Have you seen my indentured servant? He answers to the name of Paddy and has been missing from the grounds since wash day. He’s about 12 hands tall, is wearing a pair of soiled knee breeches, and is missing most of his teeth. The little ingrate, I’ll personally whip him into jelly when he’s brought back. Half a sovereign to the man who finds and returns my Paddy!
I figure he won’t get too far in the leg irons, but you never know with these indentured servants. He might have gotten some village smithy to pity him and strike off his chains. Paddy can be clever and quick-witted enough when presented with an opportunity to shirk the duties set forth in his indentures, but otherwise he’s as weak-minded as a fish. Why, my manservant Standish tells me that shortly before he ran away, Paddy tipped over a wheelbarrow full of dung and broke the milch-jug.
I purchased Paddy from an itinerant family of Irish tenant farmers who were all too willing to give up their son after their landlord evicted them. I suppose he reminded me of myself as a plucky young lad, swift as a colt and full of silly daydreams, though my pedigree is not sullied by the indolent Irish blood.
But despite my benevolent intentions, Paddy was always filled with a latent hostility toward me from the very moment he was unpacked from the crate.
You uncultured rubes probably think that having a vast army of servants slavishly waiting on you hand and foot is some great luxury. Well, nothing could be further from the truth! Many sleepless nights I have spent counting the silver and strip-searching the help, fearing that my enormous fortune was being slowly siphoned off by those in my employ.
Standish has just informed me that Paddy has been found! He was treed by bloodhounds in the swamp on the outskirts of my holdings. Glory be! Standish, oil the horsewhip! I intend to make an example of Paddy to the others.
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
