, followed by "He's a jolly good fellow," heartily sung.

"Still, for all that," said Don Quixote, "the player devil must not go off boasting, even if the whole human race favours him." So saying, he made for the cart, which was now very near the town, shouting out as he went, "Stay! halt! ye merry, jovial crew! I want to teach you how to treat asses and animals that serve the squires of knights-errant for steeds."

At last one of them asked me in Italian what had ailed me, to which I replied, in an incoherent manner, something about Mumbo Jumbo; whereupon the fellow, one of the bluffest of the lot, a jovial rosy-faced rascal, lifted up his right hand, placing it in such a manner that the lips were between the fore- finger and thumb, then lifting up his right foot and drawing back his head, he sucked in his breath with a hissing sound, as if to imitate one drinking a hearty draught, and then slapped me on the shoulder, saying something which sounded like goot wine, goot companion, whereupon they all laughed, exclaiming, ya, ya, goot companion.

If the contrast had been marked between the six men who sat at the table and the seventh man who sat apart, the contrast that existed between the two new-comers was still more striking. The first to enter was a big, jovial, red-faced, black-haired man with a huge mustache and a manner that suggested an ebullient admiration of himself and an ebullient appreciation of all possible pleasures.

An out-spoken Republican or Abolitionist would not meet a cordial welcome from the present frequenters of the New York, nor, I think, from its jovial host. Likewise the Empress City can boast that her barbers and iced drinks do actually "beat all creation."

At table, I used to speak with the worthy couple who had never left the mansion and who appeared to look upon themselves as its second masters, with the apparent good nature of a man who was in love with his wife and who wished only to speak about her, who took an interest in the smallest detail of her childhood and youth, with all the jovial familiarity which encourages peasants to talk, and when a few glasses of white wine had loosened their tongues they would talk about her, whom they loved as if she had been their child, and at other times I used to question the farmers, when they came to settle their accounts.

The pseudo doctor had been at the ranche a week, during which he had become quite chummy with Jim Cummings and Dan Moriarity, who, finding that time hung very heavy on their hands, welcomed the jovial, story- telling doctor and spent most of their time in his company.