Chapter 2

I HAD come back from India. I was in Southampton. Only a few months before I had been teaching whist to the natives on the banks of the Ganges, and I had made my fortune out of the Indian rubber. I wonder if they remember the great Sahib who always had seven trumps and only one other suit. Tailoring is in its infancy over there, and the natives frequently had no suit at all. I had not placed my money in the Ganges banks, because they are notoriously unsafe. I had brought it with me to Southampton. I was rich, but solitary. Yet I was a dashing young fellow, especially in my printed conversation. When it rained, I said "dee." Just smack your lips over the delightful wickedness of it, and then proceed.

There was nothing to do. I couldn't go to Ryde, although the waiter assured me it was a pleasant trip. Neither did I care to go for a walk. The situation was at a dead-lock, and I said so.

"Well," said the waiter, "there's the quay."

So I went to the quay. I heard a sweet young voice remark, "What a shocking bad hat!" I fell in love with her at once. She was with a governess--obviously French--who remonstrated.

"'Ush! Naughty! Signor will overhear you, Mees SMITH. Then I give you spanks."

"Well, he shouldn't wear such a bad hat, Mademoiselle."

I was just turning round to introduce myself, when I saw that they had both stepped on to the steamer. I followed them. The French Governess seemed to be in doubt about the boat.

"Antelope of the western horizon," she said, to a surly onlooker, "I will give you three piastres and a French halfpenny if you have ze goodness to tell me if this is ze Ryde steamer."

"How the dickens am I to know whether it's the right steamer or not, when I don't know where you're going to?" asked the man.

I knocked him down at once, and as he rose to return the compliment my hat fell off. Miss SMITH caught it on the tip of her toe as it was falling, sent it twenty feet into the air, caught it again in her large beautiful hands, and pressed it firmly down over my eyes.

In the wilds of Assam one gets unused to the grand freedom and cultured geniality of English ladies. I hardly knew what to do, but I extricated myself slowly from the folds of the hat, chucked her under the chin, and remarked, "_Houp-là!_" The French Governess had retired to the cabin to be ill, and we were rapidly steaming from the quay.

"Don't!" said Miss SMITH, looking very shy and pretty.

"Certainly not," I replied. "Of course you will have some tea with me?"

"Oh, my!" she murmured, in her sweet, refined voice. "Well, I must first go and look after poor Mlle. DONNERWETTER."

While she was below, I secured two umbrellas from the stoker, and improvised a sort of tent with this and a back number of the _Times_. I also procured a few delicacies such as young girls love--a pot of French mustard, two bottles of ginger-beer, some shrimps, and several large buns. I spread them all out in a row. It seemed to make them look more luscious, somehow. We were very warm and cosy, seated over the boiler of the engine. Was I in love? Pshaw! Decidedly not, and yet--well, she looked very pretty as she sat there, chattering freely about herself, and lightly dusting with her handkerchief one of the shrimps which was a trifle soiled. I gathered from her conversation that she was very rich, that she had no parents, and would lose all her money if something happened.

"And is that something--er--marriage?" I ventured to ask.

"Gar'n!" she replied, in her pretty school-girl slang. "What are yer getting at?"

"Suppose the boiler blew up, what then?"

"Ah!" she replied, sadly; "Mademoiselle will blow me up if she finds us out. Listen! she's calling."

"Then it's all right, because if she calls now she'll find us in."

At this moment the steamer reached its destination, and I was compelled to leave Miss SMITH. However, I followed her and the Governess until they entered the gates of Plumfields, a large school for young ladies. Why should I go back to Southampton? I think I will remain at Ryde. (_To be concluded in Four Chapters._)

* * * * *

THE PRINCE "STARRING" AT POOLE.--His Royal Highness was just as successful last week at Poole in Dorsetshire (everyone who was there will indorse it) as he was at Pyramids in Egypt.

* * * * *

* * * * * [Illustration: "COUNTING THE CHICKS!"]

"COUNTING THE CHICKS!"

DAME PARTLET broods in reverie beatific Over as nice a "sitting" Of golden eggs as ever fowl prolific Tended, untired, unflitting. Sound eggs and of good stock, there is no doubt of them. What will come out of them?

That question interests nor PARTLET only; No; while the speckled beauty Sits in quiescent state, content though lonely, The poultry-yard's prime duty Filling her soul, how many minds are watching That hopeful hatching!

Worthy Exchequer Hen! Layer and sitter Of really first-rate quality. Though rival fowls are enviously bitter, That doth not bate her jollity. Her duties CAQUET BONBEC'S game to tackle, Without much cackle.

And then, what luck! A "run" unprecedented, Or almost so; and fodder With which the Laureate's Bird had been contented: Fortune has freaks far odder Than e'en a poet's whimsies, any day, Her rivals say.

She must, they swear, have "raked in golden barley," Like the great Fleet Street "Cock." Their jealous jeremiads, sour and snarly, PARTLET'S prim feelings shock. "Luck! Not at all: but the reward emphatic Of skill villatic."

"Of course 'tis obvious that the Tory rooster Has 'crammed a plumper crop' Than Grand Old Chanticleer, that barn-yard boaster, Whose crowings now must stop, He thought his 'Surplus' none would nearly equal. Behold the sequel?

"Not quite as many eggs? No, but far finer, And not one will be addled. He, in his day, was a Distinguished Shiner, But then the yard he saddled With cross-bred cocktail chicks, unprofitable For nest or table."

So PARTLET, in her own complacent musings; And as for the outsiders, Reckoning up their probable gains and losings, Some fain would be deriders Of her, her fortune, and the brood forthcoming, Which she seems summing.

"Don't count your chickens ere they're hatched!" they snigger. (Old saws are always dear to the censorious) "We've seen small chickens out of eggs much bigger. You Tory hens are always so vainglorious. _We_'d see--before we join this Farm-yard Chorus-- The birds before us.

"'Free Education'; Chick? 'Free Breakfast-table'? Or else 'Income-Tax Penny'? Humph! All good breeds! We cannot say we're able To cackle against any. Were they but in _our_ nest, we'd hatch 'em gladly, But doubt _you_ sadly!"

Meanwhile complacent PARTLET sits and broods, Blandly anticipative. As for the Public, well, of all the moods They clearly love the dative; And, so the brood be good, won't greatly bother As to who's mother!

* * * * *

Shall Women Smoke?

I SEE, by an advertisement, that a cork tip put to a cigarette prevents tongue irritation. I have no objection to my wife's smoking, if she will use these cigarettes. Her "tongue irritation" is something too trying to

Yours truly,

SOCRATES.

P. S.--Might call these cigarettes the "Xan-cork-tippé Cigarettes."

* * * * *

STREET MUSIC.--If the sole musical solace of the children of the back slums be the Italian organ-grinder, let him remain there; but don't let him emerge thence to worry and drive to distraction authors, composers, musicians, artists, and invalids. It was mainly the organ-grinding nuisance that killed JOHN LEECH.

* * * * *

"HOLY Trinity Church," said the _Pall Mall Gazette_ recently, "contains many notable memorials of past times." Among others, appears to be the head of the Earl of SUFFOLK, who was beheaded in 1554. This though a memorial of times past, can hardly be pronounced a relic of pastimes, except by those to whom beheading was good sport.

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* * * * *

THE SOUNDS OF THE STREETS.

MR. PUNCH'S Special Nuisance Commissioner continued yesterday afternoon this adjourned inquiry, which, having now arrived at the stage of dealing with "street-music," at present attracting so much public notice, invested the proceedings with an unusual amount of interest.

The Commissioner, on taking his seat, said that, since they last met, he had been rather puzzling himself with the distinction that might be drawn between a "particular" and a "general" or a "pretty general" nuisance, and he had come to the conclusion that he much doubted whether this latter kind had any definite existence, as there were always to be found disagreeable people, themselves the most intolerable nuisances, ready to support and encourage anything that might prove a source of annoyance or even distraction to their more rational neighbours. It was by these growling and cantankerous philanthropists that German "Bands of Three," or even damaged bagpipes, were invited by halfpence to make hideous noises in quiet back-streets. He merely offered these remarks for what they were worth, in passing, and he would now proceed to listen to such fresh evidence as might be forthcoming.

A Nervous Invalid (who was led in tottering, and immediately supplied with a chair, into which he sank in an exhausted condition) said, in a feeble voice, that his present shattered state he attributed solely to the never-ceasing strain to which his nerves had been subjected by the continuous Babel of street-noises that invaded the suburban quarter in which he had been induced to take up his residence in the belief that he was ensuring himself a quiet and snug retreat. (_Sensation._) From the moment when he was roused from his slumbers in the early morning by Sweeps who came to attend to somebody else's chimneys--(_cries of "Shame!"_)--to a late hour, frequently close on eleven at night, when a loud-lunged urchin bawled out a false alarm of a local murder in the "latest edition," his whole life was one continual contest with organs, with or without monkeys or babies, shouting fern-vendors, brass bands, broken-winded concertinas, Italian brigands, choruses of family beggars, tearing milk-carts, itinerant twilight ballad-singers, and other disturbers of the public peace. (_Groans._) And the result, from the series of shocks his system had now been continually sustaining for several years, was the condition to which the Commissioner could see he had been reduced, which he could only characterise as that of one who, once blithe, gay, happy, and active, was now a complete physical and mental wreck, to whom if he could see no prospect of coming relief, the gloom of life appeared to stretch away as a vast wilderness, with a prospect of such overwhelming depression, that he could only conclude his evidence with the significant but heartrending warning that he could face it no longer! The Witness here fairly broke down, and, bursting into a hysterical fit of weeping, had to be led from the room by a bevy of sympathising friends.

THE COMMISSIONER (_much moved_). Dear me! this is very distressing! Can the Police be of no use? (_A Voice. "Not the slightest!"_) Indeed! Ah! that's very awkward. However, we had better proceed with the evidence. Is there anyone to be heard on the other side?

A Big Drum of the Salvation Army hereupon said he had something to say.

THE COMMISSIONER. By all means. We are all attention.

The Big Drum said he had been frequently charged with creating a disturbance. This charge he utterly repudiated. Of course, if such trifles as destroying the tranquillity of an English Sunday, disturbing the peaceful worship of other denominations, creating a street obstruction or two, frightening an occasional omnibus horse into a fit of kicking, and perhaps leading up to some local excitement culminating in a possible riot, be regarded as "disturbing the public peace" then, of course, the Salvationists must plead guilty. As to "making a noise," their mission was to "make a noise," and he flattered himself that the "Big Drum" was not behind-hand, at all events, in that business. As far as "making a noise" was concerned, all processions accompanied by bands aimed at this. The Salvation Army was only in the same boat with the rest. (_Oh! oh!_)

THE COMMISSIONER. Just so. And for that reason a short Act should be passed licensing only such processions as have a national, civic, or State character as their _raison d'être_. That, I think, would effectively dispose of the big drum nuisance. (_Cheers._)

A Flute-player, who from his habit of playing, in the dim twilight, Scotch airs without sharps or flats, but with sudden turns and trills, had become the terror of several quiet suburban squares, was here about to be heard in his own defence, when the proceedings were interrupted by strains of a German Band that had taken up its station in the street outside, and commenced an imperfect rehearsal of an original valse composed by the Conductor.

On the Commissioner having given orders that it should be stopped forthwith, and it being intimated to him that, in the absence of any policeman, it declined to move off or cease playing under eighteen-pence; he thereupon expressed himself strongly on the present unsatisfactory condition of the existing law, and, explaining at the top of his voice, that it would be no use continuing his remarks through a noise in which he could not possibly make himself heard, hastily adjourned the meeting. And thus the business of the day came suddenly to an unexpected and abrupt conclusion.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A VERY SILLY SONG.

(_By a Syndicate of Singers._)

IN the gay play-house mingle The gallant and the fair; The married and the single, And wit and wealth, are there; And shirt-front spreads in acres, And collar fathoms high; Dressmakers and unmakers In choice confections vie. A sight to soften rockses! Yet low my spirit falls, For _she_ is in the boxes. And _I_ am in the stalls.

The music's lively measure, The curtain's plushy fold, I hear untouched with pleasure, Unsolaced I behold. And rank and fashion vainly My wandering eyes survey, Though Mrs. B. and Lady C. Look well in green and grey. The watchful leader knocks his Desk, as the prompter calls, And _she_ is in the boxes, And _I_ am in the stalls.

How dully moves the drama To one whose heart is dumb. In listless panorama The actors go and come. The couple just before me Keep bobbing to and fro. It doesn't even bore me To see them doing so. The lover closely locks his Emotions one and all, When _she_ is in the boxes, And _he_ has got a stall.

But sudden brilliance reaches The playwright's mouthing shams, And the long-winded speeches Grow brisk as epigrams. My heart, in sudden clover, With smiles adorns my face, For, when the Act is over, I need not keep my place. I'll chase my fears, like foxes, When next the curtain falls-- I'll then be in the boxes, Though now I'm in the stalls.

* * * * *

* * * * *

DIARY OF A JOLLY PARTY.

_Monday._--We are a party of twelve at breakfast. A merry party. With children we make fifteen. Some one reads out about Russian Influenza. We laugh. In the daytime, we ride, lounge, shoot. Dinner. Somebody is indisposed and doesn't appear. Also a child has caught cold. But Russian Influenza!--absurd!

_Tuesday._--We are a party of ten this morning at breakfast. Only three children appear. One, a boy who hears his holidays have been extended over the fortnight, is very happy. No Russian Influenza here. Our hostess does not think it necessary to send for the Doctor, who lives three miles off, as the two children have only a slight cold, and the two guests don't happen to be quite well, that's all. Headache slightly, both. At dinner our host, who won't believe in Russian Influenza, says that he's afraid he has rheumatism coming on. Hot grog, we all agree, is the best remedy. Remedy accordingly, with pipes. Two of the ladies retire early, "not feeling quite the thing," and at eleven our host says he thinks he'll turn in. We bid him good-night, hope he'll be better, and then sit down and discuss news. Odd that people and children should be taken ill, but no one will for a moment admit the possibility of Influenza touching _us_.

_Wednesday._ Seven at breakfast. No host. No children down for breakfast; but all apparently "down" with cold, or--something. Hostess comes in, apologises for being late, but much bothered about children, specially the boy who has got extra fortnight. He's got "something" now besides extra fortnight. "Something," but not Influenza. Very feverish in the night; so were the two ladies; so was the host. The hostess, who is great in medicines, specially new ones, has cupboards full of bottles of Eno and Pyrrhetic Saline (or some such name--I'm not sure that it isn't "Pyrotechnic Saline") and her latest fad is Salt Regal. "Children like it," she says, "because it turns pink, and is pretty to look at." If some of her simple remedies, including foreign waters with strange names on them, don't succeed, she will send for Doctor. We begin to think of returning to town. Also begin to wonder if all this can possibly be the Epidemic.

_Thursday._--Dinner, rather dull. The Butler is feeble. Crossing the parquet he is down with a dish. In another hour he is down with--shall we begin to say--Influenza? I thought Influenza was sneezing and coughing and the most violent of colds. Yet I hear very little of that in the house. I shall pack up and leave to-morrow morning. Sharp pain in back as I stoop over portmanteau. Feel queer in head. Pains all down my legs. Within an hour pains everywhere. Remember at school when one boy obstructed another's view, the latter would ask him to "get out of the light, as your father wasn't a glazier, and I can't see through you." Think my father must have been a glazier as I am so full of "panes." How bad my head must be to make this jest.

_Friday._--Don't know how many at breakfast. I'm not. Doctor summoned, visits me. "I suppose," I say, by way of instructing him in the view that I want him to take, "I suppose I've got a slight chill, and this afternoon I shall be able to wrap up and get to town?" "Oh, dear, no," replies Doctor. "You'll take Ammoniated Quinine at once." "You don't mean to say that it's----" "Influenza?" he asks. I nod. Yes, that is exactly what it is, they have all got it in the house, he tells me, and no one will be able to leave for the next ten days! How pleasant for our hosts! I did not believe in Influenza. I do now. Its French name is _La Grippe_. _Je suis grippé._ This means more than a weak name like "Influenza."

* * * * *

CALLS FOR THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR?

NOT for the first time, and not for the last, _Mr. Punch_ asks, where is The Public Prosecutor? Why is it that the observations of Mr. Justice BUTT and Sir HENRY HAWKINS are disregarded? Very much "for the public benefit" was the sentence of one year's imprisonment passed on the journalist who, without one tittle of trustworthy evidence, attempted to blast the character of an innocent man. But is it not still more for the public benefit that professional perjurers, suborners of witnesses, and fabricators of false evidence--the suborners first and foremost--should be publicly proceeded against, and treated with the utmost rigour of the law? WINSER, the cabman, who gave his false evidence so gaily in the Thirkettle Case, has been had up, and sentenced. Having dealt with WINSER, it is only a short step from WINSER to SLOUGH--but perhaps such a slough of muck, that it wants the pluck of a Hercules in the Augæan stable to commence operations, and a _deus ex-machinâ_--that is, the Public Prosecutor from the Treasury--to see that the proceedings are not abortive. Oh, where, and Oh, where is The Public Prosecutor?

* * * * *

STATESMEN AT HOME.

DCXLII. THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G., AT HATFIELD HOUSE.

ARRIVING at the Great Northern Station at King's Cross, and desirous of testing the culture of the clerk at the Booking-office, you ask for a first-class return for Hetfelle. The clerk mechanically puts out his hand towards the receptacle for tickets, drops it, stares at you, and says Hetfelle is not on their line. You insist that it must be, being clearly set forth in _Domesday Book_. The clerk shows a disposition to speak alliteratively but disrespectfully of _Domesday_, and, as the crowd presses at your heels, you yield to modern prejudice, and take your ticket for Hatfield. Still, you have the satisfaction of knowing that it was _Hetfelle_ when the Abbey of Ely held it by favour of King EDGAR.

When Ely was made a bishopric, the Bishops lived at _Hetfelle_, which presently came to be known as Bishops Hatfield, and a sumptuous palace was built, that housed in turn a son of EDWARD THE THIRD, and the son and heir of HENRY THE EIGHTH. The latter Prince coming to the throne, under the title of EDWARD THE SIXTH, he gave Hatfield to his sister, the Princess ELIZABETH. When, in due time, you arrive at Hatfield, your host takes you out, leading you by the stately avenue to show you the oak under which ELIZABETH was sitting, reading Greek, when news came to her that MARY was dead, and ELIZABETH reigned in her stead.

"_La reine est morte; Vive la reine!_" you opportunely remark.

"Quite so," says the MARKISS, evidently struck by your readiness of rejoinder.

You approach Hatfield House by the gateway near the Church, and enter an oblong court bounded by the west wing of the Bishop's Palace, now a stately wreck, with horses stabled in the Hall where one time Bishops and Princes sat at meat. You feel inclined to linger here, and moralise upon the theme. But you perceive your noble host awaiting you on the broad steps of the magnificent Jacobean mansion, a picture worthy to be set in such a framework. It is like a portrait of one of the earlier CECILS stepped out of the frame in the Long Gallery. The stately figure is attired in white doublet, trunks, and hose, embroidered with pearls. On the purple surcoat, lined with red, gold buttons gleam. The white ruff is fastened at wrist and throat with gold buttons: the black cap is solely adorned with a knot of pearls; a golden cord hangs from the neck; the right hand rests upon the head of a large dog, that has, perhaps, a rather stuffed look; whilst the left negligently lounges on the hip above the ready sword.

Is it THOMAS, Earl of Exeter? Or is it his half-brother, ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury, joint ancestor of the two great branches of the CECIL family? Or is it, perchance, ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury, or JAMES CECIL, first MARKISS?

A familiar voice breaks the charm, and discloses the secret.

"Welcome to Hatfield, TOBY, dear boy; but don't suppose that every day I am got up in this style. It is only in honour of your visit, and as soon as you are gone, I doff my doublet and hose, put on an old coat, and go down into my workshop, where I have a little tinkering to do with one of the electric wires which has gone wrong, and threatens to burn up the premises. So glad to see you. Always think these informal conferences between individual members of the two Houses are not only personally agreeable, but may be fraught with the greatest benefit to the State, which we both serve. Wait till you see my dog move."

The noble MARKISS, stooping down a little stiffly (owing to the tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved out of the way.

"Yes," said the MARKISS, pleased at my enthusiasm, "that is rather a triumph, I think. It is common enough to see an automatic dog move its two fore-paws; but, observe, _all_ the paws here work in natural sequence. Took me six months to bring this to perfection, working at it at the time when you would read in the newspapers of my conspiring with HARTINGTON to keep out GLADSTONE, or negociating with BISMARCK to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him in Africa."

Your host leads you to King James's Room, a fine apartment, which stands to-day in exactly the state in which the King left it when he got up to breakfast. But the place is a little stuffy, and you do not care for the particular state of fadedness yet reached by the Turkey carpet. Walking beside your host, with one eye on the sword, which seems determined to get between somebody's legs, you pace the Marble Hall, cricking your neck with gazing upon the heads of the Cæsars that look down on you from panels in the coved ceiling. Up you go by the grand staircase with its massive carved baluster with unclothed Highlanders playing the bagpipes and lions bearing heraldic shields; into the Long Gallery, with its coats of mail, its antique japanned cabinets, its cradle in which ELIZABETH squealed, its massive fireplaces, its rare panelling; into the Armoury, where you try on several suits of armour and handle relics of the Great Armada cast ashore in the spacious times of ELIZABETH; on to the Library with its rare collection of papers, including Lord BURLEIGH'S _Diary_, in which you are privileged to read in the original manuscript the well-known poem which tells how:

"Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he."

On to the Summer Dining-room through the Winter Dining-room, into the Drawing-room, and thence into the Chapel where you admire the painted window of Flemish work, representing in compartments various scriptural subjects.

You have been so interested in the journey, that there has been no time for ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOIGNE-CECIL, P.C., K.G., Third Marquis of Salisbury, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister of England, to tell you the story of his life. This you the less regret, as the MARKISS is manifestly growing increasingly uncomfortable in his doublet and hose. So he conducts you to the hall, and bids you a friendly farewell. As you walk down the Avenue--"The Way to London," as CECILS dead and buried used to call it--you turn to take one last look at the noble pile, Italian renaissance in character, of two orders, the lower Doric, the upper Ionic, with a highly-enriched Elizabethan central gate-tower, and stepped gables.

* * * * *

TOMMIUS ETONENSIS LOQUITUR.

VULTNE Gubernator rursus spoliare Hiemales Holidies? Durum debet habere jecur! Nunc iterum versus--pejor Fortuna--Latinos (Deque meo capite) concoquere ille jubet. Fecit idem quondam; nunc et--cogitatio læta!-- Stratagemà veteri vendere eum potero. Materiæ sors ulla, puto, descendit eôcum; Namque Latina illi "mortua lingua" manet. De quo nunc scribam?--Vidi spectacula Barni, Et res, considero, non ita prava fuit. Sed quia Neronem atque Romam introducere oportet? Est socio prorsus sat dare cærulea! Tunc vidi Dominum Silvæ Coventis ad Hortum, Et Circum Hengleri, Pantomimosque simul. Ad scholam redco--lamentor dicere--mox nunc; Notio nuda manet bestialissima mi! O utinam tactum possem capere Influenzæ! Cuncta habeo morbi symptoma, dico patri. "Undique mortalitas "--addo--"excessiva videtur. In valli est Tamesis particulare malus!" "Russigenus morbus! Frigus commune cerebri;" Ille ait arridens. "Hoc Russ in urbe vocas?" "Sed pueros per me fortasse infectio tanget; Oh, nonne in cera Busbius (arguo) erit!" Jingo! Gubernator respondit--"Shammere cessa! Aut aliquid de quo vere dolere dabo!" Hei mihi! Deposuisse pedem nunc ille videtur. Sunt lineæ duræ!--Terminat Holidies.

NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.