y in the saddle, which is scarcely a
proper thing to do to any lady, aside from the difficulty of springing
ten or fifteen feet into the air and coming down, crotched out, on a
given spot, or else he must contribute a feat in contortion the like of
which has never been duplicated since.

To be brutally frank about it, the thing just naturally is not possible.
I don't care if Young Lochinvar was as limber as a yard of fresh
tripe--and he certainly did shake a lithesome calf in the measures of
the dance if Sir Walter, in an earlier stanza, is to be credited with
veracity. Even so, I deny that he could have done that croupe trick.
There isn't a croupier at Monte Carlo who could have done it. Buffalo
Bill couldn't have done it. Ned Buntline wouldn't have had Buffalo Bill
trying to do it. Doug Fairbanks couldn't do it. I couldn't do it myself.

Skipping over Robert Southey's tiresome redundancy in spending so much
of his time and mine, when I was in the Fifth Reader stage, in telling
how the waters came down at Ladore when it was a petrified cinch that
they, being waters, would have to come down, anyhow, I would next direct
your attention to two of the foremost idiots in all the realm of poesy;
one a young idiot and one an older idiot, probably with whiskers, but
both embalmed in verse, and both, mind you, stuck into every orthodox
reader to be glorified before the eyes of childhood. I refer to that
juvenile champion among idiots, the boy who stood on the burning deck,
and to the ship's captain in the poem called The Tempest. Let us briefly
consider the given facts as regards the latter: It was winter and it was
midnight and a storm was on the deep, and the passengers were huddled in
the cabin and not a soul would dare to sleep, and they were shuddering
there in silence--one gathers the silence was so deep you could hear
them shuddering--and the stoutest held his breath, which is considerable
feat, as I can testify, because the stouter a fellow gets the harder it
is for him to hold his breath for any considerable period of time. Very
well, then, this is the condition of affairs. If ever there was a time
when those in authority should avoid spreading alarm this was the time.
By all the traditions of the maritime service it devolved upon the
skipper to remain calm, cool and collected. But what does the poet
reveal to a lot of trusting school children?

"We are lost!" the captain shouted,
As he staggered down the stair.