- end_line
- 4544
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4477
- text
- reason, and quite penniless in the world, and with death hanging over
him at any moment from his hungry master, sends up a cry like a very
laureate celebrating the glorious victory of New Orleans.
Hark! there it goes again! My friends, that must be a Shanghai; no
domestic-born cock could crow in such prodigious exulting strains.
Plainly, my friends, a Shanghai of the Emperor of China’s breed.
But my friends the hair-trunks, fairly alarmed at last by such
clamorously-victorious tones, were now scampering off, with their tails
flirting in the air, and capering with their legs in clumsy enough sort
of style, sufficiently evincing that they had not freely flourished them
for the six months last past.
Hark! there again! Whose cock is that? Who in this region can afford to
buy such an extraordinary Shanghai? Bless me--it makes my blood bound--I
feel wild. What? jumping on this rotten old log here, to flap my elbows
and crow too? And just now in the doleful dumps. And all this from the
simple crow of a cock. Marvellous cock! But soft--this fellow now crows
most lustily; but it’s only morning; let’s see how he’ll crow about
noon, and toward nightfall. Come to think of it, cocks crow mostly in
the beginning of the day. Their pluck ain’t lasting, after all. Yes,
yes; even cocks have to succumb to the universal spell of tribulation:
jubilant in the beginning, but down in the mouth at the end.
... ‘Of fine mornings,
We fine lusty cocks begin our crows in gladness;
But when eve does come we don’t crow quite so much,
For then cometh despondency and madness.’
The poet had this very Shanghai in his mind when he wrote that. But
stop. There he rings out again, ten times richer, fuller, longer, more
obstreperously exulting than before! Why, this is equal to hearing the
great bell of St. Paul’s rung at a coronation! In fact, that bell ought
to be taken down, and this Shanghai put in its place. Such a crow would
jollify all London, from Mile-End (which is no end) to Primrose Hill
(where there ain’t any primroses), and scatter the fog.
Well, I have an appetite for my breakfast this morning, if I have not
had it for a week before. I meant to have only tea and toast; but I’ll
have coffee and eggs--no, brown stout and a beefsteak, I want something
hearty. Ah, here comes the down-train: white cars, flashing through the
trees like a vein of silver. How cheerfully the steam-pipe chirps! Gay
are the passengers. There waves a handkerchief--going down to the city
to eat oysters, and see their friends, and drop in at the circus. Look
at the mist yonder; what soft curls and undulations round the hills, and
the sun weaving his rays among them. See the azure smoke of the village,
like the azure tester over a bridal-bed. How bright the country looks
there where the river overflowed the meadows. The old grass has to knock
under to the new. Well, I feel the better for this walk. Home now, and
walk into that steak, and crack that bottle of brown stout; and by the
time that’s drunk--a quart of stout--by that time, I shall feel about as
stout as Samson. Come to think of it, that dun may call, though. I’ll
just visit the woods and cut a club. I’ll club him, by Jove, if he duns
me this day.
Hark! there goes Shanghai again. Shanghai says, ‘Bravo!’ Shanghai says,
‘Club him!’
Oh, brave cock!
I felt in rare spirits the whole morning. The dun called about eleven. I
had the boy Jake send the dun up. I was reading _Tristram Shandy_, and
could not go down under the circumstances. The lean rascal (a lean
farmer, too--think of that!) entered, and found me seated in an
armchair, with my feet on the table, and the second bottle of brown
stout handy, and the book under eye.
- title
- Chunk 21