THE CRON1CLE AND THE FIRE KING.—The Morning Chronicle has embroiled
itself with the Fire King ; who writes it a furiously hot letter, such as becomes the ardour of his constitution. His most fiery Majesty charges the Chronicle with ungenteel behaviour : he says— "'You are the person (I cannot say gentleman), who, to ascertain whether or not I concealed the oil and phosphorus in my mouth, most inhumanly took advantage of my allowing the examination, and thrustu spaon and fork almost :rttn my throat, so as to disgust many of the audience, and in such an unfeeling way that nothing but the situation I wa: env,. 1 in before the public, pre- vented my hastily removing the spoon and fork and yourself from my pre- sence, with marks of my contempt."
Now it certainly is not exactly according to CHESTERFIELD for one gentleman to thrust a fork and spoon down another gentleman's gul- let; and if the Chronicle really did push its researches so very far, it was decidedly guilty of naughty conduct. But we cannot believe in the representation of the royal CHABERT that it was done in "an un- feeling way "—on the contrary, the Chronicle's error seems to have been an excess of feeling.
His most fiery Majesty proceeds to admonish the Chronicle, when it acts Paul Pry again, and intrudes into a gentleman's windpipe, bringing with him, as children do at school, his own fork and spoon, to perform this action with a generous feeling. Let not your weapons be " unbaited " as Hamlet has it : Oh Chronicle, put something on your fork and in the spoon—in a word, do not proceed as if you were going to help yourself out of the gentleman's stomach. The Fire King, justly exasperated by such doings in his throat, challenges the Chronicle to take twenty grains of phosphorus, or one fourth the quantity he the King swallows ; and they are to wash down the meal of enlightenment with wine or beer, such as the Chronicle shall produce and partake of : for, severely adds the King, after its conduct (in the affair of the fork and spoon) he would not venture to take them without some proof of their purity, inasmuch as he suspects the fairness of the Chronicle's designs,—probably surmising that it desires to destroy him, and to set itself up as a Fire King in his oven. His Majesty thus throws down the gauntlet- " Now, Sir, to give you a fair opportunity of learning the truth, I most ear- nestly request you to bring your own phosphorus, and I will take four times the quantity you will venture to do, and wash it down with wine or beer, such as you will produce and partake of, for without some such proof of the purity of the drugs and wine, I would not venture to take them after your conduct, which leads me to suspect the purity of your designs. If, as you state, the exhibition was paltry, perhaps you will display something better worth seeing. Now, Sir, the oven shall be left to your discretion to heat, and all the embers placed just as you please ; and then if you will enter with a pound of steaks, and remain shut up until the meat be sufficiently cooked for the company to eat, I shall respect your conduct; lake the phosphorus, and I shall respect your chemical knowledge."
The only part of this pepper-pod challenge which we deem too danmerous, is trusting that pound of steaks in the oven with the Chro- nicle, of whose active fork M. CHABERT has had such lively expe- rience. Those newspapers have prodigious swallows. The invitation to a friendly tite-il-tete dinner on phosphorus, just " to gives a fair opportunity. of learning the truth," reminds us of the Frenchwoman, who on being charged by her husband with having poisoned him, sharply retorted, " Why do you not cut open your sto- mach then, monster, and prove your words ?"
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