Chapter 1

TREATS OF CHALK-AND-QUA-DRILL-OGY.

We know that we are forgiven, so shall proceed at once to the consideration of the ornaments and pathology of coats.

THE ORNAMENTS

are those parts of the external decorations which are intended either to embellish the person or garment, or to notify the pecuniary superiority of the wearer. Amongst the former are to be included buttons, braids, and mustachios; amongst the latter, chains, rings, studs, canes, watches, and above all, those pocket talismans, purses. There are also riding-whips and spurs, which may be considered as _implying_ the possession of quadrupedal property.

_Of Buttons_.--In these days of innovation--when Brummagem button-makers affect a taste and elaboration of design--a true gentleman should be most careful in the selection of this _dulce et utile_ contrivance. Buttons which resemble gilt acidulated drops, or ratafia cakes, or those which are illustrative of the national emblems--the rose, shamrock, and thistle tied together like a bunch of faded watercresses, or those which are commemorative of coronations, royal marriages, births, and christenings, chartist liberations, the success of liberal measures, and such like occasions, or those which would serve for vignettes for the _Sporting Magazine_, or those which at a distance bear some resemblance to the royal arms, but which, upon closer inspection, prove to be bunches of endive, surmounted by a crown which the Herald's College does not recognise, or those which have certain letters upon them, as the initials of clubs which are never heard of in St. James's, as the U.S.C.--the Universal Shopmen's Club; T.Y.C.--the Young Tailors' Club; L.S.D.--the Linen Drapers' Society--and the like. All these are to be fashionably eschewed. The regimental, the various hunts, the yacht clubs, and the basket pattern, are the only buttons of Birmingham birth which can be allowed to associate with the button-holes of a gentleman.

The restrictions on silk buttons are confined chiefly to magnitude. They must not be so large as an opera ticket, nor so small as a silver penny.

_Of Braids_.--This ornament, when worn in the street, is patronised exclusively by Polish refugees, theatrical Jews, opera-dancers, and boarding-house fortune-hunters.

_Of Mustachios_.--The mustachio depends for its effect entirely upon its adaptation to the expression of the features of the wearer. The small, or _moustache à la chinoise_, should only appear in conjunction with Tussaud, or waxwork complexions, and then only provided the teeth are excellent; for should the dental conformation be of the same tint, the mustachios would only provoke observation. The German, or full hearth-brush, should be associated with what Mr. Ducrow would designate a "cream," and everybody else a drab countenance, and should never be resorted to, except in conformity with regimental requisitions, or for the capture of an Irish widow, as they are generally indigenous to Boulogne and the Bench, and are known amongst tailors and that class of clothier victims as "bad debts," or "the insolvency regulation," and operate with them as an insuperable bar to

The perfect, or heart-meshes, are those in which each particular hair has its particular place, and must be of a silky texture, and not of a bristly consistency, like a worn-out tooth-brush. Neither must they be of a bright red, bearing a striking resemblance to two young spring radishes.

The _barbe au bonc_, or _Muntzian fringe_, should only be worn when a gentleman is desirous of obtaining notoriety, and prefers trusting to his external embellishments in preference to his intellectual acquirements.

_On Tips_.--Tips are an abomination to which no gentleman can lend his countenance. They are a shabby and mangy compromise for mustachios, and are principally sported by the genus of clerks, who, having strong hirsute predilections, small salaries, and sober-minded masters, hang a tassel on the chin instead of a vallance on the upper lip.

Our space warns us to conclude, and, as a fortnight's indolence is not the strongest stimulant to exertion, we willingly drop our pen, and taking the hint and a cigar, indulge in a voluminous cloud, and a lusty

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"HABIT IS SECOND NATURE."

FEARGUS O'CONNOR always attends public meetings, dressed in a complete suit of fustian. He could not select a better emblem of his writings in the _Northern Star_, than the material he has chosen for his habiliments.

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"THE SUBSTANCE AND THE SHADOW."

We understand that Sir Robert Peel has sent for the fasting man, with the intention of seeing how far his system may be acted upon for _the relief_ of the community.

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"SAY IT WAS ME."

"Jem! you rascal, get up! get up, and be hanged to you, sir; don't you hear somebody hammering and pelting away at the street-door knocker, like the ghost of a dead postman with a tertian ague! Open it! see what's the matter, will you?"

"Yes, sir!" responded the tame tiger of the excited and highly respectable Adolphus Casay, shiveringly emerging from beneath the bed-clothes he had diligently wrapped round his aching head, to deaden the incessant clamour of the iron which was entering into the soul of his sleep. A hastily-performed toilet, in which the more established method of encasing the lower man with the front of the garment to the front of the wearer, was curiously reversed, and the capture of the left slipper, which, as the weakest goes to the wall, the right foot had thrust itself into, was scarcely effected, ere another series of knocks at the door, and batch of invectives from Mr. Adolphus Casay, hurried the partial sacrificer to the Graces, at a Derby pace, over the cold stone staircase, to discover the cause of the confounded uproar. The door was opened--a confused jumble of unintelligible mutterings aggravated the eager ears of the shivering Adolphus. Losing all patience, he exclaimed, in a tone of thunder--

"What is it, you villain? Can't you speak?"

"Yes, sir, in course I can."

"Then why don't you, you imp of mischief?"

"I'm a-going to."

"Do it at once--let me know the worst. Is it fire, murder, or thieves?"

"Neither, sir; it's A1, with a dark lantern."

"What, in the name of persecution and the new police, does A1, with a dark lantern, want with me?"

"Please, sir, Mr. Brown Bunkem has give him half-a-crown."

"Well, you little ruffian, what's that to me?"

"Why, sir, he guv it him to come here, and ask you--"

Here policeman A1, with the dark lantern, took up the conversation.

"Jist to step down to the station-'us, and bail him therefrom--"

"For what!"

"Being werry drunk--uncommon overcome, surely--and oudacious obstropelous." continued the alphabetically and numerically-distinguished conservator of the public peace.

"How did he get there?"

"On a werry heavily-laden stretcher."

"The deuce take the mad fool," muttered the disturbed housekeeper; then added, in a louder tone, "Ask the policeman in, and request him to take--"

"Anything you please, sir; it is rather a cold night, but as we're all in a hurry, suppose it's something short, sir."

Now the original proposition, commencing with the word "take," was meant by its propounder to achieve its climax in "a seat on one of the hall chairs;" but the liquid inferences of A1, with a dark lantern, had the desired effect, and induced a command from Mr. Adolphus Casay to the small essential essence of condensed valetanism in the person of Jim Pipkin, to produce the case-bottles for the discussion of the said A1, with the dark lantern, who gained considerably in the good opinion of Mr. James Pipkin, by requesting the favour of his company in the bibacious avocation he so much delighted in.

A1 having expressed a decided conviction that, anywhere but on the collar of his coat, or the date of monthly imprisonments, his distinguishing number was the most unpleasant and unsocial of the whole multiplication table, further proceeded to illustrate his remarks by proposing glasses two and three, to the great delight and inebriation of the small James Pipkin, who was suddenly aroused from a dreamy contemplation of two policemen, and increased service of case-bottles and liquor-glasses, by a sound box on the ear, and a stern command to retire to his own proper dormitory--the one coming from the hand, the other from the lips, of his annoyed master, who then and there departed, under the guidance of A1, with the dark lantern. After passing various lanes and weary ways, the station was reached, and there, in the full plenitude of glorious drunkenness, lay his friend, the identical Mr. Brown Bunkem, who, in the emphatic words of the inspector, was declared to be "just about as far gone as any gentleman's son need wish to be."

"What's the charge?" commenced Mr. Adolphus Casay.

"Eleven shillings a bottle.--Take it out o'that, and d--n the expense," interposed and hiccoughed the overtaken Brown Bunkem.

"Drunk, disorderly, and very abusive," read the inspector.

"Go to blazes!" shouted Bunkem, and then commenced a very vague edition of "God save the Queen," which, by some extraordinary "sliding scale," finally developed the last verse of "Nix my Dolly," which again, at the mention of the "stone jug," flew off into a very apocryphal version of the "Bumper of Burgundy;" the lines "upstanding, uncovered," appeared at once to superinduce the opinion that greater effect would be given to his performance by complying with both propositions. In attempting to assume the perpendicular, Mr. Brown Bunkem was signally frustrated, as the result was a more perfect development of his original horizontal recumbency, assumed at the conclusion of a very vigorous fall. To make up for this deficiency, the suggestion as to the singer appearing uncovered, was achieved with more force than propriety, by Mr. Brown Bunkem's nearly displacing several of the inspector's front teeth, by a blow from his violently-hurled hat at the head of that respectable functionary.

What would have followed, it is impossible to say; but at this moment Mr. Adolphus Casay's bail was accepted, he being duly bound down, in the sum of twenty pounds, to produce Mr. Brown Bunkem at the magistrate's office by eleven o'clock of the following forenoon. This being settled, in spite of a vigorous opposition, with the assistance of five half-crowns, four policemen, the driver of, and hackney-coach No. 3141, Mr. Brown Bunkem was conveyed to his own proper lodgings, and there left, with one boot and a splitting headache, to do duty for a counterpane, he vehemently opposing every attempt to make him a deposit between the sheets.--Seven o'clock on the following morning found Mr. Adolphus Casay at the bedside of the violently-snoring and stupidly obfuscated Brown Bunkem. In vain he pinched, shook, shouted, and swore; inarticulate grunts and apoplectic denunciations against the disturber of his rest were the only answers to his urgent appeals as to the necessity of Mr. Brown Bunkem's getting ready to appear before the magistrate. Visions of contempt of court, forfeited bail, and consequent disbursements, flitted before the mind of the agitated Mr. Adolphus Casay. Ten o'clock came; Bunken seemed to snore the louder and sleep the sounder. What was to be done? why, nothing but to get up an impromptu influenza, and try his rhetoric on the presiding magistrates of the bench.

Influenced by this determination, Mr. Adolphus Casay started for that den of thieves and magistrates in the neighbourhood of Bow-street; but Mr. Adolphus Casay's feelings were anything but enviable; though by no means a straitlaced man, he had an instinctive abhorrence of anything that appeared a blackguard transaction. Nothing but a kind wish to serve a friend would have induced him to appear within a mile of such a wretched place; but the thing was now unavoidable, so he put the best face he could on the matter, made his way to the clerk of the Court, and there, in a low whisper, began his explanation, that being "how Mr. Brown Bunkem"--at this moment the crier shouted--

"Bunkem! Where's Bunkem?"

"I am here!" said Mr. Adolphus Casay; "here to"--

"Step inside, Bunkem," shouted a sturdy auxiliary; and with considerable manual exertion and remarkable agility, he gave the unfortunate Adolphus a peculiar twist that at once deposited him behind the bar and before the bench.

"I beg to state," commenced the agitated and innocent Adolphus.

"Silence, prisoner!" roared the crier.

"Will you allow me to say,"--again commenced Adolphus--

"Hold your tongue!" vociferated P74.

"I must and will be heard."

"Young man," said the magistrate, laying down the paper, "you are doing yourself no good; be quiet. Clerk, read the charge."

After some piano mumbling, the words "drunk--abusive--disorderly--incapable--taking care of self--stretcher--station-house--bail," were shouted out in the most fortissimo manner.

At the end of the reading, all eyes were directed to the well-dressed and gentlemanly-looking Adolphus. He appeared to excite universal sympathy.

"What have you to say, young man?"

"Why, your worship, the charge is true; but"--

"Oh! never mind your buts. Will you ever appear in the same situation again?"

"Upon my soul I won't; but"--

"There, then, that will do; I like your sincerity, but don't swear. Pay one shilling, and you are discharged."

"Will your worship allow me"--

"I have no time, sir. Next case."

"But I must explain."

"Next case. Hold your jaw!--this way!"--and the same individual who had jerked Mr. Adolphus Casay into the dock, rejerked him into the middle of the court. The shilling was paid, and, amid the laughter of the idlers at his anti-teetotal habits, he made the best of his way from the scene of his humiliation. As he rushed round the corner of the street, a peal of laughter struck upon his ears, and there, in full feather, as sober as ever, stood Mr. Brown Bunkem, enjoying the joke beyond all measure. Indignation took possession of Mr. Adolphus Casay's bosom; he demanded to know the cause of this strange conduct, stating that his character was for ever compromised.

"Not at all," coolly rejoined the unmoved Bunkem; "we are all subject to accidents. You certainly were in a scrape, but I think none the worse of you; and, if it's any satisfaction, you may say it was me."

"Say it was you! Why it was."

"Capital, upon my life! do you hear him, Smith, how well he takes a cue? but stick to it, old fellow, I don't think you'll be believed; but--_say it was me._"

Mr. Brown Bunkem was perfectly right. Mr. Adolphus Casay was not believed; for some time he told the story as it really was, but to no purpose. The indefatigable Brown was always appealed to by mutual friends, his answer invariably was--

"Why, _Casay's_ a steady fellow, _I_ am not; it _might_ injure him. _I_ defy report; therefore I gave him leave to--_say it was me!_"

And that was all the thanks Mr. Adolphus Casay ever got for bailing friend.

FUSBOS

* * * * *

THE POLITICAL EUCLID.

WHEREIN ARE CONSIDERED

THE RELATIONS OF PLACE;

OR

THE BEST MODE OF

GETTING A PLACE FOR YOUR RELATIONS:

Being a complete Guide to the Art of

LEGISLATIVE MENSURATION,

OR,

How to estimate the value of a Vote upon

WHIG AND TORY MEASURES.

THE WHOLE ADAPTED TO

THE USE OF HONOURABLE MEMBERS.

BY

LORD PALMERSTON,

_Late Professor of Toryism, but now Lecturer on Whiggery to the College of St. Stephen's._

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