Chapter 2

I don't in for Pa go; Pa despised New York; Porpa in Chicago Cultivated pork: Ma was born a Gerald; Birth was Morma's pride-- As the _New York Herald_ Mentioned when she died.

Well, my pile's a million, That's a fact, you bet: I'm in our cotillon Quite the Broadway Pet: I can sing like PATTI; And to win I went For the Cincinnati Tennis Tournament.

I've a lovely right hand; For my face I've sat By electric light--and Elegant at that! I enclose the photo, Just for you to see, But deny _in toto_ That it flatters me.

_You_, I've read, are rather "Up the Spout" for cash, Owing to your father Having been so splash: _I_ from debt could free you, And in Politics Calculate to see you Bagging all the tricks.

Any Earl who marries ANASTASIA JAY Will (except in Paris) Get his little way, Fear no interference; Relatives remain,-- But their disappearance Beats me to explain.

THOMAS, I adore thee!-- "THOMAS" _is_ thy name, Isn't it?--the more the Scandal and the shame! All I ask you, TOM, is Just one loving line, One type-written promise Publishing you mine.

Matrimony's heart is Houselike, "half-detached," Seldom save at parties Or in papers matched-- Answer "Yes," or break'll This poor heart of mine. Be my _Fin-de-Siècle_, Be my Valentine!

* * * * *

QUERY BY A DEPRESSED CONVALESCENT.--"This Influenza is nothing new, nor is the Microbe. Wasn't MICROBIUS an ancient classic writer? Didn't he treat this subject historically? There's evidently some confusion of ideas somewhere. As _Hamlet_ says:--

'O, cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right.'

But I beg pardon, that 'set it right' shows that _Hamlet_ was a Surgeon, not a Physician. Excuse me. 'To bed! To bed!'"

* * * * *

SAD THOUGHT IN MY OWN LIBRARY.--I am a stranger among books. Resting on their shelves, they all turn their backs on me. _En revanche_, if I find among them a new one, a perfect stranger to me, I cut him.

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* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FKOM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, Monday, February 8_.--The coming of Prince ARTHUR anxiously looked for as Members gathered for last Session of a memorable Parliament. When, in August last, he, with the rest of us, went away, OLD MORALITY still sat in Leader's place. He was, truly, just then absent in the flesh, already wasting with the dire disease that carried him off. It was JOKIM who occupied the place of Leader; Prince ARTHUR, content to sit lower down. It seemed to some that when vacancy occurred JOKIM, that veteran Child of Promise, would step in, and younger men wait their turn. But youth of certain quality must come to the front, as BONAPARTE testified even before he went to Italy, and as PITT showed when the Rockingham Administration went to pieces.

Prince ARTHUR came in shortly after four o'clock. House full, especially on Opposition Benches; faint blush suffused ingenuous cheek as welcoming cheer arose. Seemed to know his way to Leader's place, and took it naturally. Pretty to see JOKIM drop in on one side of him with MATTHEWS on the other, buttressing him about with financial reputation and legal erudition. _Tableau_ quite undesigned, but none the less effective. Prince ARTHUR, young, hot-tempered and, though not without parts, prone to commit errors of judgment. But with JOKIM at his left shoulder, and HENRY MATTHEWS at his right, humble citizens looking on from opposite Benches, felt a sweet content. On such a basis, the Constitution might stand any blast.

In absence of Mr. G., who still dallies with the sunshine of Riviera, SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, fresh from hunting in the New Forest, more than fills the place of Leader of Opposition. A favourable opportunity for distinguishing himself marred by accidental prevalence of funereal associations.

"The Squire," said PLUNKET--watching him as, with legs reverently crossed, and elbow sympathisingly resting on box, carefully suggestive of life-sized figure of tombstone-mourner, he intoned his lamentation--"is not fitted for the part, and consequently overdoes it. _L'Allegro_ is his line. _Il Penseroso_ does not suit him."

Everyone glad when, sermon over, and the black-edged folios put aside, the Squire began business. Happy enough in his attack on JOKIM, always a telling subject in present House of Commons.

"He is," says SAGE OF QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, drawing upon his theatrical experiences, "like the Policeman in the Pantomime; always safe for a roar of laughter if you bonnet him or trip him up over the doorstep."

For the rest, as Prince ARTHUR pointed out when he came to reply, Squire's speech had very little to do with the Address, on which it was ostensibly based. Couldn't resist temptation of enlarging on financial science for the edification of the unhappy JOKIM.

"Finance," observed DICKY TEMPLE, "is HARCOURT's foible."

"Yes," said JENNINGS, whom everyone is glad to see back in better health, "and funeral sermons are his forte."

Through nearly hour and half the Squire mourned and jibed, Prince ARTHUR listening attentively, all unconscious of the Shades hovering about the historic seat in which he lounged, as nearly as possible, at full length--OLD MORALITY, kindly generous, pleased in another's prosperity; STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, marvelling at the madness of a world he has not been loth to quit; DIZZY tickled with the whole situation, though perhaps a little shocked to see a Leader of the House resting apparently on his shoulder-blades in the seat where from 1874 to 1876 there posed an upright statuesque figure with folded arms and mask-like face, lit up now and then by the gleam of eyes that saw everything whilst they seemed to be looking no whither. PAM was there, too, with slightly raised eyebrows as they fell on the youthful form already installed in a place he had not reached till he was almost twice the age of the newcomer. JOHNNY RUSSELL, scowled at the intruder under a hat a-size-and-half too big for his legs. CANNING looked on, and thought of his brief tenure of the same place whilst the century was young. Still further in the shade PITT joined the group. [Illustration: "THE COMING OF ARTHUR."

Shade of Pam. "H'M! A LITTLE YOUNG FOR THE PART,--DON'T YOU THINK?"

Shade of Dizzy. "WELL, YES! _WE_ HAD TO WAIT FOR IT A GOOD MANY YEARS!--BUT I THINK HE'LL DO!!"]

"Well at least _he_ was even younger when he came to our place," PAM whispered in DIZZY's ear, startling him as he inadvertently touched his cheek with the straw he still seems to hold in his teeth, as he did when JOHN LEECH was alive.

Prince ARTHUR, facing the crowded Opposition Benches, of course saw nothing of this; lounged and listened smilingly as the Squire, having shaken up JOKIM and his one-pound notes, went oft to Exeter to pummel the MARKISS.

_Business done._--Address moved.

_Wednesday._--Evidently going to be an Agricultural Labourer's Session. Small Holdings Bill put in forefront of Programme. District Councils hinted at. In this situation it was stroke of genius, due I believe to the MARKISS, that such happy selection was made of Mover of Address.

"It's trifles that make up the mass, my dear nephew," the MARKISS said, when this matter was being discussed in the Recess. "No detail is so small that we can afford to omit it. It was a happy thought of yours, perhaps a little too subtle for some intellects, to associate CHAPLIN with Small Holdings. In this other matter, let me have my way. Put up HODGE to move the Address. It will be worth 10,000 votes in the agricultural districts. I suppose he wouldn't like to come down in a smock frock with a whip in his hand? Don't know why he shouldn't; quite as reasonable as a civilian getting himself up as a Colonel or an Admiral. With HODGE in a smock frock moving the Address we'd sweep the country. But that I must leave to you; only let us have HODGE."

So it was arranged. But Member for Accrington wouldn't stand the smock-frock. Insisted upon coming out in war-like uniform. Trousers a little tight about the knees, and jacket perhaps a trifle too tasselly. But made very good speech in the circumstances.

_Business done._--Bills brought in by the half hundred.

_Thursday Night._--Things been rather dull hitherto. House as it were lying under a pall, "Every man," as O'HANLON says, "not knowing what moment may be his next." Still on Debate on Address. When resumed to-night, CHAMBERLAIN stepped into ring and took off his coat. When Members saw the faithful JESSE bring in sponge and vinegar-bottle, knew there would be some sport. Anticipation not disappointed. JOE in fine fighting form. Went for the SQUIRE OF MALWOOD round after round; occasionally turned to aim a "wonner" at his "Right Hon. Friend" JOHN MORELY. Conservatives delighted; had always thought just what JOE was saying, but hadn't managed to put their ideas into such easily fleeting, barbed sentences. Only once was there any shade on the faces of the country gentlemen opposite. That spread when JOE proposed to quote the "lines of CHURCHILL."

"No, no," said Lord HENRY BRUCE in audible whisper, "he'd better leave GRANDOLPH alone. Never knew he wrote poetry. If he did, there's lots of others. Why, when we're going on so nicely, why drag in CHURCHILL?"

Depression only momentary. Conservative cheers rose again and again as JOE, turning a mocking face, and shaking a minatory forefinger at the passive monumental figure of the guileless SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, did, as JOHN MORLEY, with rare outburst of anger, presently said, from his place in the centre of the Liberal Camp, "denounce and assail Liberal principles, Liberal measures, and his old Liberal colleagues."

After this it was nothing that, some hours later, O'HANLON, rising from a Back Bench, and speaking on another turn of the Debate, should observe, in loud voice, with eye fixed in fine frenzy on the nape of the Squire's neck, as he sat on the Front Bench with folded arms, "I do not believe in the Opposition Leaders, who have split up my Party, and are now living on its blood."

_Business done._--JOSEPH turns and rends his Brethren.

_Friday Night._--In Commons night wasted by re-delivery of speeches made last year by Irish Members pleading for amnesty for Dynamitards. JOHN REDMOND began it. No Irish Member could afford to be off on this scene, so one after another they trotted out their speeches of yester-year.

Lords much more usefully occupied in discussing London Fog. MIDDLETON moved for Royal Commission. MARKISS drew fine distinction. "What you really want to remedy," he said, "is not the fog itself, but its colour." Rather seemed to like the fog, _per se_, if only his particular fancy in matter of colour gratified. Didn't mention what colour he preferred; but fresh difficulty looming out of the fog evident. Tastes differ. If every man is to have his own particular coloured fog, our last state will be worse than the first.

_Business done._--None.

* * * * *

AN INFLUENZA SONG.

AIR--"_OH, WE'RE ALL NODDIN'._"

Oh, we've none coddlin', Cod, cod, coddlin'; Oh, we've none coddlin'. At our house at home!

Ha!--my Father has a cough-- Now--my Mother has a wheeze; What!! my Brother has a pain In forehead, arms, chest, back and knees. So--we've three coddlin', &c.

How my eldest Sister aches From her forehead to her toes! And my second Brother's eyes Are weeping either side his nose. So--we've five coddlin', &c.

There's my eldest Brother down With a pain all round his head, Ah! I'm the only one who's up-- Oh!... Oh!... I'll go to bed! So--we're all coddlin', &c.

As the Doctor orders Port, Orders Burgundy, Champagne, Good living and good drinking, Why we none of us complain, While we're--all coddlin', Cod, cod, coddlin', While we're all coddlin' At our house at home!

* * * * *

BY A SMALL WESTERN.--Orientals take off their shoes on entering a Mosque. We remove our hats on entering a Church. Both symbolical; one leaves his understanding outside; the other enters with a clear head.

* * * * *

HORACE IN LONDON.

TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL. (_AD REMPUBLICAM._)

New vessel, now returning ship From this thy tried and trial trip, Refit in dock awhile: I fear Your ballast looks a trifle queer.

Your rigging ("rigging" is a word By other folk than seamen heard) Has got a little loose; you need An overhaul, you do indeed.

Your sails (or purchases?) should stay The stress--and Press--that on them weigh: This constant playing to the gods Will scarcely weather blustering odds.

In vain to blazon "London's Heart" As figure-head, if thus you part Unseaworthy; in vain to boast Your "boom"--a cranky boom at most.

We rate you, _we_ who pay your rates: Beware the overhauling fates, Beware lest down you go at last The sport and puppet of the blast.

I always voted you a bore, But never quite so much before Besought you with a frugal mind To sail not quite so near the wind.

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MRS. R. AGAIN.--To our excellent old lady, being convalescent, her niece was reading the news. She commenced about the County Council, the first item in the report being headed, "An Articulated Skeleton." "Ah!" interrupted the good lady, "murder will out! And where did they find the skeleton of the Articulated Clerk?"

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

PROFESSOR HUBERT HERKOMER has "dried his impressions," and given them to the public in a handsome volume brought out by MACMILLAN & CO. It is all interesting even to a non-artistic laic, for there is much "dry point" of general application in the Professor's lectures. Yet, amid all his learning and his light-hearted style, there is occasionally a strain of melancholy, as when he pictures himself to us as "etching and scratching on a bed of burr." Painful, very; likewise Dantesque,--infernally Dantesque. But there is another and a more cheerful view which the Baron prefers to take, and that is, the word-picture which the Professor gives us of his little room in his Bavarian home, where he says, "Under the seat by the table are my bottles"--ah! quite Rabelaisian this!--"with the mordants, and my dishes for the plates." Isn't this rare! "I should add, there is a stove near the door." O Sybarite! Doesn't this suggest the notion of a delightful little dinner _à deux_! With "the mordants,"--which is, of course, a generic name for sauces of varied piquancy,--and with his "dishes" artistically prepared and set before "the plates," as in due order they should be, he is as correct as he is original. A true _bon vivant_. The Baron highly commends the book, which only for the rare etchings it contains, is well worth the attention of every amateur of Art, and that he, the Baron, may, one of these days, dine with him, the Professor, is the sincere wish of his truly, and everybody else's truly,

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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"STUFF AND (NO) NONSENSE!"--"Begorra, 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good," said The O'GORMAN DIZER, when he heard that on account of the Influenza there was a Papal dispensation from fasting and abstinence throughout the United kingdom.

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IN THE SEAT OF WISDOM.

At a meeting of the Drury Lane Lodge of Freemasons, said the _Daily Telegraph_, "with all due solemnity was Mr. S.B. BANCROFT installed in the Chair of King SOLOMON." This, whether an easy chair or not, ought to be the seat of wisdom. Poor SOLOMON, the very much married man, was not, however, particularly wise in his latter days, but, of course, this chair was the one used by the Great Grand Master Mason before it was taken from under him, and he fell so heavily, "never to rise again." How fortunate for the Drury Lane Masons to have obtained this chair of SOLOMON's. No doubt it was one of his wise descendants, of whom there are not a few in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, who consented to part with this treasure to the Masonic Lodgers. So here's King SOLOMON BUSY BANCROFT's good health! "Point, left, right! One, two, three!" (_They drink._)

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A QUERY BY "PEN."--There was a "Pickwick Exam." invented by CALVERLEY the Inimitable. Why not a "Pendennis" or "Vanity Fair" Exam.? _À propos_, I would just ask one question of the Thackerayan student, and it is this:--There was one _Becky_ whom everybody knows, but there was another BECKY as good, as kind, as sympathetic, and as simple, as the first _Becky_ was bad, cruel, selfish, and cunning. Where is BECKY the Second to be found in W.M. THACKERAY's Works?

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HER NOTE AND QUERY.--Mrs. R. was listening to a ghost-story. "After all," observed her nephew, "the question is, is it true? True, or not true 'there's the rub!'" "Ah! 'there's the rub!'" repeated our old friend, meditatively. "I wonder if that expression is the origin of the proverb, 'Truth is stranger than Friction?'"

* * * * *

LOCAL COLOUR.--"I should like to give all my creditors a dinner," quoth the jovial and hospitable OWEN ORLROUND. "Where shall I have it?" "Well," replied his old friend JOE KOSUS, "have it at Duns Table."

* * * * *

CITY MEN.--"Hope springs eternal," and the motto for a probable Lord Mayor in the not very dim and distant future must be "_Knill desperandum_."

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DOGS AND CATS--(CORRESPONDENCE.)--Sir,--A recent letter to the _Spectator_ mentions the case of a man who "barked like a dog in his sleep." The writer would like to know if anyone has ever had a similar experience. Well, Sir, I knew a whole family of BARKERS, but I never heard them bark. I knew three CATTS, sisters, who kept a shop, and came from Cheshire; yet they were very serious persons, and never grinned. Since this experience I have doubted the simile of the Cheshire specimen of the feline race being founded on fact.--Yours, &c.,

CATO.

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WEATHER REFORM.

SIR,--Acquiescence in the state of the weather is no longer _comme il faut_. Bombarding the Empyrean is as little regarded as throwing stones at monkeys, that they may make reprisals with cocoa-nuts; yet the success of the rain-makers is very doubtful. Their premisses even are disallowed by many considerable authorities. The little experiment which I propose to submit to the meteorological officials is founded on a fact of universal experience, and, if successful, would be of immense utility. Every smoker must be aware that the force of the wind varies inversely as the number of matches. On an absolutely still day, with a heavy pall of fog over the streets, the striking of the last match to light a pipe is invariably accompanied by a breeze, just strong enough to extinguish the nascent flame. Now if two or three thousand men simultaneously struck a last match, the resulting wind would be of very respectable strength--anemometer could tell that.

My proposal then, is this. When anticyclonic conditions next prevail, and the great smoke-cloud incubates its cletch of microbes, let some 5,000 men, provided at the public expense with a pipe of tobacco and one match each, be stationed in the City, at every corner and along the streets, like the police on Lord Mayor's Day. At a given signal, say the firing of the Tower guns, each man strikes his match. Judging from the invariable result in my own case, this would be followed by 5,000 puffs of wind of sufficient strength to extinguish the lights, or, better still, to give the 5,000 men some thirty seconds of intense anxiety, while the wind plays between their fingers and over their hands and round the bowls of their pipes. Multiplying the men by the seconds (5,000 x 30) you get approximately the amount of the wind, in wear and tare and tret. If this experiment were conducted on a duly extensive scale round London; say at Brixton, Kensington, Holloway and Stepney; there can be no doubt that a cyclone would be established, and the fog effectually dissipated. The cost would be slight, and the pipe of tobacco would afford a welcome treat to many a poor fellow out of work in these hard times.

Yours obediently, PETER PPIPER.

_The Cave, Æolian Road, S.W._

* * * * *

ROBERT'S CURE FOR THE HINFLUENZY.

I hopes as I shall not be blamed for my hordacity in writin as I am writin, but it's reelly all the fault of my good-natred Amerrycan frend. He says as it's my bounden dooty to do so, if ony to prove the trooth of the old prowerb that tells us, "that Waiters rushes in where Docters fears to tread!" He's pleased to say as he has never bin in better helth than all larst Jennewerry at the Grand Hotel, and that he owes it all to my sage adwice.

"Allers let Nater be your Dick Tater!" In depressin times like these here, keep the pot a bilin' so to speak; and stand firm to the three hesses, Soup, Shampane, and Sunlight.

The Soup must be Thick Turtel, such as Natur purwides in this here cold seeson, not the Thin Turtel of Summer. The Shampane must be Rich Clicko, or the werry best Pummery, sitch as you can taste the ginerous grapes in, not the pore dry stuff as young Swells drinks, becoz they're told as how it's fashnabel; and the Sunlight can ginerally be got if you knows where to look for it. For instance now, in one of the cold foggy days of last month, my Amerrycan frend said to me, "What on airth, ROBERT, can a gentleman find to do on sitch a orful day as this?" So sez I, "Take a Cab to Wictoria Station, and go to the Cristel Pallis, wark about in the brillient sunshine as you will find there a waiting for you, for about two howers, not a moment longer, then cum strait back, and you shall find a lovly lunch."

And off he went, a larfing to think how he would emuse himself when he came back by pitching into pore me. But it does so happen as Waiters ain't not quite so deaf as sum peeple thinks 'em, and I've offen 'erd peeple say, that amost always, if you sees the Sun a trying for to peep thro the fog, and see how we all gits on without him, a leetle way out of town, on an 'ill, you will see him a shining away like fun!