The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-12-08
SOME HARD WORDS.
AN INGENIOUS EXERCISE WHICH
MIGHT BE USED IN SCHOOLS.

The following ingenious narrative has
been arranged by the Boston Transcript
as an exercise in pronunciation. Certainly
the young man or woman who can pro-
nouncc correctly all the words in this story
is worthy of medal in photography. The
passage is worth reproduction as school
exercise, for which we commend IL to
teachers
On the morning Of July 4, 1898, the
faculties of Young Man With Many Hands
were early disinthralled from the desue
tude of sleep by the supcrerogatory squall
ing of a pygmoan grimalkin, who was dem
onstrating his fealty to the tepee by a
fracas with somewhat phthisical intruder
of the same species. Young Man With
Many Hands, 1t should be explained, had
won his sobriquet at the agency buildings,
where it was agreed with perfect unanim-
ity, when an inventory was taken after he
had made few brief and informal calls,
that two was an absurdly small number .
of hands with which to accomplish so .
much in so short a time, Thus rudcly torn |
from happy visions of empyreal realms,
our Briarean hero, without pretense to
equability of mind, seized piece of oolite,
fragment of adobe and parcel of ipecac
uanha, all of which he hurled at the fight
ing felincs, whereupon the imbroglio
ceased.
! With somewhat truculent mien he dis
| posed of the morning rcpast, and then to
| secure cupepsy opened flask of cognac. A
moiety thereof had hardly disappeared be-
| fore he was in an irremediable state of in
ebriety. A psychical uplifting ensued, and
! from phlcgmatiC condition almost Dor
dering upon the hypochondriacal he
emerged in u light and jocund mood, albeit
a variable one. Filling his pipe with kinni-
lnic, vigorous use of the respiratory
organs soon produced dense clouds of
smoke, and he puffed away with an case
and dignity which, though one would not
indulge in undue disparagement, fell
slightly short of the recherche nonchalance
of n Harvard sophomore with his cheroot.
He then donned mauvc dyed robe of
mohair, which, sad to relate, he had Sc
cured on Quinquagesima Sunday by n
monetary transaction with Big Kitten, a
young buck of a neighboring camp, and
with merry vocal improvisation set forth
for a walk. In his belt he carried xiphoid
scalping knife, fashioned from the tusk of
a narwhal, upon one side of which was
naiad in intaglio and upon the other GER
tain reconcile logarithmic calculations
scratched in red ink by an itinerant col
porteur with an arthmetical turn of mind
| in return for few bits of wampum.
He chose a frequented route through the
woods and would have proceeded without
much difficulty had he not slipped upon a
! piece of spermaceti and fallen heavily. At
| that spot the residence of the ground was
not marked, and in somewhat irregular
orthoepy he denounced in terms scarcely
sacerdotal the navy who had dropped the
treacherous article. He then continued ON
his way, but had not gone far when his
( progress was arrested by series of vigor-
Gus blasts from that instrument yclept the
ophicleide.
Advancing cautiously in the direction of
the sounds, he came upon the edge of q
clearing and beheld none other than Big
Kitten, attired in costume comparable
only to his own, sitting before the door of
n hut and panegyrizing the father of his
country in the heinous manner previously
described. Young Man With Many Hands
was stirred to wrath at the sight. For a
brief period he held Big Kitten under sur
veillancc, and then, with furtive glance
behind, approached the offending musician
, and demanded without preliminary par
, lance the latter's right of seizin.
Big Kitten, thus taken by surprise,
adopted conciliatory tactics and explained
that puisne justice, by mesne and other
processes, on behalf of the posthumous
child of n distant blood relation, had en-
fcoffed to him the land in fee simple, two
myrmidons and n microscopic having wit
messed the deed.
This closed the Conversations, for Young
Man With Many Hands, his rage not
abatcd, and still suffering from mental
aberrance resulting from the cognac, be-
gan to lombard the inoffensive Big Kitten
with orchis and gladioli bulbs, at the same
time impugning the consanguinity of the
1,tN ,1..ts
Big Kitten, who would brook no blot upon
his escutcheon. He hastily drew a toy PTS
tol, and after decorating a few paper caps
threw it at his opponent with force that
showed his brachial muscles to be not
faccid. The combatants then grappled,
but only few moments sufficed to show
that either u cuirass for defense or palfrey
for flight would be necessary if Young
Man With Many Hands hoped to evade the
subtle and machiavelian tactics of the
other.
+ No subtle process of ratiocination was
needed to show him this, so he speedily
pleaded for an armistice Big Kittens mag
nanimity here asserted itself, and the plea
was granted, whereupon Young Man With
: Many Hands painfully withdrew, signing
for palanquin. The eagle had long re
treated to his eyrie and the sun was neal
, the nadir before he sank to sleep again
amid the squalor of the tepee, firmly con
WINGED that the pleasures of the wassail are
. at best supposititious, and, like all counter
feits to be avoided.
That night he did not dream of empyreal
realms, but that a naive leviathan escorted
him around the zodiacal circle and that
at Pisces was a gallows, at the foot of
which an uxorious diocesan functionary,
holding in his hand book on esoteric
Buddhism, stood ready to solemnize the
final act, while a government agent sat
upon glacier below, humming an ele-
giacal refrain and regretting that there
would soon be one less Indian to mulct