Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

THE SCURRIL PRESS

THE SCURRIL PRESS.

TOM JONESMITH _(loquitur)_: I've slept right through
The night--a rather clever thing to do.
How soundly women sleep _(looks at his wife.)_
They're all alike. The sweetest thing in life
Is woman when she lies with folded tongue,
Its toil completed and its day-song sung.
(_Thump_) That's the morning paper. What a bore
That it should be delivered at the door.
There ought to be some expeditious way
To get it _to_ one. By this long delay
The fizz gets off the news _(a rap is heard)_.
That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird;
She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul.
_(Gets up and takes it in.)_ Upon the whole
The system's not so bad a one. What's here?
Gad, if they've not got after--listen dear
_(To sleeping wife)_--young Gastrotheos! Well,
If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell
She'll shriek again--with laughter--seeing how
They treated Gast. with her. Yet I'll allow
'T is right if he goes dining at The Pup
With Mrs. Thing.

WIFE _(briskly, waking up)_:
With her? The hussy! Yes, it serves him right.

JONESMITH (_continuing to "seek the light"_):
What's this about old Impycu? That's good!
Grip--that's the funny man--says Impy should
Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps.
I knew old Impy when he had the "stamps"
To buy us all out, and he wasn't then
So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen
Is just a tickler!--and the world, no doubt,
Is better with it than it was without.
What? thirteen ladies--Jumping Jove! we know
Them nearly all!--who gamble at a low
And very shocking game of cards called "draw"!
O cracky, how they'll squirm! ha-ha! haw-haw!
Let's see what else (_wife snores_). Well, I'll be blest!
A woman doesn't understand a jest.
Hello! What, what? the scurvy wretch proceeds
To take a fling at _me_, condemn him! (_reads_):
Tom Jonesmith--my name's Thomas, vulgar cad!--_Of
the new Shavings Bank_--the man's gone mad!
That's libelous; I'll have him up for that--_Has
had his corns cut_. Devil take the rat!
What business is 't of his, I'd like to know?
He didn't have to cut them. Gods! what low
And scurril things our papers have become!
You skim their contents and you get but scum.
Here, Mary, (_waking wife_) I've been attacked
In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is a fact!

WIFE (_reading it_): How wicked! Who do you
Suppose 't was wrote it?

JONESMITH: Who? why, who
But Grip, the so-called funny man--he wrote
Me up because I'd not discount his note.
(_Blushes like sunset at the hideous lie--
He'll think of one that's better by and by--
Throws down the paper on the floor, and treads
A lively measure on it--kicks the shreds
And patches all about the room, and still
Performs his jig with unabated will._)

WIFE (_warbling sweetly, like an Elfland horn_):
Dear, do be careful of that second corn.