Chapter 2

"BEAR WITH US."--In the case reported in the papers last week of "an infuriated bear shot at Croydon," Inspector ORMONDE said that "when the ring had been removed from its lip, the animal was so much relieved that it immediately turned a somersault." A picture of this interesting incident should be at once painted and hung up in the Divorce Court. The husband, who has become quite a bear in consequence of his better half having rendered herself quite unbearable, would naturally turn head-over-heels with joy on getting quit of the ring. But alas! mark the end of the poor bear. He got more and more excited; he had to be looked up in a stable. Here the joy and novelty of the situation overcame him; his mighty brain gave way; he became mad as a hatter--(_Alice in Wonderland_ might have asked, "Then why didn't they send for a hatter, who would have brought a chimney-pot, or some sort of a tile for his bear-head?")--and subsequently the veterinary Mr. THRALE (whose ancestral namesake had considerable experience in dealing with that learned bear. Dr. JOHNSON) procured a gun, and potted the bear. Awkward in his life, but grease-ful in his death.

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LADY GAY'S SELECTIONS.

_Mount Street, Grosvenor Square._

DEAR MR. PUNCH,

Anything more dreary than racing during this week's weather at Newmarket can scarcely be imagined! I have often heard Lord ARTHUR declare he was "as dry as a limekiln," and always thought it an absurd expression; and now I _know_ it is!--for anything more _wet_ than the Limekilns at Newmarket this week I never saw!--it's a mystery to me how the poor horses and men avoid catching cold, cantering about there without galoshes--though, by the way, Mr. HAMMOND had _one_ "_Galoche_" which, of course, was not much use!

Owing to the smallness (that's a good word) of the attendance, we were "pinched" a little in the prices, and of course the pinch came where one least expected it, which was somewhat disconcerting--but as most of the "good things" came off all right--(especially those we took with us from BENOIST and FORTNUM's)--it did not matter so much. Ladies of course were chiefly conspicuous by their absence, but my sweet friend Lady NEWMAN GATESHEAD was quite the _Belle_ of the gathering, and attracted nearly as much attention as the _Queen of Navarre_, who naturally won her race in royal style!

My selection for the Chesterfield Stakes, _Meddler_, was successful after a short struggle with the Duke of PORTLAND's _Kilmarnock_ to whom he had to give five pounds (I hope this does not mean that the noble owner is in want of money!); but I am told the latter was not "fit" and "will do better with time!" though I don't quite see how that can be, as surely "time" travels faster than _Meddler_, so that, unless they take time with him, the handicap will be difficult to frame! By the way, when the handicaps _are_ framed, where do they hang them up? and is it one of the "perks" of the Handicapper to supply the frames?

Those who waited in the rain for the last race on Wednesday were rewarded with a splendid exhibition of horsemanship, given by WEBB on _St. Angelo_; who appears to be somewhat of a "handful" (_St. Angelo_ I mean, not WEBB, who is very slight), and evinces a strong desire to run in any direction but the one desired of him! I think Mr. MILNER should have him trained on a zigzag method, when his natural wilfulness would cause him to run straight when racing! This is an excellent idea, and I have others equally good (applicable to all styles of horses), which I intend to suggest to different trainers on my next visit to Newmarket!

We were all relieved when the "curtain rang down" on Thursday--(this is not, at first sight, a racing expression, but is largely used by sporting writers, as demonstrating the diversified nature of their knowledge!), in time for us to catch the early special for Liverpool Street; which, special, might really, from the major portion of its patrons, have been thought to be starting for Jerusalem!

Friday was a glorious day for the Eclipse, which was only visible from the Observatory at Esher--the best account appears to have been given by Professor _Orme_, who recovered from his recent severe illness just in time to be present.

Just a word in conclusion on the big race of next week--a paradox--be "wide awake" and go "nap" on my tip, from information privately given to

Yours devotedly, LADY GAY.

LIVERPOOL CUP SELECTION.

Some owners win, although their gee In temper be a "villen;" As that is not the sort for me, I favour "_Enniskillen_."

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THE POLITICAL JOHNNY GILPIN.

THE FINISH.

(_Further-discovered Fragments of the Grand Old Ballad, giving the Sequel of the strange story begun in "Punch," No. 2660, July 2, p. 318._)

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So fair and softly! JOHNNY cried, But JOHNNY cried in vain; That trot became a gallop soon, In spite of curb and rein.

So, stooping down, as needs he must Who cannot sit upright, He grasped the mane with both his hands, And eke with all his might.

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Away went GILPIN neck or nought, Away went hat and wig; He little dreamt when he set out Of running such a rig.

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly Like streamer long and gay, Till people thought, and JOHN half feared, That it might fly away.

Then might all gazers well discern The bottles he had slung; A bottle swinging at each side, As hath been said or sung.

Away went GILPIN--who but he? His fame soon spread around; "He carries weight! He rides a race!" "He'll win it, we'll be bound!"

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Then all through merry London Town, These gambols he did play; Until he came to rural parts, Where rustics lined the way.

There labourers shouted, women screamed, Up flew the felt-hats all; And every yokel yelled, "Well done!" As loud as he could bawl.

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Away went GILPIN, out of breath, And fearing much a "spill;" But knowing till his race was run His horse would not stand still.

His hat was gone, his W(h)ig also, His cloak he had to clutch. Could he hold on? A mile or two Would put it to the touch.

A church-bell clanging, scared his steed, Pigs dashed betwixt its feet; And on his own beloved North Road, JOHN _almost_ lost his seat.

On the North Road, his sometime friends, Their sometime favourite spied, Well-nigh dismounted, wondering much, To see how he did ride.

"Ride straight, JOHN GILPIN--for the House!" JOHN's Liberal Dame did cry. "The Party waits, and we feel tired." Said GILPIN--"So do I!"

But yet his horse was not a whit Inclined due North to stay; For why?--his stables at the House Were out Westminster way.

So like an arrow swift he flew Back southward through the throng, Who shouted loud, "He yet will win! JOHN GILPIN's going strong!"

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And now Town's traffic once again For horse and man made space, The drivers thinking, as before, That GILPIN rode a race.

And so he did--and won it, too, For he got first to Town; And, stiff and sore, at the House door, Bare winner, he got down.

Now let us sing, Long live the QUEEN, And GILPIN, long live he! And when he next doth ride due North, May we be there to see!

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A GOOD STAYER.--From the _Times_ of Tuesday, the 12th, we cull this:--

IN ANY CAPACITY of TRUST.--Seven years in first-class Turkish Bath. Patience and perseverance. Good invalid attendant. Active and attentive.

"Seven years in a Turkish Bath!" As Mr. WILSON BARRETT would exclaim, "How long! How long!" What better example of patience and perseverance, which, as all know, are "good for the gout," could possibly be given? That after this long stay in the Turkish Bath, he should be "a good invalid attendant," goes without saying. And not only is he "attentive," which is a great point in an "attendant," but he is also active--and this after so long a stay in a Turkish Bath, of which, however, he does not mention the temperature.

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OPERATIC NOTES.

_Wednesday_.--Crowded for WAGNER's _Götterdämmerung_, "which," says the _Rev. Mr. Penley_, who "doesn't like London," "is such an awful name, that fond as I am of music, I really could not go and see it." As to WAGNER, well, "it's all right when you know him, but you've got to know him fust."

Herr ALVARY excellent as _Siegfried_; Herr WIEGAND powerful; ditto the wide-awake Herr KNAPP. Frau KLAFSKY, a beautiful and interesting _Brünnhilde_; and it is difficult to be personally interesting in a Wagnerian Opera, where _ensemble_ is everything. Fräulein HEINE and BETTAQUE, equally good.

Herr MAHLER was "called," with the rest of the company, to receive his meed of praise for conducting. Opera perfectly put on Stage by Herr von DRURIOLANUS, and though the Season is coming to an end, yet the Opera is still "going strong."

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NOTE AND QUERY BY MRS. R.--Our old friend wants to know from what Poet comes this quotation--

"A needless Salamander ends the line."

Mrs. R. thinks it's from POPE; but if so, she asks what Pope? as there are so many of 'em.

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ORNAMENTAL STRUCTURE IN NEW NORFOLK.--A Triumphal ARCH.

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STUDIES IN THE NEW POETRY.

NO. IV.

In offering this fourth example of the New Poetry to his readers, _Mr. Punch_ wishes it to be distinctly understood, that he is in no way responsible, personally, for the curious mixture of divinities and semi-divinities who figure in it. It is one of the distinguishing marks of this particular sort of New Poetry to pile up a confusion of more or less mythological names in a series of swinging and resonant lines. In one line the reader may imagine himself to be embarked in the River Cocytus. In the next, he will be surprised to find himself in Eden. Blood, battle, bumptiousness, and an aggressive violence, are special characteristics of this style of writing. Some of the lines apparently mean nothing at all, others are calculated to make timid people tremble; and the effect of the whole is generally picturesque, lurid, and uncomfortable.

One of the great advantages of a poem like this, is that it may be used for all kinds of purposes. For example, if it was originally written as an invective against an opponent, it may afterwards, with the utmost ease, be made to serve as a threnody. Here then without further preface is:--

THE SUNDERED FLEA.

BY MR. R*DY*RD K*PL*NG.

Out on the path of the blazing ball that has hurtled a million years, Where the uttermost light glows red by night in the clash of the angry spheres, Where never a tear-drop dims the eye, and sorrows are stifled young, And the Anglo-Indians snigger and sneer with the jest of a bitter tongue.

Where the tribesmen mock at the Bengalee and shiver their spears in vain, And officers steep their souls chin-deep in brandy and dry champagne; Where the Rudyard river runs, flecked with foam, far forth to the Kipling seas, And the maker of man takes walks abroad with Pagan deities.

Where AZRAEL talks to the Graces Three, and the Muses Nine stand by, And ask Greek riddles of BUDDHA, who never makes reply. (Gentlemen all and ladies too as smart as a brand-new pin), And nobody wonders how on earth so mixed a lot got in--

Here in the track of a thunderbolt from the nethernmost smithy hurled, With the groan of an ancient passion rent from the wreck of a shattered world, In the white-hot pincers of BAAL borne through cycles of agony, Lit by the Pit's red wrath there came the Soul of a Sundered Flea.

And all that company started back; first AZRAEL grimly smiled, The smile that an East-End Coster smiles, by a stout policeman riled; And BUDDHA made no remark at all, but nodded his heavy head, Like a boy who has eaten too much dessert, and wants to be put to bed.

And the Muses Nine, as they stood in line, they shuddered and turned to go. "A joke's a joke, but I can't bear fleas," said CLIO to ERATO. And the Graces, the good Conservative Three, shrank back to a spot remote, And observed that they knew that this would come from letting the Masses vote.

Then AZRAEL spake--"On the Stygian lake I floated a half-sinned sin On the crest of a cross-grained stickleback, that is caught with a crooked pin; For a year and a day I watched it whirl, but never that sin could be One-half so base as your gruesome face, O Soul of a Sundered Flea!

"What ill have ye done? Speak up, speak up!--for this is no place, I trow, For the puling people on virtue fed. So speak, or prepare to go." But the Flea flew free from the pincers' grip, and uttered a single phrase-- "I have lived on blood, as a gentleman should, and that is my claim to praise."

Then a shout of joy from the throng went forth; they built him a crystal throne, And there in his pride, with none beside, he rules and he reigns alone. And this is the tale which I here set down, as the story was told to me-- In excellent Rudyard-Kipling verse--the tale of the Sundered Flea.

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ANTICIPATORY NEWS (_from Our Own Court Tripping Newsman_).--Sir ALGERNON BORTHWICK, Bart, M.P., will be raised to the Peerage with the title of Lord MORNINGPOST, of Penniwise, Seefarshire, N.B.

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An Anti-lawn-tennis Lady considers that the argument against Croquet, as a game involving a bent back, and a narrowing of the chest, is merely "A very stoopit objection."

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal_. A Society Journal of a peculiar character, of which this is the Third Series and Third Volume. It is noticeable for Lord CATHCART's appeal for the wild birds, which, as addressed to farmers and farm-labourers and armed ploughboys, may be summed up by an adaptation of the refrain of the remonstrance--so frequently urged by one of Lieutenant COLE's funny figures--"Can't you let the birds alone?" Then Mr. HASTING "On Vermin," which doesn't sound nice, though better than if the title were _vice versâ_,--is most interesting, especially where he tells us that "shrews are harmless." If so, why did SHAKSPEARE give us "_The Taming of the Shrew_" as such a feat? Professor BROWN writes about disease in sheep, of which paper Lord ARTHUR WEEDON DE GROSSMITH would be absolutely correct in observing, "What rot!" And, by the way, _à propos_ of WEEDON, the Baron has to congratulate the Brothers GROSSMITH on their _Diary of a Nobody_, republished from _Mr. Punch's_ pages, but with considerable additions. The Diary is very funny, not a page of it but affords matter for a good laugh; and yet the story is not without a touch of pathos, as it is impossible not to pity the steady, prim, old-fashioned jog-trot NOBODY, whose son, but just one remove above a regular 'ARRY, treats him with such unfilial rudeness.

It has been complained that the late General Election has not been amusing, and has given birth to little fun. Let those who feel this most acutely read Mr. R.C. LEHMANN's _The "Billsbury Election (Leaves from the Diary of a Candidate)."_ He will tell you how Mr. RICHARD B. PATTLE contested Billsbury in the Constitutional Interest; how he "buttered up Billsbury like fun," was badgered by Billsbury, heckled by Billsbury, taxed, tithed and tormented by Billsbury, and eventually "chucked" by Billsbury, by the aggravatingly small majority of seventeen. Also how his "Mother bore up like a Trojan, and said she was prouder of me than ever." Just so.

I hold it true whate'er befall, I wrote so, to the _Morning Post_; 'Tis better to have "run" and lost, Than never to have run at all.

"Modern Types" and "Among the Amateurs" are well known to the readers of _Punch_. But lovers of C.S. CALVERLEY--that is to say, all but a very few ill-conditioned critical creatures--and of neat verse with a sting to it, should turn to p. 203 (A.C.S. _v_. C.S.C.), and read and enjoy the smart slating Mr. LEHMANN administers to tumid, tumultuous, thrasonic, turncoatist ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, for saying of the brilliant and well-beloved Author of _Fly Leaves_, &c., that he--forsooth!--is "monstrously overrated and preposterously overpraised"!!! BARON DE B.-W. & Co.

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WANTED IN THE LAW COURTS.

A Junior who will wear his gown straight, and not pretend that intense preoccupation over dummy briefs prevents him from knowing that it is off one shoulder.

A Judge who can resist the temptation to utter feeble witticisms, and to fall asleep.

A Witness who answers questions, and incidentally tells the truth.

A Jury who do not look supremely silly, and ridiculously self-conscious, when directly addressed or appealed to by Counsel; or one that really understands that the Judge's politeness is only another and subtle form of self-glorification.

A Q.C. who is not "eminent," who does not behave "nobly," and who can avoid the formula "I suggest to you," in cross-examination; or one that does not thunder from a lofty and inaccessible moral altitude so soon as a nervous Witness blunders or contradicts himself.

An Usher who does not try to induce the general public, especially the female portion thereof, to mistake him for the Lord Chancellor.

A Solicitor who does not strive to appear _coram populo_ on terms of quite unnecessarily familiar intercourse with his leading Counsel.

An Articled Clerk who does not dress beyond his thirty shillings a-week, and think that the whole Court is lost in speculation as to the identity of that distinguished-looking young man.

An Associate who does not go into ecstasies of merriment over every joke or _obiter dictum_ from the Bench.

Anybody who does not give loud expression to the opinion at the nearest bar when the Court rises, that he could have managed the case for either or both sides infinitely better than the Counsel engaged.

A Court-house whose atmosphere is pleasant and invigorating after the Court has sat for fifteen minutes.

(Anyone concerned who, on reading these remarks in print, will think that the cap can, by any _scintilla_ of possibility, fit himself.)

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JUSTICE FOR 'FRISCO.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--I notice that a complaint has been made that those charming stories of wild life in the Far West, are out of date. Nay, more, that they are calculated to do a great deal of harm to a considerable amount of valuable property. On the other hand, the talented authors of the picturesque romances to which I have referred, insist that there is a great demand for these literary wares, and they would suffer much loss if they were to discontinue their production.

Could not the matter be compromised? We are less sensitive than our American cousins, and if the scene were changed from St. Francisco to some quiet watering-place on the Kentish Coast, our kindred beyond the seas ought to be satisfied. I do not pretend to be a master of the style of those who write Backwood sensations, but I think I can jot down a few lines to show what I mean. Beneath I give a specimen of the sort of thing that might take the place of stories revelling in such titles as the "_Luck of Murder Camp_," "_Slack Bill's Banker_," and "_The Talk of Stab-in-the-Backman's Chasm_."

THE CHAFF OF HERNE BAY CREEK.

CHAPTER XX.--_CHARLEY MEETS A CHUM_.

The Miners who had been digging all day long the rough shingle for treasure-trove, had retired to their rudely constructed cabins. These rough huts were built of wood, and furnished with a seat on either side. There were two small windows let into the oaken walls--each of them not more than six inches square. They were absolutely free from furniture--save perhaps, a foot of cheap looking-glass, and here and there a wooden-peg used by the Miners for hanging up their slouch-hats, their red flannel-shirts, and their long leather-boots.

These huts were not unlike the other habitations in the wild Far West, save that they had this peculiarity--each hut was mounted on a huge springless framework, supported by four lumbering wooden wheels. By this arrangement the hut could be moved from place to place, sometimes to the fields, with their mines of undiscovered treasure; sometimes to the sea, burdened with legacies of the mighty deep.

CHARLEY was smoking a pipe, and thinking of that fair home in San Francisco, the very centre of civilisation, where the hotels were admirable, the stores well stocked, and house property at a premium.

"I did not discover a single ruby yesterday," he murmured, and then he looked at the wooden spade of a child--"I found only there a young 'un's toy. But it has softened my heart, and taught me that human nature is human nature."

He paused to wipe away with a sunburnt hand a furtive tear.

"CHARLEY, my lad," he exclaimed, "this is unmanly. What would DARE DEATH DICK or THUNDER TIM say to such a show of water?"

He took the spade, and was about to throw it with violence to the ground, when his better nature triumphed, and he placed it, almost with reverence, on the bench beside him.

He was disturbed by a tap on the outer door--the door that faced the sea.

"Who's there?" he shouted, as he held in one hand a revolver, and in the other a bowie-knife of the usual fashion.

"Are you ready?"

It was a gruff voice, and yet there was something feminine about it. CHARLEY had never feared to meet a woman yet, and he did not now shrink from the encounter. However his training had made him cautious. It might be a trap of the bloodthirsty Indians--those Children of Nature who were known to indulge in any cruel subterfuge to secure the white men as their prey.

"Are you ready?" was repeated in the same gruff voice, but now the tone was one of entreaty. The speaker seemed to be imploring for a reply.