"This is a nice young lady," said the Professor, addressing Dove and pointing to Rump. "She is in love with you and expects you to court her."
Dove drew his chair close up to Rump and put his arm around his neck and kissed him. Rump looked modest and blushed deeply.
"Will you allow that?" said the Professor. "The young lady is in love with you and he is kissing her."
Bliss seized Dove and commenced pulling him away. There was quite a struggle between them, when the Professor sternly cried out,--
"What are you doing there? Quarreling over that ugly black woman?"
Dove and Bliss started back with horror depicted in their countenances. To each of them Simon Rump had assumed the appearance of a hideous negress.
"Look out! it is a snake! it will bite you!" said the Professor, throwing down his cane. Rump, Dove, and Bliss ran around the platform with cries of terror. "It is a telescope! Pick it up! you can see the capitol at Washington through it." Rump put it to his eyes and beheld the national capitol.
"Stand here," said the Professor to Rump. "Now, whom would you like to see?--the dead?"
"There she is!" said the Professor, pointing to a female form at the far end of the room. Rump uttered a cry of rapture, and, leaping from the platform, ran to the female, and threw his arms round her neck, and kissed her on both cheeks.
"Look at Simon Rump!" said the Widow Wild. "The miserable dog! he is kissing my cook, who is as black as Beelzebub."
The cook screamed, and fought Simon Rump with her nails; and another belligerent now appeared in his rear. This was Simon's angel, who had beheld his conduct with intense indignation, and was now fiercely assaulting him with her parasol. Two of the cherubs also took part in the combat, and Rump was driven from the door into the street. The crowd followed, cheering the angel and the two cherubs. Rump was overpowered, and turning his back, ignominiously fled, leaving the angel and cherubs in possession of the field. While men and women stood in the street in wild excitement, the Professor locked the door of the hall and proceeded to his lodgings.
Like one who has committed a great crime, and knows that retributive justice is in close proximity to his heels, Simon Rump fled homeward, on foot, a miserable man. The blows and the hair-pulling, of which he was the recipient, had driven the delusion from his brain, and he was conscious of his guilt, and in trembling apprehension awaited his punishment. In the house, where he had spent so many hours in days gone by, contemplating the blissful period when it would be the abode of an angel and seven sweet little cherubs, he now sat and listened with a feeling of extreme terror for the sounds which would indicate the approach of the angel aforesaid.