The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862, page 229 by Various Authors
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-Spanish be-Germanized village on the frontier, where business was transacted in something of a polyglott manner, as follows:
'Gentlemen-Messieurs-Senores y meine Herrne, I've got here for sale--a vender--a vendre zum verkaufen eine Schöne Büchse a first-rate rifle un fusil sans pareil, muy hermosa! Do I hear fifty pesos, cinquante Thaler ge-bid pour this here bully gun? Caballeros mira como es aplatado--all silvered up, in tip-top style--c'est de l'argent fin messieurs--s'ist alles von gutem Silber, Gott verdammich wenn's nicht echt is. Cinquante piastres, fünfzig, fünfzig, fifty do I hear, and a half an' a half an' a half e un demi piastre un d'mi un d'mi ein halb' und ein halb' und ein halb' un medio y tin medio--wer sagt six shillins, six escalins, six escalins, seis reales, sechs schillin!? For this beautiful gun, good for Injuns, deer, bar, buffalo, or to kill one another with--madre Dios! bueno por matar los Americanos--first-rate to kill a Greaser--womit Sie alles was nicht Deutsch ist zu todten. Fifty-one dollars, thanky sir--cinquante deux--Merci, Monsieur! Wer sagt drei und fünfzig--ich glaube dass ein Deutscher bekommt's noch am Ende. Go it, Yankee, Dutch is a-gainin' on ye! and a half an' a half e trois quar' r' r' an' three quarters und drei Viertel y tres quartos--quelqu'un a dit fifty-three--fifty-four--going, going, gone, sir--at fifty-four--America ahead and Frenchy second-best.'
It would take some time, we should think, to be able to reel it off in such a quadruple thread.
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Two 'after-Norse' poems are ours this month-the first from an esteemed Philadelphia correspondent--the second from another of the same State, but more inland. The following, we may observe, is written in the measure which most prevails in Icelandic poems:
THE VIKINGS.
Through the brown waters Dash the swift prows; At the helm Valor stands, Death at the bows: Vainly the foeman shrinks, Palsied in fright, Vain are his struggles, yet Vainer his