Chapter 1

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 101.

November 14th, 1891.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. VI.--TO VANITY.

DEAR VANITY,

I think I can see you smirking and posturing before the abstract mirror, which is your constant companion. It pleases you, no doubt, to think that anybody should pay you the compliment of making you the object and the subject of a whole letter. Perhaps when you have read it to the end you will alter your mood, since it cannot please you to listen to the truth about yourself. None of those whom you infect here below ever did like it. Sometimes, to be sure, it had to be endured with many grimaces, but it was extraordinary to note how the clouds caused by the aggravated truth-teller passed away as soon as his departure had enabled the object of these reproaches to recover his or her false self again. What boots it, after all, to tell the truth? For those whom you protect are clad in armour, which is proof against the sharpest lance, and they can thus bid defiance to all the clumsy attacks of the merely honest and downright--for a time; but in the end their punishment comes, not always in the manner that their friends predict, but none the less inevitable in one manner or another. For they all fashion a ridiculous monster out of affectations, strivings and falsehoods, and label it "Myself;" and in the end the monster takes breath, and lives and crushes his despised maker, and immediately vanishes into space.

Permit me to proceed in my usual way, and to offer you an example or two. And I begin with HERMIONE MAYBLOOM. HERMIONE was one of a large family of delightful daughters. Their father was the well-known Dr. MAYBLOOM, who was Dean of Archester Cathedral. His massive and convincing volumes on _The Fauna and Flora of the Mosaic Books in their Relation to Modern Botanical Investigation_, must be within your recollection. It was followed, you remember, by _The Dean's Duty_, which, being published at a time when there was, so to speak, a boom in religious novels, was ordered by many readers under the impression that it was likely to upset their mature religious convictions by its assaults on orthodoxy. Their disappointment when two stout tomes, dealing historically with the _status_ and duties of Deans, were delivered to them, was the theme of cheerful comment amongst the light-hearted members of the Dean's own family.

Was there ever in this world so delightful a family circle as that of the Deanery? The daughters were all pretty, but that was their smallest merit. They were all clever, and well-read, without a tinge of the bluestocking, and most of them were musical to the tips of their slender fingers. How merrily their laughter used to ring across the ancient close, and how playfully and gently they used to rally the dear learned old Dean who had watched over them and cared for them since Mrs. MAYBLOOM'S death, many years before, with all the tender care of the most devoted mother. And of this fair and smiling throng, "my only rosary," as the Dean used to call them, HERMIONE was, I think, the prettiest, as she was certainly the most accomplished. Every kind of gift had been showered upon her by Nature. When she played her violin, accompanied by her elder sister on the piano, tears trickled unbidden down the aquiline nose of the militant Bishop of Archester, the chapter stood hushed to a man, and the surrounding curates were only prevented by a salutary fear of ruining their chances of preferment from laying themselves, their pittances, and their garnered store of slippers at her pretty feet. Then in a fit of charming petulance, she would break off in the middle of the piece, lay down her violin, and, with a pretty imperiousness, command a younger sister to fetch her zither, on which to complete the subjugation of her adorers. And then her caricatures--summer-lightning flashes of pencilled wit, as I heard the Reverend SIMEON COPE describe them in a moment of enthusiasm after she had shown us her sketch of his rival, the Reverend STEPHEN HANKINSON.

But even in those days, while she still had about her all the fascinations of peerless beauty and fresh and glowing youth, I mistrusted her. Alone of all the sisters she seemed to me to be wanting in heart. I heard her several times attempt to snub her father, and once I noted how she spent a whole evening in moody silence, and refused to play a note, for no other reason that I could see except that Captain ARBLAST, of the 30th Lancers, the dashing first-born of the Bishop, who happened to be spending a few days of his long leave in Archester, devoted himself with all the assiduity of his military nature to twirling his heavy moustache in the immediate neighbourhood of SOPHY MAYBLOOM, and not in that of HERMIONE. Indeed, I have reason to know that, after the guests had departed, poor SOPHY had to endure from her sister a dreadful scene, the harsh details of which have not yet faded from her memory. And then I remembered, too, how it was a matter of family chaff against HERMIONE that once, not very long after she had entered upon her teens, she had sobbed convulsively through a whole night, because she had discovered that her juvenile arms were thin and mottled, and she imagined that she would never be able to wear a low dress, or shine in Society.

Such, then, was the beautiful HERMIONE, who for some years rode rough-shod over the hearts of all the males in Archester. Space fails me to enumerate all her engagements. She broke them one after another without a thought, and cast her admirers away as if they had been dresses of last year's fashion. Most of them, it must be said, recovered quickly enough, but the miserable COPE became a hopeless hypochondriac, and never smiled again. He died the other day, and HERMIONE's sketch of HANKINSON was found, frayed and soiled, in an ancient pocket-book which he always carried about with him. HANKINSON'S fate seemed at first to be worse. He took to poetry, morbid, passionate, yearning, unhealthy poetry, of the skimmed SWINBURNE variety, and for a time was gloomy enough. Having, however, engaged in a paper conflict with one of his critics, he forgot his sorrows, and though he still declares an overwhelming desire for death and oblivion about six times a year, in various magazines, he seemed, when I last saw him, fairly comfortable and happy. But, of course, he has never secured a vicarage.

To return to HERMIONE. She at last married a certain Mr. PARDOE, a barrister practising on the Archester Circuit, and established herself in town. Shortly afterwards she became the rage. Her beauty, her wit, her music, her dinners, her diamonds, were spoken of with enthusiasm. All the elderly _roués_, whose leathery hearts had been offered up at hundreds of shrines, became her temporary slaves. She coaxed them, cajoled them, and fooled them, did this innocent daughter of a simple-minded Dean, to the top of their various bents. She schemed successfully against countless rivals, in order to maintain her pre-eminence in the admiration of her circle. Her ambition knew no bounds. She changed her so-called friends every week; she cultivated grand passions for actors, authors, musicians, and even for professors. Sometimes she played to select audiences with all her old ravishing skill, but this happened more and more rarely, until at last she utterly declined, and even went so far as to flout H.S.H. the Duke of KALBSKOPF, who had been specially invited to meet her.

Then suddenly came the crash. She left her husband, in company with CHARLIE FITZHUBERT, the heir presumptive to the wealthy earldom of Battersea. On the following day Mr. PARDOE blew out his brains, leaving ten thousand pounds of debt and three young children. Six months afterwards the venerable Dean died, and sentimental people spoke of a broken heart. Then the Earl of BATTERSEA, in a fit of indignation, married, and was blessed with a son, the present Earl. CHARLIE FITZHUBERT married HERMIONE, but they are as poor as curates, and he hates her. I saw her two days ago in a shabby hired carriage. She is getting prematurely old, and grey, and wrinkled, and everybody avoids her, except her sister SOPHY, who still visits her, and suffers her ill-humour.

Charming story, isn't it? I shall write again soon.

Yours, in the meantime, DIOGENES ROBINSON.

* * * * *

NIGHT-MAILING.--"Night Mail between London and Paris" has been recently announced in all the papers as now ready and willing to take night-mailers from Victoria, L.C. & D., to the French Capital. It is to be a Third-class Night Mail, though a Knight of the First Class can, of course, travel by it should he be so disposed. Thirty shillings through fare for "a single;" but as the tariff doesn't explicitly inform us whether the passenger will be asked the question, "Married or single?" and so be charged accordingly, we may presume that a margin is left for a little surprise. The train of Night Mails--a kind of gay bachelor train, no females being of the party--is to start at 8:15 P.M., and to be in Paris at 5:50 A.M.

* * * * *

DRAWING THE BADGER.

(_A Natural History Note_.)

The Badger (_Meles-Taxus_) is at once one of the most inoffensive and (in one sense) offensive of our few remaining British Carnivora. He is described by NAPIER of Merchiston, in his _Book of Nature and of Man_, as a "quiet nocturnal beast, but if much 'badgered' becoming obstinate, and fighting to the last, in which it is a type of a large class of Britons, who like to be let alone, but when ill used can fight."

That great new authority on Natural History, Mr. G.A. HENTY (author of _Those Other Animals_), should be able to tell us much about the Badger. Therewith he would be able, in his own favourite fashion, to "point a moral" (against the Demogorgon Democracy), and "adorn a tale" (of laboured waggery). He might find the subject as suggestive of sardonic chaff as American women and Republican institutions.

What says the popular WOOD? He describes the Badger as "slow and clumsy in its actions," and as "rolling along so awkwardly that it may easily be mistaken for a young pig in the dusk of the evening." Woe, however, to whomsoever _does_ take the creature for "a young pig." "Being naturally as harmless an animal as can be imagined, it is a terrible antagonist when provoked to use the means of defence with which it is so well provided."

We tax the patience of poor _Meles-Taxus_, Until he turns with tooth and claws and whacks us. The natural home of _Taxus_--the Exchequer-- Harbours a creature that keeps up its pecker.

"For the purpose of so-called 'sport,' the Badger used to be captured and put into a cage ready to be tormented; at the cruel will of every ruffian who might chose to risk his dog against the sharp teeth of the captive animal."

This particular sort of "sport" is a little out of date. But "drawing a Badger" is not unknown even in these humanitarian days. Dogs will sometimes voluntarily rush in to risk their hides and muzzles against the aforesaid sharp teeth, &c. Look at those in the picture!

The two small, if aggressive, terriers seem unequally matched against the "clumsy" but strong-jawed and terribly-toothed Badger. They have drawn him, indeed, out of his hole, and one of them, at least, seems rather sorry for it, if you may judge by the way in which he turns tail and makes for his protector, the big Bull-Terrier. The ventripotent broken-haired tyke looks more valorous--for the moment. Yap! yap! yap! _Meles-Taxus_ takes little notice of him, however. His eyes are on that sturdy specimen of _Canis familiaris_ there, whose bold eyes in turn are on _him_. Both, perhaps, experience--

That stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel."

"Drawn by those two tiny yelpers? Not a bit of it! But _you_, my complacent canine Colossus--come on if you dare!" And he _does_ dare, evidently. Whether he'll regret his daring remains to be seen.

* * * * *

The Memory of Milton.

MILTON forgotten? Nay, my BESANT, nay; Not wholly, even in this petty day, When learning snips, when criticism snaps, And the great bulk of readers feed on scraps. Still, still he finds his "audience fit, though few," The rest _forget_ not since they never knew.

* * * * *

The Off-Portsmouth Phrase-Book.

Have you caught a fish?

No, but I have bagged a cannon-ball.

Is the sea too rough for your boat?

No, the sea is not too rough, but the Torpedoes are decidedly embarrassing.

Is that a pretty shell that you are going to carry home to your children?

No, it is a live one, that, if it bursts a yard nearer, will blow us into smithereens.

Do you propose returning to your lodging to-night?

That is a matter that will be decided by the Commander of the nearest practising gun-boat.

* * * * *

* * * * *

CUTTING REMARKS.

Mr. HENRY AUTHOR JONES has taken a theatre wherein to play his own plays to his own taste. On the first night of _The Crusaders_ this taste was not exactly the taste of the audience. Mr. HENRY AUTHOR JONES seemed to object to be tied to time, and the result was the prompt appearance of that terrible conqueror of things terrestrial, General Boredom. Since the initial performance, it is reported that matters have gone on more smoothly. According to the "usual sources of information" the dramatist has been cheered on leaving his theatre, and heartily congratulated. On one occasion he actually supplemented his piece with a speech! Apparently he was under the impression that there could not be too much of a good thing--JONES for choice! It may be that since the first performance, there has been some curtailment made in the play. To judge from appearances it was a question of cutting--either the author the play, or the public the theatre!

* * * * *

QUITE A NEW SPEC.--We have just received a prospectus of a Company entitled "_The Monarch Insurance Society_." Of course, all the Crowned Heads of Europe will be in it. We haven't yet read it, the title being sufficient for the present. _Ça donne à penser_. Will it provide New Monarchs for old ones? Will it give good sovereigns in exchange for bad ones? If so--where will the profit come in?

* * * * *

FRENCH AS SHE IS "WRIT."

The _Standard's_ own Vienna Correspondent, when reporting the unpleasant incident in the life of the Duc d'ORLÉANS, told us how the Prince, on unwittingly "accepting service," said to the astute lawyer's clerk, "Mais, Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment." To which the clerk replied, "also in French," says the _Standard_, "One time is as good as another." But why was not the lawyer's clerk's French as she is spoke given as well as that of M. le Duc? And how much more telling it would have been had M. le Duc been served well and faithfully by a clerk like _Perker's Mr. Lowten_, fresh, very fresh, from a carouse at the "Magpie and Stump," or even by one of _Messrs. Dodson and Fog's_ young men who enjoyed themselves so much when "a twigging" of the virtuous _Mr. Pickwick_.

"Mais, Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment," says the Duke, to which our _Mr. Lowten_ would have replied in Magpie-and-Stumping French, "Eggskewsy moy, Mossoo, le Dook, ung Tom is aussy bong qu'ung autre. Mossoo ler Dook ar maintenong pérusé ler documong; voici le copy et voilà two. Bonsoir, il faut que je l'accroche."

Whereupon he would have "hooked it," as it appears this particular lawyer's clerk did, and was not seen again. No doubt he joined a circle of admiring friends in the legal neighbourhood (some Magpies-and-Stumps still exist), where, over a glass and a cigar, he recounted the merry tale of how he had served a Duke.

* * * * *

The relation of Hypnotiser to the Hypnotised at the Aquarium may be simply described as "GERMANE to the subject.'

* * * * *

SONG AND CHORUS FOR THE COUNTY COUNCIL ON NEXT DEBATE ON THE WATER SUPPLY--"Young BENN he was a nice young man."

* * * * *

THE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS

No. XIV.

SCENE--_Gardens belonging to the Hôtel du Parc, Lugano. Time, afternoon; the orchestra is tuning up in a kiosk._ CULCHARD _is seated on a bench in the shade, keeping an anxious eye upon the opposite door._

_Culch._ (_to himself_). She said she had a headache, and made her father and VAN BOODELER go out on the lake without her. But she certainly gave me to understand that she might come out when the band played, if she felt better. The question is, whether she _means_ to feel better or not. She is the most tantalising girl! _I_ don't know what to make of her. Not a single reference, as yet, to that last talk we had at Bingen. I must see if I can't recall it to her memory--if she comes. I'll wait here, on the chance of it--we are not likely to be dis--. Confound it all--PODBURY! (_with suppressed irritation as_ PODBURY _comes up_). Well, do you _want_ anything in particular?

_Podb._ (_cheerfully, as he sits down_). Only the pleasure of your society, old chap. How nicely you do put things!

_Culch._ The--er--fact is, I can't promise to be a particularly lively companion just now.

_Podb._ Not by way of a change? Ah, well, it's a pity--but I must put up with you as you are, I suppose. You see--(_with a grin_)--I've got that vow to work out.

_Culch._ Possibly--but _I_ haven't. As I've already told you--I retire.

_Podb._ Wobbled back to Miss TROTTER again, eh? Matter of taste, of course, but, for my part, I think your _first_ impression of her was nearer the truth--she's not what I call a highly cultivated sort of girl, y' know.

_Culch._ You are naturally exacting on that point, but have the goodness to leave my first impressions alone, and--er--frankly, PODBURY, I see no necessity (_now_, at all events) to take that ridiculous--hum--penance _too_ literally. We are _travelling_ together, and I imagine that is enough for Miss PRENDERGAST.

_Podb._ It's enough for _me_--especially when you make yourself so doosid amiable as this. You needn't alarm yourself--you won't have any more of my company than I can help; only I _must_ say, for two fellows who came out to do a tour _together_, it's-- [_Walks away, grumbling._

_Later. The band has finished playing;_ Miss TROTTER _is on the bench with_ CULCHARD.

_Miss T._ And you mean to tell me you've never met anybody since you even cared to converse with?

_Culch._ (_diplomatically_). Does that strike you as so very incredible?

_Miss T._ Well, it strikes me as just a _little_ too thin. I judged you'd go away, and forget I ever existed.

_Culch._ (_with tender reproach_). How little you know me! I may not be an--er--demonstrative man, my--er--feelings are not easily roused, but, once roused, well--(_wounded_)--I think I may claim to possess an ordinary degree of constancy!

_Miss T._ Well, I'm sure I _ought_ to feel it a vurry high compliment to have you going round grieving all this time on _my_ account.

_Culch._ Grieving! Ah, if I could only _tell_ you what I went through! (_Decides, on reflection, that the less he says about this the better._) But all that is past. And now may I not expect a more definite answer to the question I asked at Bingen? Your reply then was--well, a little ambiguous.

_Miss T._ I guess it's got to be just about as ambiguous now--there don't seem anything I _can_ say. There's times when I feel as if it might be sort of elevating and improving to have you shining around; and there's other times when I suspect that, if it went on for any considerable period, likely I'd weaken. I'm not just sure. And I can't ever make myself believe but what you're disapproving of me, inside of you, most all the time!

_Culch._ Pray dismiss such--er--morbid misgivings, dear Miss TROTTER. Show that you do so by accepting me as your guide and companion through life!

_Miss T._ My! but that sounds like a proposal?

_Culch._ I intended it to bear that--er--construction. It _is_ a proposal--made after the fullest reflection.

_Miss T._ I'm ever so obliged. But we don't fix things quite that way in my country. We want to feel pretty sure, first, we shann't get left. And it don't seem to me as if I'd had opportunities enough of studying your leading characteristics. I'll have to study them some more before I know whereabouts I am; and I want you to understand that I'm not going to commit myself to anything at present. That mayn't be sentiment, but I guess it's common-sense, anyway. And all _you_'ve got to do is, just to keep around, and kind of impress me with a conviction that you're the vurry brightest and best man in the entire universe, and I don't believe you'll find much difficulty about _that_. And now I guess we'll go into _table d'hôte_--I'm just as _ravenous_!

_Culch._ (_to himself, as he follows her_). Really, this is not much better than RUSKIN, after all. But I don't despair. That last remark was distinctly encouraging!

SCENE--_A large Salle à Manger, decorated in the Pompeian style. Table d'hôte has begun._ CULCHARD _is seated between_ Miss TROTTER _and a large and conversational stranger. Opposite are three empty chairs._

_Culchard's Neighbour_. Then you're going on to Venice? Well, you take _my_ advice. When you get there, you ask for tunny. Don't forget--_tunny_!

_Culch._ (_who wants to talk to_ Miss T.) Tunny? Thank you. I--er--will certainly remember his name, if I require a guide.

_His N._ A guide? No, no--tunny's a _fish_, Sir, a coarse red fish, with flesh like a raw beefsteak.

_Culch._ Is that so? Then I will make a point of asking for it--if I want raw beefsteak. [_Attempts to turn to_ Miss T.

_His N._ That's what _I_ did when I was at Venice. I sent for the Manager. He came. I said to him. "Look here, I'm an Englishman. My name's BELLERBY. (CULCHARD _bows in patient boredom._) I've heard of your Venetian tunny. I wish to taste it. _Bring_ me some!"

_Culch._ (_crushingly_). A most excellent method of obtaining it, no doubt. (_To_ Waiter.) _Numéro vingt-sept, demi bouteille de Chianti, et siphon!_

_His N._ You don't wait till I've _done_, Sir! I _didn't_ obtain it--not at first. The man made excuses. I was prepared for _that_. I told him plainly, "I know what _you_'re thinking--it's a cheap fish, and you fancy I'm ordering it out of economy!"

_Culch._ (_raising his eyebrows for_ Miss T.'s _benefit_). Of course, he naturally _would_ think so. And _that_ is how you got your tunny? I see. [Mr. BELLERBY _stares at him suspiciously, and decides to suppress the remainder of his tunny._

_Miss T._ This hotel seems to be thinning some. We've three ghosts right in front of us this evening.

_Culch._ (_turning with effusion_). So we have! My friend is one, and he'll be here presently, but I much prefer myself to see every seat occupied. There is something so depressing about a vacant chair, don't you think?

_Miss T._ It's calculated to put one in mind of _Macbeth's_ little dinner-party, certainly. But you can cheer up, Mr. CULCHARD, here comes a couple of belated _Banquos._ My gracious; I _do_ like that girl's face--she has such a perfectly lovely expression, and looks real superior too!