Chapter 2

"Talkin' of woodcock," he continued--we were now walking along Pall Mall together--"they tell me you're writin' some gas or other about shootin'. Well, if you want a tip from me, just you let into the smokin' room shots a bit; you know the sort I mean, fellows who are reg'lar devils at killin' birds when they haven't got a gun in their hands. Why, there's that little son of a corn-crake, FLICKERS--when once he gets talkin' in a smokin' room nothing can hold him. He'd talk the hind leg off a donkey. I know he jolly nearly laid me out the last time I met him with all his talk--No, you don't," continued the Captain, imagining, perhaps, that I was going to rally him on his implied connection of himself with the three-legged animal he had mentioned, "no you don't--it wouldn't be funny; and besides, I'm not donkey enough to stand much of that ass FLICKERS. So just you pitch into him, and the rest of 'em, my bonny boy, next time you put pen to paper." At this moment my cheerful friend observed a hansom that took his fancy. "Gad!" he said, "I never can resist one of those india-rubber tires. Ta, ta, old cock--keep your pecker up. Never forget your goloshes when it rains, and always wear flannel next your skin," and, with that, he sprang into his hansom, ordered the cabman to drive him round the town as long as a florin would last, and was gone.

Had the Captain only stayed with me a little longer, I should have thanked him for his hint, which set me thinking. I know FLICKERS well. Many a time have I heard that notorious romancer holding forth on his achievements in sport, and love, and society. I have caught him tripping, convicted him of imagination on a score of occasions; dozens of his acquaintances must have found him out over and over again; but the fellow sails on, unconscious of a reverse, with a sort of smiling persistence, down the stream of modified untruthfulness, of which nobody ought to know better than FLICKERS the rapids, and shallows, and rocks on which the mariner's bark is apt to go to wreck. What is there in the pursuit of sport, I ask myself, that brings on this strange tendency to exaggeration? How few escape it. The excellent, the prosaic DUBSON, that broad-shouldered, whiskered, and eminently snub-nosed Nimrod, he too, gives way occasionally. FLICKERS'S, I own, is an extreme case. He has indulged himself in fibs to such an extent, that fibs are now as necessary to him as drams to the drunkard. But DUBSON the respectable, DUBSON the dull, DUBSON the unromantic--why does the gadfly sting him too, and impel him now and then to wonderful antics. For was it not DUBSON who told me, only a week ago, that he had shot three partridges stone dead with one shot, and in measuring the distance, had found it to be 100 yards less two inches? Candidly, I do not believe him; but naturally enough I was not going to be outdone, and I promptly returned on him with my well-known anecdote about the shot which _ricocheted_ from a driven bird in front of me and pierced my host's youngest brother--a plump, short-coated Eton boy, who was for some reason standing with his back to me ten yards in my rear--in a part of his person sacred as a rule _plagoso Orbilio_. The shrieks of the stricken youth, I told DUBSON, still sounded horribly in my ears. It took the country doctor an hour to extract the pellets--an operation which the boy endured, with great fortitude, merely observing that he hoped his rowing would not be spoiled for good, as he should bar awfully having to turn himself into a dry-bob. This story, with all its harrowing details, did I duly hammer into the open-mouthed DUBSON, who merely remarked that "it was a rum go, but you can never tell where a _ricochet_ will go," and was beginning upon me with a brand-new _ricochet_ anecdote of his own, when I hurriedly departed.

Wherefore, my gay young shooters, you who week by week suck wisdom and conversational ability from these columns, it is borne in upon me that for your benefit I must treat of the Smoking-room in its connection with shooting-parties. Thus, perhaps, you may learn not so much what you ought to say, as what you ought not to say, and your discretion shall be the admiration of a whole country-side. "The Smoking-room: with which is incorporated 'Anecdotes.'" What a rollicking, cheerful, after-dinner sound there is about it. SHABRACK might say it was like the title of a cheap weekly, which as a matter of fact, it does resemble. But what of that? Next week we will begin upon it in good earnest.

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ON THE BOXING KANGAROO.

From SMITH and MITCHELL to a Kangaroo!!! The "noble art" _is_ going up! Whilloo! Stay, though! Since pugilist-man seems coward-clown, Perhaps 'tis the Marsupial coming down!

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"LE GRAND FRANÇAIS."

["With all his faults, M. DE LESSEPS is perhaps the most remarkable--we may even say the most illustrious--of living Frenchmen."--_The Times_.]

JACQUES BONHOMME _loquitur_:--

_Someone_ should suffer--yes, of course-- For the depletion of my stocking; But _Le Grand Français_? Bah! Remorse Moves me to tears. It seems too shocking. Get back my money? _Pas de chance_! And then he is the pride of France!

I raged, I know, four years ago, Against those Panama projectors. The law seemed slack, inquiry slow; How I denounced them, the Directors, Including _him_--in some vague fashion; But then--BONHOMME was in a passion!

And now to see the _gendarme's_ hand-- Half-shrinkingly--upon _his_ shoulder, Our _Grand Français_--_so_ old, _so_ grand! _Ma foi_, it palsies the beholder. And will it lessen my large loss To fix a stain on the Grand Cross?

Too sanguine? Too seductive? Yes! But was it not such hopeful charming That led him to his old success? The thought is softening, and disarming; O'er Suez and the Red Sea glance, And see what he has done for France!

_Peste_ on this Panama affair! Egyptian sands sucked not our savings As did those swamps. Still I can't bear To see _him_ suffer. 'Midst my cravings For _la revanche_, I'd fain not touch Our Greatest Frenchman--'tis too much!

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SHORT AND SWEET.

["The Young Ladies of Nottingham have formed a Short-skirt League."--_Daily Graphic_.]

Ye pretty girls of England, So famous for your looks, Whose sense has braved a thousand fads Of foolish fashion-books, Your glorious standard launch again To match another foe, And refrain From the train While the stormy tempests blow, While the sodden streets are thick with mud, And the stormy tempests blow!

See how the girls of Nottingham Inaugurate a League For skirts five inches from the ground; They'll walk without fatigue, No longer plagued with trains to lift Above the slush or snow; They'll not sweep Mud that's deep While the stormy tempests blow; Long dresses do the Vestry's work, While stormy tempests blow.

O pretty girls of Nottingham, If you could save us men From our frightful clothing, How we should love you then! We'd shorten turned-up trouser, And widen pointed toe, Leave off that Vile silk hat, When the stormy tempests blow-- Wretched hat that stands not wind or rain When the stormy tempests blow.

We're fools. Yet, girls of England, We might inquire of you, Why wear those capes and sleeves that seem Quite wide enough for two? And why revive the _chignons_-- Huge lumps pinned on? You know You would cry Should they fly Where the stormy tempests blow; For they catch the wind just like balloons, Where the stormy tempests blow.

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FAULTS O' BOTH SIDES.--Ardent Radicals grumbled at the Government for not holding an Autumn Session. That was a fault of omission. Now touchy Tories are angry with it for showing too strong a tendency to what Mr. GLADSTONE once sarcastically called "a policy of examination and inquiry"--into the case of Evicted Tenants, Poor-Law Relief, &c. This is a fault of (Royal) Commission. Luckless Government! The verdict upon it seems to be that it

"Does nothing in particular, And does it very--_ill_."

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NOTICE.--The Twin Fountains of Trafalgar Square regret to inform the British Public that, although they have performed gratuitously and continuously for a number of years, they are compelled to retire from business, as they cannot compete with the State-aided spouting which takes place in their Square.

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A GREAT "TREAT."--Public-house Politics at Election time.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

Books from the publishing house of FISHER UNWIN are always goodly to look upon, the public having to thank him for something new in form, binding, and colour, in other series than the Pseudonym Library. In a new edition of _The Sinner's Comedy_, just issued at the modest price of Eighteenpence, he has solved a problem that has long baffled the publisher, and bothered the public. Few like the appearance of a book with the pages machine-cut; fewer still can spare the time to cut a book. Mr. FISHER UNWIN compromises by presenting this dainty little volume with the top pages ready cut, the reader having nothing to do but to slice the side-pages, a labour which no book-lover would grudge, seeing that it leaves the volume with the uncut appearance dear to his heart. The story, told in 146 pages, is, my Baronite says, worthy the distinction of its appearance. The characters are clearly drawn, the plot is interesting, the conversation crisp, and the style throughout pleasantly cynical. The author, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, has a pretty turn of aphorism. "A man's way of loving is so different from a woman's"; and again, "Genius is so rare, and ambition is so common." Here be truths, old enough perhaps, but cleverly re-set.

Some people complain that politics are dull. They should read the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary utterances of the Member for Wrottenborough. They appear weekly in that rising young paper, the _Sunday Times_, and an extremely readable selection of them has lately been published "in book form," for the enlivening of the Recess. Adapting the Laureate's lines, the Baron would say,--

"They who would vote for an M.P. whose sense with humour chimes, Will read the Member for Wrottenborough, all in the _Sunday Times_-- A paper our sires paid Sevenpence for, along of its grit and go, Seventy years ago, my Public, seventy years ago!"

For whimsical audacity, and quaint unexpectedness. Mr. PAIN, in his latest book, _Playthings and Parodies_, would be hard to beat. In this there is a good back-ground of shrewd observation. He does not propose to make your flesh creep, or your eyes run torrents. He simply succeeds in making you laugh. In "The Processional Instinct," Mr. PAIN informs us that he has discovered that our private life is circular, and our public life is rectilineal. SHAKSPEARE, who, being for all time, and not merely for an age, recommends this author to the general public when he says that everybody "should be so conversant with PAIN."

_The Memories of Dean Hole_ is rather a misleading title; "but," says the Baron, "I suppose the term 'Reminiscences' is played out. The word 'Memories' seems to suggest that someone, whether Dean HOLE, or Dean CORNER, or any other Dean, had more than one memory, as indeed those persons appear to possess who mention their 'good memory for names,' and their 'bad memory for dates,' and _vice versâ_. _Soit!_" quoth the Baron, in excellent French, "you may take it from me (if I'll part with it) that the Hole book is by no means a half-and-half sort of book, but is vastly entertaining." The stories of "The Cloth" form the most entertaining part of the work. The Baron wishes success to this work of the Dean in Holey Orders, and suggests that the volume should be re-entitled _Gathered Leaves from Dean Hole's Rose Garden_, a better title than "Reminiscences."

MARION CRAWFORD'S _Don Orsino_ (published by MACMILLAN & CO.) would be worth reading were it only for the colour of its word-painting, and for its high-comedy dialogue. Yet is Mr. CRAWFORD rather given to pause in his story, for the sake of moralising on the tendencies of the age; and the reader, patient though he may be, when he has become interested in the personages of the novel, does not care to be button-holed by a digression. MARION CRAWFORD'S recipe for commencing an amorous duologue (early in Vol. III.), which is to lead up to a declaration of love, is deliciously ingenious. It begins with the gentleman taking a seat, and his first remark is upon the chair. Mr. CRAWFORD evidently remembers the old story of how the tenor who knew but one song, "_In my Cottage near a Wood_," used to introduce it into any scene of any Opera by the simple process of making his entrance alone and finding a chair on the stage. "Aha!" quoth he. "What's this? A chair? and made of wood! Ah! that word! how it reminds me of my 'umble home, 'my cottage near a wood.'" Cue for band; chord; song. In this instance, the love-scene, admirably led up to on the above plan, is strikingly powerful; it is the work of a master-hand. The _dénoûment_ is both artistically original and, at the same time, ordinarily probable. May all readers enjoy this excellent novel as much as has the sympathetic

BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

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CLASSICAL QUESTION.--If some schoolboys, home for Christmas holidays, wanted Sir AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS to give them a Christmas Box (not a private one at the Pantomime), what Ancient Philosopher would they mention? Why--of course--"ARISTIPPUS."

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LOCAL COLOUR.

Mr. ALFRED AUSTIN, in his new poem, _Fortunatus, the Pessimist_, has hit upon a new notion, to say nothing of a novel rhyme. Sings he:--

"When the foal and brood-mare hinny, And in every cut-down spinney Lady's-Smocks grow _mauve and mauver_, Then the Winter days are over."

This opens a polychromatic vista to the New Poetry. Technical Art comes to the aid of the elder Muses. The products of gas-tar alone should greatly regenerate a something time-worn poetic phraseology. As thus:--

When the poet, Mr. PENNYLINE, Is inspired by beauteous Aniline, Products chemical and gas-tarry Give the modern Muse new mastery. Mauve _may_ chime with love, and mauver Form a decent rhyme to lover; While (and if not, why not?) _mauvest_ Antiphonetic proves to lovest. (Verse erotic always sports Tricksily with longs and shorts. Verbal votaries of Venus Are an arbitrary genus, And as arrogant as HOWELLS In their dealings with the vowels. _Love, move, rove_, linked in a sonnet, Pass for rhymes; the best have done it!) Then again there is Magenta! Surely science never sent a Handier rhyme to--well, polenta, Or (for Cockney Muses) Mentor! The poetic sense auricular Can't afford to be particular. Rags of rhymes, mere assonances, Now must serve. Pegasus prances, Like a Buffalo Bill buck-jumper, When you have a "regular stumper" (Such as "silver") do not care about Perfect rhyming; "there or thereabout" Is the Muse's maxim now. You _may_ get (bards have, I trow) Rhyme's last minimum irreducible, From dye-vat, retort, or crucible.

Verily (as _Touchstone_ says), "I'll rhyme you so, eight years together, dinners and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted." And if it is "the right butterwoman's rate to market," or "the very false gallop of verses," it is at any rate good enough for a long-eared public or a postulant for the Laureateship.

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WAR ON A LARGE SCALE.

(_AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONFLICT, FROM THE DIARY OF AN INHABITANT OF HERNE BAY._)

_Monday._--Extremely awkward--the entire British Fleet have come ashore; and, as it is impossible to move them on account of their enormous tonnage, this will entail a loss of £24,000,000,000!

_Tuesday._--Troubles never come singly! The French, taking advantage of the temporary suspension of our naval operations, have declared war. This means the utter ruin of the bathing season, not only at Herne Bay, but Southend, and the Isle of Thanet.

_Wednesday._--As I expected! The French Fleet are coming up towards London. They are sure to pepper us as they pass. As every gun carries several hundred miles, I do not see how books can be uninterruptedly issued from and returned to the Circulating Library.

_Thursday._--Our first slice of luck! The entire French Fleet during the mist last night came into collision with the Nore Light, and sank immediately. I was surprised at their sparing the Reculvers and the local bathing-machines, but now the mystery is explained.

_Friday._--Just learned that the great gun of Paris, which carries forty-four thousand miles, is to be tried for the first time to-morrow. It would have been used earlier, had it not been necessary to raise a foreign loan to supply funds to load it. Trust it won't be laid in our direction. This war has already caused the Insurance Companies to double their charges! Too bad!

_Saturday._--All's well that ends well. Hostilities are at an end. This morning all the glass in the windows were broken at 8 o'clock. Ten minutes later the Champs Elysées was deposited half a mile from Birchington. We now know that the great Paris gun burst on its first discharge, and France exists no longer as a country, but as a "geographical expression" is deposited in various parts of Europe.

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REAL AND IDEAL.--"A Really Hard-Headed Man"--the Iron-skulled individual now exhibiting at the Aquarium. If his will is as iron as his head, what a despot he would be! If France is tired of her Republic, she might try the Iron-Headed Man as a ruler. There is the chance, of course, that he might turn out a numskull, and be only King Log, after all.

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JIM'S JOTTINGS.

["Do the poor make the slums, or the slums make the poor?"--_Henry Lazarus, in "Landlordism."_]

Is it the poor wot makes the Slums, or the Slums wot makes the poor? Well, that's the question, Guv'nor, and I've 'eared it arsked afore, And the arnser ain't so easy, if you wants to be O.K. Don't suppose as _I_ can settle it, but I'll have my little say.

My old friend Mister LAZARUS, now, he ups and sez, sez he, The great Ground Landlord is the great _prime_ cause. "Yah! fiddlededee!" Cries the House-Farmer; "Slums is Slums, acos the Poor is _Pigs_!" "You try 'em, friend philanthropist! They'll play you proper rigs."

Yus, there's two sides to heverythink, wus luck! That's where we're fogged. Passiges like foul pigstyes, gents, and backyards like black bogs, Banisters broke for firewood, and smashed winders stuffed with rags, These make the sniffers slate the poor, Perticular if they're wags.

Well, gents, you know, it's _this_ way. Just you fancy yerselves _born_ In a back-slum like Ragman's Rents. 'Old 'ard, don't larf with scorn! Some on us _is_ born there, yer know; it might ha' bin _your_ luck, _If_ yer mother'd bin a boozer, and yer father'd got the chuck.

Of course _yourn_ was respectable; _mine_ wosn't; there's the diff.! Ah! things like this ain't settled by a snort or by a sniff. Jest fancy hopening yer eyes fust time in a dark dive, Or a sky-parlour where a plarnt o' musk won't keep alive.

Emagine, if yer washups can, some ten foot square o' room, With a stror-heap in one corner, and a "dip" to light the gloom; With the walls dirt-streaked with damp-lines, outside, a drunken din, And hinside, a whiff of sewer-gas in a hatmosphere of gin.

Some on you carn't emagine there's sech 'orrors on the earth; But there are, you bet your buttons. Who'd select 'em for their _birth_? Not you, not me, not no one, if you asked 'em, I expect; But yer place o' birth yer see, gents' jest the thing yer _carn't_ select.

If you're born where streets is narrer, and where rooms is werry small, Where you've damp sludge for a ceiling, rotting plarster for a wall; Where yer carn't eat, sleep, wash yerselves, or lay up when you're sick, Without tumbling one o'er tother, wy, yer _sinks_, gents, pooty quick.

_Sinks!_ Yes, when wot yer lives in _is_ a sink, or somethink wus; With a drunkard for a mother, and some neighbour for a nuss; With the gutter for yer playground, and a 'ome from which yer shrink, Can you wonder that poor Slum-birds is give o'er to Dirt and Drink.

Ah! them two D's goes together. Just you plant some orty Queen In a rookery, in her kidhood, and then tell her to keep _clean_, Wash 'er face, and mend 'er garments,--wich they're mostly sewed-up rags,-- In six months she'd be a scare-crow, 'ands like sut, and 'air all jags.

Wot yer washups don't quite tumble to's the fack as like breeds like. If you would himprove Slum-dwellers, at the Slum you fust must strike. Give us small dark 'oles to dwell in, and you must be jolly green If you think folks bred in dirt like, are a-going to keep 'em clean.

When the sewer-rats take to sweetening and lime-washing _their_ foul 'oles, And bright light and disinfectants are the fads of skunks and moles, Then poor souls in cellar-dwellings and in jerry-builders' dens, Will be smart as young canaries and as clean as clucking hens.

NOCKY SPRIGGINGS guyed me proper, in his chuckly sorter style, With his thumb 'ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile. "JIM," sez he, "wot price _your_ jabber? Do yer think the blooming blokes Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more than for our mokes?

"Shut yer face, you pattering josser! Dirt and Drink is good for Rents! If the Poor _wos_ clean and sober, where 'ud be their cent-per-cents? If it's Public 'Ouse 'gainst Wash 'Ouse, if it's Slumland _wersus_ Swipes, _I_ am on for booze and backy 'stead o' drains and water-pipes.

"You may be _too_ jolly clean, JIM, and a precious sight _too_ light, Were's the good to scrub yer skin orf! And if when a cove gits tight, Or would give his donah wot-for on the Q.T. _wot_ a lark If there weren't no 'andy alleys, nor no corners snug and _dark_.