- end_line
- 4606
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4542
- text
- "My friend," said I, "what a charming morning! How sweet the country
looks! Pray, did you hear that extraordinary cock-crow this morning?
Take a glass of my stout!"
"_Yours?_ First pay your debts before you offer folks _your_ stout!"
"You think, then, that, properly speaking, I have no _stout_," said I,
deliberately rising. "I'll undeceive you. I'll show you stout of a
superior brand to Barclay and Perkins."
Without more ado, I seized that insolent dun by the slack of his
coat--(and, being a lean, shad-bellied wretch, there was plenty of
slack to it)--I seized him that way, tied him with a sailor-knot,
and, thrusting his bill between his teeth, introduced him to the open
country lying round about my place of abode.
"Jake," said I, "you'll find a sack of bluenosed potatoes lying under
the shed. Drag it here, and pelt this pauper away; he's been begging
pence of me, and I know he can work, but he's lazy. Pelt him away,
Jake!"
Bless my stars, what a crow! Shanghai sent up such a perfect pæan
and _laudamus_--such a trumpet blast of triumph, that my soul fairly
snorted in me. Duns!--I could have fought an army of them! Plainly,
Shanghai was of the opinion that duns only came into the world to be
kicked, hanged, bruised, battered, choked, walloped, hammered, drowned,
clubbed!
Returning indoors, when the exultation of my victory over the dun had a
little subsided, I fell to musing over the mysterious Shanghai. I had
no idea I would hear him so nigh my house. I wondered from what rich
gentleman's yard he crowed. Nor had he cut short his crows so easily as
I had supposed he would. This Shanghai crowed till midday, at least.
Would he keep a-crowing all day? I resolved to learn. Again I ascended
the hill. The whole country was now bathed in a rejoicing sunlight.
The warm verdure was bursting all round me. Teams were a-field. Birds,
newly arrived from the South, were blithely singing in the air. Even
the crows cawed with a certain unction, and seemed a shade or two less
black than usual.
Hark! there goes the cock! How shall I describe the crow of the
Shanghai at noontide! His sunrise crow was a whisper to it. It was
the loudest, longest and most strangely musical crow that ever amazed
mortal man. I had heard plenty of cock-crows before, and many fine
ones;--but this one! so smooth, and flutelike in its very clamor--so
self-possessed in its very rapture of exultation--so vast, mounting,
swelling, soaring, as if spurted out from a golden throat, thrown far
back. Nor did it sound like the foolish, vain-glorious crow of some
young sophomorean cock, who knew not the world, and was beginning life
in audacious gay spirits, because in wretched ignorance of what might
be to come. It was the crow of a cock who crowed not without advice;
the crow of a cock who knew a thing or two; the crow of a cock who had
fought the world and got the better of it and was resolved to crow,
though the earth should heave and the heavens should fall. It was a
wise crow; an invincible crow; a philosophic crow; a crow of all crows.
I returned home once more full of reinvigorated spirits, with a
dauntless sort of feeling. I thought over my debts and other troubles,
and over the unlucky risings of the poor oppressed peoples abroad, and
over the railroad and steamboat accidents, and over even the loss of
my dear friend, with a calm, good-natured rapture of defiance, which
astounded myself. I felt as though I could meet Death, and invite
him to dinner, and toast the Catacombs with him, in pure overflow of
self-reliance and a sense of universal security.
- title
- Chunk 5