CUPID AND CLAMS. 41 



teered as local reporter. Many of the items he 

 gathered are entered in our log-book in rhyme, and 

 to these pages some of them are transferred verba- 

 tim. In wooing the muses, our alderman certainly 

 acted out of character. The ideal poet is thin in- 

 stead of obese, and he is a reckless innovator who 

 lays claim to any measure of the divine afflatus 

 without possessing either a pale face, thin form, or 

 a garret. 



As to what drove a New York alderman to the 

 society of buffaloes, we had but one explanation, 

 and that was Sachem's own. We knew that he dis- 

 liked women in every form, Sorosis and Anti-Sorosis, 

 bitter and sweet alike. According to his statement, 

 made to us in good faith, and which I chronicle in 

 the same, Cupid had once essayed to drive a dart 

 into Sachem's heart, but, in doing so, the barb also 

 struck and wounded his liver. As his love increased, 

 his health failed. His liver became affected in the 

 same ratio as his heart. This was touching our 

 alderman in a tender spot. Imagine a New York 

 city father without digestion ; what a subject of scorn 

 he would become to his constituency! Our alderman 

 fled from Cupid, clams, and his beloved Gotham, and 

 sought health and buffalo on the plains of Kansas. 

 As he remarked to us pathetically: "A good liver 

 makes a good husband. Indigestion frightens con- 

 nubial bliss out of the window. Pills, my boy, pills 

 is the quietus of love. If you wish Cupid to leave, 

 give him a dose of 'em. The liver, instead of the 

 heart, is at the bottom of half the suicides." 



Doctor Pythagoras in years was fifty, and in stature 

 3 



