68. LXVIII.
THE BUZZERS.
Ov awl the insekts or even animals, who occupy
two legs and breathe the same kind ov air, and
drink the same kind ov water that other folks do,
thare is not a more distressingly bizzy and uncomfortably
obnoxious one, than yure whisperer.
I mean now those men or those wimmin whose
position in the world gives them the title tew be
listened to, and even beleaved, who spend their
lives like a bumbel bee on the wing, from flower
to flower, and from thistle to thistle, buzzing and
whispering.
These kind ov bumbel beeze deal only in sekrets
ov the most delikate or dreadful kind, which they
entrust to you with awl the importance and aimable
reserve that distinguishes the intimate frend.
Thare is nothing in the world that would give
them more pain or confusion (if you can beleave
them) than to have their buzzes repeated, and yet,
in truth, nothing would giv them more mortifikation
if they were not.
They sow their seed as the husbandman duz his
expekting it tew sprout, and rejoice as he duz in a
good crop.
I know not from what ambishun this buzzing
springs, unless it is the vanity ov knowledge, or
the skarcity ov news; but one thing is certain, that
no more inveterate workers kan be found—they are
emphatikally the early birds who find the worm;
they are the bizzy bees ov thrift, and they are your
provident pissmires who alwus have corn in their
cells against the calamity ov a wet day. Evry
citty has a thousand ov them, evry village a score,
and evry naborhood its Aunt Dority, or its Unkle
Darby, who whisper and buzz from Christmas to
Christmas agin. These insekts know evry marriage
that is on the ways, and just when it is tew be
launched; they know awl the slips and the slip-shods
within a circle of twenty leagues or more;
they guess at outrages and divine bankrupcys;
they hear ov elopements in the breath ov the
morning, and see the spektral shaddow ov a domestik
brawl stealing on tiptoze amid the gray ov
the evening; they know the crimes ov evrybodys
grandfather, and remember, just like a book, the
time when the wife ov esquire Baker was no better
than she should be. I don't know as there is
truth enuff in the world just now to do the bizness
with; if there aint, the buzzers may be in a
measure necessary as a circulating medium; but if
this is really so, they stand in the same relation
to an honest circulation that other counterfit munny
dus.
I hav searched the musty annals ov primogeniture,
and hav dove down deep into the labarynths
of succession, to trace the literal descent ov these
slander-breeding and birth-giving scorpions, and
found that about four thousand years ago, Envy
begot Malice, Malice begot Revenge, and Revenge
had twins—one was a common thief and the other
was a buzzer.
Nature seems, in the production of Buzzers, to
hav transgressed one ov her most aimable laws: I
mean, the grate parsimony she generally shows in
inflikting humanity with venemous reptiles.
Stealing is more ancient and more honorable than
malishus buzzing, but it aint quite so safe; the goods
are often found on the thief, and this leads to his
detection, while the buzzer is more like the incendiary,
who applys the match and makes good his
escape before the flames begin tew spread.
If these pests ov humanity were not wuss in
their malice than a pizen snake without rattles, or
meaner in their mischief than the robber ov birds
nests, I would try and hunt up an apology for
them, or at least, would attribute to an eager curiosity,
or the vanity ov being thought a kind ov
sub-treasury ov other folks' confidence, what is quite
too often too gross to be set down only in the calendar
ov crimes.
Good-bye buzzers, ov high and low degree—yu
that buzz in petticoats, and yu that buzz in
britches; I hav but one opinion ov yu, and that
is—a dreadful mean one.
