Part 8

In the Cinghalese Palace we beheld a highly pious _Yogi_ from Ceylon, who had trained himself to perform his devotions with one of his legs embracing his neck, or walking upon the caps of his knees with his toes inserted into his waistband. But I am not convinced that such a style of prayer-making is at all superior in reverence to more ordinary attitudes, especially when exhibited publicly for an _honorarium_.

I feel proud to narrate that, at Miss WEE-WEE'S urgent entreaties, I subdued my native funkiness so far as to make the revolution of the Gigantic Wheel, in spite of grave apprehensions that it would prove but a house of cards, or suddenly become totally immobile--though to pass interminable hours at a lofty attitude with such a lively companion might, on secondary thoughts, have possessed pleasing saccharine compensations. Nevertheless, I was relieved when we descended without having hitched anywhere, and I did most firmly decline to fly in the face of Providence for five shillings in the basket of a captive balloon.

The Indian street is constructed with cleverness, but gives a very, very inadequate idea of the principal Calcutta thoroughfares; moreover, to cultivated Indian intellects, the fuss made by English ladies over native artisans and mechanics of rather so-so abilities and appearance seems a little ludicrous!

After dining, we witnessed the Historical Spectacle of India in the Empress Theatre, and Miss WEE-WEE made the criticism that the fall of Somnath was accomplished with a too great facility, since its so-called defenders did lie down with perfect tameness and counterfeit death immediately the army of Sultan MAHMUD galloped their horses through the gateway.

But this appeared to me rather a typical and prudent exercise of their discretion.

It seems--though (in spite of extensive historical researches) I was in previous ignorance of the fact--that Sultan MAHMUD, the Great Mogul AKBAR, and SIVAJI, the Mahratta Chief, were each taken in tow and personally conducted by a trio of Divine Guides, respectively named Love, Mercy and Wisdom, who came forward whenever nothing of consequence was transpiring, and sang with the melodiousness of Paradisiacal fowls.

As for the representation of the Hindu Paradise, I shall confess to some disappointment, seeing that it was exclusively reserved to military masculines--the more highly educated civilian class of Baboos being left out of the cold altogether! Nor am I in love with a future state in which there is so much dancing up and down lofty flights of stairs with terpsichorean energy, and manoeuvring in companies and circles with members of the softer sex. As a philosophical conception of disembodied existence, it is undeniably deficient in repose, though perhaps good enough for ordinary fighting chaps!

I spent a rapturous and ripping evening, however, greatly owing to the condescension of Miss WEE-WEE, who exhibited such entertainment at my comments that I left under the confident persuasion that I was infallibly to be the favoured swain.

On returning to Hereford Road, I found a last letter from JESSIMINA, beseeching me, for the sake of "Old Langsyne," to meet her on the following evening at Westbourne Park Station, and mentioning that certain events had occurred to change her views, and she was now only desirous for an amicable arrangement.

Accordingly, perceiving that I had no longer any reason to dread such an encounter, and not wishing her to peak and pine through my unkindness, I wrote at once accepting the _rendezvous_.

When I duly turned up, lo and behold! I found she was escorted, not only by her eagle-eyed mother (JESSIMINA herself inherits, in _Hamlet's_ immortal phraseology, "an eye like Ma's, to threaten or command"), but also by a juvenile individual with a black neck-tie and Hebrew profile, whom she formerly introduced to me as Mr SOLOMONS.

Though a little hurt by this proof of the rapidity of feminine fickleness, I began to congratulate her effusively on having obtained such an excellent substitute for my worthless self, and to wish the happy couple all earthly felicities, when she explained that he was not a _fiancé_, but merely a sort of friend, and Mrs MANKLETOW severely added that they had come to know whether I still declined to fulfil my legal contract.

Naturally I made the answer that I had recently offered to fulfil same to best ability, but that, my offer having been declined with contumeliousness, the affair was now on its end.

Here JESSIMINA said that she had of course refused to marry a man who declared that he was already the owner of a dusky spouse, but that, on inquiries from Mr CHUCKERBUTTY RAM, she had made the discovery that my said infant wife had popped off with some juvenile complaint or other three or four years ago.

At this I was rendered completely flabaghast--for, although the allegation was undeniably correct, I had confidently hoped that my friend RAM was unaware of the fact, or would at least have the ordinary mother-wit to refrain from blurting it out! "_Et tu, Brute!_" But I must make the dismal confession that my friends are mostly a very fat-witted sort of fellows.

_Que faire?_--except to explain that my melancholy bereavement must have entirely slipped off my memory, and that in any case it had no logical connection with the matter in hand.

Then Mrs MANKLETOW inquired, would I, or would I not, marry her illused child? and stated that all she wished for was a plain answer.

I replied that it was a very natural and moderate desire, and I was prepared to gratify it at once by the plain answer of--_Not on any account._

Whereupon Mr SOLOMONS stepped forward and politely handed me a folded paper, and, observing that he thought there was no need to protract the interview, he lifted his hat and went off with the ladies, leaving myself upon a bench endeavouring to get the sense of the official document into my baffled and bewildered nob.

[Illustration: "A ROYAL COMMAND FROM THE QUEEN-EMPRESS."]

Eventually, I gathered that it was a Royal command from the Queen-Empress, backed by the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, that I was to enter my appearance in an action at the suit of JEMIMA MANKLETOW for a claim of damages for having breached my promise to marry!

* * * * *

No matter! Pugh! Fiddle-de-dee! Never mind! Who cares?

Having successfully passed Exam, and been called to the Bar, I am now an _amicus curiæ_, and the friend in Court.

I shall enter my appearance in the forensic costume of wig and gown.

What will be the price of the plaintiff's pleadings _then_, Madams?

XXII

_Mr Jabberjee places himself in the hands of a solicitor--with certain reservations._

I concluded my foregoing instalment, narrating my service of a writ for breaching a promise of marriage, with a spirited outburst of _insouciance_ and devilmaycarefulness.

But such courage of a Dutch evaporated deplorably on closer perusal of the said writ, which contained the peremptory mandate that I was to enter my appearance within the incredibly short notice of eight days, or the judgment would be given in my absence!

Now it was totally out of the question that I was to prepare a long complicated defence, and have the requisite witnesses, and also perfect myself in the customs and etiquettes of Common Law Procedure, all in such a ridiculously brief period; and yet, if I remained _perdu_ with a hidden head, I could not hope for even the minimum of justice, since, heigh-ho! _les absents ont toujours tort_. So that I shed blistering and scalding tears like a spanked child, to find myself confronting such a devil of a deep sea, and my day was dismal and my night a nonentity, until, by a great piece of potluck, on going up the next morning to the library of my Inn, I espied my young friend HOWARD in the compound, busily employed in a lawn tennis game.

Having partially poured the cat from my bag already into his sympathetic and receptive bosom, I decided to confide to him my hard case in its entirety, and so made him a secret sign that I desired some private confabulations at his earliest conveniency, which he observing, after the termination of the match, came towards the remote bench whereon I was forlornly moping, and sat down kindly by my side.

This young ALLBUTT-INNETT, I am to mention here, had only just missed succeeding in the passing of Bar Exam owing to the inveterate malignancy of his stars and lack of a more industrial temperament; but from the coolness of his cheek, and complete man-of-the-worldliness, is a most judicious and tip-top adviser to friends in tight places.

_Experto crede_, for, when he had heard the latest particulars of my shocking _imbroglio_, he promptly gave me the excellent advice that I was to consult a solicitor; strongly recommending a Mr SIDNEY SMARTLE, who was a former schoolmate of his own, and a good thundering chap, and who (he thought) was not so overburdened as yet by legal business that he could not find time for working the oracle on my behalf.

"And look here, JAB," he added (he has sometimes the extreme condescension to address me as an abbreviation), "I'll trot you up to him at once--and I say, A 1 idea! tell him you mean to be your own counsel, and do all the speechifying yourself. Native prince, in brand-new wig and gown, defending himself single-handed from wiles of artful adventuress--why, you'll knock the jury as if with old boots!"

"Alack," said I, sorrowfully; "though I am quite competent to become the stump orator at shortest notice, I do not see how I can enter my first appearance until I have carefully instructed Misters RAM and JALPANYBHOY in the evidence they are to give and leave untold, &c., and a week is too scanty and fugitive a period for such preparations!"

"Nonsense and stuff!" he replies, "you will have a lot more than that, since the week only applies to entering an appearance--which is a mere farcical formality that old SID can perform in your place on his head." At which I was greatly relieved.

But on arrival at Mr SMARTLE'S office in Chancery Lane, we were disappointed to be informed, by a small, juvenile clerk, that he was absent at Wimbledon on urgent professional affairs, and his return was the unknown quantity. However, after waiting till close upon the hour of tiffin, he unexpectedly turned up in a suit of knickerbockers, carrying a long, narrow bag full of metal-headed rods, and although rather adolescent than senile in physical appearance I was vastly impressed by the offhanded cocksurety of his manner.

My friend HOWARD introduced me, and exhibited my doleful predicament in the shell of a nut, whereupon Mr SMARTLE jauntily pronounced it to be the common garden breach of promise, but that we had better all repair to the First Avenue Hotel and lunch, and talk the affair over afterwards.

Which we did in the smoking-room after lunch, with coffee, liqueurs, and cigars, &c., for which I had to pay, as a Tommy Dod, and the odd man out of pocket.

Mr SMARTLE, after listening attentively to my narrative, said that I certainly seemed to him to have let myself into the deuced cavity of a hole by so publicly proclaiming my engagement, but that my status as an oriental foreigner, and the fact I had asserted--viz., that my promise was extorted from me by compulsion and sheer physical funkiness--might pull me through, unless the plaintiff were of superlative loveliness (which, fortunately, is by no means the case).

He added, that we had better engage WITHERINGTON, Q.C., as he was notoriously the crossest examiner at the Common Bar.

But to this I opposed the _sine quâ non_ that I am to have the sole control of my case in court, and reap the undivided _kudos_, assuring him that I should be able to cross-examine all witnesses until they could not stand on one leg. From some private motives of his own, he sought to overcome my determination, hinting that, as my calling and election to the Bar were not yet an ancient history, I might not possess sufficient experience; and moreover that, by appearing in barristerial garbage, I should infallibly forfeit the indulgence shown by a judge to ordinary litigants; to which I responded by pointing out that I was a typical Indian in the matter of legal subtlety and ready-made wit, and that, if not capable of conducting my _own_ case, how, then, could I be fit to undertake a logomachy for any third parties? finally, that it is proverbially unnecessary to keep a dog when you are equally proficient in the practice of barking yourself.

Whereupon, silenced by my _a fortiori_ and _reductio ad absurdum_, he gave way, saying that it was my own affair, and, anyhow, there would be plenty of time to consider such a matter, since the plaintiff might not choose to do anything further till after the Long Vacation, and we could easily postpone the hearing of the action until the Midsummer of next year.

I, however, earnestly protested that I did not wish so procrastinated a delay, as I desired to make my forensic _début_ at the earliest possible moment, and urged him to leave no stone unturned to get the job finished by November at least, suggesting that if we could ascertain the name and address of the judge who was to try the case, I might call upon him, and, in a private and confidential interview, ascertain the extent of his disposition in my favour, and the length of his foot.

To which Mr SMARTLE replied that he could not recommend any such tactics, as I should certainly ascertain the dimensions of the judicial foot in a literal and painful manner.

Now I must conclude with a livelier piece of intelligence: I am now in receipt of the wished-for invitation to visit the ALLBUTT-INNETT family at the elegant mansion (or--to speak Scottishly--"manse") they have hired for a few weeks in the savage and romantic mountains of Ayrshire, N.B.

Mrs A.-I. wrote that there is no shooting attached to the manse, but several aristocratic friends of theirs own moors in the vicinity, and will inevitably invite them and their visitors to sport with them, so that, as she believed I was the keen sportsman, I had better bring my gun.

Alack! I am not the happy possessor of any lethal weapon, but, having since this invitation practised diligently upon tin moving beasts, bottles, and eggs rendered incredibly lively by a jet of steam, I am at last an _au fait_ with a crackshot, and no end of a Nimrod.

I do not think I shall purchase a gun, for there is a young English acquaintance of mine who is the Devil's Own Volunteer, and who will no doubt have the good nature to lend me his rifle for a week or two.

As to costume, my tailor assures me that it is totally unnecessary to assume the national raiment of a Scotch, unless I am prepared to stalk after a stag. But why should I be deterred by any cowardly fear from pursuing so constitutionally timid a quadruped? I have therefore commissioned him to manufacture me a petticoat kilt, with a chequered tartan, and other accessories, for when we are going to Rome, it is the mark of politeness to dress in the Romish style.

[Illustration: "WOULD BE GREATLY IMPROVED BY THE SIMPLE ADDITION OF SOME KNEE-CAPS."]

The Caledonian costume is indubitably becoming; but would, I venture humbly to think, be greatly improved by the simple addition of some knee-caps.

XXIII

_Mr Jabberjee delivers his Statement of Defence, and makes his preparations for the North. He allows his patriotic sentiments to get the better of him in a momentary outburst of disloyalty--to which no serious importance need be attached._

My fair plaintiff has not suffered the grass of inaction to grow upon her feet, having already issued her Statement of Claim, by which she alleges that I proposed marriage on a certain date, and did subsequently, on divers occasions, treat her, in the presence of sundry witnesses, as an affianced, after which I mizzled into obscurity, and on various pretexts did decline, and do still decline, to fulfil my nuptial contract, by which conduct the plaintiff, being grievously afflicted in mind, body, and estate, claims damages to the doleful tune of £1000.

(N.B.--I have thought it advisable here and there to translate the legal phraseology into more comprehensible verbiage.)

Now such a claim is to milk a ram, or _prendre la lune avec les dents_, seeing that I am not a proprietor of even one thousand rupees. Nevertheless (as I have informed Mr SMARTLE), my progenitor, the Mooktear, will bleed to any reasonable extent of costs out of pocket.

I have held frequent and lengthy interviews with the said SMARTLE, Esq., who is of incredible despatch and celerity--though I sometimes regret that I did not procure a solicitor of a more senile and sympathetic disposition.

Assuredly had I done so, such an one would not, after perusing my Statement of Defence--a most magnificently voluminous document of over fifty folios, crammed and stuffed with satirical hits and sideblows, and pathetic appeals for the Bench's indulgence, and replete with familiar quotations from best classical and continental authors--such an one, I say, would not have split his sides with disrespectful chucklings, thrown my composition into a wasted paper receptacle, and proceeded to knock off a meagre substitute of his own, containing a very few dry bald paragraphs, in the inadequately brief space of under the hour.

Such, however, was Mr SMARTLE'S course; and the sole consolation is that, owing to his unprofessional precipitation, the action was set down for trial previously to the commencement of the Long Vacation, and my case may come on some time next Term, and I be put out of my misery at the close of the year.

My aforesaid legal adviser, finding that I adhered with the tenacity of bird-slime to my determination to conduct my case in person, did hint in no ambiguous language, that it might perhaps be even better for me to do the guy next November to my native land, and snip my fingers then from a safe distance at the plaintiff.

But it is not my practice to exhibit a white feather (except when prostrated by severe bodily panics), and I am consumed by an ardent impatience to air my fluencies and legal learnedness before the publicity of a London Law Court.

Now, begone dull care! for I am to dismiss all litigious thoughts till October or November next, and become a _Dolce far niente_, chasing the deer with my heart in the Highlands.

My volunteering acquaintance, by the way, has declined to lend me his rifle, on the transparent pretence that it was contrary to regulations, and that it was not the _bon ton_ to pursue grouse-birds and the like with so war-like a weapon.

So, on young HOWARD'S advice, I made the purchase from a pawnbroker of a lethal instrument, provided with a duplicate bore, so that, should a bird happen by any chance to escape my first barrel, the second will infallibly make him bite the dust.

I have also purchased some cartridges of a very pleasing colour, a hunting knife, and a shot belt and pouch, and if I can only procure some inexpensive kind of sporting hound from the Dogs' Home, I shall be forewarned and forearmed _cap à pie_ for the perils and pleasures of the chase.

Miss WEE-WEE did earnestly advise me, inasmuch as I was about to go amongst the savage hill tribes of canny Scotians, to previously make myself acquainted with their idioms, &c., for which purpose she lent me some romances written entirely in Caledonian dialects, also the compositions of Hon. Poet BURNS.

But hoity-toity! after much diligent perusal, I arrived at the conclusion that such works were sealed books to the most intelligent foreigner, unless he is furnished with a good Scotch grammar and dictionary.

And _mirabile dictu!_ though I have made diligent inquiries of various London booksellers, I have found it utterly impossible to obtain such works in England--a haughty and arrogantly dispositioned country, more inclined to teach than to learn!

How many of your boasted British Cabinet, supposed to rule our countless millions of so-called Indian subjects, would be capable to sit down and read and translate--_correctly_--a single sentence from the Mahábhárat in the original?

Not more, I shrewdly suspect, than half a dozen at most!

So it is not to be expected that any more interest would be displayed in the language and literature of a country like Scotland, which is notoriously wild and barren and less densely populated and productive than the most ordinary districts of Bengal.

Oh, you pusillanimous Highland chiefs and other misters! how long will you tamely submit to such offhanded treatment? Will the day never come when, with whirling sporrans and flashing pibrochs you will rise against the alien oppressor, and demand Home Rule, together with the total abolition of present disdainful British _insouciance_?

When that day dawns--if ever--please note this piece of private intelligence from an authorised source: _Young Bengal will be with you in your struggle for Autonomy._ If not in body, assuredly in spirit. Possibly in _both_.

I say no more, in case I should be accused of trying to stir up seditious feelings; but, as a patriotic Baboo gentleman, my blood will boil occasionally at instances of stuck-up English self-sufficiency, and the worm in the bud, if nipped too severely, may blossom into a rather formidable serpent!

[Illustration: "I AM ADDRESSED BY AN UNDERBRED STREET-URCHIN AS A 'BLOOMING BLACKY!'"]

As, for instance, when, in the course of an inoffensive promenade, I am addressed by an underbred street-urchin as a "blooming blacky," and cannot induce a policeman to compel my aggressor to furnish me with his name and address or that of his parents, or even to offer the most ordinary apology.

Enough of these rather bitter reflections, however. I omitted to mention that I am also the proprietor (at the same pawnbroker's where I bought my breeches-loader gun) of a very fine second-hand salmon-rod, a great bargain and immense value, with which I hope to be able to catch a great quantity of fishes.

For there is, according to young HOWARD, good fishing in a burn adjoining the Manse, so I shall follow King Solomon's injunctions, and not spare the rod and spoil the salmons, though if I should happen to "spoil" my rod, the salmons would inevitably in consequence be "spared."

This is a sample of the kind of verbal pleasantries in which, when in exhilarated high spirits, I sometimes facetiously indulge.

XXIV

_Mr Jabberjee relates his experiences upon the Moors._

I am now an acclimatised denizen of Caledonia stern and wild; which, however, turns out to be milder and tamer than depicted by the jaundiced hand of national jealousy.

For, since my arrival at this hamlet of Kilpaitrick, N.B., I have not once beheld any species of savage hill-man; moreover, the adult inhabitants are clothed with irreproachable decency, and, if the juveniles run about with denuded feet and heads, where is the shocking scandal?

Mr ALLBUTT-INNETT, sen., did me the honour to appear in person upon the Kilpaitrick platform, and welcome me with outspread arms to his temporary hearth and home, but I shall have the candour of confessing my disappointment with the size and appearance of the same. It appears that a "Manse" is not at all a palatial edifice, furnished with a plethora of marble halls and vassals and serfs, &c., but simply the very so-so and two-storied abode of some local priest!