Part 3
After such a shuddering experience and narrow squeak of my safety, I confidently appeal to the authorities to extinguish this highly dangerous and foolhardy sort of so-called amusement, or at the very least to issue paternal orders that, in future, no one shall be permitted to ride upon any bicycle possessing less than three wheels, or guilty of a greater celerity than three (or four) miles per hour.
The fair Miss MANKLETOW amended this proposal by suggesting that the Public should be restricted at once to perambulators; but this is, perhaps, _majori cautelâ_, and an instance of the over-solicitude of the female intellect, for it is not feasible to treat an adult, who has assumed the _toga virilis_ and tall hat, as if he was still mewling and puking in a tucker and bib.
VI
_Dealing with his Adventures at Olympia._
The dialoquial form is now become an indispensible _factotum_ in periodical literature, and so, like a _brebis de Panurge_, I shall follow the fashion occasionally,--though with rather more obedience to a literary elegant style of phraseology than my predecessors in _Punch_ have thought worth to practise.
Time: the other morning. Scene: the breakfast table at Porticobello House, Ladbroke Grove. Myself and other select boarders engaged in masticating fowl eggs with their concomitant bacon, while intelligently discussing topical subjects (for we carry out the poetical recipe of "Plain thinking and high living").
_Miss Jessimina_ (_at the table-head_). The papers seem eloquent in laudation of the Sporting and Military Show at Olympia. How I should like to go if I had anyone to take me!
_Mr Wylie_ (_stingily_). And I would be enraptured at so tip-top an opportunity, but for circumstance of being stonily broken.
[_Helps himself to the surviving fowl egg._
_Mr Cossetter_ (_in sepulchral tone_). Alack! that doctorial prescriptions do nill for me such nocturnal jinks; otherwise----
[_He treats himself to a digestible pill._
_Myself_ (_taking a leap into the darkness and deadly breaches_). Since other gentlemen are not more obsequious in gallantry, I hereby tender myself for honour of accompanyist and _vade mecum_.
_Miss Jess._ (_lowering the silken curtains of her almond-like orbs_). Oh, really, PRINCE! So _very_ unexpected! I must obtain the expert opinion of my Mamma.
Mistress MANKLETOW did approve the jaunt on condition of our being saddled by a select lady boarder of the name of SPINK as a _tertium quid_ to play at propriety; at which I was internally disgusted, fearing she would play the old gooseberry with our _tête-à-tête_.
Having arrived at Olympia, we perambulated the bazaar prior to the commencement of the shows, and here (after parting with rs. 8 for three seats on the balcony) I did bleed more freely still, for Miss JESSIMINA expressed a passionate longing to possess my profile, snipped out of paper by the scissors of a Silhouette, for which I mulcted one shilling sterling.
And, after all, although it proved the _alter ego_ and speaking likeness of my embossed Bombay cap and golden spectacles, she found the fault that it rendered my complexion of a too excessive murksomeness; not reflecting (with feminine imperceptivity) that, the material being black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of all alike!
Farther on I presented her and the female gooseberry with a pocket-handkerchief a-piece, interwoven by a mechanism with their baptismal appellation (another rupee!).
Then we arrived at a cage containing an automatic Devil revealing the future for a penny in the slit, and Miss JESSIMINA worked the oracle with a coin advanced by myself, and the demon, after flashing his optics and consulting sundry playing-cards, did presently produce a small paper which she opened eagerly.
_Miss Jess._ (_after perusal_). Only fancy! It says I'm "to marry a dark man, and go for a long journey, and be very rich." What ridiculous nonsense! do you not think so, PRINCE?
_Myself_ (_with a tender sauciness_). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious--and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a long journey?
_Miss Jess._ (_with the complexion of a tomato_). It's time we took our seats for the performance. And you are not to be a silly!
It is notorious that the English female vocabulary contains no more caressing and flattering epithet than this of "a silly," so that I repaired to my seat immoderately encouraged by such gracious appreciation.
Of the show, I can testify that it was truly magnificent, though the introductory portion was somewhat spoilt by the too great prevalence of the bicycle, which is daily increasing its ubiquity, nor do I see the rationality of engaging a _sais_ in topped boots to attend upon each machine, under the transparent pretentiousness of its belonging to the equine genus, since it can never become the similitude of a horse in mettlesome vivacity.
My companions marvelled greatly at the severe curvature of the extremities of the cycle-track, which were shaped like the interior of a huge bowl, and while I was demonstrating to them how, from scientific considerations and owing to the centrifugal forces of gravitation, it was not possible for any rider to become a loser of his equilibrium--lo and behold! two of the competitors made the _facilis descensus_, and were intermingled in the weltering hotchpot of a calamity.
But on being disentangled they did limp away, and it is allowable to hope that they suffered no serious dismantling of their vital organs. Still, I cannot approve of these bicycle contentions, which are veritable provocative flights at the providential features.
After the termination I conducted my _protégées_ to the Palmarium, where we sat under a shrub imbibing lemon crushes, brought by a neat-handed Phyllis in the uniform of a house-maid intermixed with a hospital nurse.
Here occurred a most discomposing _contretemps_, for presently Miss JESSIMINA uttered the complaint that two strangers were regarding herself and Miss SPINK with the brazen eyes of a sheep, and even making personal comments on my nationality, which rendered me like toad under a harrow with burning indignation.
At length, being utterly beside myself with rage, I summoned one of the Phyllises and requested her to take steps to abate the nuisance, being met with a smiling "_Nolo Episcopari_." So, entreating my companions not to give way to panic and leave their cause in my hands, I went in search of a policeman.
Unfortunately some time flew before I could find one at liberty to understand my crucial position, nor could I obtain from him a legal opinion as to whether I could administer a cuff or a slap in the ear to my insulters without incurring risk of retaliation in kind.
[Illustration: "WITH A LARGE, STOUT CONSTABLE."]
And, on returning to the spot with a large, stout constable, I had the mortification to discover that the two impolite strangers had departed, and that Misses MANKLETOW and SPINK were similarly imperceptible.
However, after prolonged search and mental anxiety, I returned alone, and was rewarded by finding my fair friends arrived in safety; and hearing that the two strangers had explained, in the gentlemanly terms of an apology, that they had mistaken them for acquaintances.
Consequently I am thankful that I did not execute my design of assault and battery, more especially as I am the happy receiver of many handsome compliments on all sides upon the tactfulness and _savoir faire_ with which I extricated myself from my shocking fix.
At which my countenance beams with the shiny resplendency of self-satisfaction.
VII
_How Mr Jabberjee risked a Sprat to capture something very like a Whale._
I am this week to narrate an unprecedented stroke of bad luck occurring to the present writer. The incipience of the affair was the addressing of a humble petition to the indulgent ear of Hon'ble _Punch_, calling attention to the great copiousness of my literary out-put, and the ardent longing I experienced to behold the colour of money on account. On which, by returning post, my parched soul was reinvigorated by the refreshing draught of a _draft_ (if I may be permitted the rather facetious _jeu de mots_) payable to my order.
So uplifted by pride at finding the insignificant crumbs I had cast upon the journalistic waters return to me after numerous days in the improved form of loaves and fishes, I wended my footsteps to the bank on which my cheque was drafted, and requested the bankers behind the counter to honour it with the equivalent in filthy lucres, which they did with obsequious alacrity.
[Illustration: "WAS ACCOSTED BY A POLITE, AGREEABLE STRANGER."]
After closely inspecting the notes to satisfy myself that I had not been imposed upon by meretricious counterfeits, I emerged with a beaming and joyful countenance, stowing the needful away carefully in an interior pocket, and, on descending the bank step, was accosted by a polite, agreeable stranger, who, begging my pardon with profusion, inquired whether he had not had the honour of voyaging from India with me in the--the--for his life he could not recall the name of the ship--he should forget his own name presently!
"Indeed," I answered him, "I cannot remember having the felicity of an encounter with you upon the _Kaisar-i-Hind_."
The Stranger: "To be sure; that _was_ the name! A truly magnificent vessel! I forget names--but faces, never! And yours I remember from the striking resemblance to my dear friend, the Maharajah of Bahanapúr--you know him?--a very elegant young, handsome chap. A splendid _Shikarri_! I was often on the verge of asking if you were related; but being then but a second-class passenger, and under an impecunious cloud, did not dare to take the liberty. Now, being on the bed of clover owing to decease of wealthy uncle, I can address you without the mortifying fear of misconstruction."
So, in return, I, without absolutely claiming consanguinity with the Maharajah (of whom, indeed, I had never heard), did inform him that I, too, was munching the slice of luck, having just drawn the princely instalment of a salary for jots and tittles contributed to periodical _Punch_. Whereat he warmly congratulated me, expressing high appreciation of my articles and abilities, but exclaiming at the miserable paucity of my _honorarium_, saying he was thick as a thief with the Editor, and would leave no stone unturned to procure me a greater adequacy of remuneration for writings that were dirt cheap at a Jew's eye.
And presently he invited me to accompany him to a respectable sort of tavern, and solicited the honour of my having a "peg" at his expense; to which I, perceiving him to be a good-natured, simple fellow, inflated by sudden prosperity, consented, accepting, contrary to my normal habitude, his offer of a brandy panee, or an old Tom.
While we were discoursing of India (concerning which I found that, like most globular trotters, he had not been long enough in the country to be accurately informed), enters a third party, who, it so happened, was an early acquaintance of my companion, though separated by the old lang sign of a longinquity. What followed I shall render in a dialogue form.
The Third party: Why, TOMKINS, you have a prosperous appearance, TOMKINS. When last met, you suffered from the impecuniosity of a churched mouse. Have you made your fortune, TOMKINS?
_Mr Tomkins._ I am too easy a goer, and there are too many rogues in the world, that I should ever make my own fortune, JOHNSON! Happily for me, an opulent and ancient avuncular relative has lately departed to reside with the morning stars, and left me wealth outside the dream of an avaricious!
_Mr Johnson_ (_enviously_). God bless my soul! Some folks have the good luck. (_To me, whispering._) A poor ninny-hammer sort of chap, he will soon throw it away on drakes and ducks! (_Aloud, to ~Mr TOMKINS.~_) Splendid! I congratulate you sincerely.
_Mr T._ (_in a tone of dolesomeness_). The heart knoweth where the shoe pinches it, JOHNSON. My lot is not a rose-bed. For my antique and eccentric relative must needs insert a testamentary condition commanding me to forfeit the inheritance, unless, within three calendered months from his last obsequies, I shall have distributed ten thousand pounds amongst young deserving foreigners. To-morrow time is up, and I have still a thousand pounds to give away! But how to discover genuine young deserving foreigners in so short a space? Truly, I go in fear of losing the whole!
_Mr J._ Let me act as your _budli_ in this and distribute the remaining thousand.
_Mr T._ From what I remember of you as a youth, I cannot wholly rely on your discretion. Rather would I place my confidence in this gentleman.
[_Indicating myself, who turned orange with pleasure._
_Mr J._ Indeed? And how know you that he may not adhere to the entire thousand?
_Mr T._ And if he does, it is no matter, if he is a genuine deserving. I can give the whole to him if I am so minded, and he need not give away a penny of it unless inclined.
[_At which I was fit to dance with delight._
_Mr J._ I deny that you possess the power, seeing that he is a British subject, and as such cannot be styled a "foreigner."
_Mr T._ There you have mooted a knotty point indeed. Alas, that we have no forensic big-wig here to decide it!
_Myself_ (_modestly_). As a native poor student of English law, I venture to think that, by dint of my legal attainments, I shall be enabled to crack the Gordian nut. I am distinctly of opinion that an individual born of dusky parents in a tropical climate _is_ a foreigner, in the eye of British prejudice, and within the meaning of the testator. [_And here I maintained my assertion by a logomachy of such brilliancy and erudition that I completely convinced the minds of both auditors._
_Mr J._ (_grumblingly, to ~Mr TOMKINS~_). Assuming he is correct, why favour _him_ more than _me_?
_Mr T._ Because instinct informs me that a gentleman with such a face as his--however dusky--may be trusted, and with the untold gold!
_Mr J._ (_jealously_). And I am not to be trusted! If you were to hand me your _portemonnaie_ now, full of notes and gold, and let me walk into the street with it, do you doubt that I should return? Speak, TOMKINS!
_Mr T._ Assuredly not; but so, too, would this gentleman. (_To me, as ~Mr JOHNSON~ sneered a doubt._) Here, you, Sir, take this _portemonnaie_ out into the street for five minutes or so, I trust to your honour to return it intact. (_After I had emerged triumphantly from this severe ordeal of my ~bonâ fide~._) Aha, JOHNSON! am I the judge of men or not?
_Mr J._ (_still seeking, as I could see, to undermine me in his friend's favour_). Pish! Who would steal a paltry £50 and lose £1000? If I had so much to give away, I should wish to be sure that the party I was about to endow had corresponding confidence in _me_. Now, though I have always considered you as a dull, I know you to be strictly honest, and would trust you with all I possess. In proof of which, take these two golden sovereigns and few shillings outside. Stay away as long as you desire. You will return, I know you well!
_Myself_ (_penetrating this shallow artifice, and hoisting the engine-driver on his own petard_). Who would not risk a paltry £2 to gain £1000? Oh, a magnificent confidence, truly!
_Mr J._ (_to me_). Have you the ordinary manly pluck to act likewise? If you are expecting him to trust you with the pot of money, he has a right to expect to be trusted in return. That is logic!
_Mr T._ (_mildly_). No, JOHNSON, you are too hasty, JOHNSON. The cases are different. I can understand the gentleman's very natural hesitation. I do not ask him to show his confidence in me--enough that I feel I can trust _him_. If he doubts my honesty, I shall think no worse of him; whichever way I decide eventually.
[_Here, terrified lest by hesitation I had wounded him at his quick, and lest, after all, he should decide to entrust the thousand pounds to ~Mr JOHNSON~, I hastily produced all the specie and bullion I had upon me, including a valuable large golden chronometer and chain of best English make, and besought him to go into the outer air for a while with them, which, after repeated refusals, he at last consented to do, leaving ~Myself~ and ~Mr JOHNSON~ to wait._
_Mr J._ (_after tedious lapse of ten minutes_). Strange! I expected him back before this. But he is an absent-minded, chuckle-headed chap. Very likely he is staring at a downfallen horse and has forgotten this affair. I had better go in search of him. What? you will come, too. Capital! Then if you go to the right, and I to the left, we cannot miss him!
But, alack! we did; and, in a short time, both Misters were invisible to the nude eye, nor have I heard from them since. Certain of my fellow-boarders, on hearing the matter, declared that I had been diddled by a bamboozle-trick; but it is egregiously absurd that my puissance in knowledge of the world should have been so much at fault; and, moreover, why should one who had succeeded to vast riches seek to rob me of my paltry possessions? It is much more probable that they are still diligently seeking for me, having omitted, owing to hurry of moment, to ascertain my name and address; and I hereby request Mr TOMKINS, on reading this, to forward the thousand pounds (or so much thereof as in his munificent generosity he may deem sufficient) to me at Porticobello House, Ladbroke Grove, W., or care of his friend, the Editor of _Punch_, by whom it will (I am sure) be honourably handed over intact.
Nor need Mr TOMKINS fear my reproaches for his dilatoriness, for there is a somewhat musty proverb that "Procrastination is preferable to Neverness."
VIII
_How Mr Jabberjee delivered an Oration at a Ladies' Debating Club._
Miss SPINK (whom I have mentioned _supra_ as a feminine inmate of Porticobello House) is _in additum_ a member of a Debating Female Society, which assembles once a week in various private Westbourne Grove parlours, for argumentative intercourse.
So, she expressing an anxious desire that I should attend one of these conclaves, I consented, on ascertaining that I should be afforded the opportunity of parading the gab with which I have been gifted in an extemporised allocution.
On the appointed evening I directed my steps, under the guidance of the said Miss SPINK, to a certain imposing stucco residence hard by, wherein were an assortment of female women conversing with vivacious garrulity, in a delicious atmosphere of tea, coffee, and buttered bread.
[Illustration: "A WEEDY, TALL MALE GENTLEMAN."]
After having partaken freely of these comestibles, we made the adjournment to a luxuriously upholstered parlour, circled with plush-seated chairs and adorned with countless mirrors, and there we began to beg the question at issue, to-whit, "_To what extent has Ibsen (if any) contributed towards the cause of Female Emancipation?_" which was opened by a weedy, tall male gentleman, with a lofty and a shining forehead, and round, owlish spectacle-glasses. He read a very voluminous paper, from which I learnt that IBSEN was the writer of innumerable new-fangled dramas of very problematical intentions, exposing the hollow conventionalisms of all established social usages, especially in the matrimonial department.
When he had ceased there was a universal and unanimous silence, due to uncontrollable female bashfulness, for the duration of several minutes, until the chairwoman exhorted someone to have the courage of her opinions. And the ice being once fractured, one Amurath succeeded another in disjointed commentaries, plucking crows in the teeth of the assertions of the Hon'ble Opener and of their precursors, and resumed their seats with abrupt precipitancy, stating that they had no further remarks to make.
Then ensued another interim of golden "Silence and slow Time," as Poet KEATS says, which was as if to become Sempiternity, had not I, rushing in where the angels were in fear of slipping up, caught the Speaker in the eye, and tipped the wink of my _cacoëthes loquendi_.
To prevent disappointment, I shall report my harangue with verbose accuracy.
_Myself_ (_assuming a perpendicular attitude, inserting one hand among my vest buttons, and waving the other with a graceful affability_). "HON'BLE MISS CHAIRWOMAN, MADAMS, MISSES, AND HON'BLE MISTER OPENER, the humble individual now palpitating on his limbs before you is a denizen from a land whose benighted, ignorant inhabitants are accustomed to treat the females of their species as small fry and fiddle faddle. Yes, Madams and Misses, in India the woman is forbidden to eat except in the severest solitude, and after her lord and master has surfeited his pangs of hunger; she may not make the briefest outdoor excursion without permission, and then solely in a covered _palkee_, or the hermetically sealed interior of a blinded carriage. (_Cries of 'Shame.'_) In the Zenana, she is restricted to the occupation of puerile gossipings, or listening to apocryphal fairy tales of so scandalising an impropriety that I shrink to pollute my ears by the repetition even of the tit-bits. (_Subdued groans._)
"Such being the case, you can imagine the astonishment and gratification I have experienced here this evening at the intelligence and forwardness manifested by so many effeminate intellects. (_A flattered rustle and prolonged simpering._)
"The late respectable Dr BEN JOHNSON, gifted author of _Boswell's Biography_ (_applause_), once rather humorously remarked, on witnessing a nautch performed by canine quadrupeds, that--although their choreographical abilities were of but a mediocre nature--the wonderment was that they should be capable at all to execute such a hind-legged feat and _tour de force_.
"Similarly, it is to me a gaping marvel that womanish tongues should hold forth upon subjects which are naturally far outside the radius of their comprehensions.
"The subject for our discursiveness to-night is, '_To what extent has Ibsen contributed to the Cause (if any) of Female Emancipation?_' and being a total ignoramus up to date of the sheer existence of said hon'ble gentleman, I shall abstain from scratching my head over so Sphinxian a conundrum, and confine myself to knuckling to the obiter diction of sundry lady speakers.
"There was a stout full-blown matron, with grey curl-shavings and a bonnet and plumage, who declaimed her opinionated conviction that it was degrading and _infra dig._ for any woman to be treated as a doll. (_Hear, hear._) Well, I would hatch the questionable egg of a doubt whether any rationalistic masculine could regard the speaker herself in a dollish aspect, and will assure her that in my fatherland every cultivated native gentleman would approach her with the cold shoulder of apprehensive respectfulness. (_The bonneted matron becomes ruddier than the cherry with complacency, and fans herself vigorously._)