21. XXI.
NAMES.
Any name which is suggestive of a joke,
however poor the joke may be, is often a
nuisance. We were once “confined” in
a printing-office with a man named Snow.
Everybody who came in was bound to have
a joke about Snow. If it was Summer the
mad wags would say we ought to be cool,
for we had Snow there all the time—which
was a fact, though we sometimes wished
Snow was where he would speedily melt.
Not that we didn't like Snow. Far from it.
His name was what disgusted us. It was
also once our misfortune to daily mingle
with a man named Berry. We can't tell
how many million times we heard him
called Elderberry, Raspberry, Blueberry,
Huckleberry, Gooseberry, etc. The thing
nearly made him deranged. He joined the
filibusters and has made energetic efforts
to get shot, but had not succeeded at last
accounts, although we fear he has been
“slewd”
numerously. There is a good
deal in a name, our usually correct friend
W. Shakespeare to the contrary notwithstanding.
Our own name is unfortunately one on
which jokes, such as they are, can be made.
We cannot present a tabular statement of
the times we have done things brown (in
the opinion of partial friends), or have been
asked if we were related to the eccentric
old slave and horse “liberator” whose recent
Virginia Reel has attracted so much
of the public's attention. Could we do so
the array of figures would be appalling.
And sometimes we think we will accept
the first good offer of marriage that is
made to us, for the purpose of changing
our unhappy name, setting other interesting
considerations entirely aside.
