Concerning the genesis of Harold or Humphrey Coxon's agnomen and discarding ^|1finally once & for all^1| those theories ^|1from older sources^1| which would link him either with ^|1such pivotal ancestors as^1| the Glues, Gravys & Earwickers of Sidleham in the hundred of manhood or proclaim him a descendant of vikings who had founded or settled in Herwick (?) or Erwick (?) the most authentic version has it that it was this way. ^|1Like We are told that how it came to pass that like^{1| |1}cabbaging^1| Cincinnatus ^|1in prefall paradise peace^1| the grand old gardener was ^|1saving daylight^1| one sabbath afternoon ^|1by^1| following his plough for rootles in the rear garden of ^|1his royal ye olde^1| marine hotel when royalty was announced by runner to have been pleased to ^|1halt have halted itself^1| on the highroad along which a dogfox had cast. Forgetful of all but ^|1his vassal's^1| plain fealty ^|1to the ethnarch^1|, ^|1Harold or Humphrey Humphrey or Harold^1| stayed not to yoke or saddle but stumbled out hotface as he was (his sweatful bandana loose from his pocketcoat) to ^|1his forecourts the forecourts of his public^1| in ^|1topee^1| surcingle, plusfours and bulldog boots ^|1coated ruddled^1| with red marl jingling his turnpike keys and holding aloft amid the fixed pikes of the hunting party a high perch atop of which a flowerpot was fixed ^|1wrongside earthside^1| up. On his majesty, who was ^|1or feigned to be^1| noticeably longsighted from ^|1early green^1| youth ^|1inquiring whether he had not been engaged in and had meant to inquire what had caused the causeway to be so potholed, asking to be put wise whether ^|awhitebait paternoster^a| were not now more fancied ^|abait^a| for^1| lobstertrapping honest blunt Harompheyld answered ^|1in no uncertain tones^1| very similarly ^|1with fearless forehead^1|: ^|1No, majesty, I was Naw, 'jsty, I war^1| just a cotchin ^|1of on^1| them bluggy earwigs. ^|1The king Our sailor king^1|, who ^|1held a draught was draining a gugglet^1| of obvious water in his hand, upon this smiled very heartily beneath his walrus moustaches and, giving way to that none too genial humour which William the Conk ^|1on the spindleside^1| had inherited from his great aunt Sophy, turned towards two of his retinue ^|1of gallowglasses^1|, ^|1the Michael, etheling^1| lord of Leix in Offaly and the ^|1jubilee^1| mayor of ^|1Waterford Drogheda^1| (the ^|1second gun being the syndic of Drogheda two ^|aguns scatterguns^a| being Michael Manning, protosyndic of Waterford and an Italian excellency ^|anamed Giubilei^a|1| according to a later version cited by the learned ^|1Kanavan scholarch Canavan of Canmakenoise^1|) and ^|1dilsydulsily^1| remarked: Holybones, how our brother of Berengaria would fume did he know that weº have for trusty ^|1vassal bailiwick^1| a turnpiker who is also an earwicker. ^|1Comes the question^1| Are these the facts as recorded in both or either of these ^|1versions andrewpomurphyc narratives^1|? We shall perhaps not ^|1so soon^1| see. ^|1But it is certain The great fact remains^1| that after that historic date all ^|1documents holographs^1| initialled by Haromphrey bear the sigla H.C.E and while he was long and always good ^|1duke Humphrey dook Umphrey^1| for the ^|1ragged hungerlean^1| spalpeens of Lucalizod and Cox to his cronies it was as certainly a pleasant turn of the populace which gave him as sense of those letters the nickname Here Comes Everybody. An imposing everybody he always
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indeed looked ^|1|aalways the same as himself^a| & magnificently well worthy of the name^1| every time he ^|1surveyed the entire playhouse continually surveyed from good start to happy finale the ^|awhole truly catholic^a| assemblage ^|agathered to applaud The Lily or The Bo Girl or ^|bW.W. Kelly's^b| A Royal Divorce with ambitious selections from The Lily and The Bo Girl ^|bin the old playhouse on Chapel green^b|a|1| on all gala nights from his royal viceregal booth where ^|1he a veritable Napoleon IV ^|athe father of his people^a| all the time^1| sat with ^|1all the entirety of^1| his house about him with the invariable broadstretched kerchief cooling his ^|1whole^1| neck and shoulders and in a wardrobepanelled tuxedo thrown ^|1completely^1| back from a shirt wellnamed a swallowall in every way altogether outstarching the laundered clawhammers and marbletopped highboys of the pit stalls and early gallery. A baser meaning has been read into these letters the literal sense of which decency can safely only hint. It has been bruited ^|1by certain wisecracks^1| that he suffered from a vile disease. To such a suggestion the one selfrespecting answer is to affirm that there are certain statements which ought not to be, and one would like to be able to add, ought not to be allowed to be made. Nor have his detractors, who, an imperfectly warmblooded race, apparently conceive him as ^|1a great white catterpillar^1| capable of any and every enormity ^|1in the calendar^1| recorded to the discredit of the Juke and Kellikek families mended their case by insinuating that, ^|1if not, alternatively,^1| he was at one time under the ludicrous imputation of annoying soldiers in the park. To anyone who knew and loved ^|1the Christlikeness of ^|abig cleanminded giant^a|1| H.C. Earwicker ^|1throughout his existence^1| the suggestion ^|1of him as a lustsleuth ^|anosing for trouble in a boobytrap^{a|1| |1}sounds rings^1| preposterous. Slander, let it lie its ^|1worst, ^|ahardest, flattest,^{a|1| |1}Truth compels one to add^1| There was some case of the kind, it is ^|1sometimes^1| believed, implicating a ^|1man named Lyons quidam then walking about Dublin ^|awith a bad record who has remained completely anonymous^a|1| who was posted ^|1it is said,^1| at Mallon's ^|1at the instance of the ^|aWatch Warriors^a| vigilance committee^1| and years afterwards ^|1|ait seems, seemingly^a|,^1| dropped dead whilst ^|1writes one^1| waiting for a chop ^|1somewhere^1| in Hawkins street. But slander, let it lie its flattest, has never been able to convict that good ^|1and great & no ordinary Southron^1| man Earwicker ^|1(as a pious author named him)^1| of any graver impropriety than that ^|1advanced by certain woodwards and regarders, who did not deny that they had that day consumed unread their soul of the corn,^1| of having behaved in ungentlemanly manner opposite a pair of ^|1dainty^1| maidservants in the ^|1greenth of the^1| rushy hollow whither, ^|1or so both gown & pinners alleged dame^1| nature, as they alleged, had spontaneously and ^|1at the same time about the same hour of the ^|aevening eventide^a|1| sent them both but whose combinations of testimonies are, if not dubiously pure, visibly divergent on minor points touching ^|1the nature of this, a first offence in vert or venison^1| what was admittedly an incautious but, at its most, a partial exposure with attenuating circumstances of an abnormal S. Martin's summer ^|1and a ripe occasion^1| to provoke it.