With these preliminary remarks, let me introduce to you a character new
in fiction, but terribly old in history--
THE CLUCKING COCK.
Upon the birth of a son and heir Mr. Richard Bassett was inflated
almost to bursting. He became suddenly hospitable, collected all his
few friends about him, and showed them all the Boy at great length, and
talked Boy and little else. He went out into the world and made calls
on people merely to remind them he had a son and heir.
His self-gratulation took a dozen forms; perhaps the most amusing, and
the richest food for satire, was the mock-querulous style, of which he
showed himself a master.
"Don't you ever marry," said he to Wheeler and others. "Look at me; do
you think I am the master of my own house? Not I; I am a regular slave.
First, there is a monthly nurse, who orders me out of my wife's
presence, or graciously lets me in, just as she pleases; that is Queen
1. Then there's a wet-nurse, Queen 2, whom I must humor in everything,
or she will quarrel with me, and avenge herself by souring her milk.
But these are mild tyrants compared with the young King himself. If he
does but squall we must all skip, and find out what he ails, or what he
wants. As for me, I am looked upon as a necessary evil; the women seem
to admit that a father is an incumbrance without which these little
angels could not exist, but that is all.
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