The Midnight Roommate Mix-up
A night of drinking turns into a farcical brawl when two roommates accidentally wander into each other’s beds.
Ned and Charley are two roommates who occupy different beds. One night, after returning home in the early morning, both were considerably elevated. They walked to their room and, after stumbling about in the darkness and knocking over their wash-stand, they went to bed. Owing to the confusion, they made a slight mistake: Charley got into one side of Ned’s bed, and Ned rolled into the other. 'I say Ned,' cried Charley, touching someone's calf, 'there’s a fellow in my bed.' 'Wonderful coincidence,' exclaimed Ned, feeling a strange elbow in the neighborhood of his ribs, 'there’s one in my bed, too.' 'Is there, Charley? Let's kick 'em out!' said Ned. The two friends began to kick. It lasted about a minute and a half, and Ned was sprawling on the floor. Charley was hit in the leg. For a moment all was silent. 'I say, Ned,' cried Charley. 'What?' asked Ned, sulkily. 'You've kicked my fellow out!' 'I’m luckier than I am,' said Ned, 'mine has kicked me out.'
“You've kicked my fellow out!”
While this reads like a classic piece of slapstick Vaudeville, it captures the rowdiness of 19th-century bachelor life in boarding houses. It serves as a reminder that behind the stiff portraits of the era, the daily life of young men in cramped urban housing was often defined by shared quarters and accidental chaos.
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