Chapter 3

The Father spake--"O skilled in men and books, Read me this crowd, inspect them, scan their looks; See, from their shining heads electric rays, Reflected, sparkle in their barbers' praise. Lo, on each bulging front's expansive white A single jewel flames with central light; To vacant eyes the haughty eye-glass clings, Stiff stand their collars, though their ties have wings. What of their faces? Bloodshot eyes that blink, And thick lips, framed for blasphemy and drink. Here the grey hair, that should adorn the Sage, Serves but to mark a weak, unhonoured age; There on the boy pale cheeks proclaim the truth, The faded emblems of a wasted youth. All, all are loathsome in this motley crew, The Peer, the Snob, the Gentile, and the Jew, Young men and old, the greybeards and the boys, These dull professors of debauch and noise."

* * * * *

He ceased. The Wise One gazed in silent gloom, While oaths and uproar hurtled through the room-- "Hi, there, a monkey on the Pollux Pet;" "Fifty to forty;" "Blank your eyes, no bet;" "A level thousand on the Castor Chick;" "Brandy for two, and, curse you, bring it quick." While one who spake to _Punch_ rapped out an oath-- "Who cares?" he said, "I stand to win on both. Fair play be blowed, that's all a pack of lies, Let fools fight fair, while _these_ cut up the prize. Old Cock, you needn't frown; I'm in the know, And if you don't like barneys, dash it, go!" One blow from _Punch_ had quelled th' audacious man, He raised his hand, when, lo, the fight began.

"Time! time!" called one; the cornered ruffians rose, Shook hands, squared up, then swift they rained in blows. Feint follows feint, and whacks on whacks succeed, Struck lips grow puffy, battered eye-brows bleed. From simultaneous counters heads rebound, And ruby drops are scattered on the ground. Abraded foreheads flushing show the raw, And fistic showers clatter on the jaw.

* * * * *

Now on "the mark" impinge the massive hands, Now on the kissing-trap a crasher lands. Blood-dripping noses lose their sense of smell, And ribs are roasted that a crowd may yell. Each round the other's neck the champions cling, Then break away, and stagger round the ring. Now panting Pollux fails, his fists move slow, He trips, the Chicken plants a smashing blow. The native "pug" lies spent upon the floor, Lies for ten seconds,--and the fight is o'er.

* * * * *

Thunders of cheering hail th' expected end, High in the air ecstatic hats ascend. While frenzied peers and joyous bookies drain Promiscuous bumpers of the Club champagne.

But _Mr. Punch_ had seen enough.

"Do you call this one-round job a fight?" he said, as he rose to depart. "I call it the work of curs and cowards. Who can call these fellows fighting-men? They are merely mop-sticks. Men were ruffianly enough years ago in the country we have left, but they were men at any rate. Here, they seem to be merely a pack of bloodthirsty molly-coddles, crossed with calculating rogues. The mob outside was better than this. But, thank Heaven, we have nothing like this in London."

And with that he and Father TIME walked gloomily from the hall, and found themselves once more in the street.

* * * * *

"What ho! my trusty Shooting Star," cried _Mr. Punch_. Whirr-r-r--

And in the thousandth part of a second they found themselves within measurable distance of TOBY's own Planet. And here _the_ Dog speaks for himself.

* * * * *

* * * * *

VISIT TO THE DOG-STAR.

"Take care of the plank, Sir," I said, as my esteemed master lightly skipped across the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying a scythe; "we don't have many visitors here. One who looked in the other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we've never seen him since. Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter. It was useful to us, seeing that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our precise distance from that planet. For him, I fancy, it must have been inconvenient."

"Are you serious, TOBY?" said _Mr. Punch_, stepping with added caution.

"No, Sir, _I'm_ not. This," I said, waving my hand with graceful and comprehensive gesture around the orb where I am temporarily located, "_this_ is Sirius."

"Ah, I see," said _Mr. P._, glad to find himself with his foot on our native heath; "I want to present you to an old friend, whom, I am afraid, you have sometimes misused. TIME, this is TOBY, M.P., a humble but faithful member of my terrestrial suite. I am showing the young fellow round, TOBY, and we looked in on you, hearing that you had a Parliament that should serve as a model for the firmament."

"I am afraid," observed TIME, whittling a piece of stick with his scythe, "that we may have looked in at a wrong season. As far as I can judge from a consideration of the temperature, and a glance round your landscape, we are now at Midsummer--in the dog days, if I may so put it without offence. Of course your legislators would not be in Town just now, sweltering at work that might as well be performed in winter weather, when, regarded as a place of business or residence, Town has attractions superior to those of the country." "Ah, young fellow," I said, perhaps a little sharply, not relishing his somewhat round-about way of putting things, "when you are as old as me or my esteemed master, you will not be so cock-sure of things. Our Parliamentary Session begins on the threshold of Spring; we stop in Town hard at work, through the pleasantest months of the year; we toil through Summer nights, see August out, and, somewhere about the first week in September, when the days are growing short, the air is chill, and Autumn gets ready to usher in Winter, we go off to make holiday."

"Dear me, dear me!" cried _Mr. P._, "how very sad. How deliberately foolish. We manage things much better than that down in our tight little Earth. When we take that in turn, you will find, my good TIME, that we burrow at our legislative work through the Winter months, getting it done so as to leave us free to enjoy the country in the prime of Spring, and amid the wealth of Summer. But come along, TOBY, let's get on to your House."

"It will be no use going now," said TIME, holding up his hour-glass; "it is five o'clock; the working day is practically over, and we shall find these sensible dogs travelling off to take a turn in the park, or pay a round of visits in search of the culinary receptacle that cheers, but does not intoxicate."

"Wrong again, young Cock-sure," I said; "we shall just find our house of Commons settling down to the business of the night. We begin about four o'clock in the afternoon, and peg away till any hour to-morrow morning that one or two Members please. It is true we have a rule which enjoins the suspension of business at midnight; but instead of suspending business we can (and do) suspend the Rule, and sometimes sit all night."

"Ah!" said _Mr. Punch_, gravely shaking his head, "we manage things much better than that at Westminster."

Got my two friends with some difficulty across Palace Yard, eyed suspiciously by the police-dogs on duty. One concentrated his attention on _Mr. Punch's_ dorsal peculiarity.

"We have strict orders from the Sergeant-at-Arms," he said, "to examine all parcels carried by strangers."

"That's not a parcel," I said, hurriedly, and taking him on one side, succinctly explained the personal peculiarity of my esteemed Master. "Humph!" said the police-dog. "Exactly," I responded, and he let us pass on, though evidently with lingering apprehension that he was allowing a valuable clue to slip out of his hands, as it were.

"Wait here a moment," I said, "till I get an order for your admission."

Absent only a few minutes; when I got back terrible commotion; _Mr. P.'s_ friend was in the hands of the Police; they had attempted to take his scythe from him, and he had smartly rapped one on the head with his hour-glass.

"I've carried it a million years," he said, swinging the scythe with practised hand, till he made a clean sweep of the police-dogs.

"Make it a couple of millions, whilst you are at it, young man," said a sarcastic police-dog.

With some difficulty calmed him; explained that no one, not even a Member, was permitted to enter House with a scythe, or other lethal weapon. Only exception made once a year, when Hon. Members, moving and seconding Address, are allowed to carry property-swords, which generally get between their legs. TIME partially mollified at last, consented to leave scythe behind chair of door-keeper, where the late TOM COLLINS used to secrete his gingham-umbrella.

"It seems to me," he said, "that the public are treated in this place worse than jackals. Hustled from pillar to post, suspected of unnamed crimes, grudged every convenience, and generally regarded as intolerable intruders."

"Ah," said _Mr. P._, "we manage things much better at Westminster."

"Order! Order!" cried an angry voice, and _Mr. P._ and his companion were within an ace of being trundled out of the gallery, where strangers are permitted to see and hear whatever is possible from their position--and it is not much.

"What are they talking about?" asked TIME, in guarded whisper, being, by this time, completely cowed.

"They haven't reached public business yet," I explained. "Been for last two hours debating a private Bill, providing that the pump-handle in the village of Plumberry shall be chained at eight o'clock at night. The Opposition want it done at nine."

"Well, I suppose they know all about it," said TIME. "Probably been down to Plumberry, examined into bearing of whole question, and formed their opinion accordingly?"

"Nothing of the sort; some of them don't even know where Plumberry is--never heard its name before this Pump-handle business came up. Don't even now wait in House to hear question, debated by Members with local knowledge. You see only twenty or thirty Members in their places. But, when bell rings for division, four hundred will troop in, and their vote will settle the question whether Plumberry shall be privileged to pump water as late as nine o'clock, or whether at eight the handle shall be chained."

So it turned out: In House of four hundred and seventy-nine Members Bill was read a second time by majority of twenty-three. Division occupied twenty minutes, which, with debate, appropriated two of the most precious hours of the sitting.

_Mr. P._ narrowly escaped expulsion, attention being awkwardly concentrated upon him, owing to the exuberance of his delight in recollection of how much better these things are managed at Westminster.

After this, public business was approached, beginning with questions. Of these there were a list of eighty, the large majority on exceedingly trivial circumstances. Nine-tenths of them could have been answered in a sentence by the Minister addressed, supposing the Member had dropped him a private note, or crossed the floor of the House, to speak to him. TIME openly contemptuous at such a way of doing business, more especially when, on question which appeared on printed paper having been answered, half-a-dozen Members sprang up from different parts of House, and volleyed forth supplementary interrogations. Explained to him things used to be worse when questions were propounded _viví voce_, and at length.

"Now," I said, not liking _Mr. P.'s_ crowing over us, "the SPEAKER will not allow the terms of a question to be recited. They appear on printed paper, and are taken as read."

"Then," queried TIME, "what are these Members putting questions 'arising,' they say, 'out of the answer just given? They don't spare a syllable, and take up five times as much of the Sitting as Members who put their questions on the Paper, and are not allowed to read them. You don't mean to say that such a transparent evasion of the rule is permitted?"

"It looks very like it," said _Mr. P._; "but it's not at all the sort of thing that would be permitted in our House of Commons. We make Rules, and the Speaker sees that they are obeyed in the spirit, as well as in the letter."

By the time questions were over, following on the prelude of private business, the evening was getting on. Members evidently tired out; had crowded in to vote on the Pump-handle question; sat in serried rows during the squabbles of question-time; and as soon as business was actually reached, House swiftly emptied, leaving about a score of Members. TIME more than ever distracted. _Mr. P._ increasingly perky.

"Ho! ho!" he said, rubbing his hands, "I don't wonder at this Star going to the Dogs. Stop till you come over to Westminster, TIME, dear boy, and we'll show you how public business should be carried on."

Explain to them that House is now in Committee on a Bill that had at earlier stages occupied some months of the Session, practically the greater portion of its working time. Now Session drawing to a close; agreed on both sides that it is too late to conclude Bill this Session; will be dropped after another night or two; Members knowing this, do not think it worth while to give up more time to Bill. Next Session it will be brought in again, and if the Government have better luck, and get earlier stages through in less time, there will be a chance of it passing.

"What!" shrieked TIME, forgetting where he was, "you don't mean to say that after devoting nearly a whole Session to a measure, laboriously shaping it up to a certain stage, you chuck away all your work because the Almanack says it's August? Why don't you, when you meet again in February, take the Bill up at the stage you dropped it? Why don't you--"

Here our friend's observations were brought to a sudden close. TIME was, as _Mr. P._ subsequently remarked, reduced to the status of a half-Timer. Angry cries of "Order! Order!" broke in on his unpremeditated speech. Two attendants, approaching him on either flank, seized him, and led him forth under the personal direction of the Sergeant-at-Arms. _Mr. P._, following his friend, and endeavouring from the top of the staircase to assure him that, "we manage these things better at Westminster," was promptly taken into custody, and led forth beyond the precincts, a combination of circumstances that interrupted and, indeed, as far as my friends were concerned, finally closed what was beginning to promise to prove an agreeable and instructive evening.

_Business Done_.--_Mr. Punch_ and another Stranger expelled from the Gallery, and TOBY's narrative completed.

* * * * *

VISIT TO VENUS.

The two Travellers made their way through space in silence, but on a sudden Father TIME plucked his conductor by the sleeve, and spoke.

"Sir," he said, "I perceive in the distance a wonderful light, and there is a sound of soft and beautiful music that attracts me strangely. Shall we approach the light, and listen more closely to these strains?"

"Have patience." replied the Sage. "The light and the music come from the planet Venus. Thither I am directing our course. In a few moments we shall arrive."

Even as he spoke the light grew brighter, the music of the invisible choir swelled to a louder strain, and before the King of the Hours had time to express his rapture, the pair had alighted in a scene of veritable enchantment. Fairy-like structures of crystal, sparkling with all the hues of the rainbow, rose on every side. Spires and domes of the most fantastic but graceful design seemed to soar into the clear and perfect air. All were bathed in a rosy glow, the source of which was hidden. Spacious walks paved with huge blocks of opal divided the rows of palaces. Along them grew tall and slender trees of a curious and delicate foliage. Birds of Paradise, King Fishers and doves flitted from branch to branch. The broadest of these avenues ended in a sweeping flight of steps of alabaster which led to a vast and perfectly proportioned hall, the roof of which was supported on columns of pure jewels, diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

A throng of maidens, in classical attire and wearing wreaths of roses on their heads, made their way along this avenue to where _Mr. Punch_ and his companion were standing. Their leader, a fair and lovely girl of seventeen, advanced to the Wise One and addressed him.

"Sire," she sang in a low and gracious voice, "Our Queen has sent me to say that she waits for your coming. She holds her Court in yonder hall, and thither I am bidden to guide you. Is it your pleasure to come at once?"

_Mr. Punch_ signified his assent, the maiden took him by the hand, and beckoning to Father TIME to follow, they walked slowly towards the Royal Hall and mounted the steps. A double gate of wrought gold opened as they reached the top, and passing through it, they found themselves in the Court of Queen CALLISTA. A marvellous sight met their eyes. The Queen sat on a raised throne in the midst of a throng of attendants. She was of surpassing beauty. Her deep-blue eyes were set like jewels beneath a broad low forehead on which a light crown of pearls and diamonds rested. Her garments were of a soft gauzy material that half concealed and half revealed the beautiful lines of her bust and limbs. In one hand she held a spray of myrtle, the other rested lovingly on the head of the magnificent hound who sat beside her, looking trustfully into her face. The great hall was filled with beautiful women grouped together here and there, some seated and some standing. They were all talking. Suddenly the Queen raised her hand and commanded silence. She then rose and thus addressed the two visitors:--

"You have come from below to the Realm of Women. Here we abide as you behold us. Age and decay hold aloof from us, and we order our lives with wisdom and modesty. Speak, if you have aught to ask."

"Pardon me, Madam," said Father TIME, somewhat rashly, "are we not here on the planet Venus? and have I not somewhere heard strange tales of what was done by ----?"

But CALLISTA interrupted him. She smiled a beautiful smile.

"Ah, yes," she said, "those stories are of the vanished past. Now we blush even to think they might once have been true;" and surely enough the whole charming assemblage became suffused with the prettiest imaginable blush. "I will speak plainly with you," continued the Queen; "for plain speech is best. No men live here. Therefore, we dwell in peace. But we permit the fairest and best among our number to descend from time to time to earth, and to dwell there in mortal shapes for awhile. You may have seen them," she went on, mentioning some names well known to _Mr. Punch_. "They are allowed to marry; but only the wisest and noblest men may approach them. On earth their will is free, and sometimes, alas, they fall away from righteousness, and pass through bitter tribulation."

"Yes," said the Fleet Street Sage, "We call it the Divorce Court--your Majesty will pardon the rough speech of an old man--and, somehow, we don't seem able to get on without it. But here, of course, you have no such institution?"

"No," replied the Queen. "There once was such a court among us, hundreds of years ago, ere we had banished the men from our midst. Now, however, we use the building in which petitions used to be heard as our chief College. Come hither, ZOE," she proceeded, addressing a sweet little girl of about fifteen. "Tell this wise gentleman your solution of that pretty question relating to the concomitants of a system of ternary quadrics."

Without a moment's hesitation, ZOE stated the question, and, what is more, solved it with absolute correctness.

"Marvellous!" said _Mr. Punch_. "I congratulate you."

"CYNTHIA," said the Queen, beckoning with her rosy fingers to another maiden, "will you recite to me your Pindaric Ode on the late foot-race?"

CYNTHIA at once complied, and _Mr. Punch_ listened in amazement to the resounding lines of an ode worthy of the great Greek. "Nor do we confine ourselves to such accomplishments," the Queen went on. "We all sew perfectly, our knitting is universally admired, and our classes on the Management of Domestic Servants, or the true theory of Making Both Ends Meet are always largely attended. Moreover, we do not neglect the body. Some play at ball, some even form elevens for cricket, others fence or play your Scotch game, or even lawn-tennis, and all dance gracefully. See!" she cried, clapping her hands, "they shall show you."

At this signal delicious music burst forth in a strange measure, swaying, rhythmical, and delightful. The maidens enlaced one another, and moved across the floor in perfect time. Their bodies seemed to float rather than tread the ground, as they passed the spell-bound visitors. The dance ceased as suddenly as it began.

"Your Majesty" said _Mr. Punch_, "your country is, indeed, highly blessed, and your subjects are marvellously accomplished. You dwell here without men, without chaperons, and you are lovely," he added, with emotion, "beyond the power of words to express. Would that your example could be followed upon earth!"

And with this, he and the Father kissed the young Queen's hand, and left the royal presence chamber.

* * * * *

VISIT TO SERIOCOMIX.

"And so," said TIME, as he carefully arranged his forelock before a mirror in the corridor, in reply to a communication recently made to him by _Mr. Punch en route_, "and so we're to make a regular rollicking night of it'? You insist on taking me into every Music Hall in Seriocomix, hey, you young dog, you! Well, well, Sir, I'm not so young as I used to be--but I'm as fond of a bit of good honest wholesome fun as ever I was. So lead on!"

They were in Seriocomix--a new and brilliant planet recently discovered by _Mr. Punch_--by the aid of WELLER's patent double-million gas-magnifying microscope (extra power). This star, as all astronomers are by this time aware, is a howling waste of extraordinary density, and occupied entirely by Music Halls, which TIME, for some inexplicable reason, was desirous of visiting in _Mr. Punch's_ company.

_Mr. Punch_, though considerably TIME's junior, almost envied his companion's boyish eagerness for pleasure; he was so evidently unfamiliar with Music Halls.

"If you are expecting to be vastly amused, Sir," _Mr. Punch_ ventured to hint, "I am afraid you may be just a trifle disappointed."

"Disappointed?" said TIME; "not a bit of it, Sir; not a bit of it! Isn't a Music Hall a place of entertainment? You've plenty of them where _you_ come from, haven't you? They wouldn't be filled night after night, as I'm given to understand they are, if they didn't succeed in entertaining, _would_ they, now?"

_Mr. Punch_ felt a natural reluctance to betray the weak points of any terrestrial institution.

"Oh, _our_ Music Halls? they are perfection, of course," he said. "The entertainments there are distinguished by humour of the most refined and intellectual order. It only struck me that they mayn't be quite the same _here_, you know, that's all."