STAGE, STUDY & STUDIO

Practical joking might correctly be described as a remnant of the barbaric ages, when strength and muscle received the respect we now award to mind and brain. Indeed, it still passes current among modern barbarians for humour, while in civilized States, where humour is something that appeals to the intellect, joking in the practical sort is generally regarded as buffoonery. Having admitted thus much, it may be said that even practical joking is not all bad, and is sometimes “a source of innocent merriment.”

Joking of the practical kind is very often a pronounced characteristic of the actor, as the countless stories of players and their pranks abundantly prove. The reason for this is most likely to be found in the fact that it requires something of the actor’s talent successfully to carry out a practical joke, and actors, knowing they possess the ability, are often tempted to exercise it. The name of the genial J. L. Toole, of happy memory, will naturally occur to every one in this connexion, and the fact of that good-hearted soul having had a strong weakness for this diversion is ample proof that practical joking is quite compatible with geniality of character. The stories that are told of Toole and those which he told of himself would easily fill a couple of volumes. For the purpose of the present chapter a typical one will suffice.

The comedian once entered a dairy, and solemnly remarked to the shopman—“I will take a boy,” with a glance at his shelves. “A boy, sir?” asked the puzzled shopman. “Yes, or a girl,” replied the comedian. The man never doubted but his visitor was a lunatic, and said, mildly—“Pardon me, this is a milkshop.” “Come outside,” said Toole, and taking the dairyman by the arm he led him out of the shop and pointed to the sign. “I’ll take a boy or a girl,” he solemnly repeated. “Read what your notice states—‘Families supplied in any quantity.’”

E. A. Sothern, the famous “Lord Dundreary,” had an insatiable propensity for practical joking, and many are the stories of his pranks. One of the most amusing, though, perhaps, a little cruel, tells of his treatment of his guests on the occasion of a dinner party to a number of congenial souls. They were all assembled but one, who was rather late. After waiting a few minutes, the host suddenly exclaimed—“Here he comes—let’s all get under the table—make haste.” Anticipating a joke, they all scrambled under, except Sothern himself. Enter guest—“Hallo! where are all the other fellows?” “Oh, they all got under the table[6] when they heard you coming. I’m sure, I don’t know why.” The ignominous crawling forth one by one that ensued can safely be left to the imagination of the reader.

It is always a good thing when we find the subject of a practical joke joining good-naturedly in the mirth, and this we have in a story told by the late Mr. G. A. Sala of a joke played upon him by Lord Dundreary. “I remember going down to the Derby,” writes the famous journalist, “in a highly festive fashion, with poor Edward Sothern, the never-to-be forgotten Lord Dundreary. On this particular day Sothern, the kindest, but still the most provoking of practical jokers, was as full of mischievous pranks as an egg is full of meat. He offered to bet me a guinea before we reached Clapham that I would lose my temper, and lose it badly, before 2 p.m. ‘But why, my dear Sothern,’ I asked, ‘should I lose it? The weather is beautiful, I did my work by getting up at six this morning, I am in the best of all good company, and I haven’t got a penny on the race.’ ‘Never mind,’ persisted Lord Dundreary, ‘I will bet you one guinea that you will blaze up like a vesuvian thrown into the fire before 2 p.m.’

“It was half-past one when we reached the course, and one of the officious red-jackets who haunt the Hill stepped forward and gave me the customary brush down. I strolled a few paces onward, when another red-jacket pounced down on me, and, notwithstanding my expostulations, brushed me down again, hissing meanwhile as though he were grooming a horse. I essayed to light a cigar, when a third brush-fiend was upon me; but when a fourth made his appearance, brandishing his implement of torture, the dams of my long pent-up temper broke down, and a torrent of adjectives, the reverse of complimentary, flowed over the fourth brush-demon. My wrath was at its height when I found myself quickly tapped on the shoulder, and beheld the maliciously chuckling countenance of Sothern. ‘I will trouble you for one guinea,’ he said, and proceeded to explode with laughter. Of course he had followed me about, and feed the brush-fiends to harry me to desperation.”

W. J. Florence, a well-known American comedian in his day, was very much on a par with Sothern in the matter of practical joking, and the story of a good-natured trick he played on the latter, as related by himself in one of his posthumous papers, is very entertaining. “Meeting Sothern on Broadway one fine morning,” so the story goes, “I told him that there was an oat for him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, taking care to pronounce my words in such a careless, inarticulate way that the genial comedian thought I said there was a note for him at the hostelry I had named. He accordingly started off post-haste up town—we had met near the battery, whither we both had strolled for a morning constitutional—to get his oat. When he reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the clerk, in response to his inquiry, handed him out the grain of oats which I had left for him, he saw the joke immediately, and laughed at it most heartily, devoting the remainder of the day to telling everybody he met what a capital joke Florence had played on him.”

The late Fred Leslie was another popular comic actor who, like Sothern and Toole and so many of “the profession” past and present, was never so happy as when planning some harmless practical joke, which was always sure to amuse every one concerned. One of his most successful efforts in this direction was made during his tour in America with the Gaiety Company, and is related by the late Clement Scott in his recollections of this celebrated comedian.

One night (says Mr. Scott) several of his confrères had been invited to a supper, and the number included the musical director of the theatre they were then playing at. His absence from the orchestra nearly the entire evening in question was generally commented on, and it subsequently leaked out that he had been busily employed composing the music of a song which he intended to submit to them for approval before the party broke up. The night being a fine one, it was agreed to walk from the theatre to the house of their host. The composer, when he sallied from the stage door, was seen to have a huge roll of music, carefully tied up, peeping from one of his overcoat pockets. This was just as carefully abstracted, and some one was deputed to stroll leisurely onward and engage the victim in apparently earnest conversation, while the rest remained behind and committed the music to memory, after which the manuscript was skilfully returned without arousing the slightest suspicion.

At the termination of the meal, and before the musician could reach the piano, Leslie began to whistle a few bars of the melody, which, it is scarcely necessary to add, attracted universal attention. When pressed to continue, Leslie gave the air from beginning to end, and when, at the conclusion, he remarked that it was an old English ballad, cold beads of perspiration gathered on the forehead of the unhappy composer. His solemn asseveration that he had that evening written an original melody to the same air, note for note, was received on every hand with apparent unbelief; and in order to verify Leslie’s statement, most of those present followed his lead and sang or whistled the composition through. The musician, we are told, was allowed to play it over, and the resemblance, of course, was so striking that he himself began to doubt his own sanity. But when he came to know of the trick by which he had been bamboozled, he enjoyed the joke as much as those who carried it out.

The function of the stage is a much discussed question. We shall assume that it is first and foremost a place of entertainment. Many are the comedies, from Shakespeare’s to Shaw’s, that have tickled the ribs of the “groundlings,” but there is also about stage performances a frequent element of diversion supplied by effects entirely unrehearsed. In most cases these “unrehearsed effects” assume the form of amusing blunders, in others they may be witty impromptus on the part of an actor or an auditor, “gags,” “wheezes,” what not! A laughable mistake has often afforded relief to a dull play; while, on the other hand, it may have been the means of spoiling an otherwise effective scene.

A curious thing about stage blunders is that, when one of the characters makes a mistake it is almost a certainty that some other member or members of the cast will follow suit. It is related of Charles Matthews, the famous comedian, that if he made one mistake in the course of a performance he was sure to commit several blunders before the conclusion of the play; this, no doubt, arising from over-anxiety to guard against slips. On one occasion he informed an astonished audience that he saw “a candle going along a gallery with a man in its hand,” and later in the play he stated that he had “locked the key and put the door in his pocket.”

John Kemble, according to an anecdote told of him in Tom Moore’s Diary, once made a very ludicrous mistake. He was performing one of his most famous parts at some country theatre, and, as is common in some provincial temples of the Drama, a child had been making its presence very pronounced by emitting the shrill noises peculiar to the average infant. At last Kemble could bear the infantine interruptions no longer, and advancing to the front of the stage he assumed his most tragic air and said—“Ladies and gentlemen, unless the play is stopped, the child cannot possibly go on.” Kemble’s audience on that occasion was not like the one in San Francisco in its early days. An opera company was performing in the rowdy city of the “Pacific Slope,” when a child in the auditorium created a great disturbance. The burly gold-seekers, who mainly composed the audience, ordered the players to stop till the child was finished with its entertainment, as an infant’s voice was such a rarity in the Wild West at that time that it awakened pleasant memories of the old home and tugged at the heart-strings of the rough-and-ready miners. This is a genuine instance of the play being stopped and “the child going on.”

A very amusing mistake is laid to the credit of Quin. On one occasion, while he was acting “Judge Balance” in The Recruiting Officer, he addressed Mrs. Peg Woffington in these terms—

“Sylvia, what age were you when your dear mother married?”

Peg made no reply to the embarrassing query, so Quin proceeded—

“I ask you what age you were when your mother was born?”

Thus going from bad to worse. The actress fortunately did not lose her presence of mind, and replied—

“I regret I cannot answer your question; but I can tell you how old I was when my mother died.”

Amusement is frequently afforded by some member of the audience losing himself in the play, and fancying that the scene before him is a page from real life. When such incidents occur, they form excellent testimonials to the dramatic abilities of the actors. A striking instance of this kind is related in connexion with the late Fanny Kemble. It occurred while she was appearing in Philadelphia as “Juliet.” She had just repeated the lines—

when a tall, lanky, medical student in a stage box, who had evidently been deeply absorbed in the scene, thrust his hat on his head in great excitement, crying out in a voice that could be heard all over the theatre—“Keep him up, Juliet; I’ll run and fetch the stomach pump.”

An incident of a similar nature occurred many years ago at the London Princess Theatre. A well-known conveyancer, noted for absence of mind, during a performance of Macbeth, one of the witches replying to the Thane, that they were “doing a deed without a name,” started up exclaiming, to the bewilderment of the audience—“A ’deed without a name’! Why, it’s void. It’s not worth sixpence!” The last time Kean played Louis XI at the Edinburgh Theatre Royal, a young Irishman who had been sitting spellbound in the stalls, after the attendants had proclaimed, “The King is dead!” exclaimed, “And may the Lord have mercy on his guilty soul.”

Sometimes a voice from the “gods” may be the means of swamping a play. This was the case with the only dramatic piece ever written by Miss Braddon, the famous novelist. In one of the acts a child was kidnapped from its mother, and at the end, when all the characters in the play were being made happy, the restoration of the child was taken for granted. This was a dramatic mistake, and while suited for a novel, was not to be accepted in the theatre. The omission passed unnoticed for half a minute after the fall of the curtain; then one of the “gods” leaned over the gallery and coolly inquired—“What about the kid?” The piece was doomed in the uncontrollable peals of laughter that followed.

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Instances where members of a cast, through ignorance or forgetfulness, take some scene or dialogue literally, are most mirth-moving, if somewhat rare. A highly entertaining instance of this kind occurred once when John Kemble was playing Hamlet in a country town. An actor, who was sustaining the part of “Guilderstein,” was, or imagined himself to be, a capable musician. “Hamlet,” in the usual course of the play, asked him—

“Will you play upon this pipe?”

“My Lord, I cannot.”

“I do beseech you.”

“Well, if your lordship insists upon it, I will do as well as I can.”

And to the great consternation of “Hamlet” and the amazement of the audience, he proceeded to play “God Save the King.”

A delightful piece of literalism is told about a property man who on one occasion was deputizing at a rehearsal of Macbeth in which a well-known actor was filling the title rôle. Here is a scrap of the dialogue—

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To ludicrous instances there is no end; but perhaps one of the most comical occurred in a wretched little French theatre during the time of the first Revolution. Madame de Larme, who was playing “Juliet” on the occasion, was lying in the death scene on a tombstone. Outside, it was raining in torrents. A drop came through the roof and fell on “Juliet’s” nose. She made a face. Another drop found its way to her eyelid. She winked. Finally, she took to watching the drops and dodging them. The situation was at once appreciated by the audience, and it sympathized with the actress.

“Look out, Mrs. Juliet,” said one fellow, “there’s a big one coming. I see it.”

“Mind your eye,” said another.

“Madame,” said a third, rising, “will you accept my umbrella?”

But “Juliet” bore up bravely to the end, and finished the scene amid the applause of a sympathetic audience.

In a Glasgow theatre some forty years ago, the playgoers were treated to a very diverting scene that was not in the programme. The play was After Dark, and in one of the acts there is a very exciting railway scene in which a train crosses the stage just as one of the characters who has been tied to the rails is released. The manner in which the train is manipulated is very simple. A number of men, concealed behind it, run across the stage. On this occasion the man who was working the engine tripped and fell, carrying the engine with him, when about halfway across the stage. The man in charge of the tender, not having time to clear out of the way, fell over the engine-keeper, and the third fell over him, the curtain being run down on the most exciting railway disaster that ever occurred in Stageland, the audience laughing heartily the while.

At a theatre in Glasgow the writer witnessed a very amusing incident in the course of a representation of Theodora by Miss Grace Hawthorne’s Company. There is a tremendously “bluggy” scene in this drama, which closes with the heroine standing in the middle, while a collection of corpses strew the stage. On the night in question the drop curtain refused to perform its office, and after[34] coming half-way down complacently stuck there. The dead bodies lay in dreadful suspense for some time, and then in despair got up and walked off!

While this immensely delighted a nineteenth-century audience as an absurdity, it appears to have been quite the custom on the Restoration Stage, when players “died” in front of the curtain and were either carried off or walked away afterwards! This is seen from the famous epilogue spoken by Nell Gwynne in Dryden’s Tyrannick Love. She played a serious part on this occasion, and in the last act stabs herself twice, and dies. She lies dead on the stage; then, when the bearer comes to carry her off, she starts to her feet, exclaiming—

“Hold! Are you mad? You damned confounded dog! I am to rise and speak the epilogue.”

Stage “waves” have often afforded no little amusement to the audience. The troubled ocean is simulated on the stage by a number of men lying on their backs under a painted canvas, kicking their legs and throwing their arms about with a certain amount of regularity, the men being blindfolded to prevent the dust getting into their eyes. During a performance of the Black Flag, at Dundee, a scene in which the waves were required was introduced and went with its usual success till one evening the curtain got entangled with the sea-cloth, and on the former being raised it carried the latter with it, exposing to the view of the audience the group of wave-makers lying on their backs vainly kicking the air. The audience, of course, screamed with laughter, which set the wave men wondering, and, thinking something was amiss, they unfastened the bandages over their eyes and discovered their undignified positions, quitting the stage with the greatest rapidity. The audience were not in a mood for settling down to watch the surging sea after this, and the remainder of the scene was omitted from that performance.

In this connexion the experience of a well-known comedian who started his career as a humble “wave,” will afford the reader some merriment. He writes:—“At last the shipwreck came on, and I was hustled under the sea-cloth along with a dozen other ‘supes.’ Our business was to make the sea rise in its might and wreck the gallant ship. We had been repeatedly cautioned at rehearsal not to use our hands, but to go down on all fours and produce the foaming billows by ‘humping’ our backs up and down. This was a very trying exercise; it was much easier to use our hands, though it gave to the rolling billows a jagged and unnatural appearance, and when the dry white paint sifted freely through the cloth, covering us up, choking and blinding us as the climax approached, I commenced in a fit of desperation to use my hands, so as to dodge the foam as much as possible, and keep it from totally blinding me. But I was soon perceived by the stage carpenter, who instantly dived under the cloth, labouring under wild excitement, and commenced cursing me in dumb show for not ‘humping’ my back as I had been told to do. He was so fierce that I quickly edged away from him. This made him worse. He signalled me to come back. I edged away a little further, and a moment later stood up through a hole in the cloth, as big as a barn door, in the midst of the angry breakers, and covered from head to foot with the white powder. There was not a sound in the house until I gave a terrible ‘chahoo!’ and suddenly dived back under the waves. Then you could not have heard the report of an eighty-ton gun a hundred yards away.”

A very droll interruption occurred one evening in a St. Helens theatre when the late Signor Foli was singing. The celebrated bass had just finished the first verse of his favourite song, “The Raft,” when a baby started squalling, and still continued as he began the second verse, commencing—

but he got no further, being seized with uncontrollable laughter, which for the moment puzzled the audience, but presently it dawned upon them that the next line was—

and they joined the Signor in his mirth. He left the stage for a moment, and returned and sang in his exquisite style “Out on the Deep.”

A SIDE-BOX TALK.

Roguy and Poguy.

Roguy. See that girl looking at me, Poguy?
Poguy. Don’t I? I declare she can’t keep her eyes off you.
Roguy. What women care for, Poguy, my boy, is not features, but expression.

[He pokes Poguy in the waistcoat.

Many good stories are told of the facetiousness of Dublin audiences. Here is one that Macready used to relate:—One night while performing “Pierre” in Venice Preserved, the Jaffier, an actor ponderous in person as well as in style, was drowsing out his dying speech, when a voice from the gallery exclaimed, “Ah, now, die at once!” to which another from the opposite side of the house responded, “Hould your tongue, you blackguard!” then, in a patronising tone to the Jaffier, “Take your time now!”

There was humour, and what is often much akin to that, pathos, in the appeal wrung from the unlucky representative of crook-backed Richard, who, finding it impossible to make head against the disapprobation evoked by his histrionic efforts, dropped blank verse, and in very plain prose told his audience—“Mr. Kean is playing this part in London at a salary of thirty pounds a night; I receive but fifteen shillings a week; and if it isn’t good enough for the money, may Heaven give you more humanity!”

At a crowded country theatre in France a woman fell from the gallery into the pit, and was picked up by one of the spectators, who, hearing her groaning, asked her if she was much injured. “Much injured!” exclaimed the woman; “I should think I am. I have lost the best seat in the very middle of the front row.”

We must assume there is something very peculiar in the rural landscapes and the town residences inhabited by the dramatic population, if the haunts of their rustics and the dwelling-places of their citizens are to be judged by the representations of these places which we see upon the British stage. The dramatic idea of the country consists usually of a series of set pieces, backed by a six-inch deal bridge, surmounting a two-foot waterfall, and leading to a profile cottage of such diminutive dimensions that when the feet of any one entering it are on the basement, his head soars into the second story, and he cannot, without doubling himself completely up, go either in or out of the door. In some cases the cottages have no pretension to habitable qualities, but are simply “made out” of a single piece of canvas, on which a clearly “impracticable” window is painted, and which the business of the scene does not require to be opened, the cottage being only needed as the cue for some song or sentiment, such as “Ah! that humble cot—how its aspect makes me sigh for Home, Sweet Home!” or, “The sight of that lowly roof makes me feel no envy for pampered pride in its palace, or venal villany in its villa; for I am convinced more and more of the beautiful truth, that it is in the cottage alone contentment can be found.”

Sometimes there is, by way of background, a castle, frightfully foreshortened, with its battlements half a yard high, and its towers towering among the sky-borders, while its foundations rest on a rock no higher than the top of the low comedian’s hat; but the structure is sufficient to admit of its being apostrophized by some young gentleman in hessians and a chocolate surtout as “Deserted halls of my ancestors, whose pavements have rung to the clang of the usurper’s hoof, and whose donjon-keep has echoed to the noisy revels of a stranger band.” When the occasion is an operatic one, the distant castle forms an admirable subject for something like the following—

Every playgoer is familiar with the “mossy bank” of dramatic rural scenery, with one end slightly elevated for the head of the weary wayfarer or benighted traveller, and a bit of an old bolster craftily crammed underneath the canvas to complete the mossiness of the contrivance.

The town scenery of the stage is not less peculiar than its landscapes, and the exteriors are particularly adapted for teaching “what to avoid” to the youthful architect. If young Dashington calls upon Lord Toplofty, the latter lounges lazily out of the first-floor French window, in which his head and shoulders are a pretty tight fit, while the former bears about the same proportion to the house that the peasant bears to the cottage we have already been speaking of. It is a singular fact that the inside of any one room is no sooner represented to us, than we find it to be much larger than the whole house when judged by its external appearance; and though the mansion itself may be only ten feet high from the basement to the tip of the topmost chimney-pot, the smallest apartment is found to be as wide as the wings are apart, and as lofty as the proscenium.

In costume, the stage presents some really astounding phenomena; and we have often been struck by the similarity of the dresses worn by the retainers of every country, every age, and indeed of almost every family. One would think that the word retainer referred to the fact of the same habiliments being always retained under all circumstances, whether the wearer happens to be a creature of the house of Hapsburg, a vassal of a Norman noble, or a member of a bellowing band of Swiss patriots, shouting such choruses as the following:—

The forthcoming show of donkeys promises to be a great success. The only difficulty that seems to us likely to embarrass the manager is the selection of a locality large enough for the exhibition. If but a tenth part of the asses in the metropolis make an exhibition of themselves on this, as they are apt to do on ordinary occasions, nothing smaller than the grounds of the Crystal Palace or the Alexandra Park could possibly accommodate them.

The following, we believe, are already entered:—

An egregious ass, that believes in the speedy subjugation of the Confederates by the Federals in America.

An awful donkey, who prefers Tupper to Tennyson.

An old ass, who, by means of false teeth, tight waist, a wig, and rouge, imagines himself a lady-killer.

A young ass, who, by smoking strong cigars until he is sick, imagines himself manly.

Several thundering donkeys, who are always sending money anonymously to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for unpaid income-tax.

A still larger number of even more hopeless asses, who patronize quack-doctors, cheap, puffing tailors, delineators of character by handwriting, and other advertising swindles.

An irreclaimable ass (supposed to be the only one living), who does not see any merit in Fun. The greatest ass alive.

There are several others we could mention, but the astounding asinine qualities of the last-named donkey have quite taken away our breath. In the forthcoming “competitive examination, of donkeys,” let him by all means bear away the prize! Fun, 1863.

Addison in his Papers on Wit makes vigorous onslaught against “false wit.” “The first species of false wit which I have met with is venerable for its antiquity, and has produced several pieces which have lived very near as long as the Iliad itself; I mean those short poems printed among the minor Greek poets, which resemble the figure of an egg, a pair of wings, an axe, a shepherd’s pipe, and an altar.”

Further on, he says, referring to these conceits, “the poetry was to contract or dilate itself according to the mould in which it was cast. In a word, the verses were to be cramped or extended to the dimensions of the frame that was prepared for them, and to undergo the fate of those persons whom the tyrant Procustes used to lodge in his iron bed; if they were too short he stretched them on a rack; and if they were too long he chopped off a part of their legs, till they fitted the couch which he had prepared for them.”

Most people accept this dictum of Addison as a final pronouncement on the distinction between true and false wit; but on further consideration it may be found that “much can be said on the other side.” Addison asserts that the matter must suffer if it has to be squeezed into a certain shape. This may be so, but it need not be much more so in the forming of a pair of wings in verse, than in the construction of a sonnet. Every sonnet, no matter how inspired, must follow an artificial measure, every poem, be it never so soulful, must have a definite number of feet in each of its lines and a preconceived arrangement; yet, no one advances the opinion that Scott was wasting his sense of poetry by casting it in the form of octo-syllabic verse, or that Shakespeare had a difficulty in fitting his thoughts to the measure of his sonnets or the blank verse of his plays.

The most that can be advanced against those poetic conceits of the kind condemned by Addison is that they appeal in a greater degree to the eye than to the ear, and while we may be conscious of their artificial nature we should also be catholic enough to admit their ingenuity, and when they are sufficiently amusing to provoke laughter, or excite a smile, they should not be denied the attributes of wit; for, after all, when we free ourselves from the suspicion of affectation, do we not agree that the chief end of wit is to amuse?

These remarks have been suggested to the writer by his discovering in one of his old scrap-books a little collection of curiosities of verse culled in Bookland byways “oompty” years ago. These do not consist of specimens of the minor Greek poets’ eccentricities, but in every case they are examples of what Addison would have unhesitatingly catalogued as “false wit”; and yet, not only are some of them genuinely amusing and others highly ingenious, but several display a painstaking which almost amounts to genius—if genius be “the capacity for taking pains.”

We can, for example, appreciate the immense industry of the author who set himself to compose a series, of verses in which the letter “e” should be entirely omitted, and the painstaking of the author will be yet further acknowledged when it is known that “e” is the most used letter in the English alphabet, the relative proportion of its use being 120 times to j 4, k 8, g 17, and i 40.

There are two such pieces among the writer’s literary curiosities and he regards them as, perhaps, the most unique. The first one is as follows—

The first word in the second line of the third stanza is evidently a misprint. “Night’s” is most likely the word used by the author, meaning that the coming of the morn extinguished the stars—

Here is the other specimen, which is even more ingenious than that just quoted, each stanza containing every member of the alphabet except the letter “e”—

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A happy thought is well worked out in the following quaint little jeu d’esprit which the writer came across in an old magazine many years ago. If you read it line after line you will find the author cheerfully contemplating the prospect of matrimony; but if you only read each alternate line you will discover him to be a confirmed old bachelor—

A somewhat common form of poetic conceit is the arranging into one intelligent poem of lines from a number of well-known poets and thus forming what may be called a mosaic of verses. I here print one of the best examples of this kind that I have come across; the author, like those of the “e”-less verses, is unknown to fame—

The composite poem thus formed may not be praised for beauty of thought, for absolute sequence of expression; but it is certainly a most ingenious composition and a monument of literary research.

The remarkable sibilance of the English language is cleverly exaggerated in the following lines, which are commended to the attention of those who lisp—

Needless to say these diverting lines were written and published originally beyond the westering wave.

A WHITCOMB RILEY STORY

On the way to the office of his publishers one crisp autumn morning, Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, the celebrated “Hoosier” poet of America, who is almost as well known in England, met an unusually large number of acquaintances who commented conventionally upon the fine weather. This unremitting applause amused him. When greeted at the office with “Nice day, Mr. Riley,” he smiled broadly.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I’ve heard it very highly spoken of.”

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MARK TWAIN AND THE KEY

“Once when I was going out to visit some friends,” Mark Twain is alleged to have said, in relating this one of the innumerable “yarns” fathered on him, “I told George, my negro servant, to lock the house and put the key under a certain stone near the steps. He agreed to do so.

“It was late at night when I returned. I went to the stone under which the key was supposed to have been hidden. It was gone. I hunted around the premises for about fifteen minutes, but still no key.

“Finally I went to George’s house—he lived outside—and rapped, vigorously upon the door. A black head, which I had no difficulty in recognizing as George’s, popped out of an upstairs window.

“‘Where did you put that key, you black rascal?’ I roared.

“‘Oh, massa,’ answered George, ‘I found a better place for it.’”

DESCEND, YE NINE.

The printing-house is notoriously the place for fun. Every shop has its selection of funny men who are ever ready to co-operate with the “devils” in manufacturing mirth. And there are always the “fossils,” who afford many an opportunity for a hearty laugh at them, if not with them. Often have I been amused with, the idiosyncrasies of these typographical gray beards; their chief charm being their colossal assurance as to their invariably being right, and everybody else, who presumes to differ from them, wrong. I recollect one of these ancient typesetters (an old Scotsman) who used to be the butt of countless jokes in the shop where he toiled so patiently. On one occasion he set up an article from my pen, beginning, “Long before the introduction of Pears’ Soap”; and I am bothered if he didn’t turn the last two words into “Pea Soup!” But the real fun of the matter was, that on his mistake being pointed out, he blandly suggested our letting the words appear as he had set them—“it wid dae jist as weel!”

The printer does not seem to be deeply concerned about his future, indeed, he has many a gay dig at that grave subject; as, for instance—

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AUTHOR’S MISERIES.

Having corresponded with Miss Rudge, the gifted poetess (authoress of “Floranthe,” “The Lovelock of Montrose,” “Moans of the Heartstrings,” etc.), and exchanged portraits and your own poems with her, you meet at last.

You are disappointed in her appearance and find her about forty years older than her picture; perhaps you, too, have grown rather fat and seedy since yours was taken twenty years ago.

The printer’s “devil,” by the way, is a queer fish, and there is a story about a certain metropolitan imp that fits any of the little sinners to a T. This particular youngster had just received his week’s wages, eleven shillings, when he was heard to soliloquize in these terms—“Let me see. I’ll go the Coliseum to-night, that’s a shilling; supper with bottled beer, that’s eighteenpence; ’baccy for the week, a shilling; beer ditto, two shillings; theatre one night next week, that’s one-and-six, and supper, one-and-six; and I’ll buy that swell walking stick, and that’ll just leave sixpence to take home to mother towards my week’s board.” He must have been a regular bad ’un, that.

Another favourite medium of printing-house fun is found in adapting Gilbert’s famous line and mourning that a “printer’s lot is not a happy one,” or magnifying the annoyances from authors and editors with which printers have to put up. In this connexion we find one printer relieving his troubled soul thus—

Then there is a certain freedom about printers’ humour which we don’t find elsewhere, save among editors: but printers, like editors, have ever been privileged individuals, and we are told that when the recording angel observes a printer hold a bit of bent brass rule between his fingers, while he misses it with a hammer, the trustworthy scribe drops into a brown study, and pretends not to hear anything. Nor is it logical to assume that a printer is a saint because he sets up a hymn-book.[94] You might as well regard an editor as a fool because you didn’t exactly agree with what was in his paper.

AUTHORS’ MISERIES.

Perhaps you flatter yourself that you have made an impression on Miss Flannigan (at Worthing), and you find her asleep over your favourite book.

Illustrative of this there is an excellent anecdote told by the late Max O’Rell in his book, A Frenchman in America.

A former proprietor of the New York Times and Post was wont every morning to select a text from the Bible to be printed above the leader. One morning, by some mischance, the text got lost, and Max tells us that the comps might have been heard asking in pretty loud stage whispers, “If anybody knew where that d—— text was?”

Perhaps the wit of the compositor is most amusing when it appeals to the eye. That is, when he gives rein to his fancy, and uses his types for suggesting witty ideas. Here is a very happy illustration of this kind of fun—

Yes, that compositor may only have had “a glass and a-half too much,” but the typo who is supposed to have set up the appended advertisement has manifestly indulged to even a greater extent—

American printers are much given to these diverting devices, and in the following instance we have a number of papers vieing with one another in extracting fun from the technical terms for the various signs and punctuations—

The printer can also make fun with a few brackets and other typographical oddments, as shown above.

In taking leave of this very entertaining subject one cannot do better than quote a printer’s “little joke,” which is at once mirth-provoking, and eminently suited as a “tail-piece” for this paper—

America is the fatherland of Modern Advertising, and Cousin Jonathan’s inherent taste for fun and unconventionality has led him to adopt striking and often humorous methods of appeal. Thus the Washington hotel-keeper who issued a glowing announcement of the attractions of his establishment would certainly lose nothing when he humorously added to his advertisement in a Chicago paper: “Clergymen find this the best place for rest, as book agents cannot climb the hill.”

An enterprising Yankee who runs a hotel at Minnetonka, rejoicing in the somewhat ominous name of Mosquitos Rest, sends forth an announcement remarkable for the manner in which it mixes the sublime with the commonplace. Here is a literal extract—

Perhaps the most amusing descent from the sublime is to be found in the advertisement of the proprietor of a building site in Wisconsin, who offered his land for sale in these terms—

A Pennsylvania clergyman who was evidently a bit of a humorist, and was anxious to earn an honest penny outside of his own slender salary, once advertised thus—

What benedict could resist an invitation so gracefully given?

It would be difficult to surpass the grim humour of the Pine Tree State gravestone cutter who notified the public as follows—“Such as buy tombstones of us look with pride and satisfaction upon the graves of their friends.” The announcement of an Illinois undertaker, however, runs it pretty close. Here it is—“An elegant stock of neat and nobby shrouds, warranted to give satisfaction to the most particular.”

The column in American papers devoted to “Wants” frequently affords its readers some amusement, either through the eccentricity of the advertiser or on account of some printer’s error. To the former cause, we have to ascribe the appended notice from a Kansas paper—

Let’s hope this plain-spoken[104] advertiser met with the desirable un-bull-dozable individual he wanted, and that the firm who inserted the following in a southern paper were likewise successful in their quest for a young man of the same kidney—

The following notice appended for the benefit of local English residents to the announcement of a masked ball at Lorenço Marques, also deserves a place among these specimens of the Humours of Advertising—

A glance at the business life of the far East shows us that out there Western customs are steadily gaining ground, although in that queer land of China nothing appears to be new, for long, long ago they advertised their shops with sign-boards inscribed after this fashion—“Shop of Heaven-sent Luck,” “The Shop of Celestial Principles,” “The Nine Felicities Prolonged,” “Mutton Shop of Morning Twilight,” “The Ten Virtues all Complete.” Here you have poetry and business combined, while in “The Honest Pen Shop of Li,” you have a guarantee that your pens will follow the best policy, although the shopman’s name is just a wee bit suspicious. John Chinaman shows his love of contrariness surely when he advertises a charcoal shop as the “Fountain of Beauty,” a coal depôt as “Heavenly Embroidery,” or an oil and wine establishment as the “Neighbourhood of Chief Beauty,” and we can easily imagine the fiendish chuckle with which the proprietor of an opium divan advertised his shop as “The Thrice Righteous.”

“I have just been having a chat with young Jones. Smart young chap, he seems, but very unlucky. He’s on the Press, I understand.”

“Yes; he tries to squeeze a loan out of everybody he meets.”

APPROVED BY THE EDITOR

Wishing to get from Chicago to Memphis, a young newspaper man purchased a “mileage” book from a “ticket scalper”—or illegal dealer in unfinished mileage tickets. The book had been the property of a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, and the description in the cover was alarmingly different from his own. The sharp-eyed conductor immediately noticed this.

“Are you on the Courier-Journal?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, yes. I’ve been a reporter there for several years.”

The conductor asked for some identification, which naturally the passenger was unable to give.

“I have it,” said the conductor, suddenly remembering. “It just happens that Henry Watterson, Editor of the Courier-Journal, is on the Pullman ahead. If you’re all right he ought to be able to identify you.”

At this the young man all but collapsed. However, there was nothing to it but to take a chance. When they found Henry Watterson the conductor handed out the mileage book, and, pointing to the young man, asked if he was a reporter on the Courier-Journal.

“Yes, indeed,” was the quick reply. “He is one of our best men. How are you, Robert?”

Breathing a prayer of thanks, the young man returned to his seat and resumed his journey without further trouble. Next morning, in the dining wagon, he saw his friend and timidly approached him.

“Colonel Watterson,” he said fervently, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for what you did for me yesterday. I——”

“Tut, tut. Don’t mention it,” returned his benefactor. “You did every bit as much for me. I’m not Henry Watterson. I’m just travelling on his pass.”

Everybody’s Magazine (U.S.A.).

RULES FOR NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS

Supposing you wish to contribute to a public charity, send your money to the Editor of a newspaper. He must acknowledge the receipt of it, and so you get your name and benevolence advertised in the best part of the paper for nothing.

2. Another good method, if you are fond of appearing before the public, is to request the Editor to state that “the Richard Jones who, in our police report of yesterday, was sentenced to Bridewell for shoplifting, is not the Mr. Richard Jones, the respected chiropædist of Sackville Street.”

3. If you are writing to a political newspaper, never mind about writing on the two sides of the paper, as, depend upon it, it will be a recommendation in your favour if the Editor sees you can write well on both sides.

4. You need not be particular about writing legibly, as it stands to reason, if the Editor cannot read your letter, that you will be spared the mortification of reading in the next day’s Notices to Correspondents, that “Philo-Justitiæ is an ass.”

5. It is usual in sending a statement, which impugns the character of another person, to send your name and address with it; but, as in matters of libel this is a very troublesome as well as a very expensive plan, it is better to send anybody else’s card rather than your own. By this means you avoid publicity, and have the double gratification of annoying two persons at once.

[111]

6. Inserting your death one day, and contradicting it the next, is another very cheap plan of advertising in a newspaper. Besides, you have the advantage of learning in your lifetime what your friends think of you after your death. This plan, however, will only answer once.

7. It is better, perhaps, not to send any poetry to a newspaper. We never recollect an instance of the Times inserting “A Sonnet to a Sow,” or “Lines to my Mary.”

8. Be careful of quotations, especially in a foreign language. If an editor knows his own language well, it is as much as you have a right to expect of him.

9. Never send anything to a newspaper “to be continued,” unless it is a legacy or a dozen of port.

10. Never trouble yourself in calling to see the Editor of a newspaper. It is a strange circumstance, but you might call a hundred times and always find him “out.”

Punch, 1844.

The anomalies of English spelling and pronunciation have many a time served our humorous writers with capital material for their rhymes. The following is one of the cleverest of the kind referred to:—

Alliteration has long been a favourite target for the arrows of wits, though most of them are forced to acknowledge its “artful aid.” It requires a very considerable command of the English language, however, before a rhymester can concoct five quatrains in which every word commences with the same letter. This is the diverting composition[116] here referred to; it is supposed to be a serenade sung by Major Marmaduke Muttonhead to Mademoiselle Madeline Mendoza Marriott—

The following is another and more varied example of alliteration wilfully overdone—

THE AGE OF INTELLECT.

These specimens may not be the best that can be quoted; I do not suppose they are, and should indeed be audacious were I to submit them as such. Addison’s assertion as to false wit will, no doubt, stand as firm as ever in the minds of most people after reading these notes on “The Poets at Play.” All that has been here attempted, and thus much perhaps the indulgent reader will grant, has been to show that there may be found in what the famous essayist would have us condemn as unworthy many characteristics of wit, humour, and ingenuity; and not only these, but examples of the patience and painstaking which are near allied to “genius.”

Perhaps the Americans are ahead of us in advertising; but there is no little enterprise and good humour displayed in that business on this side the Atlantic. In the street of a northern town one day, the writer was presented with a handbill which will bear comparison with many such transatlantic compositions. It was issued by a tea merchant, whom we will refer to as “Smith.” In great black letters was the heading, “Ananias Redivivus,” then came the pointed queries, “Had Ananias any descendants? If so, what became of them? Did they emigrate to Scotland?” From the contents of the bill I take the following, which, I should state, was “displayed” in a most effective manner—

We have in the foregoing an instance of a disciple of the good George Washington airing his Biblical knowledge, and in the same way we find a Birmingham bootmaker parading his acquaintance with the divine Shakespeare thus wise—

Why does not some cobbler making use of the bard’s writings thus—“All that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no tradesman’s matters nor women’s matters but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger I recover them.” [Trade journals please copy.]

These shoemakers would appear to be quite a literary lot, for in a certain east coast town of Scotland an enterprising member of the craft enlisted the tuneful muses to extol his trade—or, mayhap, it was some relative of the poet “Slum” who rolled his eye in a fine frenzy, and produced these exquisite lines—

The English papers, like their American contemporaries, are rich in amusing advertisements of the “wants” class. Here is one that appeared in a newspaper published in a university town, which probably accounted for the “scholarly” tone of the notice—

The gentleman who inserted the following in a London daily, and desired replies to be sent to “Disgusted,” had apparently experienced the joys of life in lodgings—

A London weekly once gave insertion to the appended notice, evidently the work of a wag, and intended as a skit upon a rather romantic episode which transpired about the time, when a lady played kidnapper, and a member of the sterner sex figured as the kidnapped—

This recalls an advertisement from an otherwise-minded young man. It appeared in an American paper—

Probably some one referred this cautious youth to Punch, of a certain date, where the proper advice was given.

“I ordered you to paint me some cows in a stable. I see the stable, but where are the cows?”

“They are in the stable.”

“So is your pay for this picture. You had better bring both out.”

I had hopes—I know that they have proved to be unfounded, but I cannot admit that they were unreasonable!—I had hopes that I should have been able to avail myself of the privilege of free admission conceded to exhibitors. Unfortunately, I do not exhibit!

I sent three pictures! 1 (a pre-Raphaelite bit of nature), “Docks and Marsh Mallows”; 2 (an attempt to depict a really unhackneyed historical situation), “Charles the Second in the Oak”; 3 (a genre painting), “The New Crinoline.”

If it were becoming (which it is not) I could say a good deal about these works; but I forbear to do so. They were all three rejected by the Hanging Committee.

I have accordingly paid my shilling, and I mean to take it out in criticism. The Academicians have exercised their rights; I shall use mine. There will be plenty of hacks to fawn upon the imbecile canvas-spoilers, the miserable, crass, cringing, dull, feeble, superannuated, impotent, and abject Forty. Of those hacks I decline to be one. Honest truth (uninfluenced by passion) is what the wretched dotards shall hear from me.

[185]

I saw men prowling about (there was Mr. Thackeray, for instance, as large as life, and a host of other “successful” men—I hate success!) who had evidently made up their minds to be pleased with this, the most disreputable Exhibition that ever degraded British Art. Let them. Thoughts is free, as Mrs. Brown said at the play; and so are mine. It is all very well to get a set of literary time-servers to hob and nob with Academicians at the annual orgie which disgraces Trafalgar-square, and on which hundreds of pounds are spent that ought to be devoted to the development of talent such as that of—well, of some I could name; but I was never invited to the so-called banquet. Banquet, indeed! I would rather maintain my honest independence, though I had nothing to eat but a polony—and this is sometimes the case! Look at young Mr. Marcus Stone. I’ll be bound to say he never eats polonies—and[186] yet all London is talking of his “Napoleon,” whilst my “New Crinoline” has not yet met even with a dealer!

Look at Mr. Ruskin. What did they do to him? Why, they asked him to dinner! What was the result?

His Critical Notes have never appeared since!! Not that it matters much.

Exhibition, indeed! Why, you can’t see anything—not that there is much to see—for the crowd of gaping women that block up the hideous and uncomfortable rooms with their preposterous crinoline—and yet the Academicians rejected mine! Then, the “swells”—a set of lounging insipid imbeciles, drawling out their vapid Dundrearyisms—and the old fogies, wagging their stupid old heads—I should like to knock a few of them together!—and the smug, smiling fellows whose pictures have been accepted—and the “Art-Critics,” who pretend to see power in a man like Millais, and poetry in a man like Hook, and humour in a man like Marks, but who are far too high and mighty, I promise you, to come[190] up four pair of stairs and see my “Marsh Mallows,”—and if they did, they couldn’t appreciate them! There, I’m tired of the whole concern—pictures and painters and visitors and all—and Mrs. Edwards is bothering me for the rent—and, unless you print this, to show up the impostors, and send the money by return, I shall have to paint sign-boards. David Cox painted one—and I dare say did it badly—for I never thought much of him! Or any other man!

Fun, 1863.

“Madame, I have picked out a charming husband for you. Only I warn you he is a thorough sportsman. Fond of motoring, mountain-climbing, bicycling, and ballooning.”

Applicant (thoughtfully). “Can’t you give me something that lasts longer?”

“I can’t understand how a man can commit suicide for love.”

“It happens frequently.”

“Well, perhaps so, but if I did it, I should regret it all my life.”

“Hello, Jimson, whither so fast?”

“Don’t stop me. I’m going to my employer’s funeral, and there is nothing he hates so much as to have any one come in late.”

P. Veronese. And you saw this English Painter, who has last arrived among us, Sir Joshua?

Sir J. Reynolds. I did—and, faith, with the more interest that such arrivals become, every day, more rare. But I would rather keep back his tidings from our friends here.

All. Nay—speak—speak!

Rubens. You know, my friend, we have no jealousies here—nor schools.

Rafael. Our noble Michael has forgiven my youthful presumption.

M. Angelo. Not a word of that—I was to blame. Basta! You acted nobly, gracefully, kindly as ever.

Titian. The outline of Rome embraces the colour of Venice; and Titian here, after life, recognizes the might of Michael Angelo, and the saintliness of Rafael.

Rubens. Strange how blind we were on earth!

A. Durer. But the news from England?

M. Angelo. I love your commercial races and their merchant princes. Florence should have been my home. Has England such patrons of art as Soderini—

Rafael. Or as my dear Agostino Chigi? He was a banker, but had the soul of a king. How I loved him! Are there such bankers in England?

A. Durer. Or as my worthy burghers of Nüremberg—the friends of Luther and Melancthon—are such the shopkeepers of England?

P. Veronese. Or such traders as my noble Levantine merchants of the Rialto?

Reynolds. Hush! friends, one at a time, or I drop my ear-trumpet, as I used to do, when Boswell would put troublesome questions. I fear England hardly boasts such men as you have mentioned. But there is a large subscription to the Art-Union, and bad pictures are greedily bought at small prices; good ones at large prices are few in number, and of that few still fewer are sold.

Rubens. I grieve to hear it. But what of your English sovereign? His Majesty, Charles the First (I was ambassador to his Court, you may remember, from my royal friend, Philip of Spain) would stand by my[216] easel for hours, watching me at work, and discoursing to me of art. Doubtless, your sovereign shows like grace to our brethren of this later time?

A. Durer. Nay, you are modest, my Rubens. For the Liebe Deutsche Schule, I must speak for you. Not Charles alone—but the Gonzaga of Mantua, Duke Albert, Philip the Spaniard, and the queenly Medici, gloried in calling you their friend and counsellor.

M. Angelo. They did not honour Art—Art honoured them. How[217] often have I told that hard truth to our Holy Father, fiery old Julius! He cuffed his Chamberlain once, for denying it. But for my own part, I never much affected your kings and great folks.

Rafael. Thy noble nature disdained such shelter as we weaker and more luxurious spirits were fain to take under their escutcheons. And our Leonardo here—Francis, seemed never so great a king as when he picked up thy pencil, oh, my friend, lord not only of thine art, but of all knowledge!

Leonardo da Vinci. Is Art so honoured by the great of England?

Sir J. Reynolds. Hum! Oh, His Majesty George the III was pleased to give a charter to the Royal Academy. I have been presented—but, certainly, I don’t remember to have seen him in my painting room at Leicester Square, or to have been asked to take a seat in the Privy Council.

Rafael. But your reigning monarch is a Queen. Woman has ever loved the Beautiful. Surely she much affects you painters.

Sir J. Reynolds. Hum—ha—I am extremely deaf.

P. Veronese (shouting into his trumpet). Does the Queen give due honour to our brethren?

Sir J. Reynolds. I am assured she has had painted already ten portraits of her gracious self, thirty of her Royal consort, twenty of the Royal infants, and fifty of the Royal pets, from paroquet to Brazilian monkey.

M. Angelo. These are your court painters, who so disgrace their calling. But your Artists? How goes it at the palace with them?

Rubens. Seated at the Royal board, doubtless—in places of honour.

L. da Vinci. Where else should sit the architects, engineers, philosophers, poets of the nation—in whom all knowledge is orbed around the Beautiful, and grows to Art?

Sir J. Reynolds. I am not informed that they do sit exactly at the Royal board, but the equerries’ table is excellent—and no doubt——

M. Angelo. Basta! Do not mince words, man—out with it. The painters’ table with the lackeys! Excellent England!

Titian (aside). These islanders! But our pictures which adorn your English galleries, my Bacchus and Ariadne—I painted it for Gonzaga.

M. Angelo. Well remembered, Vicellio. There’s Sebastiano’s picture, too, in your gallery; I painted the Lazarus, my Rafael, to shame thee. Blister my hand for it! How of it?

Rafael. It is a noble work, and I was honoured by such a rivalry.

Rubens. And my Peace and War? I painted it for your Charles, before I opened my negotiation for peace with Spain. Surely it is well cared-for, as a historic record, if not as a picture?

Sir J. Reynolds. Really my trumpet is out of order—I must go.

P. Veronese (pulling him back). Nay, nay, you must tell us of our pictures. Do they stand your fogs and damps? Are they still brightly mellow, defying time and circumstance as such art should do?

Sir J. Reynolds. Why, the fact is, my friends—I am sorry to say—but our climate is so very damp, and London so smoky—that they have been cleaned.

All. Cleaned!

Titian. My Bacchus and Ariadne! Oh my tints! Oh my glazings! A picture of mine cleaned!

Rubens. My Peace and War! Cleaned! say flayed rather. I[223] know your cleaners. Oh wasted labour; reputation obscured; thoughtful work rudely scrubbed away!

All. Shame and horror!

M. Angelo. So much for your oil-painting. Nay—excuse me, my Rafael—I sympathize with you; but why not work in fresco? Cheer up, my Titian.

Titian. Alas! my favourite work—my Bacchus! Cleaned! Oh Ghost of Gonzaga! Barbarians!

Leonardo da Vinci. Nay, weep not, my beloved friends and brothers. Is it not all of a piece? Art-Unions, royal lap-dogs, condescensions which are insults, and your great pictures ruined and destroyed. Why should you wish to exist in a country where your works have been impotent to implant the seeds of Art, or aid in their growth and nurture.

Titian. Oimè for Venice.

Rafael. Oh Roma, Roma!

A. Durer. Nay—Nüremberg, also, is a town of burghers, and it is not so with them.

Sir J. Reynolds (aside). I cannot console them. Their indignation is too well grounded. I, too, am a painter, but I alone am ashamed of my country!

Punch, 1847.

To-day I was let sit up, tucked up in a quilt in a arm-chare. I soon got tired o’ that, so I ast Betty to get me a glass o’ ice-water to squench my thirst, an’ when she was gone I cut an’ run, an’ went into Susan’s room to look at all them fotografs of nice young men she’s got there in a drawer.

The girls was all down in the parlour, ’cos Miss Watson had come to call. Betty she came a huntin’ me, but I hid in the closet behind a old hoop-skirt. I come out when she went away, and had a real good time. Some o’ them fotografs was written on the back, like this: “Conseated fop!” “Oh, ain’t he sweet?” “He ast me, but I wouldn’t have him.” “A perfect darling!” “What a mouth!” “Portrait of a donkey!”

I kep about two dozen o’ them I knew, to have some fun when I got well. I shut the drawer so Sue wouldn’t notice they was took. I felt as if I could not bare to go back to that nasty room, I was so tired of it, an’ I thought I’d pass my time a playing I was a young lady. I found a lot o’ little curls in the buro, wich I stuck on all around my forehead with a bottle of mewsiledge, and then I seen some red stuff on a sawcer, wich I rubbed onto my cheaks. When I was all fixed up I slid down the bannisters plump against Miss Watson, wot was sayin’ good-bye to my sisters. Such a hollerin’ as they made!

Miss Watson she turned me to the light, an’ sez she, as sweet as pie:

“Where did you get them pretty red cheeks, Geordie?”

Susan she made a sign, but I didn’t know it.

“I found some red stuff in Sue’s drawer,” sez I, and she smiled kind o’ hateful, and said:

“Oh!”

My sister says she is an awful gossip, which will tell all over town that they paint, wich they don’t, ’cause that sawcer was gust to make roses on card-bord, wich is all right.

Sue was so mad she boxed my ears.

“Aha, missy!” sez I to myself, “you don’t guess about them fotografs wot I took out o’ your drawer!”

Some folks think little boys’ ears are made on purpose to be boxed—my sisters do. If they knew what dark and desperate thoughts come[261] into little boys’ minds, they’d be more careful—it riles ’em up like pokin’ sticks into a mud puddel.

I laid low—but beware to-morrow!

They let me come down to breakfast this mornin’.

I’ve got those pictures all in my pockets, you bet your life.

“Wot makes your pockets stick out so?” ast Lily, when I was a waiting a chance to slip out unbeknone.

“Oh, things,” sez I, an’ she laughed.

“I thought mebbe you’d got your books and cloathes packed up in ’em,” sez she, “to run away an’ be a Injun warryor.”

I didn’t let on anything, but ansered her:

“I’ll just go out in the backyard an’ play a spell.”

Well, I got to town, an’ had a lot of fun. I called on’ all the aboriginals of them fotografs.

[262]

“Hello, Georgie! Well agen?” said the first feller I stopped to see.

Oh, my! when I get big enuff I’ll hope my mustaches won’t be waxed like his’n! He’s in a store, an’ I got him to give me a nice cravat, an’ he ast me “Was my sisters well?” so I fished out his fotograf, and gave it to him.

It was the one that had “Conseated Fop!” writ on the back. The girls had drawed his mustaches out twict as long with a pencil, an’ made him smile all acrost his face. He got as red as fire, an’ then he skowled at me:

“Who did that, you little rascal!”

“I should say the spirits did it,” I said, as onest as a owl, an’ I went away quick cause he looked mad.

The nex plaice I come to was a grocery store, where a nuther young man lived. He had red hair an’ freckles, but he seemed to think hisself a beauty. I said:

“Hello, Peters!”

He said:

“The same yourself, Master George. Do you like raisins? Help yourself.”

Boys wot has three pretty sisters allers does get treted well, I notiss. I took a big hanful of raisins an’ sot on the counter eating ’em, till all at oncest, as if I jest thought of it, I took out his fotograf an’ squinted at it, an sez:

“I do declare it looks like you.”

“Let me see it,” sez he.

I wouldn’t for a long time, then I gave it to him. The girls had made freckles all over it. This was the one they wrote on its back, “He asked me, but I wouldn’t have him.” They’d painted his hair as red as a rooster’s comb. He got quite pale when he seen it clost.

“It’s a burning shame,” sez I, “for them young ladies to make fun of their bows.”

“Clear out,” sez Peters.

I grabbed a nuther bunch o’ raisins an’ quietly disappeared. I tell you he was rathy!

Mister Courtenay he was a lawyer, he’s got a offis on the square by the cort-house. I knew him very well, ’cause he comes to our house offen. He’s a awful queer-lookin’ chap, an’ so stuck up you’d think he was tryin’ to see if the moon was made o’ green cheese, like folks sez it is, the way he keeps it in the air. He’s got a depe, depe voice way down in his boots. My harte beat wen I got in there, I was that fritened; but I was bound to see the fun out, so I ast him:

“Is the What is It on exabishun to-day?”

“Wot do you mean?” sez he, a lookin’ down on me.

“Sue said if I would come to Mister Courtenay’s offis I would see wot this is the picture of,” sez I, givin’ him his own fotograf inskribed, “The Wonderful What is It.”

It’s awful funny to see their faces wen they look at their own cards.

In about a minit he up with his foot, wich I dodged just in time. I herd him muttering suthin’ ’bout “suing for scandal.” I think myself I oughter arrest her for ’salt an’ battery, boxing my ears. I wisht he would sue Sue, ’twould serve her right.

I’ll not get to bed fore midnight if I write enny more. I’m yawning now like a dying fish. So, farewell my diry till the next time. I give them cards all back fore dinner-time. There’ll be a row, I expect. I’ve laughed myself almost to fits a thinkin’ of the feller wot I give “The[265] Portrait of a Donkey” to. He looked so cress fallen. I do believe he cried. They were teazin’ ma to let ’em give a party nex’ week wen I got home to dinner. I don’t believe one of them young gentlemen will come to it; the girls have give ’em all away. I don’t care tuppence. Wot for do they take such libertys with my ears if they want me to be good to ’em.

P.S.—I bet their left ears are burning wuss’n ever mine did!

Oh, I don’t think as I ever did ’ave sich a ’ead-ache as that arter we’d been to ’Ampton Court, as I do believe a-settin’ on the grass ’ad struck to me, and cold weal and ’am pie and cowcumber is wittles as along with lobster salad and red currant tart you did ought to be cautious ’ow you takes, and not ’urry thro’ it with all that confusion, and you don’t know what you are a-takin’. And young ’Awkins as were attentive to me kep’ a-fillin’ up my plate and glass every time as I turned my ’ead away a minit, as ’ave know’d ’im from a child, and what with the confusion at the train a-gettin’ back, I were that dizzy as I got into the wrong cab, as thro’ a mistake drove me werry near to Nottin’-’ill afore I could make the stupid feller understand as I wanted South Lambeth, and then to stand me out as I said Bayswater.

It was past one in the mornin’ when I got ’ome, and ’ad to knock Brown up, as were that savage, and all his own fault thro’ not a-lookin’ arter me at the Waterloo Station, thro’ ’avin’ got out at Wauxall, as is certingly nearest, thro’ bein’ not five minits from our door, yet ’ow was I to know as we’d got parted a-gettin’ into the train, and me that dead beat as to fall asleep the werry moment as I were in the train, and never opened my eyes till the man come for the ticket, and a nice trouble I ’ad to find mine and every one in the carriage a-goin’ on at me as is their larkin’ ways of a Sunday night.

Well, as I said afore never did I ’ave sich a ’eadache, as were downright splittin’, and openin’ and a-shettin’ jest like water-works. I ’adn’t took no dinner, so was a-thinkin’ as I’d ’ave a early cup of tea, and was a-settin’ quiet in my front parlour with the blinds drawed down, a-thinkin’ as I might get a nap and be fresh for my tea.

I’d put my feet up on the sofy, as isn’t a thing as I do one time in a thousand, and was a-droppin’ off, when of all the ’owlin’, gruntin’ and squeakin’ noises as ever you ’eard it broke out in our street. I says, “they must be lunatics broke loose, a-makin’ free with them hinstruments, as wouldn’t never make that noise left to theirselves or used proper.”

I gets up and goes to the winder, and I see about four of them German boys a-playin’ away on trombones, like mad, and one on ’em a-tryin’ our gate.

So I knocks at the winder, and shakes my ’ead at ’im, he opens the gate and comes in up to the winder as I opens, and says, “Go along. I don’t want no more of your noise.”

He goes on with ’is gibberish rubbish, and I only says to ’im, “Get out!” and shets down the winder.

Well, them young waggerbones kep’ on a-blowin’ and ’owlin’, like any one in tortures till I couldn’t stand it no longer, so I opens the winder ag’in, and ’olds up a jug of water, as the gal ’ad brought me up for the plants, a-making believe to throw it over ’em, when one of them ’Opwoods as lives next door, comes out and tells ’em to go on playin’ and give ’em money.

The row as they kicked up, then, a-blowin’ right at me with them big ’orns of theirn did so aggravate me that I took and chucked all the water slap among ’em, and if one of them young wretches didn’t pick up a big stone and shiver a pane of glass in my front parlour in a jiffey.

I couldn’t stand that, so ketches up the fust thing as come to, and as proved to be the ’arth broom as ’angs with the kittle ’older, and out of the ’ouse I rushes.

Well, them boys took to their ’eels, when they see me comin’ out of the door, and run a little way, and then stopped and picked up stones and sent a reg’lar wolley at me.

I ducked my ’ead in course, as they all went over right into old ’Opwood’s Green-’ouse, as he jest ’ad put up ag’in ’is parlour.

I never ’eard sich a crash, nor yet sich a roar as old ’Opwood give like demented lions, and out he come on the doorstep, jest as them boys sent a second wolley of stones, and one ketched ’im slap in the mouth, and down he went like a dead un, and them young scoundrels was off like the dust afore the wind as the sayin’ is.

If all them ’Opwoods didn’t come out on the doorstep, and give me their Billinsgate, for the old feller’s got two reg’lar brimstones of daughters, besides ’is old wife as is a reg’lar old dragon of Wantage.

They all yells at me “’ow dare you set them boys on to destroy our property.”

I says, “Me set the boys on? I was a-drivin’ them away with their beastly noise a-distractin’ any one, as you’ve been encouragin’.”

“They was playin’ beautiful,” says one of them Miss ’Opwoods, “my favourite Waltz.”

I says, “So I should think jest the music fit for you to dance to,[275]” for she’s forty-five, and got a ’ump back, and as ugly as she’s wicious.

“Oh, you old cat,” she says to me, a-gnashin’ ’er teeth, “’ow I should like to tear your old wig off.”

I says, “No doubt, for I’m sure you wants one bad enough.”

“Come in Julia,” says the old mother. “Don’t talk to that low old woman.”

[276]

“Yes,” I says, “Go in Julia, and ’elp your ma skin the cat.”

Down the steps come the old woman, and says, “You audacious falsehood; I’ll punish you.”

I’d got to my gate by that time. So I says to ’er, “Stand off you wile filthy old wretch, don’t dare cross my doorstep!” and ’olds up the ’arth broom at ’er.

Her two daughters, a-seein’ me threatenin’ ’er come up, and says, “Ma, dear, come in.”

“Yes,” I says, “Ma dear, do, or else the police may come by, and you may get give in charge ag’in as you was the week afore last,” for the old man ’ad been ’ad up for cruelty to animals twice.

They was all a-goin’ to fly out when a bobby come round the corner, and as soon as they see ’im, they made faces at me, and was a-goin’ off.

I says, “Oh, pray don’t ’urry, here is the police.”

I says to the perliceman, “’Ave you ’ad any one up lately hereabouts for cruelty to animals”; and in they goes and bangs their doors; and well they might, for that wicked old wretch had been destroyin’ of cats brutally, and they’d fined ’im for it; and I do believe as the old woman did use to skin cats, for she wore a fur tippet in the winter as was cats’ skins all over.

But law, ’ow singler things do come ’ome to parties sometimes, to be sure; for it wasn’t but the next Sunday evenin’ arter, as I were alone in the ’ouse, and went out in the front jest to look at some stocks as Brown ’ad planted the night afore, when I thought as I ’eard groans from next door, as is ’Opwood’s.

I listens, and says to myself, “That’s some one in pain or I’m a Dutchman.” So I goes closer to their wall and ’ears them groans and smells burnin’.

So knowin’ as somethink were wrong I ’urries to their door and knocks, but no one a-comin’, I says, “They’re all gone out,” and was a-goin’ away, for I didn’t ’ear no more groans, but I smelt the burnin’; so I says, “No doubt I shall only get insults for my pains, but I’ll try and go in and see what’s amiss.” So I makes my way round to their back door, as were only on the latch, and in I goes, and the smell of burnin’ was downright sickenin’; I goes straight into the front kitchen, and there was old ’Opwood a-layin’ in the fender a-roastin’ as ’ad fell out of ’is chair in a fit.

I ’auls ’im up, and never did see sich a sight as one side of ’is face and all ’is neck and shoulder. The boy jest then come round with the eight o’clock beer, so I ’ollers to ’im to run for a doctor, and I got ’old ’Opwood some’ow into ’is chair, as was quite insensible.

As luck would ’ave it, the doctor jest round the corner were at ’ome, and come at once, and we got the old man’s burns dressed, as I considers there’s nothink finer than whitin’, as the doctor agreed to.

If you’d seen that old Mother ’Opwood’s face and ’er daughters, when they come in jest on ten and found me a-lookin’ arter that old man, as we’d got up on to a sofy in the front parlour.

She begun to scream and holler at fust, and then said as I’d been and done it.

I wasn’t the least put out with ’er, but only says to ’er daughters, “Keep ’er quiet”; which they did by draggin’ on ’er up-stairs, where[279] they kep’ ’er, and I must say, as they spoke werry ’andsome to me, as stopped along with the old man till jest on twelve.

I didn’t think as the old man would ’ave lived thro’ it, but he did, and ’ad his senses back, and able for to talk by the end of the week, and told us as he remembered a-pitchin’ forard ag’in the bars a-tryin’ to get a light for ’is pipe.

He never will be the same man as he were, but it’s been a lesson to ’im and to them, too, not to leave him alone, nor yet to be that insultin’ to a neighbour as they have been to me, a-doin’ everythink to annoy me, and turnin’ me into every redicule as the ’uman ’art can think on.

But they’ll never encourage them orgins and bands as they did use to, and ’ave them inside their gardin’ to play when I’d sent them away, and no doubt we should get on better for the future to come, but I’m glad as we’re a-goin’ to move away, and all as I wants is to part friends, for as to livin’ friendly next door to them I never could.

Fun, 1868.