Chapter 3

Ah! I was fogged by the Materialistic, By HUXLEY and by ZOLA, KOCH and MOORE; And now there comes a Maëlstrom of the Mystic, To whirl me further yet from sense's shore. Microbes were much too much for me, bacilli Bewildered me, and phagocytes did daze, But now the author 'cute of "Piccadilly," HARRIS the Prophet, the BLAVATSKY craze, Thibet, Theosophy, and Bounding Brothers-- No, Mystic Ones--Mahatmas I _should_ say, But really they seem so much like the others In slippery agility!--day by day Mystify me yet more. Those germs were bad enough, But what are they compared with Astral Bodies? Of Useless Knowledge I have almost had enough, I really envy uninquiring noddies, I would not be a Chela if I could. I have a horror of the Esoterical. BESANT and OLCOTT _may_ be wise and good, They seem to me pursuing the chimerical. Maddened by mysteries of "Precipitation," The Occult Dream and the Bacillus-Dance; We need Societies for the propagation Of Useful--_Ignorance_!

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DWARFS IN AND ABOUT LONDON.

Sir,--We need not go so far afield as Messrs. HALIBURTON & CO. in search of dwarfs. In the suburbs of London, and even in the more densely-populated districts of this vast Metropolis, there are numbers of people who are uncommonly short. About quarter-day these extraordinary individuals may be heard of, but are rarely seen; which fact, however, affords no proof of their non-existence.

Yours, TAXOS GATHEROS.

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LATEST PUBLICATION (OF THE POLITICAL NATURAL HISTORY SERIES).--_Curious Development of French Froggies into Toadies of Russia_.

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* * * * *

TO THE GRAND OLD CRICKETER.

Dear Dr. GRACE, the season through You've struggled on, and striven gamely; Your leg, for all you've tried to do, Has made your record come out lamely; Your county suffers, too, with you; Your failures very dear have cost her. But better luck in 'ninety-two To you, old friend, and good old Gloucester!

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THE MODERN CAGLIOSTRO; OR, THE POWER OF THE SPIRITS.

(_A PAGE FROM A ROMANCE UP TO DATE._)

And so PETER, learning that the veteran Alchymist was to be seen on the presentation of a small coin of the realm, approached the old man's residence. He had heard that the Sage had discovered the secret of immortality--barring accidents, he would live for ever.

"Now that JOSEPHINE is true to me," he murmured, "I have no objection to a further century of existence, or even two."

And he continued his walk. He had never seen so many taverns in his life. On every side of him were distilleries, public-houses, and beer-shops. He marvelled that a man of so many summers should have chosen such a bibulous spot for his home.

"He must be exceedingly eccentric," he thought to himself; "however, that is nothing to me. If he can teach me how to live continuously, this bag of gold, now mine, shall change masters."

The small coin of the realm was presented, and PETER stood face to face with the Sage of the Ages.

"What do you want?" asked the ancient Alchymist, with a glistening eye. "What d'ye want with an old man--a very old man?" And the Sage wept.

"I meant not this," remonstrated PETER, greatly distressed at the incident. "I came here merely to crave your aid. I wish to live now, for JOSEPHINE is true to me."

"Who's JOSEPHINE?" asked the Sage, in the same thick voice. "Never heard of JOSEPHINE. JOSEPHINE's bore--swindle! Old JOSEPHINE's jolly humbug!"

"Well, let that pass," said PETER, "I am here to ask you why you have lived so long. You are one hundred and twenty-seven years old, I think, and yet you are still alive."

"Why, certainly. But you know all about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the _Times_ how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when all your contemporaries are gone."

"Well, sure I don't mind," was the reply. "Won't hurt me--may do you good. Want to know how it's managed?"

"That I do, indeed," was the earnest answer,

"Why reason I've lived for more than century and quarter is this! I've never been--mind, never been during all that time--see--during all that time--never been sober!"

PETER was astounded.

"Why, Sir WILFRID LAWSON says--" he began.

"Never mind what Sir WILF-LAWSON says, I say if you want, keep your health you must--hic--always--be--in--in--intoxicavated! Now go to public-house. My patients in public-houses yonder."

And, urged by a sense of duty, PETER withdrew; and, joining the Sage's cures, found them in various stages of renewed health, and increased intoxication.

* * * * *

THE BITTER CRY OF THE BRITISH BOOKMAKER.

(_AFTER A FAMOUS ORIGINAL._)

'Tis a very good land that we live in To lend, or to lose, or to give in; But to _sell_--at a profit--or keep a man's own, 'Tis the very worst country that ever was known. Men give cash for their wines, wives, weeds, churches and cooks, But your genuine Briton _won't_ pay for his--Books!

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JOURNAL OF A ROLLING STONE.

EIGHTH ENTRY.

Since my call to the Bar, have been treating myself to rather a long roll abroad. Now, however, the time has come to devote myself to the work of the profession, which seems to mean studying practical law with some discreet and learned Barrister.

Met a few nights ago, at dinner, a very entertaining fellow. Full of legal anecdotes. Told that it was DICK FIBBINS, a Barrister, "and rather a rising one." DICK (why not RICHARD?) talked about County Courts with condescending tolerance; even the High Court Judges seemed (according to his own account) to habitually quail before his forensic acumen.

Mentioned to FIBBINS that I had just been "called," and was "thinking of reading in a Barrister's chambers;" and he seemed to take the most friendly and generous interest in me at once--asked me, indeed, to call on him any day I liked at his chambers in Waste Paper Buildings, which I thought extremely kind, as I was a complete stranger.

Go next day. Clerk, with impressive manner, receives me with due regard to his principal's legal standing. (_Query_--has a _rising_ Barrister any standing?) Ushered into large room, surrounded with shelves containing, I imagine, the Law Reports from the Flood downwards. Just thinking what an excellent "oldest inhabitant" METHUSELAH would have made in a "Right of Way" case, when DICK FIBBINS rises from the wooden arm-chair on which he has been sitting at a table crowded with papers, and bundles tied up in dirty red tape, and shakes hands heartily.

"What's your line of country?" he asks--"Equity or Common Law?"

I admit that it's Common Law. Have momentary feeling that Equity sounds better, Why _Common_ Law?

"Quite right," he says, encouragingly; "much the best branch. _I_ am a Common-Law man too." Refers to it as if it were a moral virtue on his--and my--part to have avoided Equity. Wonder if Equity men talk in this way about "Common" Lawyers? If so, oughtn't there to be more _esprit de corps_ in the Profession?

"Been before old PROSER, Queen's Bench Division, to-day," he proceeds. "Do you ever sit in Court?"

I reluctantly confess that I have not made an habitual point of doing so.

"Ah," he says, finding that I can't contradict him as to what did really happen in old PROSER's Court to-day; "you _should_ have been there just now. Had BLOWHARD, the great Q.C., opposed to me. But, bless you, he couldn't do anything to speak of against my arguments. PROSER really hardly would listen to him once or twice. Made BLOWHARD quite lose his temper, I assure you."

"So he lost his case, too, I suppose?" I remark, humorously.

"Um," replies FIBBINS, sinking into despondency, "not exactly. PROSER didn't quite like to decide _against_ BLOWHARD, you know; so he--so he--er--decided _for_ him, in fact. Of course we appeal. It won't," goes on FIBBINS, more cheerfully, "do BLOWHARD's clients a bit of good. Only run their bill up. I'm safe to win before the Court of Appeal. Lord Justice GRILL a first-rate lawyer--sure to reverse old PROSER. I can," he ends with conscious pride, "twist GRILL round my finger, so to speak."

The idea of twisting a Lord Justice round one's finger impresses me still more with DICK FIBBINS's legal genius. How lucky I am to have made his acquaintance! Feel impelled to ask, as I do rather nervously, not knowing if a bitter disappointment does not await me.

"Do you--er--take legal pupils ever?"

I feel that I've put it in a way that sounds like asking him if he indulges in drink. But FIBBINS evidently not offended. He answers briskly, with engaging candour.

"Well, to tell you the truth, though I've often been asked to--quite pestered about it, in fact--I've never done so hitherto. The Solicitors don't like it quite--makes 'em think one is wasting the time which ought to be given to their briefs on one's own pups--I mean pupils."

Perhaps, after all, FIBBINS will dash my hopes (of becoming his "pup!" _Query_, isn't the word _infra dig._--or merely "pleasantly colloquial?") to the ground.

"I was," I say boldly, "going to ask you if you would let _me_ read with you."

"Were you?" replies DICK, apparently intensely astonished at the idea; "By Jove! I should be really sorry to disappoint _you_. Yes," he goes on in a burst of generosity, "I will make room for you--there!"

This is really kind of DICK FIBBINS. We finally arrange that I am to come in two days' time--at the usual, and rather pretentious, fee of one hundred guineas for a year's "coaching"--and begin work.

"You'll see some good cases with me--good fighting cases," FIBBINS remarks, as I take my leave. "When there are no briefs, why, you can read up the Law Reports, you know. My books are quite at your disposal."

"But," I remark, a little surprised at that hint about no briefs--I thought DICK FIBBINS had more than he knew what to do with--"I suppose--er--there's plenty of business going on here?"

"Oh, heaps," replies FIBBINS, hastily. Then, as if to do away with any bad impression which his thoughtless observation about no briefs might have occasioned in my mind, he says, heartily,--

"And, when I take old PROSER up to the Court of Appeal, _you shall come too, and hear me argue!_"

I express suitable gratitude--but isn't it rather "contempt of Court" on FIBBINS's part to talk about "taking up" a Judge?--and feel, as I depart, that I shall soon see something of the real inner life of the Profession.

* * * * *

ON THE MARLOWE MEMORIAL.

(_UNVEILED BY MR. HENRY IRVING AT CANTERBURY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1891._)

MARLOWE, your "mighty line" Though worthy of a darling of the Nine, Has--in quotation--many a reader riled. Like SHAKSPEARE's "wood-notes wild," And POPE's "lisped numbers," it becomes a bore When hackneyed o'er and o'er By every petty scribe and criticaster. Yet we must own you master Of the magnificent and magniloquent. And modern playwrights might be well content Were they but dowered with passion, fancy, wit, Like great ill-fated "KIT."

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE CANTERBURY TALES.

BEFORE THE UNVEILING.

_She_. What do you know about MARLOWE?

_He_. Isn't it somewhere near Taplow?

_She_. I think not, because Mr. IRVING went to unveil MARLOWE, and I don't think he is a rowing-man.

_He_. But he may be doing it for Sir MORELL MACKENZIE, who has a place at Wargrave.

_She_. Yes, but then the papers would have said something about it--wouldn't they?

_He_. Very likely; they would say anything in the silly season.

AFTER THE UNVEILING.

_She_. Well, I know all about MARLOWE now. He was a great poet--greater than SHAKSPEARE, or thereabouts.

_He_. Always thought that they would find some fellow greater than SHAKSPEARE. SHAKSPEARE always bores me awfully. But what did _this_ fellow write?

_She_. Oh, lots of things! _Faust_, amongst the rest.

_He_. Come, that must be wrong, for _Faust_ was written by GOUNOD. Wasn't it?

_She_. Now! I come to think of it, I suppose it was--or BERLIOZ.

_He_. Yes, they did it together. But where does MARLOWE come in?

_She_. Well, I am not quite sure.

_He_. You had better write to Mr. IRVING about it; he will tell you. He's awfully well up in the subject. As for me, I'm still under the impression that Marlow is somewhere on the river.

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HONOURS DIVIDED.

Writers can't speak in public. So says WALTER. They mumble, stumble, hammer, stammer, falter! BESANT, why grumble at fate's distribution? To writers, sense; to speakers, elocution! Some books are bosh, but all experience teaches "Rot's" native realm is--After-dinner Speeches!

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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.