Chapter 2

"I now garrantees," I think he sed, "that for ewery shilling you have given me no less than twenty-four pore little children shall have a good dinner; and so, as there is jest twenty of us, we shall have purwided a good dinner for no less than fore hunderd and hayty pore little hungry children!"

I was that estonished at this wunderfull rewelashun that I was struck dum for a minnet, while the jolly party rapped the table and cried, "Bravo!" But I soon pulled myself together, and, going up quietly behind the kind-arted Gent, I says, in a whisper, "Please, Sir, will you kindly let me be a subscriber?" And he did, and I paid my shilling, and sined my name, amid the cheers of the cumpny, and then retired, as prowd as a Alderman. But what a fact for an Hed Waiter to ponder hover! A dinner for a hapenny! and the dinner as this jolly party had bin a eating cost, I dessay, quite thirty shillings a head, which I makes out to be, not being a werry grand skoller, about enuff for some seven hunderd pore children's dinners! I leaves to stronger heds than mine to calkerlate how many pore children the bill for the hole twenty wood have paid for; BROWN says ewer so many thousands; but BROWN does always xagerate so. ROBERT.

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"HER MAJESTY'S OPPOSITION."

AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS IMPERATOR, of course, represents "the Government," and Messrs. H. J. LESLIE and HARRIS (CHARLES of that ilk) are "Her Majesty's Opposition," who are to be congratulated on their Pantomime of _Cinderella_ at Her Majesty's Theatre. Having purchased the book,--which must be classed among the "good books" of the season,--I can say decidedly that there is a considerable, though not a material, difference between the Pantomime _Cinderella_ "as she is wrote" by the two pretty men "Messrs. RICHARD and HENRY,"--whose surnames, I am informed, are synonymous with those of a great English theologian and a still greater English astronomer,--and "the Pantomime _Cinderella_" as she is now performed at Her Majesty's. "Cut and run" must ever be the motto of the Playright's and the theatrical Manager's action; but what astonished me, before I consulted the book, was the omission on the stage of the striking dramatic climax,--especially striking, because a clock is involved in it,--of _Cinderella's_ story.

Illustration: Portrait of Cinderella "Palmer quæ meruit." A Minnie-ture.

Could I believe my eyes, when, after a magnificent ball-room scene, where the colours are grouped with consummate skill and taste, I saw the handsome prince Miss ROBINA _remplaçante_ of Miss VIOLET CAMERON, lead to her place in the centre of that glittering throng the _petite et pétillante Cinderella_ in her Court dress, wearing her little glass slippers (very little slippers, and very little glass), and then, nothing happened, except that the next Scene descended, and hid them from view.

But, Heavens! had the Clock in the Palace Yard stopped? Had its works got out of order? Had it followed the example of the Dock and Gasmen, and "struck," by refusing to strike? Ah! "Inventor and Producer," Ah! Mr. H. J. LESLIE, "Ah!" to everyone who had a hand in this sacrilege; "Ah!" on behalf of Messrs. RICHARD and HENRY, who could not have yielded this point except under a strong protest,--please restore this. We would all of us from eight years old (permitted by home licence to go to theatres at night during Christmas holidays), and up to over fifty (compelled to go to look after the others, and delighted to do so)--we would all of us rather hear the clock strike twelve, see _Cinderella_ in rags, running for bare life, see the Prince in despair at the flight of his partner, on whose card his name was down for sixteen more valses and galops, than witness a black-and-white dance, with fans, pretty in itself, and set to very pretty Solomonesque music, but meaningless as regards plot.

Here is the stage-direction--"_At the end of song_"--which should have been a national song, by Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT, but wasn't--in fact, there was no song at all, as well as I can remember, though I rather think the crowd were always more or less singing a chorus,--"_clock strikes_." If it did, I didn't hear it. If it did, why didn't the characters behave as sich, and on _Cinderella's_ saying what the authors have written, and which I am positive I didn't hear,

"What shall I do? the hour has struck at last! I hope to goodness that that clock's too fast!"

why didn't they execute a "_Hurried Gallop_," and why wasn't the stage-direction, "_The Ball breaks up_,"--the printer prefers "breakes up,"--"_in wild confusion_" carried out? No one knows better than this present scribe what changes are necessitated at the last moment, and after the book is published. But an alteration which omits the point of the story is scarcely an improvement. It does not affect me that the demon _Scroogins_ was reduced comparatively to a dummy, for poor Mr. SHIEL BARRY was suffering from dreadful hoarseness, and could hardly speak, much less sing. There were originally too many plums in the pudding. The knock-about scene by two ARMSTRONGS, in imitation of our old friends the Two MACS, very ingeniously introduced as _Jeames the First_ and _Jeames the Second_, Royal Footmen, is immensely funny. _Cinderella's_ jödelling lullaby is pretty. All the music is bright and lively, and I fancy that though there are the names of four or five Composers to the bill, Conductor SOLOMON,--who keeps them all going, and sticks to his beat with the tenacity of a policeman,--has done the major part of it, and the minor too. Bravo, Mr. EDWARD SOLOMON! "What's a hat without a head?" and what's a Norchestra without a NED? Mr. ALFRED CELLIER is responsible for a charming minuet.

Extraordinary Omission from the Shakspeare Tableaux at Her Majesty's, when they had the materials at hand--

Illustration: "THE TWO MACS."

One more question--Where were "the Lyrics by Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT?" Is Mr. LESLIE satisfied with one Lyric in Shaftesbury Avenue? And is he keeping back Mr. SCOTT'S for his next Opera? Perhaps though, as Miss VIOLET CAMERON now appears as the Prince, the lyrics are sweetly sung, which is an inducement to revisit _Cinderella chez elle_.

The Transformation Scene is very effective. Will the Public ever regain their taste for the short Pantomime, with one Big Show in it, and an hour's Harlequinade. JACK IN THE PRIVATE BOX.

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A JAPANESE BELLE.

"This tiny Japanese lady, whom you left, as you thought, on the lid of the glove-box at home."--_Sir Edwin Arnold, in Daily Telegraph._

EDWIN ARNOLD, Knight and Poet, vividly descriptive man, I'm in love, and you must know it, with your _belle_ in far Japan.

Her _kimono_ looks so telling with sleeve swaying in the wind, And the amber _obi_ swelling into satin bows behind.

Though her charming little nose is, you confess, a trifle flat, When the lips are red as roses, who would stop to think of that?

Sunny smiles so sweet and simple, scornful cynic soul might win, While a most bewitching dimple guards the fascinating chin.

Teeth the purest pearl outshining, shell-pink nails, and she will wear Just one red camellia twining in her ebon wealth of hair.

Jet looks grey beside her tresses blacker than the murk midnight, While the little hand that presses each coquettish curl shines white.

She is quite an _avis rara_, but her lips for me were dumb, Though she murmured, "_Sayonara_," and again should bid me come.

If her fairy ears I frighten with the wild words of the West, Surely love will come to lighten all the burden of my breast.

I will learn her awful lingo, if by any chance I can; I'll despoil the gay flamingo to provide her with a fan.

She will note my admiration, smiling in a sweet surprise, And there _can_ be conversation lovers learn 'twixt eyes and eyes.

Come what will, methinks I'll chance it, and for pretty things to say, I will read up, during transit, all _The Light of Asia_.

Since, Sir EDWIN, dainty dreamer, thine the pen that bids me go, By the fastest train and steamer, straightway off to Tokio.

* * * * *

THE LION'S DIARY.

Bother being caged up in this wooden box along with a boar-hound. Why a boar-hound? Is he supposed to look after me? I rather like that, if he is. "Look after _me_?" Why just with one touch of one of my forepaws I could smash him in half a minute like two-twos. And for the matter of that, that fellow with the whip, who imagines he keeps me in order, by fixing his eye on me. Yes, and the horse too; the whole three of them. But there's that bit of meat at the end of the performance, so I suppose I may as well appear "to come the docile highly trained beast," and go through with the tomfoolery and collar it. "Snarl?" _Do_ I? Of course I do. It's the one outlet I have for my feelings. Who wouldn't snarl under the circumstances? Fancy, me, the "King of Beasts" (it sounds like chaff), dropping off a platform, at a given signal, on to the back of an idiotic circus-horse, stared at through a lot of bars by a house packed full of applauding fools! And we finish up by a scamper all round together that seems vastly to amuse them! What a come-down for a Lion! Learned pigs and educated bears are well enough, but they should know where to draw the line and stop at the "Monarch." I keep pretty quiet at present because it pays, but that snarl of mine may end in a roar. By Jove! if it does, the horse, boar-hound, and fellow with the whip, had better look out for themselves, and that's all I have got to say about it at present.

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Illustration: ETYMOLOGY.

"HOW DO YOU DO, MY LITTLE MAN? I'M YOUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR, YOU KNOW!"

"WHAT'S A _NEIGHBOUR_?"

"WELL--_NEIGH_ MEANS _NIGH_; THAT IS, _NEAR_, AND----"

"OH, THANK YOU. I KNOW WHAT _BORE_ MEANS!"

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Illustration: THE DIVORCE SHOP.

PRIVATE INQUIRY AGENT. "WANT A DIVORCE, SIR?--CERTAINLY! ANY EVIDENCE YOU MAY REQUIRE READY AT THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE NOTICE!!"

THE DIVORCE SHOP.

"A NATION of Shopkeepers!" Well, that old jeer May fall with small sting on an Englishman's ear, For 'tis Commerce that keeps the world going. But _this_ kind of Shop? By his _bâton_ and hunch, The thought of it sickens the spirit of _Punch_, And sets his cheek angrily glowing.

The Philistines, Puritans, Podsnaps, and Prigs Of Britain play up some preposterous rigs, And tax e'en cosmopolite charity. But here is a business that's not to be borne; Its mead is the flail and the vial of scorn, Not chaffing or Christmas hilarity.

The Skunk _not_ indigenous, Sirs, to our Isle? The assertion might well bring a cynical smile To the lips of a critical Yankee. The vermin is here; he has set up a shop, And seems doing a prosperous trade, which to stop Demands more than mere law's hanky-panky.

Poor Law's tangled up in long coils of Red Tape, She's the butt for each Jeremy Diddler's coarse jape, Every filthy Paul Pry's ghoulish giggle. JOHN BULL, my fine fellow, wake up, and determine To stamp out the lives of the venomous vermin Who round your home-hearth writhe and wriggle.

'Ware Snakes! No, _Punch_ begs the ophidian's pardon! The slimiest slug in the filthiest garden Is not so revolting as these are, These ultra-reptilian rascals, who spy Round our homes, and, for pay, would, with treacherous eye, Find flaws in the wife e'en of CÆSAR.

Find? Well, if unable to _find_ they will _make_. No, the loathliest asp that e'er lurked in the brake To spring on the passer unwary, Was not such an _anguis in herbâ_ as this is, Mean worm, which of all warning rattles and hisses Is so calculatingly chary.

The Spy sets up Shop! And what has he for sale? False evidence meant to weight Justice's scale, Eavesdroppings, astute fabrications, The figments of vile keyhole varlets, the fudge Of venal vindictiveness. Faugh! the foul sludge Reeks rank as the swamp's exhalations.

Paul Pry, with a poison-fang, ready to bite In the pay of home-hate or political spite, Is a portent as mean as malignant. The villain is vermin scarce worthy of steel, His head should lie crushed 'neath the merciless heel Of honesty hotly indignant.

* * * * *

NOTHING NEW.--"Every Schoolboy" knows that scent was familiar to the Romans, and what scent it was. Will he not at once quote the line, _"Tityre tu patchouli recubans," &c_.

* * * * *

WINTER AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.

It is emphatically pleasant. From a Fine-Art point of view, it is "the winter of our great content." Only a few weeks ago we had an Exhibition of the Young Masters, and very-much-alive English Artists--to wit, the students of the Royal Academy--at Burlington House, and now Sir FREDERICK LEIGHTON has waved his wand, and has given us a transformation scene in the way of a collection of works by the Old Masters and Deceased Painters of the British School. And a very good show it is, and very grateful we feel to those who have for a time stripped their rooms in order that we may enjoy a sight of their treasures. Very restful to the eye and soothing to the spirit are these grand contributions by the Old Boys. They may say what they please about the progress of modern Art, but _Mr. Punch_ is of opinion that many of these fine specimens of CROME, GAINSBOROUGH, JANSEN, MURILLO, MULREADY, &c., are bad to beat. How time slips away! It only seems the other day that these Winter Exhibitions were started by the Royal Academy, and yet the present one is the twenty-first.

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MUSICAL NOTES.--When the Oratorio of _Nineveh_ is performed again, with incidents in the life of JONAH, one of the features will be a magnificent wail in a minor key.--There is to be a banquet given to musical Dr. TURPIN. It was graceful on the part of the Archbishop of CANTERBURY to make this excellent musician a Doctor--the name of TURPIN being more closely associated with York than Canterbury.

* * * * *

STATESMEN AT HOME.

Illustration: DCXLI. EARL GRANVILLE, K.G., AT WALMER CASTLE.

As you step out of the railway carriage that has brought you at leisurely speed to Deal, you cannot help thinking of another arrival that, at the time, created even more attention on the part of the inhabitants. You, bent on a visit to the genial Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, arrive from landward. JULIUS CÆSAR came by sea; And yet, so narrow is the world, and so recurrent its movements, you both arrive at the same town!

As you walk down Beach Street, reading the _Commentaries_, which you have brought down in your coat-tail pocket, you recognise the "plain and open shore" which CÆSAR describes as being reached after passing the cliffs of Dover. Here he landed, now many years ago, and your host who, eager for your coming, even now stands on the top of the great round tower that dominates his castle-home, can look upon the very spot on which the Conqueror stepped ashore. Presently he takes you to see the marks of the intrenchment, plainly visible to this day. With heightened colour and dramatic gesture the belted Earl tells how, on the fourth night after the arrival of the Roman fleet, that great storm which ever comes to Britain's aid in such emergencies, arose, wrecking J. CÆSAR'S galleys, and driving them far up the shingly beach.

"What's to be done now?" CÆSAR'S quartermaster asked.

"Done?" said J. CÆSAR in the colloquial Latin of the day. "Why, haul the fleet up on to the beach."

So they brought the ships ashore; CÆSAR intrenched them within a camp, and remained there till the weather improved. Your host presses upon your acceptance a handful of soil from the _tumuli_.

"CÆSAR'S foot may have pressed it," he says, as you, with a perhaps exaggerated appearance of pleasurable interest, pocket the dust, being careful to turn your pocket inside out as soon as you are beyond sight of the castle on your homeward way.

As your hansom pulls up abruptly under the shadow of the ancient castle, you find your further progress stopped by a _fosse_, across which is haughtily flung a sixteenth-century drawbridge. HENRY THE EIGHTH, in a rare moment of leisure from domestic affairs, built Walmer Castle for the defence of the coast. You are much struck with the architectural design, which resembles in some degree a mass of _blancmange_ turned out of a mould. Four round lunettes of stone, wearily worked by hands now cold, stand four-square to all the winds that blow. In the middle is a great round tower, with a cistern on the top, and underneath an arched cavern which you are pleased to learn is bomb-proof. As you cross the drawbridge, you feel bound to admit that the prospect is not inviting. It seems as if you were going to prison instead of to visit, at his marine residence, one of the most courtly and (peradventure) the most hospitable noblemen of his age. The severe stonework frowns upon you; the portholes stare, and you almost wish that, regardless of expense, you had kept your hansom waiting.

But all uneasiness vanishes as you cross the reverberating stone floor, and pass into the apartments fronting the sea. You feel as if you had journeyed into a new world, a sunnier clime. Your host, with outstretched hand, welcomes you to Walmer, and makes kindly inquiries as to the incidents of your journey.

"It is, I expect, very cold in London," he says, with his genial smile; "you will find it Walmer here."

You protest that varieties of temperature are of very inconsiderable concern to you, and, throwing yourself on the walnut couch by the recess window, daintily draped with orange-and-blue chintz, you gaze forth on the varied scene without. The stately ships go on to their haven under the hill; the ever-changing procession presses on, homeward or outward bound; and, beyond, the unbroken, treacherous barrier of the Goodwin Sands.

"It's strange you should choose that place," your host says, in his soft, liquid tones; "that was the favourite corner of a former predecessor in the honourable office I now hold. In the first year of this century, as you know, WILLIAM PITT was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and, tradition says, used, when he came down here, to sit at that very window by the hour, gazing across the Downs towards the coast of France, where his great enemy was preparing for a descent on the British coast."

Naturally pleased by this coincidence, you endeavour to make your eyes flash as you look across the sea (you remember to have read somewhere that PITT had "an eagle eye;" perhaps two, but only one is mentioned); try and think what PITT looked like generally, and what he did with his arms, which you finally decide to fold across your chest, though conscious that you more resemble NAPOLEON crossing the Alps than the Great Commoner sitting at his drawing-room window in Walmer Castle.

Your host is pardonably proud of his Arboretum, which he has set out on the roof where, in Tudor times, the cistern flaunted the breeze. Here, bared to the winter sun, droop the long fronds of the _Fucus spungiosus nodosus_. Close by is a specimen of that rare plant the _Fucus Dealensis pedicularis rubrifolio_. Here, too, is the _Rhamnoides fructifera foliis satiris_, rarely seen so far north. Here, coyly hang the narrow leaves of the _Silene conoidea_; and here, slowly rocking in the S.S.W. wind, is the sand willow (_Salix arenaria_). You fancy that somewhere you have seen a finer _Hippophae rhamnoides_, but the _Dianthus cariophyllus_, with its pleasant smell of cloves, well deserves the look of appreciation which your host bends upon it. Here, too, are the _Geranium maritinum_, and the wallflower-scented _Hottonia palustris_ and even the humble _Brassica oleracea_.

"I have gathered them all in this district myself," your host says, opening the violet velvet smoking-jacket (for which he has exchanged the warlike garb he usually wears at Walmer) and casually displaying the belt that marks his earldom.

You would like to ask whether a belted Earl ever wears braces, but whilst you are thinking of how so delicate a question may be framed, GRANVILLE, GEORGE, LEVESON-GOWER, Earl GRANVILLE, Knight of the Garter and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, relates, with that never failing flow of natural humour which so greatly endears him to Lord SALISBURY, the story of his chequered career, since he left Christchurch, Oxford, now more than half a century ago and became Attaché to the Embassy at Paris. The narrative which is full of point, agreeably occupies the time up to half-past one, when the beating of a huge drum announces luncheon. You make a feint of at once leaving, and Lord GRANVILLe, with that almost excessive politeness which distinguishes him, hesitates to oppose your apparent inclination.

As you pass out, skirting the piece of old ordnance dragged from the sea in 1775, near the Goodwin Sands, by some fishermen who were sweeping for anchors in the Gull-stream, you reach the conclusion, that politeness may sometimes be carried too far. "Deale," notes LELAND, in his interesting _Itinerary_, "is half a myle fro the shore of the sea, a Finssheher village iii myles or more above Sandwich." That is all very well for Deal; but a gentleman of healthy habits, who left London at ten o'clock this morning would, as the afternoon advances, certainly not be so much as three miles above a sandwich if it were offered.

Pleased with this quaint conceit, in which there is peradventure some little humour, you drop in at a confectioner's, and fortify yourself with a nineteenth-century bun, with which you trifle whilst the train tarries.

* * * * *

A SPORTING CORRESPONDENT, who says "he isn't in the know," asks "what we think of _Garter_ for the Derby?" A word to the wise is sufficient. "Garter" rhymes to "Starter." The Motto of the Garter is, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. We have spoken.

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Illustration: THE POOR CHILDREN'S PANTOMIME; OR SAVED BY A MAGISTRATE'S ORDER.

* * * * *

THE MYSTIC LETTERS.

Through the vast hall he stepped alone. Books, books were everywhere, In all the world he had not known A library so fair.

Through pictured windows sunshine fell On carven cedar old, On velvet hangings, shading well Fair bindings manifold.

Right joyfully he wandered on, Yet marvelled much to see-- Gold letters on each volume shone, D. W. and T.

"Some happy publisher," he mused, "Is designated thus-- Perchance, who yet has not perused _My_ homeless genius."

That publisher if I could view, I'd fall down at his feet. "Rise," he would cry. "For need of you The whole is incomplete!"

His heart stood still. What wondrous sight Struck him with joyful awe? Inscribed in letters large and bright, 'Twas his own name he saw.

His own great works! All, all were there, Each title that he knew, In vellum, in morocco rare Of deep æsthetic blue.

The Sonnets that his youth engrossed, The Novel of his prime, The Epic that he loved the most, The Tragedy sublime.

He took the Epic from the shelf, Engravings rare surveyed-- The Artist seemed a higher self, Who knew and who portrayed.

"Notices of the Press"--His eyes Grew dim as he descried "True Genius we recognise"-- Ah, who was at his side?

He turned; but could it be, in truth, The Publisher he scanned? No austere presence, but a youth With poppies in his hand,

Who smiled. Whereat the Author's mien Grew slowly blank, as on The mystic letters he had seen A fatal meaning shone.

It seemed a melancholy wind Swept by him as he spoke. "D. W. and T. 'Declined With Thanks!'" he said, and woke.

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Illustration: TANGIBLE.