Part 5
_The Guard_ (_with complimentary jocosity_). Ah, such young good-looking chaps as you ought to go about in a veil. Come with me, and I'll put you into a smoker-carriage. You won't be run after there!
So the incident was closed, and I did greatly compliment myself upon the sagacity and coolness of head with which I extricated myself from my pretty kettle of fish. For to have denounced myself as the real alarmist would have rendered the affair more, rather than less, discreditable to my feminine companion, and I should have been arraigned before the solemn bar of a police-court magistrate, who might even have made a Star Chamber matter of the incident.
All is well that is well over, but when you have been once bitten, you become doubly bashful. Consequently, this humble self will take care that he does not on any subsequent occasion travel alone in a railway compartment with a female woman.
XII
_Mr Jabberjee is taken by surprise._
Diligent perusers of my lucubrations to _Punch_ will remember that I have devoted sundry jots and tittles to the subject of Miss JESSIMINA MANKLETOW, and already may have concluded that I was long since up to the hilt in the tender passion. In this deduction, however, they would have manufactured a stentorian cry from an extreme paucity of wool; the actual fact being that, although percipient of the well-proportionate symmetry of her person and the ladylike liveliness of her deportment, I did never regard her except with eyes of strictly platonic philandering and calf love.
It is true that, at certain seasons, the ostentatious favours she would squander upon other young masculine boarders in my presence did reduce me to the doleful dump of despair, so that even the birds and beasts of forest shed tears at my misery, and frequently at meal-times I have sought to move her to compassion by neighing like horse, or by the incessant rolling of my visual organs; though she did only attribute such _ad misericordiam_ appeals to the excessive gravity of the cheese, or the immaturity of the rhubarb pie.
But I was then a labourer under the impression that I was the odd man out of her affections, and it is well known that, to a sensitive, it is intolerable to feel that oneself is not the object of adoration, even to one to whom we may entertain but a mediocre attraction.
On a recent evening we had a _tête-à-tête_ which culminated in the utter surprise. It was the occasion of our hebdomadal dancing-party at Porticobello House, and I had solicited her to become a copartner with this unassuming self in the maziness of a waltz; but, not being the carpet-knight, and consequently treading the measure with too great frequency upon the toes of my fair auxiliary, she suggested a temporary withdrawal from circulation.
To which I assenting, she conducted me to a landing whereon was a small glazed apartment, screened by hangings and furnished with a profusion of unproductive pots, which is styled the conservatory, and here we did sit upon two wicker-worked chairs, and for a while were mutually _sotto voce_.
Presently I, remarking with corner of eye the sumptuousness of her appearance, and the supercilious indifference of her demeanour, which made it seem totally improbable that she should ever, like _Desdemona_, seriously incline to treat me as an _Othello_, commenced to heave the sighs of a fire-stove, causing Miss JESSIMINA to accuse me of desiring myself in India.
I denied this with native hyperbolism, saying that I was content to remain in _statu quo_ until the doom cracked, and that the conservatory was for me the equivalent of Paradise.
She replied that its similitude to Paradise would be more startling if a larger proportion of the pots had contained plants, and if such plants as there were had not fallen into such a lean and slippered stage of decrepitude, adding that she did perpetually urge her mamma to incur the expense of some geranium-blooms and a few fairy-lamps, but she had refused to run for such adornments.
[Illustration: "I BECAME ONCE MORE THE SILENT TOMB."]
And I, with spontaneous gallantry, retorted that she was justified in such parsimony, since her daughter's eyes supplied such fairy illumination, and upon her cheeks was a bloom brighter than many geraniums. But this compliment she unhappily mistook as an insinuation that her complexion was of meretricious composition, and seeing that I had put my foot into a _cul-de-sac_, I became once more the silent tomb, and exhaled sighs at intervals.
Presently she declared once more that she saw, from the dullness of my expression, that I was longing for the luxurious magnificence of my Indian palace.
Now my domestic abode, though a respectable spacious sort of residence, and containing my father, mother, married brothers, &c., together with a few antique unmarried aunts, is not at all of a palatial architecture; but it is a bad bird that blackens his own nest, and so I merely answered that I was now so saturated with Western civilisation, that I had lost all taste for Oriental splendours.
Next she inquired whether I did not miss the tiger-shooting and pig-sticking; and I replied (with veraciousness, since I am not the _au fait_ in such sports) that I could not deny a liability to miss both tigers and pigs, and, indeed, all animals that were _feræ naturæ_, and she condemned the hazardousness of these jungle sports, and wished me to promise that I would abstain from them on my return to India.
To this I replied that before I agreed to such a self-denying ordinance, I desired to be more convinced of the sincerity of her interest in the preservation of my humble existence.
Miss JESSIMINA asked what had she done that I should be in dubitation as to her _bona fides_?
Then I did meekly remind her of her flirtatious preferences for the young beef-witted London chaps, and her incertitude and disdainful capriciousness towards myself, who was not a beetlehead or an obtuse, but a cultivated native gentleman with high-class university degree, and an oratorical flow of language which was infallibly to land me upon the pinnacle of some tip-top judicial preferment in the Calcutta High Court of Justice.
She made the excuse that she was compelled by financial reasons to be pleasant to the male boarders, and that I could not expect any marked favouritism so long as I kept my tongue concealed inside my damask cheek like a worm in bud.
Upon which, transported by uncontrollable emotion, I ventured to embrace her, assuring her that she was the cynosure of my neighbouring eyes, and supplied the vacuum and long-felt want of my soul, and while occupied in imprinting a chaste salute upon her rosebud lips--who'd have thought it! her severe matronly parent popped in through the curtains and, surveying me with a cold and basilican eye, did demand my intentions.
Nor can I tell what I should have responded, seeing that I had acted from momentary impulsiveness and feminine encouragement, had not Miss JESSIMINA, with ready-made female wit, answered for me that it was all right, and that we were the engaged couple.
But her mother expressed an ardent desire to hear my _vivâ voce_ corroboration of this statement, informing me that she was but a poor weak widow-woman, but that, if it should appear that I was merely the giddy trifler of her daughter's young, artless affections, it would be her dolesome duty to summon instantaneously every male able-bodied inmate of her establishment, and request them to inflict deserved corporal chastisement upon my person!
So, although still of a twitter with amazement at Miss JESSIMINA'S announcement, I considered it the better part of valour to corroborate it with promptitude, rather than incur the shocking punches and kicks of numerous athletic young commercials; and, upon hearing the piece of good news, Mrs MANKLETOW exploded into lachrymation, saying that she was divested of narrow-minded racial colour prejudices, and had from the first regarded me as a beloved son.
Then, blessing me, and calling me her Boy, she clasped me against her bosom, where, owing to the exuberant redundancy of her ornamental jetwork, my nose and chin received severe laceration and disfigurement, which I endured courageously, without a whimper.
When I have grown more accustomed to being the lucky dog, I shall commence cockahooping, and become merry as a grig. At the present moment I am only capable of wonderment at the unpremeditated rapidity with which such solemn concerns as betrothals are knocked off in this country.
But if, as _Macbeth_ says, such jobs are to be done at all, then it is well they were done quickly.
XIII
_Drawbacks and advantages of being engaged. Some Meditations in a Music-hall, together with notes of certain things that Mr Jabberjee failed to understand._
My preceding article announced the important intelligence of my betrothal, in which I was then too much the neophyte to express any very opinionated judgment as to the pros or cons of my approaching _benediction_ as a _Benedick_ (if I may be allowed a somewhat humorous pun).
_L'appétit vient en mangeant_, and I am blessing my stars more fervidly every day for the lucky windfall which has bolted upon me from the blue.
All the select boarders were speedily informed of my engagement, and the males though profuse in their congratulations, did manifest their green-eyed monster by sundry veiled chucklings and rib-pokings, while the ladies--especially Miss SPINK--are become less pressing in their attentions, and address me as "Prince" with increased frequency, and in a tone of tittering acidulation.
This, however, is attributable to natural disappointment; for it was notorious that all of them, even the least prepossessing, were on the tiptoe of languishing expectancy that I should cast my handkerchief in one of their directions. But the feminine nature is not capable of sustaining the good-fortune of another member of their sex with good-humoured complacency!
On the other hand, I enjoy many privileges and bonuses. I am permitted to enter Mrs MANKLETOW'S private parlour _ad libitum_, and there converse with my beloved, calling her "JESSIE," and even embrace her in moderation. I may also embrace her Mother, and address her as "Mamma," which affords me raptures of a less tumultuous kind.
Moreover now, when I conduct my _inamorata_ to an entertainment, it is no longer _de rigueur_ for any third party to impersonate a gooseberry!
The mention of entertainments reminds me that, a few evenings ago, I escorted her to a music-hall, wherein, although I had previously believed myself a past master in the shibboleth of London Cockneyisms and technical terminology, I heard and saw much which was _au bout de mon Latin_, and the head impossible to be made out of the tail.
_E.g._, there were two young lady-performers alleged by the programme to be "Serios and Bone Soloists," whereas they were the reverse of lugubrious; nor were their physiognomies fleshless or osseous; but, on the contrary, so shapely and well-favoured that JESSIE did remonstrate with me upon the perseverance with which I gazed at them.
And I could not at all find anyone to explain to me the difference between a "_Comedian_" and a "_Comic_"; or a "_Comedian and Patterer_" and an "_Eccentric Comedian_"; or a "_Society Belle_" and a "_Burlesque Artiste_"; or, again, "_A Sketch Artiste_" and a "_Speciality Dancer_." For to me they seemed precisely similar. There were "_four Charming Lyric Sisters_," who performed a dance in long expansive skirts, and in conclusion did all turn heels-over-head in simultaneity; but this, it seems, was--contrary to my own expectancy--_not_ to dance a speciality. Speaking for my humble part, I am respectfully of opinion that lovely woman loses in queenly dignity by the abrupt execution of a somersault; however, the feat did indubitably excite vociferous applause from the spectators.
Further there appeared a couple of Duettists in ordinary evening habiliments, who sang in unison with egregious melodiousness. One was plump as a partridge; the other thin as a weasel; and they related how they were both the adorers of a certain lovely damsel called "SALLY," who was the darling of their co-operative hearts, and resided in their Alley. And of all the days in the week they loved Sunday, because then they were dressed in all their best, and went for a walk with SALLY.
I should have thought that it was not humanly feasible for SALLY to continue such periodical promenades without exhibiting some preferential kind of choice, either for the partridge or the weasel, and that such a triangular courtship and triple alliance would infallibly terminate in the apple of discord, but JESSIE did assure me that it was quite usual and the correct cheese for a girl to have more than one beau upon her string.
[Illustration: "IN GARBAGE OF UNPARAGONED SHABBINESS."]
I made the further observation that the Comedians and Comics must be reduced to extreme pauperism, since they presented themselves before a well-dressed, respectable audience in garbage of unparagoned shabbiness, and with hair of unbrushed wildness, and needing immediate tonsure.
One songster did offer some excuse for the poverty of his appearance, telling us his hard case, how that he was occupied in declaring his passion to a beauteous damsel, when she was "all over him in a minute," and, while he was making love to the pretty stars above, she cleared out all his pockets in a minute! At which many laughed; but, though Jove is said to regard lovers' perjuries with cachinnation, I could not help feeling the most pitiable sympathy for such a disappointing conclusion to a love affair, seeing that it is impossible for the comeliest nymph who returns her admirer's devotion by stealing his purse, and similar trash, to remain posed any longer upon the towering pedestal of an ideal. Upon making this remark to JESSIE, however, she uttered the repartee that I was the silly noodle; though she is, I am sure, notwithstanding her attachment to gewgaws, not capable of descending personally to such light-fingered tactics.
I was additionally bewildered by a chorus chanted by one of the Society Belles, which I took down _verbatim_, in the hope of a solution. It was as follows: "For I like a good liar, indeed I do! Provided he comes out with something new! But why did he tell me that story with whiskers on, why, why, why?"
Now to me it is wholly incomprehensible that the female intelligence should admire mendacity in the opposite sex on the sole conditions that the said liar should present himself in some novel article of attire, and, previously to relating his untruth, remove from his cheeks any hirsute appendages. One of the boarders whom I consulted on the subject attempted to persuade me that it was the _story_ that had the whiskers; but it is nonsensical to suppose that a purely abstract affair like an untruth could be furnished with capillary growth, which belongs to the concrete department.
There was a lady described as an "incomparable Comedienne," who was the victim of unexampled bad luck. For she had purchased a camera (which she exhibited to the assembly), and with this she had gone about photographing landscapes and other sceneries. But, lack-a-daisy! no sooner were they printed than the pictures were discovered to be irretrievably spoilt by objects in the foreground of such doubtful propriety that they were not exactly fit to place among her brick-backs, so she was compelled to keep them in a drawer among her knick-nacks!
I should have liked her to inform us where such a faulty mechanism was procured, and why she did not exchange it for one of superior competency.
She was succeeded on the stage by a little girl with a hoop, who bore a striking resemblance to her predecessor, and was probably her infantile daughter. This child was evidently of a greatly inquisitive disposition, and asked many questions of her progenitors which they were unable to answer, bidding her not to bother, and to go away and play.
Then she asked a juvenile boy (who remained invisible), called "JOHNNY JONES," and informed us that "she knew now." But I was still in the total darkness as to the answers, which even JESSIE declared that she was "_Davus non Oedipus_," and not able to provide with the correct solutions.
Upon the whole, I am of opinion that music-halls are more fertile in mental puzzlement and social problems, and more difficult of comprehension, than theatrical entertainments.
This is, no doubt, why the spectators are allowed to consume liquors and sandwiches throughout the performance, since it is well known that the brain cannot carry on its _modus operandi_ with efficiency if the stomach is in the beggarly array of an empty box!
XIV
_Mr Jabberjee's fellow-student. What's in a Title? An invitation to a Wedding. Mr J. as a wedding guest, with what he thought of the ceremony, and how he distinguished himself on the occasion._
There is a certain English young fellow-student of mine--to wit and _videlicet_, HOWARD ALLBUTT-INNETT, Esquire, with whom I have succeeded in scratching an acquaintance at sundry Law Lectures, and in the Library of my Inn of Court--a most amiable tip-top young chap, who is "the moulded glass of fashionable form," and cap-in-hand with innumerable aristocratic nobs.
Seeing that I had (at an earlier period) been a more diligent attendant and note-taker of lectures than himself, he did pay me the transcendent compliment of borrowing the loan of my note-book, which, to my grateful astonishment, he condescended to bring back personally to Porticobello House, saying that he had found my notes magnificent, and totally incomprehensible to his more limited intellect!
In _additum_, he graciously accepted my invitation to ascend to the drawing-room, where I introduced him freely to several select lady boarders as my _alter ego_ and _Fidus Achates_.
On taking his leave, he expressed some marvelling that I should have concealed my superior rank under the reticence of a napkin, having observed that I was addressed as "Prince" by more than one of the softer-sexed boarders.
I replied that I attached no valid importance to the _nominis umbra_ of such a barren title, and that the contents of what there is nothing in must necessarily be naught.
He answered me warmly that he entirely joined issue with me in such an opinion, and that he was often affected to sickishness by the snobbery of mundane society, adding that he hoped I would give him the look up at his paternal mansion in Prince's Square, Bayswater, shortly, since his people would be overjoyed at making my acquaintance, which both enraptured and surprised me, for hitherto he had ridden the high and rough-shoed horse, and employed me to suck my brains as a cat's foot.
And odzookers! before many days I was the recipient of a silver-lettered missive, stating that Mr and Mrs LEOFRIC ALLBUTT-INNETT did request the honour of Prince JABBERJEE'S company at the marriage of their daughter, CLORINDA ISABEL, with Mr OVERTON WOODBEIGH-SMART, at a certain sacred Bayswater edifice.
This I eagerly accepted, perceiving that my friend must have eulogised to his parents my legal accomplishments and forensic acumen.
[Illustration: "THE SPECTATORS SALUTED ME WITH SHOUTS OF JOY AS THE RETURNED SHAHZADAR."]
When I did, in all my best, obey, alighting at the church in my embossed cap, shawl neckcloth, a pair of yellow glove-kids, and patented Japan shoes, the spectators saluted me with shouts of joy as the returned SHAHZADAR, which caused me to bow profusely, while the driver of the hansom petitioned an additional sixpence.
The interior of the church was dim and crowded with feminines, and I could only hear flutters and rustlings, together with a subdued mumble at the remoter end--which I ascertained to be the ceremony. Then followed the long stop and awkward pause, accompanied on the organ, and at length all the company stood on seats and the tiptoe of expectation, as the bridal procession moved slowly down the central passage amidst the congratulations of their friends and nearest relations.
Not being desirous to hide under a bushel, I did press myself forward, and addressing a lady whom I took to be the bride, I felicitated her loudly, wishing that she might never become a widow, or use vermilion on her grey head, and that she might wear the iron bangle, and get seven male children.
Unhappily the serene ray of my goodwill was born to blush unseen in the dark unfathomed cave of a desert ear, for the actual recipient of my compliments was an unmarried spinster relative, who had already passed the years of discretion.
Mrs ALLBUTT-INNETT welcomed me with cordial effusiveness, insisting that I should honour them by visiting their residence, and critically inspecting the nuptial gifts, to which I consented.
On my arrival, I held a lengthy colloquy with the happy bridegroom, from whom I was anxious to obtain particulars of English marriage customs, such as whether he would be required to spend the evening in having his ears pulled, and other facetious banterings by his mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, as in India.
But he seemed oppressed by so severe a bashfulness that I could extract no information from him, and presently the father of the bride came up and conducted me into an apartment wherein was a kind of bazaar, or exhibition of clocks and lamps and stationery cases and knives and forks and other trinkets and gewgaws, none of which appeared to me at all different from similar objects in shop windows.
However, the greatest admiration and wonderment were expressed by all who entered, and I found that the host was under grave apprehensiveness that the presents might be looted by the more unscrupulous of the guests, for he pointed out to me a sharp-eyed, shy gentleman in a corner, who, he informed me, was a disguised police-officer. This, at first, I was loth to believe, but was assured that it was a necessary precaution.
Still, I will presume to point out that the simulation by a policeman of the ordinary character of a friend of the family and fellow-rejoicer, is a rather reprehensible trap to catch a sleeping weasel, since those whose honesty is not invariably above par may be lulled into the false security by his civilian get-up. And I did assure him, privately, that it was totally unnecessary to keep an eye on myself, who was a native University man with no necessity or natural taste for peculation, but that I would infallibly inform him if I should succeed at detecting any attempted dishonesty.
Later I was ushered into the refreshment-room, and partook of a pink ice, with champagne-wine and strawberries, after which I entreated leave of Mrs ALLBUTT-INNETT to deliver a nuptial oration. And she, overjoyed at my happy thought, did loudly request silence for Prince JABBERJEE, who was to utter a few very brief utterances.
So as they became all ears, I addressed them, describing how, in my native country, at such a bridal feast and blow-out, it was customary for the bridegroom's mother to eat a sevenfold repast, for fear of a subsequently empty stomach; but the bride's mother, on the contrary, will touch nothing, feeling that the more she fasts then, the more provender will fall to her later on. And I facetiously added that, on the present occasion, I had the certainty that both the mothers might indulge their appetites _ad libitum_.