January 10 Saturday – Sam’s Enterprise Local Column: “Due Notice,” “New Court House,”
“Music,” and “The Sanitary Ball”:
We were feeling comfortable, and we had assumed an attitude—we have a sort of talent for posturing —a pensive attitude, copied from the Colossus of Rhodes—when the ladies were ordered to the center. Two of them got there, and the other two moved off elegantly, but they failed to make a connection. They suddenly broached to under full headway, and there was a sound of parting canvas. Their dresses were anchored under our boots, you know. It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped. Those two beautiful pink dresses let go amidships, and remained in a ripped and damaged condition to the end of the ball. We did not apologize, because our presence of mind happened to be absent at the very moment that we had the greatest need of it. But we beg permission to do so now.
“Due Notice” was a pun about the Czar of Russia [ET&S 1: 185-9].