ing
Ti that Chinamen when they eat shall sit as near as possible to the sacred
moon.

But hold a bit! In your haste up town to find a place to eat, you are
missing some of the finer sights upon the way. In these windows that
you pass, the merchants have set their choicest wares. If there is any
commodity of softer gloss than common, or one shinier to the eye--so
that your poverty frets you--it is displayed here. In the window of the
haberdasher, shirts--mere torsos with not a leg below or head above--yet
disport themselves in gay neckwear. Despite their dismemberment they are
tricked to the latest turn of fashion. Can vanity survive such general
amputation? Then there is hope for immortality.

But by what sad chance have these blithe fellows been disjointed? If
a gloomy mood prevails in you--as might come from a bad turn of the
market--you fancy that the evil daughter of Herodias still lives around the
corner, and that she has set out her victims to the general view. If there
comes a hurdy-gurdy on the street and you cock your ear to the tune of
it, you may still hear the dancing measure of her wicked feet. Or it is
possible that these are the kindred of Holofernes and that they have supped
guiltily in their tents with a sisterhood of Judiths.

Or we may conceive--our thoughts running now to food--that these gamesome
creatures of the haberdasher had dressed themselves for a more recent
banquet. Their black-tailed coats and glossy shirts attest a rare occasion.
It was in holiday mood, when they were fresh-combed and perked in their
best, that they were cut off from life. It would appear that Jack Ketch the
headsman got them when they were rubbed and shining for the feast. We'll
not squint upon his writ. It is enough that they were apprehended for some
rascality. When he came thumping on his dreadful summons, here they were
already set, fopped from shoes to head in the newest whim. Spoon in hand
and bib across their knees--lest they fleck their careful fronts--they
waited for the anchovy to come. And on a sudden they were cut off from
life, unfit, unseasoned for the passage. Like the elder Hamlet's brother,
they were engaged upon an act that had no relish of salvation in it. You
may remember the lamentable child somewhere in Dickens, who because of an
abrupt and distressing accident, had a sandwich in its hand but no mouth
to put it in. Or perhaps you recall the cook of the Nancy Bell and his
grievous end. The poor fell