Chapter 2

There was a talk of engaging all the many German Bands, as makes our streets so musical, to give the Hemperer a serrynade at Lunch; but Mr. WEST HILL, of the Gildhall Skool of Music, thort it might be too much for His Madjesty's feelinx, so the highdear was given up. I werily bleeves that of all the many anxious buzzoms as is a beating with suppressed emotion for next Friday, the carmest and the all serenest of the lot is that of ROBERT.

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"A BOOK OF BURLESQUE."

A volume most welcome on table or desk Is DAVENPORT ADAMS's _Book of Burlesque_. He deals with the subject from earliest days, To modern examples and Gaiety plays. We've extracts from PLANCHÉ and GILBERT to hand, With puns ta'en from BYRON and jokes from BURNAND. There's fun at your asking wherever you look, And not a dull page you'll declare in the book. You'll find it delightful, for no one Macadams The road of the reader like DAVENPORT ADAMS.

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LIBERTY AND LICENCE.--It is said that _The Maske of Flowers_ would never have drawn gold on Monday last to the coffers of that excellent charity, the Convalescent Home at Westgate-on-Sea had not one of the Prominent Performers consented to become the responsible and actual Manager of the "Theatre Royal, Inner Temple." By the terms of his licence he was bound, amongst other things, to see that no smoking was permitted in the auditorium, no exhibition of wild beasts was allowed on the premises, and no hanging took place from the flies. It is satisfactory to learn (that, in spite of many Benchers being present) none of these wholesome regulations were infringed. It is true that the Music of the _Maske_ was duly executed, but then this painful operation was conducted (by Mr. PRENDERGAST) from the floor of the building, and not from its roof. Thus the orders of the LORD CHAMBERLAIN were strictly observed by a Barrister, who can now claim to have been Manager of a genuine Temple of the Drama.

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A REMINDER.--Mr. EDMUND B.V. CHRISTIAN, in _Baily's Magazine_, quoted by the _P.M.G._ last Thursday, complains "that cricket, the most popular of games, fills so small a space in literature." Does he forget that CHARLES DICKENS devoted one entire Christmas Book to _The Cricket on the Hearth_?

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LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. I.--TO SOCIAL AMBITION.

DEAR SIR, OR MADAM,

I trust you will observe and appreciate the discreet ambiguity of style with which I have chosen to address you. I may assure you at once that I have done this not without considerable thought. For, though I have often watched you in the exercise of your energies, I have never yet been able to satisfy myself as to whether I ought to class you amongst our rougher sex, or include you in the ranks of those who wear high heels, and very low dresses. Sometimes you fix your place of business in a breast adequately covered by a stiff and shining shirt-front and a well-cut waistcoat. Sometimes you inhabit the expansive bosom of a matron. Nor do you confine yourself to one class alone out of the many that go to the composition of our social life. You have impelled grocers to ludicrous pitches of absurdity; you have driven the wife of a working-man to distraction because her neighbour's front room possesses a more expensive carpet, of a sprucer pattern than her own. Clerks have suffered acutely from your stings, and actresses have spent many a sleepless night under your malign influence. You have tortured Dukes on the peaks of gracious splendour where they sit enthroned as far above common mortals as they ought to be above the common feeling of envy; and you have caused even Queens to writhe because there happened to be a few stray Empresses in the world.

On the whole, then, I think I do wisely in leaving the question of your sex a doubtful one. You would wish it so left yourself, otherwise so powerful a personality as yours would, I am certain, have revealed itself with greater clearness to an honest investigator, such as I humbly trust I have proved myself. But, be that as it may, I can assert with perfect confidence that you are no respecter of persons, though it must, in fairness, be added, that one of your chief functions seems to be to implant an exaggerated respect and admiration of others in the minds of your victims. In saying this I praise your impartiality, while I hint a dislike of your ordinary methods. Not that I have any hope of causing you to desist. For to desist would be to cease to exist, and I cannot fairly expect you to commit suicide, however much I may desire it. Moreover, your subjects--for, to be candid, you are a despot--seem to like you. You minister so craftily to their self-esteem, you flatter their vanity with an adroitness so remarkable, that, after a few feeble struggles, they resign themselves, body and soul, to your thrall. Even then you proceed warily. Your first labour is to collect, with patient care, all the little elements of dissatisfaction that are latent in every nature, and to blend them with the petty disappointments to which even the best of us are liable. The material thus obtained you temper with intentions that seem to be good, and eventually you forge out of it a weapon of marvellous point and sharpness, with which you mercilessly goad your victims along the path that leads to ridicule and disaster.

Let me take an instance which I am sure you will remember. When I first met little DABCHICK, I thought I had never seen a happier mortal. He was clever, good-natured, and sprightly. He sold tea somewhere in Mincing Lane, and on the proceeds of his sales he managed to support a wife and two pleasant children in reasonable comfort at Balham. Mrs. DABCHICK could not be accused by her best friends of over-refinement, but everybody agreed that she was just the homely, comfortable, housewifely person who would always make DABCHICK happy, and be a good and careful mother to his children. Often in the old days when I came down to Balham and took pot-luck with DABCHICK, while Mrs. DABCHICK beamed serenity and middle-class satisfaction upon me from the other end of the table, and the juvenile JOHNNY DABCHICK recited in a piping treble one of Mr. GEORGE R. SIMS's most moving pieces for our entertainment, often, I say, have I envied the simple happiness of that family, and gone back to my bachelor chambers with an increased sense of dissatisfaction. Why, I thought to myself, had fate denied to me the peaceful domesticity of the DABCHICKS? I was as good a man as DABCHICK, probably, if the truth were known, a better than he. Yet there he was with a good wife, an agreeable family, and a comfortable income to compensate him for his extravagance with the letter h, while I had to toil and moil in solitary gloom.

Now, however, all is changed. In an evil moment for himself, DABCHICK speculated largely and successfully in the Gold Trust of Guatemala. In a very short time his income was multiplied by ten. The usual results followed. The happy home in Balham was given up. "People about here," said DABCHICK, "are such poor snobs"--and a more ornate mansion in South Kensington was taken in its stead. The old friends and the old habits were dropped. JOHNNY DABCHICK was sent to Eton with an immoderate allowance of pocket-money, and was promptly christened "PEKOE" by his schoolfellows. Mrs. DABCHICK rides in a huge landau with blue wheels, and leaves cards on the fringes of the aristocracy. DABCHICK himself aspires to Parliament, and never keeps the same circle of friends for more than about six months. He knows one shady Viscount to whom rumour asserts that he has lent immense sums of Guatemalan money, and the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "_Delenda est Balhamia_"--I speak of course figuratively--and half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest briar. I know the poor wretch is making up his mind to cut me, but I must bear it as best I may.

Now, my dear Sir or Madam, for this melancholy deterioration in the DABCHICKS you are entirely responsible. I am saddened as I contemplate it, and I appeal to you. Scarify Dukes and Duchesses, make vain and useless social prigs as miserable as you like, but leave the DABCHICKS of this world alone. They are simple folk, and really I cannot think that the game is worth the candle.

Believe me to be, your obedient servant,

DIOGENES ROBINSON.

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BROADLY SPEAKING.

Advised by friend to try Norfolk Broads for holiday. Oulton Broad, Wroxham Broad, Fritton Decoy (curious name!), Yare, Waveney, and no end of other rivers. Yachting, shooting, fishing, pretty scenery, divine air, he says. Have come down to Yarmouth for a start.

Up the Bure in a yacht, and into river Thurne. All right so far. Fish scarce. My pilot says, "wait till I get to Hickling Broad. _Full_ of bream and roach." I agree to wait.

In Hickling Broad. Surprised to find notice-boards up all round saying, "sailing" is prohibited in the Broad, also fishing and shooting! "What's the meaning of this?" I ask pilot. He says, "it's all the doings of the Lord of the Manor." Wants to keep the Broad free from tourists. He certainly does it "as to the Manor born." Quite a village autocrat. Shall I be the "Village HAMPDEN?" I will.

Fishing. Several men on bank shouting at me. One comes off in a boat and serves me with a summons. This might almost be called a Broad hint to go away! But I don't go. I stop and fish. Another man comes off in boat and threatens me with action "on behalf of riparian owners." Tell him "ripe-pear-ian season isn't till Autumn, and I shall wait here till then." He doesn't see the joke--perhaps too broad for him.

Other yachtsmen, we hear, have been stopped, and threatened. Yachtsmen up in arms generally. Savage artists wander along banks, denouncing Lord of Manor of Hickling. Say they have "right of way" along banks (sounds as if they were Railway Guards). Hear that Lord of Manor is going to put a gunboat on Broad, also torpedoes. Hear, also, that Wroxham Broad--one of the biggest--is to be closed in same way.

Disgusted at such inhospitality. Back to Yarmouth. Give up yacht, and decide to go to Switzerland instead. Find Yarmouth yacht-owners furious with Hickling's Lord of Bad Manners. Say "closing the Broads will ruin them." Very likely, but it'll help the foreign hotel-keeper. Glad to see they've started a "Norfolk Broads Protection Society," subscriptions to be sent to Lloyd's Bank. "I know a Bank"--and all lovers of natural scenery and popular rights ought to know it too, and help in giving the Hickling obstructionist a "heckling," when he takes the matter (also the Manor) into Court.

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A TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

(_A SCENE OF TO-DAY, IN A SHAKSPEARIAN SETTING._)

_Mr. Punch_. "How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of '_We Three_?'"

_Emperor_. Marry, forfend, _Mr. Punch_! Well quoted indeed, and, pertinently, from the Swan! "A mellifluous, voice, as I am a true Knight!" But talk not of things triune too openly, lest quidnuncs overhear, and L-B-CH-RE devise thereanent fresh heckling interrogations for the Treasury Bench.

_Mr. Punch_. Nay, Kaiser; 'tis not the actual Triple, but the conceivable Quadruple, that perturbs the importunates. _We_ Three form an informal but fast-knit trinity, that can offend none but churls, and affright none but dullards. Peace, Goodfellowship, Wit! By my bauble, a triad that PYTHAGORAS himself might have favoured! Talking of Threes, Kaiser, it's your third visit to us--and, believe me, you are thrice welcome.

_Emperor_. "Yea, and I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you, pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home" (as _Jack Falstaff_ put it), that--you gird not too suspiciously at those who would fain embrace her abroad!

_Mr. Punch_. Well quoted, Sir, though not directed to _mine_ address. But "A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity." Two diseases of the time are, faction and fussiness--the one a fever, the other a prurigo. The one makes little of greatness, the other makes much of littleness. You have been the mark of both, young Hohenzollern!

_Emperor_. "An't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that _I_ am troubled withal."

_Mr. Punch_. _Falstaff_ again, and pertinently applied. Fitly did the Fat Knight say that he was not only witty himself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

_Prince_. By cock and pye, _Poins_,--_Punch_ I mean--am _I_ to be out of this tournament of tags, this joust of quotations? Marry, not so!

[_Grasps the EMPEROR's hand cordially._

"The Prince of WALES doth join with all the world In praise of--Kaiser WILHELM; by my hopes, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant, or more valiant-young, More daring, or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds."

_Mr. Punch_. Bravo! "Delivered with good respect." Your Royal Highness has fairly capped us! _Harry Monmouth_, KAISER, could not more fitly have

"Trimmed up your praises with a princely tongue; Spoke your deserving like a chronicle."

and _Harry Hotspur_ less deserved the praise.

_Emperor_. "I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity." I can but thank you both! (_To the PRINCE._)

"By heavens, I cannot flatter; I defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself."

_Mr. Punch_. That's as it should be. If 'twere not always wholly so--but no matter! I love not to speak in needless or heedless dispraise of dignities, of "Shouting Emperors," or "Madcap Princes," but rather--

"As in reproof of many tales devised,-- Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,-- By smiling pick-thanks and base newsmongers."

Sweet WILLIAM (of Avon, _bien entendu_), hath armed us in advance against even the latest developments of the detestable. The "base newsmongers" of the day are to be shunned as carefully as the "smiling pick-thanks." They would set strife between the two sides of a sixpence or a sovereign. In vain, let us hope! Than that Uncle should admire Nephew, and Nephew respect Uncle, who could wish more or better--for both? We Three!!! My Emperors and Heirs-Apparents, pray charge your glasses! Something _like_ a Triple Alliance! A Veritable League of Peace! Kaiser; at least this is as pleasant as the proceedings on board the _Cobra_ during her passage down the Elbe, _n'est-ce pas_? No formal appending of Statecraft's Scarlet Seals, or scrawly Imperial Signs-manual need we for our Amicable Treaty. A handclasp and a Loving-cup shall suffice us for marking the happy accord of Peace--Goodfellowship--Mirth!!! These be verily the "Central Powers," which RUDINI _might_ have referred to when he said,--"Our Alliance, firmly and sincerely maintained, will assure the Peace of Europe for a long time to come." So mote it be! Let us toast them--in a Bumper!

[_Left doing so._

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* * * * *

HENLEY REGATTA.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S OWN OARSMAN._)

Sir,--This letter is private and is not intended for publication. I particularly beg that you will note this, as on a former occasion some remarks of mine, which were intended only for your private eye, were printed. I of course accepted your assurance that no offence was meant, and that the oversight was due to a person whose services had since the occurrence been dispensed with; but I look to you to take care that it shall not happen again. Otherwise the mutual confidence that should always exist between an editor and his staff cannot possibly be maintained, and I shall have to transfer my invaluable services to some other paper. The notes and prognostications which I have laboriously compiled with regard to the final results of the Regatta will arrive by the next post, and will, I flatter myself, be found to be extraordinarily accurate, besides being written in that vivid and picturesque style which has made my contributions famous throughout the civilised world.

There are one or two little matters about which I honestly desire to have your opinion. You know perfectly well that I was by no means anxious for the position of aquatic reporter. In vain I pointed out to you that my experience of the river was entirely limited to an occasional trip by steamboat from Charing Cross to Gravesend. You said that was an amply sufficient qualification, and that no aquatic reporter who respected himself and his readers, had ever so far degraded himself as to row in a boat and to place his body in any of the absurd positions which modern oarsmanship demands. Finding you were inexorable, and knowing your ridiculously hasty temper, I consented finally to undertake the arduous duties. These circumstances, however, make it essential that you should give me advice when I require it. For obvious reasons I don't much like to ask any of the rowing men here any questions. They are mostly in what they call hard training, which means, I fancy, a condition of high irritability. Their strokes may be long, but their tempers are, I regret to say, painfully short. Besides, to be candid, I don't wish to show the least trace of ignorance. My position demands that I should be omniscient, and omniscient, to all outward appearance, I shall remain.

In the first place what is a "lightship?" As I travelled down to Henley I read in one of the newspapers that "practice for the Royal Regatta was now in full swing, and that the river was dotted with lightships of every description." I remember some years ago passing a very pleasant half hour on board of a lightship moored in the neighbourhood of Broadstairs. The rum was excellent. I looked forward with a lively pleasure to repeating the experience at Henley. As soon as I arrived, therefore, I put on my yachting cap (white, with a gold anchor embroidered in front), hired a boat and a small boy, and directed him to row me immediately to one of the lightships. I spent at least two hours on the river in company with that boy--a very impudent little fellow,--but owing no doubt to his stupidity, I failed to find a single vessel which could be fairly described as a lightship. Finally the boy said they had all been sunk in yesterday's great storm, and with that inadequate explanation I was forced to content myself. But there is a mystery about this. Please explain it.

Secondly, I see placards and advertisements all over the place announcing that "the Stewards Stand." Now this fairly beats me. Why should the stewards stand? They are presumably men of a certain age, some of them must be of a certain corpulence, and it seems to me a refinement of cruelty that these faithful officials, of whom, I believe, the respected Mayor of Henley is one, should be compelled to refrain from seats during the whole of the Regatta. It may be necessary for them to set an example of true British endurance to the crowds who attend the Regatta, but in that case surely they ought to be paid for the performance of their duties.

Thirdly, I have heard a good deal of talk about the Visitors' Cup. Being anxious to test its merits, I went to one of the principal hotels here, and ordered the waiter to bring me a quart of Visitors' Cup, and to be careful to ice it well. He seemed puzzled, but went away to execute my orders. After an absence of ten minutes he returned, and informed me, with the Manager's compliments, that they could not provide me with what I wanted, but that their Champagne-cup was excellent. I gave the fellow a look, and departed. Perhaps this is only another example of the asinine and anserous dunderheadedness of these crass provincials. Kindly reply, _by wire_, about all the three points I have mentioned.

I have been here for a week, but have, as yet, not been fortunate enough to see any crews. Indeed, I doubt if there are any here. A good many maniacs disport themselves every day in rickety things which look something like gigantic needles, and other people have been riding along the bank, and, very naturally, abusing them loudly for their foolhardy recklessness. But no amount of abuse causes them to desist. I have puzzled my brains to know what it all means, but I confess I can't make it out. I fancy I know a boat when I see one, and of course these ridiculous affairs can't be boats.

Be good enough to send me, by return, at least £100. It's a very difficult and expensive thing to support the dignity of your paper in this town. Whiskey is very dear, and a great deal goes a very short way.

Yours sincerely,

THE MAN AT THE OAR.

_Henley-on-Thames, July 4_.

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A COMMON COMPLAINT.

(_BY A DAILY VICTIM._)

O Editors, who earn your daily bread By giving us all kinds of information, There's something that I fear ought to be said, Which may--which will arouse your indignation; For you may not be happy when it's more than hinted Your news is such that we can't read it when it's printed.

Yet I would have you fully understand The real reason why I choose to quarrel With what you print--your columns are not banned Because their contents are at all immoral Yet if there _is_ a scandal, though a small amount of it, You sometimes soil your pages with a long account of it.

Far other reasons urge me to reveal My feelings on this matter--to assail your Too common practice, and say why I feel Your daily efforts are a daily failure; Your paper by its columns and its size confuses me, And worse--there's nothing in it in the least amuses me.

Can you indeed in seriousness suppose-- To me, I tell you, naught could be absurder-- That anywhere at all there can be those Who read the noisome details of a murder, Or take delight in knowing that in such a county Some teeming, triple mother earns the Royal Bounty?

Ibsenity! Amid the maze of words I find it difficult to pick my way right; _This_ critic at the Master only girds, _That_ promptly hails him as the "premier playwright." Whilst I don't mind confessing that I swear right roundly At mention of a subject that I hate profoundly.

Then Parliament--without the slightest doubt Of all dull things the dullest. What could be more Distressing than to have to read about The coming (?) KEAY, whose other name is SEYMOUR? And now that Patriots' speeches flow with milk and honey, They're very much less Irish, and of course less funny.

The Bye-Elections _are_ a little fun, I laugh to note the jubilant precision With which you tell me that a seat that's won Exactly counts two votes on a division, Though this is all I care for, and am bored at knowing How pleased is Mr. GLADSTONE with the tide that's flowing.

Yet all these many, varied forms of pain Are trifling, small and hardly worth attention. One thing is so much worse--oh! pray again The "epidemic" never, never mention, And promptly tell your poet that the rhyme "cadenza" Must never more be worked in for the Influenza!

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