



Produced by Punch, or the London Charivari, Malcolm Farmer
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 109.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1895.




[Illustration: IN THE VESTRY.

_Strange Minister_ (_to Elder_). "DO YOU COME UP TO THE PULPIT FOR
THE COLLECTION?"

_Elder._ "NA, NA. WE'RE NO PARTICKLER TO A BAWBEE _HERE!_"]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE END OF GEORGIE'S AND JACKY'S HOLIDAYS.

(_A Second Extract from the Note-Book of Mr. Barlow the Younger._)

Now that the summer vacation is drawing rapidly to a close, it may
be as well to record the end of the holidays of my two interesting
charges, GEORGIE and JACKY. Some little time since
I wrote the story of one of their exploits. The two lads do not
live a very eventful life even in their hours of recreation. During
the mid-annual recess I usually choose some delightful spot for our
temporary home, combining the joint charms of change of scene and
increased economy. The fashionable watering-place of Drainville-on-Sea
has a suburb in which apartments may be obtained at a very reasonable
figure. The reason for this lowness of price is no doubt to be traced
to the fact that many of the residences are in the habitation of the
superfluous live stock of a very prosperous pork merchant, having
his house of business in the neighbourhood. However, in spite of our
distance from Drainville-on-Sea, my lads have been fairly contented
with their lot. They have been able to fish, to climb trees, and to
take long walks.

[Illustration]

"Revered Sir," said, on one occasion, GEORGIE, who is
generally accepted as the spendthrift of my brace of students, "it
would give great pleasure to JACKY if you were kindly to give
me a shilling with which to purchase Japanese caramel cannon-balls. I
have reasons for believing that his medical attendant, Dr. COFFYN
BLOCKHEAD, considers that this delicious sweetstuff, or, I should
say, pleasing physic, would be of much benefit to him."

"Why is the lad ill?" I asked, with an anxiety tempered with
incredulity.

"No, revered Sir," promptly replied GEORGIE; "and I fancy
that Dr. COFFYN BLOCKHEAD regards the composition, which may
be obtained at a penny the ounce, or two ounces for three halfpence,
rather as a preventative than a curative. Were JACKY to
have a shilling's-worth, he would not only possess enough to ward
off the shaft of the destroyer himself, but would be able to give
me a sufficient quantity to parry the insidious dart of disease;
and that you might be satisfied that the money was expended in the
life-protecting compound in question, _I_ would willingly undertake to
make the purchase."

Here JACKY protested that he was quite old and conscientious
enough to be trusted with the cash himself.

"Not that I have any doubt of my respected comrade's probity," he
quickly added; "but in matters of business one cannot be too careful."

"My dear pupils," said I, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than
to accede to your request, had I the means at hand. I fancy, in spite
of the opinion of Dr. COFFYN BLOCKHEAD--a physician whose name
I now hear for the first time--that I should have to consider the cost
of Japanese caramel cannon-balls as an incident properly chargeable to
pocket-money. Unfortunately you both exhausted that fund a fortnight
since, by causing me to defray the expenses of a donkey ride, which
mounted up in the aggregate to no less an amount than one shilling and
eightpence halfpenny."

"But surely, revered Sir," suggested GEORGIE, who has a bent
for mathematics; "as our parents allow us half-a-sovereign a week each
for the purposes of recreation, the sum you mention, although not
inconsiderable, would scarcely have----"

"Stop!" I cried, with some show of severity; "you really must not argue
with me. I do not give you all your ten shillings a week, as I am
reserving a portion of them to form the nucleus of an old-age pension
to which you will become entitled on reaching eighty. The scheme is not
without complications, so I reserve its description in detail until you
are both old enough to understand it. Enough to say that I must repeat
the present advance of a shilling is impossible."

After this rebuff the lads were silent, and I regret to say not
altogether contented. However, they soon, with the elasticity of
youth, regained their spirits, and were as merry and as happy as
ever. They absented themselves from my society more frequently than
before, and when I saw them, seemed to be unusually prosperous, or to
use an expressive colloquialism, "flush of money." GEORGIE
continually appeared in gigantic collars that could have only been
acquired at considerable expense, and JACKY as often carried
a new walking-stick with a fairly costly handle. On one occasion they
came home with a gift for me. It was a mug with a rough sketch of a
mule or some less noble animal on the side balancing the handle, and
was labelled "A Present from Drainville-on-Sea." I was gratified, but
my satisfaction savoured of curiosity.

During the absence of my pupils I frequently visited the neighbouring
watering-place. Amongst the many distractions of the sands was one
"entertainment" which caused me considerable embarrassment. Two
"mysterious minstrels" disguised in wideawakes, blue spectacles, and
comforters occasionally made what is known as a "dead set" at me. These
vocalists (who were small, but noisy), did a roaring trade amongst the
excursionists. They seemed to have a long _repertoire_ of songs. They
vocally narrated the adventures of a young person from the country,
who seemingly, with a view to enjoying the restorative effects of
sea-bathing, appeared with "her hair hanging down her back," and the
vagaries of a body of revellers who preferred to parade the streets
"nine in a row," instead of in couples or singly, when they were in a
condition subsequently recognised by the presiding magistrate with a
fine of five shillings. These ditties were not altogether unamusing,
and I might have enjoyed them had they not been supplemented by a song
dealing personally with myself. This last effort was mere doggerel,
but it was so insulting that I was forced to give the vocalists into
custody. I explained that the lines were calculated to cause a breach
of the peace, and the local policeman removed the singers to the
station-house.

[Illustration]

This last adventure caused me some annoyance, and I returned to my
suburban lodgings in the hope that in the cheerful conversation
of my charges I might forget my chagrin. Neither GEORGIE
nor JACKY were at home. The hours of dinner, tea, and
supper passed, and they still put in no appearance. This caused me
considerable surprise, as, although not very regular in their habits,
they were accustomed to pay attention to the fixtures of meal time.
Late in the evening, a police constable called, and explained to me
that two boys had sent for me, as a householder, to bail them out.

The remainder of my narrative is clouded with pain. I would willingly
stop at this point. But, with a view to completeness, I continue. On
reaching the police-station, I learned to my indignation that the
"mysterious minstrels" and my charges had the same identity. This
discovery will ever be a cause of deep regret to myself, and, I think I
may add, for very practical and sufficient reasons, to GEORGIE
and JACKY also.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: RECIPROCITY.

_Columbia._ "SORRY THEY ARE PARTING COMPANY AND GOING HOME--THE
CONTEST FOR THE CUP HAD SUCH A LAME CONCLUSION!"

_Britannia._ "WELL, MY DEAR WHOSE FAULT WAS IT? CONSIDERING THAT
I UNDERTAKE TO RULE THE WAVES, YOU SURELY MIGHT MANAGE TO KEEP THE
COURSE!"]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

_Chorus_ (_slow music_). "WE'RE A RARE OLD--FAIR OLD--RICKETY,
RACKETY CREW!"]

       *       *       *       *       *

A DIALOGUE OF THE NIGHT.

SCENE--_The Shades at Nightfall. The Swiftian Ladies alone._

_Lady Smart._ Well, ladies; now let us have a cup of discourse to
ourselves.

_Lady Answerall._ Tea and tattle! That is all the men used to think us
fit for.

_Lady Sparkish._ But how times have changed--above stairs!

_Lady Smart._ Fie! Say rather _below_ stairs, Lady SPARKISH.
Up and down are arbitrary or relative terms after all, in the universe.
And I'm sure there are no fine drawing-room manners in the modern
modish world.

_Miss Notable._ Heigho! Methinks, nevertheless, I would fain take the
air of a London Season once again, however fallen off from the dear
dead days of Mr. SPECTATOR.

_Lady Answerall._ Hush, child! What would Charon say if he heard you?
Though in truth I am much of your mind myself.

_Lady Sparkish._ Better their vivid vulgarity than our vapid gentility!

_Miss Notable._ La, yes! Our vaporous "fine manners" give me the
vapours.

_Lady Smart._ They do not have "vapours" now, above--well t'other side
the Styx, let us say.

_Lady Answerall._ Indeed, no, nothing so simple and womanly, i' faith.
_They_ have substituted neurotic pessimism--and chloral.

_Lady Smart._ Worse far than our occasional sly sippings of--strong
waters!

_Lady Answerall._ What said the dear satiric Dean?

  "Now all alone poor madam sits
  In vapours and hysteric fits;
  A dreadful interval of spleen
  How shall we pass the time between?
  Here, BETTY, let me take my drops,
  And feel my pulse, I know it stops;
  This head of mine, lord, how it swims
  And such a pain in all my limbs!"

_Miss Notable._ Whereas now it would be:--

  "Now sad and sole poor madam lies,
  Insomnia holding wide her eyes:
  'Past ten, and not a single wink.
  Though I turned in at four, I think!
  If I don't get some hours of sleep,
  To-day's appointments can I keep?
  And 'tis the Prince's garden-party!
  Oh! to be buxom, hale, and hearty
  Like some mere milkmaid, who can drowse
  After a frolic and a bowse,
  Upon a tumbled truss of hay!
  I _must_ have sleep. BETTY, I say,
  Bring me the cognac and the choral!'
  --You may supply the modern moral!"

_Lady Sparkish._ La, child, you are as much a blue-stocking as the
modish she-scribblers of the century-end. _We_ used to leave all that
sort of thing to Grub Street.

_Miss Notable._ Tilly-vally! Grub Street has been made genteel since
the ladies took to haunting it. 'Tis now no shabby Alsatia, but a
swell sanctuary. Faith, one o' these odd-cum-shortlies--as we used to
say--I'll e'en write "The Journal of a Modern Lady" (in imitation of
the Dean) up-to-date, for 1895, instead of 1728, to wit.

_Lady Smart._ Have a care, child! Already you simper like a furmety
kettle, and slop over like an ill-made junket. Soon you'll be as smug
and self-conscious as a new member of "The Souls," if you be not
watchful.

_Miss Notable._ Well, but now the men are away, what really think you,
_entre nous_, of the New Woman movement?

_Lady Answerall._ Why, that 'tis older than MARY
WOOLSTONECROFT, and, in fact, originated about the time when
EVE took the first bite at the first apple.

_Miss Notable._ Heigho! 'Tis fine to sit here in the Shades, and say
so; but I own I should like well enough to ruffle it in new-fangled
clubs and select coteries, to be the talk of the town as APHRA
BEHN was, only in the irreproachable company of popular _savants_
and Bishops' sons; to see my niminy-piminy neuroticisms go into their
tenth edition, have my anti-matrimonial mouthings discussed in monthly
magazines and religious newspapers, and--have a free slap at the
monster, Man, whose best voluntary treatment of us means, at bottom,
nothing better than a golden cage and a silken gag.

_Lady Sparkish._ "Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em!"--as the
Dean said concerning Chief Justice WHITSHED'S coach-motto.

_Miss Notable._ Humph! Did he not also say, in dealing with _The
Furniture of a Woman's Mind_--

  "For conversation well endued
  She calls it witty to be rude"?

_Lady Sparkish._ What _do_ you mean, Miss?

_Miss Notable._ Ha! ha! ha! Not much. But, as Lady ANSWERALL
used to say, when we had a dish of tea and tittle-tattle together in
the sweet, solid, wicked, bewitching old modish days, "You know I'm old
Tell-truth, and love to call a spade a spade."

_Lady Sparkish._ Oh, I see. As the dear old Dean also said--

  "Say, foolish females, bold and blind,
  Say, by what fatal turn of mind,
  Are you on vices most severe
  Wherein yourselves have greatest share?"

 [_Here arises a general criss-cross clatter of contradictions, and the
 gentlemen come in to join the ladies._

_Mr. Neverout_ (_quoting_)--

  "Now voices over voices rise,
  While each to be the loudest vies;
  They contradict, affirm, dispute,
  No single tongue one moment mute;
  All mad to speak and none to hearken,
  They set the very lap-dog barking."

We were disputing, ladies, as to whether these lines were
SWIFT'S or another's. Can _you_ settle the point?

_Miss Notable_ (_snappishly_). Oh, ask a policeman--or a New Woman!!!

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR OWN TORRIST IN NORTH DEVON.

[Illustration]

_On Torrs Walks, Ilfracombe._--"Here they come by twos and twos, In
twos on Torrs they swarm." Quotation adapted. "Two" form a Company
Limited on Torrs Walks. The third person present is "out of it." They
tell me these couples are all honeymooners. Perhaps; but _if they are
not, they ought to be_. That's all.

* * *

Maybe these duologues are only private rehearsals. Practice makes
perfect. I have no special information on this mysterious subject.

* * *

_On the above-mentioned Honeymooners_--

  "Marriages are made in heav'n,"
  When begun in Northern Dev'n.

* * *

A descriptive writer says, "In the Torrs Walks are to be found the
most bracing spots in all Ilfracombe." From what I have accidentally
observed, I should correct the above sentence thus:--"_In the Torrs
Walks are to be found some of the most em-bracing spots in all
Ilfracombe_."

* * *

_Rara Avis in Torr-is._--Seldom are birds seen flying about, and
still fewer hopping about, the Torrs. My jocose friend WILLY
WAGSTAFF says "Birds only go 'hopping' in Kent." Good-bye to W.
W. Somehow, as a rule, the birds do not affect the Torrs. I fancy the
twopence for entry is a prohibition. Once I saw a lonely bird on the
_penny_ path; but _that_ was a pigeon.

* * *

I have seen a whole flock of rooks cawing querulously--"quirring" would
be a better descriptive participle--on and about the lower part of the
precipitous, rocky Torrs; but never have I seen them perching on the
highest point of the Torrs, which is as inaccessible to these birds
at twopence as would be the aforesaid lower portion to the unwinged
pedestrian even at a halfpenny; unless pedestrian should arrive at
rookery by accidentally tumbling over from above, in which case it is
much to be feared he would probably be "left till called for."

* * *

One of the most interesting sights on the Torrs is the occasional
appearance of a kindly gentleman, carrying a snow-white cockatoo, with
a magnificent yellow crest, perfectly tame, and perched on his owner's
wrist, just as the parrot used to perch on the wrist of our old friend
_Robinson Crusoe_.

* * *

The parrot, unchained, is a genuine "Bird of Freedom"; but he never
misuses his liberty, nor abuses his privilege of speech, but, from time
to time, he erects or lowers his crest, and expresses his approbation
of things in general, or his disapprobation of anything in particular.
A great companion this POLLY.

* * *

_Recent Solar Discovery._--I picked it up on Torrs Walks. The sun was
setting magnificently. Near me there stood, observing the effect, a
young lady and a very old one. Quoth the