Part 12

What was it? I felt like Hamlet when he saw the ghost of his father; but I did not apostrophize it--I knew better,--at least I had not sufficient choice Shakespearian language at my tongue's end to do so becomingly.

"Travers?"

"Angels and ministers"--my name in Boston's voice. In a moment the roaring in my ears ceased, and my muscles gained strength.

"Is that _you_, Charley?" I asked, sensibly enough.

"Phew!"

"Why--why, hang it, Boston, what's up--eh?"

"'Up!'--all over me--choking me--Treacle!" gasped my friend, creeping through the window, with difficulty, as he spoke, and losing his balance, as he reached the ground, he fell against me, stuck to me, disengaged himself, and finally stood upright.

"Treacle!" I ejaculated with a roar, which even though the doctor might have heard I could not suppress, as Charley began clearing out his eyes and mouth with his already sticky fists.

"Yes, _treacle_," crossly. "You needn't laugh like that, Bob, and make such a confounded fool of yourself," he growled. "I stumbled, somehow, and fell face forward into a pan of it. Don't make such a row, Travers!" as I continued my cachination and held my aching sides, "I might have been smothered for all _you_ would have cared. By Jove! smothered in treacle! Why a butt of Malmsey would be a natural death in comparison."

"The treacle we have for our puddings and with our brimstone?" I gasped at last.

"Yes." Here the ludicrous aspect of affairs struck the martyr, and he joined me in my merriment.

"I didn't know where I was going until I was in it," he continued. "Ugh! I shall hate treacle like poison for the rest of my life! Where are the other fellows?"

"Sneaked away; thought Omega had caught you."

"Cowards!"

At this moment a low whistle, a danger signal, from the boys just denounced, caused us to hurry from the spot, and reaching the rope ladder, we were up it like cats, gaining our room just in time to find that, by the light shining under the door, some one was on the alert.

"Get under my bed!" I whispered to Charley, as his escape to his own room was cut off.

In his hurry and confusion, he got _into_ it. I had no time to demur, and jumped in after him, just as the doctor, suspicious and austere, entered, candlestick in hand.

"Noise in number three: senior boy, report."

I, senior boy, reported, and replied by a nasal demonstration which I flattered myself was a very good imitation of a sound snore.

"Robert Travers!" in a voice which might, almost, have awakened the dead.

"Sir," replied I--Robert--as sleepily as I could.

"Somebody walking about this room, and talking."

If brevity is the soul of wit, then old Omega was the wittiest fellow I ever came across,--although he never _looked_ it.

He always spoke sharply and to the point, and gave us our due in the same manner.

Now, as he jerked his sentence out, he approached nearer. Charley, like a certain big bird, seemed to fancy that, because his own face was hidden and he could see no one, it followed that no one could see him; whereas, half his head was exposed to view.

I sat up in bed, hurriedly giving my companion a vicious kick of caution, as I explained to the doctor that "little Simpson walked and talked in his sleep;" at which "little Simpson," in a corner of the room, groaned audibly.

"Simpson, junior, what do you mean by walking in your sleep, sir?"

Simpson groaned again, and the doctor, thinking he was snoring, continued,--

"He eats too much; must diet him. A dose of brimstone and treacle (I felt Boston jump) in the morning will do him good--cooling. Remind me, Travers. By the way, sir, how comes it you are awake?"

"Please, sir, you woke me--awakened me, sir," I stammered.

"Hem," doubtfully. "Whom have you in bed with you--eh?" as Boston, rendered uncomfortable by his sticky face, had moved.

"With _me_, sir?" I murmured, vaguely.

"Yes, sir, with you. Come out, whoever it is!" roared Omega, without further parley.

But Boston remained still as a mouse.

Struck dumb with anger and astonishment, that a boy should have the impudence to stop in when _he_ ordered him to come out, the doctor strode round to Charley's side, and laid hands on the miscreant to have him out by force; but, no sooner had he felt the viscous state of our hero, than he withdrew them precipitately, with the pious ejaculation,--

"Good heavens! What is the matter with him!"

"Necessitas non habet legem."

I, being senior boy, had to report. I did so, tremblingly, and imitated the doctor in my brevity.

"Matter, sir--treacle, sir."

"Treacle!" in a voice of concentrated thunder, if you know what that is like.

"His mother sent him a pot of treacle, sir, and he--and he thought it was pomatum, sir, and--and----" my imaginative powers fell before the lightning of the doctor's glance.

"_Whose_ mother?"

"Boston's, sir."

"Boston, come out!"

And Boston, after some little delay caused in having to detach himself from surroundings, came forth like a lamb--I mean, like a black sheep.

"What the dev----!"

But I draw a curtain over the rest; the doctor was profane, and he hurt my feelings _very much_.

Poor old Treacle! The name stuck to him ever after.

Well, I went to his wedding, and with the exception that at the critical part of the ceremony he dropped the ring, which, after we had all scrambled on our knees for, was found in the bride's veil, he went through the "happiest day of his life" without a mistake.

As for myself, in searching for that ring, I knocked my head against Treacle's sister's, and it upset me. A thrill went through me, which was most painfully pleasant. At the breakfast-table I became sentimental; in making my speech for the ladies, I caught her--Treacle's sister's--eye, she smiled, and I lost the thread of my discourse. It was a very slender thread, and I never found it again until, one day, I was wandering round somebody's garden with my arm round Treacle's sister's waist, and,--but that doesn't matter! She is a jolly little thing, though--Treacle's sister is.

(_By permission of the Author._)

THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD.

ANONYMOUS.

Have you brought my boots, Jemima? Leave them at my chamber door. Does the water boil, Jemima? Place it also on the floor. Eight o'clock already, is it? How's the weather--pretty fine? Eight is tolerably early; I can get away by nine. Still I feel a little sleepy, though I came to bed at one. Put the bacon on, Jemima; see the eggs are nicely done! I'll be down in twenty minutes--or, if possible, in less; I shall not be long, Jemima, when I once begin to dress. She is gone, the brisk Jemima; she is gone, and little thinks How the sluggard yearns to capture yet another forty winks, Since the bard is human only--not an early village cock-- Why should he salute the morning at the hour of eight o'clock? Stifled be the voice of Duty; Prudence, prythee, cease to chide, While I turn me softly, gently, round upon my other side. Sleep, resume thy downy empire; reassert thy sable reign! Morpheus, why desert a fellow? Bring those poppies here again! What's the matter, now, Jemima? Nine o'clock? It cannot be! Hast prepared the eggs, the bacon, and the matutinal tea? Take away the jug, Jemima, go, replenish it anon; Since the charm of its caloric must be very nearly gone. She has left me. Let me linger till she reappears again, Let my lazy thoughts meander in a free and easy vein. After Sleep's profoundest solace, nought refreshes like the doze. Should I tumble off, no matter; she will wake me, I suppose. Bless me, is it you, Jemima? Mercy on us, what a knock? Can it be--I can't believe it--actually ten o'clock? I will out of bed and shave me. Fetch me warmer water up! Let the tea be strong, Jemima, I shall only want a cup! Stop a minute! I remember some appointment by the way, 'Twould have brought me mints of money; 'twas for ten o'clock to-day. Let me drown my disappointment, Slumber, in thy seventh heaven! You may go away, Jemima. Come and call me at eleven!

(_From the "Leeds Mercury."_)

ARTEMUS WARD'S VISIT TO THE TOWER OF LONDON.

CH. FARRAR BROWNE.

I skurcely need inform you that the Tower is very pop'lar with pe'ple from the agricultooral districks, and it was chiefly them class which I found waitin' at the gates the other mornin'.

I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the entire history of firm basises, I don't find a basis more firmer than this one.

"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow detected my denomination.

"Alars! no," I ansered; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements, and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America, oh my onhappy country! thou hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon."

The gates were opened after a while, and we all purchist tickets, and went into a waitin' room.

"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "that is a sad day."

"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.

"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed within these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear."

"No!" I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnered. "Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannel jackets. They are cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?"

A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.

Traters, I will here remark, are an onforchunit class of pe'ple. If they wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become statesmen and heroes.

Take the case of Gloster, afterwards Old Dick the Three, who may be seen at the Tower on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's case. Mr. G. was a conspirator of the basist dye, and if he'd failed, he would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded and became great. He was slewed by Col. Richmond, but he lives in history, and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the Warder's able and bootiful lectur.

There's one King in this room who is mounted onto a foaming steed, his right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name.

The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is interestin. Among this collection of choice cutlery I notist the bow and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with. It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this date by certain tribes of American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such an excellent precision that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky Mountain regin. They are a pleasant lot, them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. Catlin have told us of the red man's wonderful eloquence, and I found it so. Our party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones, whose chief said:--

"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink."

He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole our blankets, and whisky, and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.

I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians; and when I hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.

At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as if, conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theatre, where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, givin' the audiens the idea that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he conkers that town. But a very interestin drammer is _Troo to the Core_, notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet.

The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews, throat collars, etc., statin' that these was conkered from the Spanish Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve summers the remark that she tho't it was rich to talk about the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a tower where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and turn red.

I was so pleased with the little girl's brightness that I could have kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older.

I think my companions intended makin a day of it, for they all had sandwiches, sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who had wanted us to drop a tear afore we started to go round, fling'd such quantities of sassige into his mouth that I expected to see him choke hisself to death; he said to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the poor prisoners writ their onhappy names on the cold walls, "This is a sad sight."

"It is indeed," I ansered. "You're black in the face. You shouldn't eat sassige in public without some rehearsals beforehand. You manage it orkwardly."

"No," he said, "I mean this sad room."

Indeed, he was quite right. Tho' so long ago all these drefful things happened, I was very glad to git away from this gloomy room, and go where the rich and sparklin Crown Jewils is kept. I was so pleased with the Queen's Crown, that it occurd to me what a agree'ble surprise it would be to send a sim'lar one home to my wife; and I asked the Warder what was the vally of a good well-constructed Crown like that. He told me, but on cypherin up with a pencil the amount of funs I have in the Jint Stock Bank, I conclooded I'd send her a genteel silver watch instid.

And so I left the Tower. It is a solid and commandin edifis, but I deny that it is cheerful. I bid it adoo without a pang.

(_From_ "PUNCH," _by permission of the Proprietors_.)

MR. CAUDLE HAS LENT AN ACQUAINTANCE THE FAMILY UMBRELLA.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

"That's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. _What were you to do?_ Why let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about _him_ that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than take our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And as I'm alive, if it isn't St. Swithin's day! Do you hear it, against the windows? Nonsense; you don't impose upon me. You can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you _do_ hear it! Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don't insult _me_. _He_ return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever _did_ return an umbrella! There--do you hear it? Worse and worse? Cats and dogs, and for six weeks--always six weeks. And no umbrella!

"I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow? They shan't go through such weather, I'm determined. No: they shall stop at home and never learn anything--the blessed creatures!--sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing--who, indeed, but their father? People who can't feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.

"But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes; I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow--you knew that; and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in buckets-full, I'll go all the more. No: and I won't have a cab, where do you think the money's to come from? You've got nice high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteen-pence at least--sixteen pence! two and sixpence, for there's back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for 'em; I can't pay for 'em; and I'm sure you can't, if you go on as you do; throwing away your property, and beggaring your children--buying umbrellas!

"Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don't care--I'll go to mother's to-morrow, I will; and what's more, I'll walk every step of the way--and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman, it's you that's the foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold--it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall--and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; yes; and that's what you lent the umbrella for. Of course!

"Nice clothes I shall get too, trapesing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoilt quite. _Needn't I wear 'em, then?_ Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I _shall_ wear 'em. No, sir, I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once,--better, I should say. But when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go like a lady. Oh! that rain--if it isn't enough to break in the windows.

"Ugh! I do look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to mother's I'm sure I can't tell. But if I die, I'll do it. No, sir; I won't borrow an umbrella. No; and you shan't buy one. Now, Mr. Caudle, only listen to this; if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it in the street. I'll have my own umbrella, or none at all.

"Ha! and it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure, if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one for me. Paying for new nozzles, for other people to laugh at you. Oh, it's all very well for you--you can go to sleep. You've no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own dear children. You think of nothing but lending umbrellas.

"Men, indeed!--call themselves lords of the creation!--pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella.

"I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me. But that's what you want--then you may go to your club, and do as you like--and then, nicely my poor dear children will be used--but then, sir, then you'll be happy. Oh, don't tell me! I know you will. Else you'd never have lent the umbrella!

"You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and, of course, you can't go. No, indeed, you _don't_ go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt for what I care--it won't be so much as spoiling your clothes--better lose it: people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas!

"And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the umbrella? Oh, don't tell me that I said I would go--that's nothing to do with it; nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her, and the little money we were to have, we shan't have at all--because we've no umbrella.

"The children, too! Dear things! They'll be sopping wet: for they shan't stop at home--they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave 'em, I'm sure. But they _shall_ go to school. Don't tell me I said they shouldn't: you are so aggravating, Caudle; you'd spoil the temper of an angel. They _shall_ go to school; mark that. And if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault--I didn't lend the umbrella!"

* * * * *

"At length," writes Caudle, "I fell asleep; and dreamt that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs; that, in fact, the whole world turned round under a tremendous umbrella!"

(_By permission of_ MESSRS. BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO.)

DOMESTIC ASIDES.

TOM HOOD.

"I really take it very kind, This visit, Mrs. Skinner, I have not seen you such an age-- (The wretch has come to dinner!)

"Your daughters, too, what loves of girls-- What heads for painters' easels! Come here, and kiss the infant, dears-- (And give it, p'raps, the measles!)

"Your charming boys I see are home From Reverend Mr. Russell's; 'Twas very kind to bring them both-- (What boots for my new Brussels!)

"What! little Clara left at home? Well now, I call that shabby: I should have loved to kiss her so-- (A flabby, dabby, babby!)

"And Mr. S., I hope he's well, Ah! though he lives so handy, He never drops in now to sup-- (The better for our brandy!)

"Come, take a seat--I long to hear About Matilda's marriage; You've come, of course, to spend the day! (Thank heaven, I hear the carriage!)

"What! must you go? Next time I hope You'll give me longer measure; Nay--I shall see you down the stairs-- (With most uncommon pleasure!)

"Good-bye! good-bye! remember all, Next time you'll take your dinners! (Now, David, mind I'm not at home In future to the Skinners!")

(_By permission of_ MESSRS. WARD, LOCK, & CO.)

THE CHARITY DINNER.

LITCHFIELD MOSELEY.