Presently they arrived at Paris, and Vernet, on leaving them, said: “Ladies, I shall be puzzled all my life by the inquiry, _which_ of these two ladies was it that kissed me?”
There have been some amusing osculatory experiences in the far western part of our country. A young Montana chap, upon stepping aboard of a sleeping-car, thus addressed the conductor: “See here, captain, I want one of your best bunks for this young woman, and one for myself individually. _One_ will do for us when we get to the Bluff—hey, Mariar?” (Here he gave a playful poke at “Mariar,” to which she replied: “Now, John, quit.”) “For, you see, we’re goin’ to git married at Mariar’s uncle’s. We might a bin married at Montanny, but we took a habit to wait till we got to the Bluff, bein’ Mariar’s uncle is a minister, and they charge a gosh-fired price for hitchin’ folks at Montanny.”
“Mariar” was assigned one of the best “bunks.” During a stoppage of the train at a station, the voice of John was heard in pleading accents, unconscious that the train had stopped, and that his tones could be heard throughout the car:
“Now, Mariar, you might give a feller jes one.”
“John, you quit, or I’ll git out right here and hoof it back to Montanny in the snowstorm.”
“Only one little kiss, Mariar, and I hope to die if I don’t——”
At this moment an old gray-beard poked his head out of his berth, at the other end of the car, and cried out:
“Maria, for pity’s sake, _give_ John one kiss, so that we can go to sleep some time to-night.”
Thereupon John subsided and retired to his berth to dream of the distinction between the hesitancy of the kiss of courtship and the freedom of the kiss connubial.
A young and romantic Western girl, kissed for the first time, said that she felt like a tub of butter swimming in honey, cologne, nutmegs, and cranberries, and as though something was running through her nerves on feet with diamonds, escorted by several little Cupids in chariots drawn by angels, shaded with honeysuckles, and the whole spread with melted rainbows!
Among the comic songs about kissing, the one about Esau is the best:
I saw Esau kissing Kate; The fact is we all three saw; For I saw Esau, he saw me, And she saw I saw Esau!