Chapter I: Part 1

[Transcriber's Note: Italicized text is indicated with _underscores_. Upright text used within italicized passages for emphasis is indicated with ~tildes~. Inconsistencies in "Shakspeare" spellings have been retained, but obvious errors have been corrected and are listed at the end of this document.]

BABOO JABBERJEE, B.A.

F. Anstey

THE WAYFARER'S LIBRARY

J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
LONDON

CONTENTS

PAGE

I

_Mr Jabberjee apologises for the unambitious scope of his
work; sundry confidences, criticisms, and complaints._ 1

II

_Some account of Mr Jabberjee's experiences at the
Westminster Play._ 9

III

_Mr Jabberjee gives his views concerning the Laureateship._ 18

IV

_Containing Mr Jabberjee's Impressions at The Old Masters._ 24

V

_In which Mr Jabberjee expresses his Opinions on
Bicycling as a Pastime._ 33

VI

_Dealing with his Adventures at Olympia._ 42

VII

_How Mr Jabberjee risked a Sprat to capture something
very like a Whale._ 50

VIII

_How Mr Jabberjee delivered an Oration at a Ladies'
Debating Club._ 60

IX

_How he saw the practice of the University Crews,
and what he thought of it._ 69

X

_Mr Jabberjee is taken to see a Glove-Fight._ 75

XI

_Mr Jabberjee finds himself in a position of extreme
delicacy._ 80

XII

_Mr Jabberjee is taken by surprise._ 88

XIII

_Drawbacks and advantages of being engaged. Some Meditations
in a Music-hall, together with notes of certain things that
Mr Jabberjee failed to understand._ 96

XIV

_Mr Jabberjee's fellow-student. What's in a Title? An
invitation to a Wedding. Mr J. as a wedding guest, with
what he thought of the ceremony, and how he distinguished
himself on the occasion._ 105

XV

_Mr Jabberjee is asked out to dinner. Unreasonable behaviour
of his betrothed. His doubts concerning the social
advantages of a Boarding Establishment, with some scathing
remarks upon ambitious pretenders. He goes out to dinner,
and meets a person of some importance._ 114

XVI

_Mr Jabberjee makes a pilgrimage to the Shrine of
Shakespeare._ 125

XVII

_Containing some intimate confidences from Mr Jabberjee,
with the explanation of such apparent indiscretion._ 135

XVIII

_Mr Jabberjee is a little over-ingenious in his excuses._ 138

XIX

_Mr Jabberjee tries a fresh tack. His visit to the India
Office and sympathetic reception._ 146

XX

_Mr Jabberjee distinguishes himself in the Bar Examination,
but is less successful in other respects. He writes
another extremely ingenious epistle, from which he
anticipates the happiest results._ 155

XXI

_Mr Jabberjee halloos before he is quite out of the Wood._ 164

XXII

_Mr Jabberjee places himself in the hands of a
solicitor--with certain reservations._ 173

XXIII

_Mr Jabberjee delivers his Statement of Defence, and makes
his preparations for the North. He allows his patriotic
sentiments to get the better of him in a momentary
outburst of disloyalty--to which no serious importance
need be attached._ 182

XXIV

_Mr Jabberjee relates his experiences upon the Moors._ 190

XXV

_Mr Jabberjee concludes the thrilling account of his
experiences on a Scotch Moor, greatly to his own
glorification._ 199

XXVI

_Mr Jabberjee expresses some audaciously sceptical opinions.
How he secured his first Salmon, with the manner in which
he presented it to his divinity._ 207

XXVII

_Mr Jabberjee is unavoidably compelled to return to town,
thereby affording his Solicitor the inestimable benefit
of his personal assistance. An apparent attempt to pack
the Jury._ 216

XXVIII

_Mankletow ~v.~ Jabberjee. Notes taken by Mr Jabberjee
in Court during the proceedings._ 225

XXIX

_Further proceedings in the Case of Mankletow ~v.~
Jabberjee. Mr Jabberjee's Opening for the Defence._ 235

XXX

_Mankletow ~v.~ Jabberjee (part heard). Mr Jabberjee
finds cross-examination much less formidable than he had
anticipated._ 245

XXXI

_Mankletow ~v.~ Jabberjee (continued). The Defendant
brings his Speech to a somewhat unexpected conclusion, and
Mr Witherington, Q.C., addresses the Jury in reply._ 255

XXXII

_Containing the conclusion of the whole matter, and (which
many Readers will receive in a spirit of chastened
resignation) Mr Jabberjee's final farewell._ 265

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

_"Unaccustomed to dark-complexioned gentlemen."_ _Frontispiece_

_Baboo Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A._ viii

_"Let out! Let out!!"_ 5

_"A golden-headed umbrella, fresh as a rose."_ 15

_"Miss Jessimina Mankletow."_ 25

_"I instantaneously endured the total upset!"_ 37

_"With a large, stout constable."_ 47

_"Was accosted by a polite, agreeable stranger."_ 51

_"A weedy, tall male gentleman."_ 61

_"A beaming simper of indescribable suavity."_ 81

_"I became once more the silent tomb."_ 91

_"In garbage of unparagoned shabbiness."_ 99

_"The spectators saluted me with shouts of joy as the
returned Shahzadar."_ 107

_"Some haughty masculine might insult her under
my very nose."_ 115

_"It was here," I said, reverently, "that the swan of
Avon was hatched!"_ 129

_"Ascended his bicycle with a waggish winkle in his eye."_ 141

_"Pitch it strong, my respectable Sir!"_ 151

_"Huzza! Tol-de-rol-loll!"_ 157

_"A royal command from the Queen-Empress."_ 169

_"Would be greatly improved by the simple addition
of some knee-caps."_ 179

_"I am addressed by an underbred street-urchin as a
'Blooming Blacky!'"_ 187

_"Of incredible bashfulness and bucolical appearance."_ 191

_"I presented my trophy and treasure-trove to the
fairylike Miss Wee-Wee."_ 203

_"Whether he had wha-haed wi' hon'ble Wallace?"_ 209

_Baboo Chuckerbutty Ram._ 219

_"Fresh as a daisy, and fine as a carrot fresh scraped."_ 227

_Mr Justice Honeygall._ 237

_Witherington, Q.C._ 247

_"Jabberjee's face gradually lengthens."_ 261

The text and illustrations of this book are reproduced by kind permission of the Proprietors of _Punch_.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM BABOO JABBERJEE.

_To the Hon'ble ---- Punch._

VENERABLE AND LUDICROUS SIR.--Permit me most respectfully to bring beneath your notice a proposal which I serenely anticipate will turn up trumps under the fructifying sunshine of your esteemed approbation.

Sir, I am an able B.A. of a respectable Indian University, now in this country for purposes of being crammed through Inns of Court and Law Exam., and rendering myself a completely fledged Pleader or Barrister in the Native Bar of the High Court.

Since my sojourn here, I have accomplished the laborious perusal of your transcendent and tip-top periodical, and, hoity toity! I am like a duck in thunder with admiring wonderment at the drollishness and jocosity with which your paper is ready to burst in its pictorial department. But, alack! when I turn my critical attention to the literary contents, I am met with a lamentable deficiency and no great shakes, for I note there the fly in the ointment and _hiatus valde deflendus_--to wit the utter absenteeism of a correct and classical style in English composition.

To the highly educated native gentleman who searches your printed articles, hoping fondly to find himself in a well of English pure and undefiled, it proves merely to fish in the air. Conceive, Sir, the disgustful result to one saturated to the skin of his teeth in best English masterpieces of immaculate and moderately good prose extracts and dramatic passages, published with notes for the use of the native student, at weltering in a hotchpot and hurley-burley of arbitrarily distorted and very vulgarised cockneydoms and purely London provincialities, which must be of necessity to him as casting pearls before a swine!

And I have the honour to inform you of a number of cultivated lively young native B.A.'s, both here and in my country, who are quite capable to appreciate really fine writing and sonoriferous periods if published in your paper, and which would infallibly result in a feather in your cap and bring increase of grit to the mill.

If, Honoured Sir, you feel disposed to bolster yourself up with the wet blanket of a _non possumus_, and reply to me that your existing quill-drivers are too fat-witted and shallow-pated for the production of more pretentiously polished lucubrations--aye, not even if they burn the night-light oil and hear the chimes at midnight! I will not be hoodwinked by the superficiality of your _cui bono_, and shall make you the answer that I am willing _for an exceedingly paltry honorarium_ to rush into the Gordian knot and write you the most superior essays on every conceivable and inconceivable subject under the sun, as per enclosed samples which I forward respectfully for your delightful and golden opinions, guaranteeing faithfully that all of your readers in every hemisphere and postal district will fall in love with such a new departure and fresh tack.

The specimens I send are _not my best_, only very ordinary and humdrum affairs--but _ex pede Herculem!_ Hon'ble Sir, and you will see how transcendentally superior are even such poor effusions compared to the fiddle-faddle and gim-crack style of article with which you are being fobbed off by puzzle-headed and self-opiniated nincompoops.

I can also turn out rhymed poetry after models of Poets TENNYSON, COWPER, Mrs HEMANS, SOUTHEY, & Co., _done to a tittle_, so as not to be detected, even by the cynosure, as mere spurious imitation, but in every respect up to the mark and the real Simon Pure.

Therefore, Hon'ble Sir, do not hesitate to strike while the iron is incandescent and bleed freely, even if it should be necessary, prior to engaging your humble petitioner's services, to turn out one or more of your present contributioners crop and heels, and lay them on the shelf of their own incompetencies. Remember that the slightest act of volition on your part can exalt my pecuniary status to the skies, as well as confer distinguished and unparagoned ennoblement upon your _cacoëthes scribendi_.

I remain, respected Sir, Your most obsequious Servant,

HURRY BUNGSHO JABBERJEE, B.A.

P.S. and N.B.--Being so unacquainted with the limner's art, I cannot _at present_ undertake the etching of caricatures _et hoc genus omne_. However, if such is your will, Hon'ble Sir, I will take the cow by the horns, after preliminary course of instruction at Government Art School, all expenses, &c., to be defrayed on the nail out of your purse of Fortunatus, seeing that your esteemed correspondent is so hard up between two stools that he is reduced to a choice of Hodson's Horse!

H. B. J.

I

_Mr Jabberjee apologises for the unambitious scope of his
work; sundry confidences, criticisms and complaints._

When I first received intimation from the supernal and spanking hand of Hon'ble _Mr Punch_, that he smiled with fatherly benignity at my humble request that he should offer myself as a regular poorly-paid contributor, I blessed my stars and was as if to jump over the moon for jubilation and sprightfulness.

But, heigh-ho! _surgit amari aliquid_, and his condescending patronage was dolefully alloyed with the inevitable dash of bitters which, as Poet SHAKSPEARE remarks, withers the galled jade until it winces. For with an iron heel has Hon'ble _Mr P._ declined sundry essays of enormous length and importance, composed in Addisonian, Johnsonian, and Gibbonian phraseology on assorted topics, such as "Love," "Civilisation," "Matrimony," "Superstition," "Is Courage a Virtue, or _Vice Versâ_?" and has recommended me instead to devote my pen to quite ephemeral and fugacious topics, and merely commit to paper such reflections, critical opinions, and experiences as may turn up in the potluck of my daily career.

What wonder that on reading such a _sine quâ non_ and ultimatum my _vox faucibus hæsit_ and stuck in my gizzard with bashful sheepishness, for how to convulse the Thames and set it on fire and all agog with amazement at the humdrum incidents of so very ordinary an existence as mine, which is spent in the diligent study of Roman, Common, International, and Canonical Law from morn to dewy eve in the lecture-hall or the library of my inn, and, as soon as the shades of night are falling fast, in returning to my domicilium at Ladbroke Grove with the undeviating punctuality of a tick?

However, being above all things desirous not to let slip the golden opportunity and pocket the root of all evil, I decided to let my diffidence go to the wall and boldly record every jot and tittle, however humdrum, with the critical reflections and censorious observations arising therefrom, remembering that, though the fabulous and mountain-engendered mouse was no doubt at the time considered but a fiasco and flash in the pan by its maternal progenitor, nevertheless that same identical mouse rendered yeomanry services at a subsequent period to the lion involved in the compromising intricacies of a landing-net!

Benevolent reader, _de te fabula narratur_. Perchance the mousey bantlings of my insignificant brain may nibble away the cords of prejudice and exclusiveness now encircling many highly respectable British lions. Be not angry with me therefore, if in the character of a damned but good-natured friend, I venture on occasions to "hint dislike and hesitate disgust."

The majestic and magnificent matron, under whose aegis I reside for rs. 20 per week, is of lofty lineage, though fallen from that high estate into the peck of troubles, and compelled (owing to severely social disposition) to receive a number of small and select boarders.

Like _Jepthah_, in the play of _Hamlet_, she has one fair daughter and no more, a bewitching and well-proportioned damsel, as fine as a fivepence or a May-day queen. Notwithstanding this, when I summon up my courage to address her, she receives my laborious politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of a dark complexion.

In addition, I have the honour to inform you of further specimens of this inurbanity and bearishness from officials who are perfect strangers to the writer. Each morning I journey through the subterranean bowels of the earth to the Temple, and on a recent occasion, when I was descending the stairs in haste to pop into the train, lo and behold, just as I reached the gate, it was shut in my nose by the churlishness of the jack-in-office!

At which, stung to the quick at so unprovoked and unpremeditated an affront, I accosted him severely through the bars of the wicket, demanding sarcastically, "Is _this_ your boasted British Jurisprudence?"

The savage heart of the Collector was moved by my expostulation, and he consented to open the gate, and imprint a perforated hole on my ticket; but, alack! his repentance was a day after the fair, for the train had already taken its hook into the Cimmerian gloom of a tunnel! When the next train arrived, I, waiting prudently until it was quiescent, stepped into a compartment, wherein I was dismayed and terrified to find myself alone with an individual and two lively young terriers, which barked minaciously at my legs.

But I, with much presence of mind, protruded my head from the window, vociferating to those upon the platform, "Let out! Let out!! Fighting dogs are here!!!"

And they met my appeal with unmannerly jeerings, until the controller of the train, seeing that I was firm in upholding my dignity of British subject, and claiming my just rights, unfastened the door and permitted me to escape; but, while I was yet in search of a compartment where no canine elements were in the manger, the train was once more in motion, and I, being no daredevil to take such leap into the dark, was a second time left behind, and a loser of two trains. Moreover, though I have written a humbly indignant petition to the Hon'ble Directors of the Company pointing out loss of time and inconvenience through incivility, and asking them for small pecuniary compensation, they have assumed the rhinoceros hide, and nilled my request with dry eyes.

But I shall next make the further complaint that, even when making every effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and--as King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil, politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took to decapitate--so I, too, must draw attention to the fact that the duration of formal ceremonious visits, is far too protracted and long drawn out.

_Crede experto._ A certain young English gentleman, dwelling in the Temple, whose acquaintance I have formed, earnestly requested that I should do him the honour of a visit; and recently, wishing to be hail fellow well met, I presented myself before him about 9.30 A.M.

He greeted me with effusion, shaking me warmly by the hand, and begging me to be seated, and making many inquiries, whether I preferred India to England, and what progress I was making in my studies, &c., and so forth, all of which I answered faithfully, to the best of my abilities.

After that he addressed me by fits and starts and _longo intervallo_, yet displaying so manifest and absorbent a delight in my society that he could not bring himself to terminate the audience, while I was to conceal my immense wearisomeness and the ardent desire I had conceived to leave him.

And thus he detained me there hour after hour, until five minutes past one P.M., when he recollected, with many professions of chagrin, that he had an appointment to take his tiffin, and dismissed me, inviting me cordially to come again.

If, however, it is expected of me that I can devote three hours and a half to ceremonial civilities, I must respectfully answer with a _Nolo episcopari_, for my time is more precious than rubies, and so I will beg not only Mr MELLADEW, Esq., Barrister-at-law, but all other Anglo-Saxon friends and their families, to accept this as a _verbum sap._ and wink to a blind horse.

II

_Some account of Mr Jabberjee's experiences at the
Westminster Play._

Being forearmed by editorial beneficence with ticket of admission to theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at Westminster College, I presented myself at the scene of acting in a state of liveliest and frolicsome anticipation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of December last, about 7.20 P.M.

At the summit of the stairs I was received by a posse of polite and stalwart striplings in white kids, who, after abstracting large circular orifice from my credentials, ordered me to ascend to a lofty gallery, where, on arriving, I found every chair pre-occupied, and moreover was restricted to a prospect of the backs of numerous juvenile heads, while expected to remain the livelong evening on the tiptoe of expectation and Shank's mare!

This for a while I endured submissively from native timidity and retirement, until my bosom boiled over at the sense of "_Civis Romanus sum_," and, descending to the barrier, I harangued the wicket-keeper with great length and fervid eloquence, informing him that I was graduate of high-class Native University after passing most tedious and difficult exams with fugitive colours and that it was injurious and deleterious to my "_mens sana in corpore sano_" to remain on legs for some hours beholding what I practically found to be invisible.

But, though he turned an indulgent ear to my quandary, he professed his inability to help me over my "_pons asinorum_," until I ventured to play the ticklish card and inform him that I was a distinguished representative of Hon'ble _Punch_, who was paternally anxious for me to be awarded a seat on the lap of luxury.

Then he unbended, and admitted me to the body of the auditorium, where I was conducted to a coign of vantage in near proximity to members of the fair sex and galaxy of beauty.

Thus, by dint of nude gumption, I was in the bed of clover and seventh heaven, and more so when, on inquiry from a bystander, I understood that the performance was taken from Mr TERRISS'S Adelphi Theatre, which I had heard was conspicuous for excellence in fierce combats, blood-curdling duels, and scenes in court. And I narrated to him how I too, when a callow and unfledged hobbardyhoy, had engaged in theatrical entertainments, and played such parts in native dramas as heroic giant-killers and tiger slayers, in which I was an "_au fait_" and "_facile princeps_," also in select scenes from SHAKSPEARE'S play of _Macbeth_ in English and being correctly attired as a Scotch.

But presently I discovered that the play was quite another sort of Adelphi, being a jocose comedy by a notorious ancient author of the name of TERENCE, and written entirely in Latin, which a contiguous damsel expressed a fear lest she should find it incomprehensible and obscure. I hastened to reassure her by explaining that, having been turned out as a certificated B.A. by Indian College, I had acquired perfect familiarity and nodding acquaintance with the early Roman and Latin tongues, and offering my services as interpreter of "_quicquid agunt homines_," and the entire "_farrago libelli_," which rendered her red as a turkeycock with delight and gratitude. When the performance commenced with a scenic representation of the Roman Acropolis, and a venerable elderly man soliloquising lengthily to himself, and then carrying on a protracted logomachy with another greybeard--although I understood sundry colloquial idioms and phrases such as "_uxorem duxit_," "_carum mihi_," "_quid agis?_" "_cur amat?_" and the like, all of which I assiduously translated _vivâ voce_--I could not succeed in learning the reason why they were having such a snip-snap, until the interval, when the lady informed me herself that it was because one of them had carried off a nautch-girl belonging to the other's son--which caused me to marvel greatly at her erudition.

I looked that, in the next portion of the performance, I might behold the nautch-girl, and witness her forcible rescue--or at least some saltatory exhibition; but, alack! she remained _sotto voce_ and hermetically sealed; and though other characters, in addition to the elderly gentlemen, appeared, they were all exclusively masculine in gender, and there was nothing done but to converse by twos and threes. When the third portion opened with a long-desiderated peep of petticoats, I told my neighbour confidently that now at last we were to see this dancing girl and the abduction; but she replied that it was not so, for these females were merely the mother of the wife of another of the youths and her attendant ayah. And even this precious pair, after weeping and wringing their hands for a while, vanished, not to appear again.

Now as the entertainment proceeded, I fell into the dumps with increasing abashment and mortification to see everyone around me, ay, even the women and the tenderest juveniles! clap the hands and laugh in their sleeves with merriment at quirks and gleeks in which--in spite of all my classical proficiency--I could not discover _le mot pour rire_ or crack so much as the cream of a jest, but must sit there melancholy as a gib cat or smile at the wrong end of mouth.

For, indeed, I began to fear that I had been fobbed off with the smattered education of a painted sepulchre, that I should fail so dolorously to comprehend what was plain as a turnpike-staff to the veriest British babe and suckling!

However, on observing more closely, I discovered that most of the grown-up adults present had books containing the translation of all the witticisms, which they secretly perused, and that the feminality were also provided with pink leaflets on which the dark outline of the plot was perspicuously inscribed.

Moreover, on casting my eyes up to the gallery, I perceived that there were overseers there armed with long canes, and that the small youths did not indulge in plaudations and hilarity except when threatened by these.

And thereupon I took heart, seeing that the proceedings were clearly veiled in an obsolete and cryptic language, and it was simply matter of rite and custom to applaud at fixed intervals, so I did at Rome as the Romans did, and was laughter holding both his sides as often as I beheld the canes in a state of agitation.

I am not unaware that it is to bring a coal from Newcastle to pronounce any critical opinion upon the ludibrious qualities of so antiquated a comedy as this, but, while I am wishful to make every allowance for its having been composed in a period of prehistoric barbarity, I would still hazard the criticism that it does not excite the simpering guffaw with the frequency of such modern standard works as _exempli gratiâ_, _Miss Brown_, or _The Aunt of Charley_, to either of which I would award the palm for pure whimsicality and gawkiness.

Candour compels me to admit, however, that the conclusion of the Adelphi, in which a certain magician summoned a black-robed, steeple-hatted demon from the nether world, who, after commanding a minion to give a pickle-back to sundry grotesque personages, did castigate their ulterior portions severely with a large switch, was a striking amelioration and betterment upon the preceding scenes, and evinced that TERENCE possessed no deficiency of up-to-date facetiousness and genuine humour; though I could not but reflect--"_O, si sic omnia!_" and lament that he should have hidden his _vis comica_ for so long under the stifling disguise of a _serviette_.

I am a beggar at describing the hurly-burly and most admired disorder amidst which I performed the descent of the staircase in a savage perspiration, my elbows and heels unmercifully jostled by a dense, unruly horde, and going with nose in pocket, from trepidation due to national cowardice, while the seething mob clamoured and contended for overcoats and hats around very exiguous aperture, through which bewildered custodians handed out bundles of sticks and umbrellas, in vain hope to appease such impatience. Nor did I succeed to the recovery of my hat and paraphernalia until after twenty-four and a half minutes (Greenwich time), and with the labours of Hercules for the golden fleece!

For which I was minded at first to address a sharp remonstrance and claim for indemnity to some pundit in authority; but perceiving that by such fishing in troubled waters I was the gainer of a golden-headed umbrella, fresh as a rose, I decided to accept the olive branch and bury the bone of contention.

III

_Mr Jabberjee gives his views concerning the
Laureateship._

It is "_selon les règles_" and _rerum naturâ_ that the QUEEN'S Most Excellent Majesty, being constitutionally partial to poetry, should desire to have constant private supply from respectable tip-top genius, to be kept snug on Royal premises and ready at momentary notice to oblige with song or dirge, according as High Jinks or Dolorousness are the Court orders of the day.

But how far more satisfactory if Right Hon'ble Marquis SALISBURY, instead of arbitrarily decorating some already notorious bard with this "_cordon bleu_" and thus gilding a lily, should throw the office open to competition by public exam, and, after carefully weighing such considerations as the applicant's _res angusta domi_, the fluency of his imagination, his nationality, and so on--should award the itching palm of Fame to the poet who succeeded best in tickling his fancy!

Had some such method been adopted, the whole Indian Empire might to-day have been pleased as _Punch_ by the selection of a Hindoo gentleman to do the job--for I should infallibly have entered myself for the running. Unfortunately such unparalleled opportunity of throwing soup to Cerberus, and exhibiting colour-blindness, has been given the slip, though the door is perhaps still open (even at past eleven o'clock P.M.) for retracing the false step and web of Penelope.

For I would respectfully submit to Her Imperial Majesty that, in her duplicate capacity of Queen of England and Empress of India, she has urgent necessity for a Court Poet for each department, who would be _Arcades ambo_ and two of a trade, and share the duties with their proportionate pickings.

Or, if she would be unwilling to pay the piper to such a tune, I alone would work the oracle in both Indian and Anglo-Saxon departments, and waive the annual tub of sherry for equivalent in cash down.

And, if I may make the suggestion, I would strongly advise that this question of my joint (or several) appointment should be severely taken up by London Press as matter of simple justice to India. This is without prejudice to the already appointed Laureate as a swan and singing bird of the first water. All I desire is that the Public should know of another--and, perchance, even rarer--avis, who is _nigroque simillima cygno_, and could be obtained dog cheap for a mere song or a drug in the marketplace, if only there is made a National Appeal to the Sovereign that he should be promoted to such a sinecure and _ære perennius_.

As a specimen of the authenticity of my divine flatulence, please find inclosed herewith copy of complimentary verses, written by myself on hearing of Poet AUSTIN'S selection. Indulgence is kindly requested for very hasty composition, and circumstance of being greatly harrowed and impeded at time of writing by an excruciating full sized boil on back of neck, infuriated by collar of shirt, poulticings, and so forth.

CONGRATULATORY ODE

_To Hon'ble Poet-Laureate Alfred Austin, Esq._

Hail! you full-blown tulip!
Oh! when the wheezing zephyr brought glad news
Of your judicious appointment, no hearts who did peruse,
Such a long-desiderated slice of good luck were sorry at,
To a most prolific and polacious Poet-Laureate!
For no _poeta nascitur_ who is fitter
To greet Royal progeny with melodious twitter.
Seated on the resplendent cloud of official Elysium,
Far away, far away from fuliginous busy hum
You are now perched with phenomenal velocity
On vertiginous pinnacle of poetic pomposity!
Yet deign to cock thy indulgent eye at the petition
Of one consumed by corresponding ambition,
And lend the helping hand to lift, pulley-hauley,
To Parnassian Peak this poor perspiring Bengali!
Whose _ars poetica_ (as per sample lyric)
Is fully competent to turn out panegyric.
What if some time to come, perhaps not distant,
You were in urgent need of Deputy-Assistant!
For two Princesses might be confined simultaneously--
Then, how to homage the pair extemporaneously?
Or with Nuptial Ode, lack-a-daisy! What a fix
If with Influenza raging like cat on hot bricks!
In such a wrong box you will please remember yours truly,
Who can do the needful satisfactorily and duly,
By an _epithalamium_ (or what not) to inflame your credit
With every coronated head that will have read it!
And the _quid pro quo_, magnificent and grand Sir!
Would be at the rate of four annas for every stanza,
Now, thou who scale sidereal paths afar dost,
Deign from thy brilliant boots to cast the superfluous star-dust
Upon
The head of him
Whose fate depends
On Thee!

(_Signed_) BABOO HURRY BUNGSHO JABBERJEE.

The above was forwarded (_post-paid_) to Hon'ble AUSTIN'S official address at Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey (opposite the Royal Aquarium), but--hoity-toity and _mirabile dictu!_--no answer has yet been vouchsafed to yours truly save the cold shoulder of contemptuous inattention!

What a pity! Well-a-day, that we should find such passions of envy and jealousy in bosom of a distinguished poet, whose lucubrated productions may (for all that is known to the present writer) be no great shakes after all, and mere food for powder!

The British public is an ardent lover of the scintillating jewellery of fair play, and so I confidently submit my claims and poetical compositions to be arbitrated by the unanimous voice of all who understand such articles.

Let us remember that it is never too late to pull down the fallen idol out of the gilded shrine in which it has established itself with the egotistical isolation of a dog with the mange!

IV

_Containing Mr Jabberjee's Impressions at The Old
Masters._

I have the honour to report that the phantom of delight has recently recommenced to dance before me.

Miss JESSIMINA MANKLETOW, the perfumed, moony-faced daughter of the gracious and eagle-eyed goddess who presides over the select boarding establishment in which I am resident member, has of late emerged from the shell of superciliousness, and brought the beaming eye of encouragement to bear upon my diffidence and humility.

This I partly attribute to general impression--which I do not condescend to deny--that, at home, I occupy the social status of a Rajah, or some analogous kind of big native pot.

So, on a recent Saturday afternoon, she invited me to escort her and a similar young virginal lady friend, by name Miss PRISCILLA PRIMMETT, to Burlington House, Piccadilly, and, as _Prince Hamlet_ appositely remarks, "Look here upon this picture and on this." Which I joyfully accepted, being head-over-heels in love with Art, and the possessor of two magnificent coloured photo-lithographs, representing a steeplechase in the act of jumping a trench, and a water-nymph in the very _décolleté_ undress of "_puris naturalibus_," weltering on a rushy bed.

We proceeded thither upon the giddy summit of a Royal Oak omnibus, and on arriving in the vestibulum, were peremptorily commanded to undergo total abstinence from our umbrellas.

Being accompanied by the span-new silken affair with the golden head, which, as I have narrated _supra_, I was so lucky to obtain promiscuously after witnessing the Adelphi of the Westminster college boys, I naturally protested vehemently against such arbitrary and tyrannical regulations, urging the risk of my unprotected umbrella being feloniously abducted during unavoidable absence by some unprincipled and illegitimate claimant.

But, alack! I was confronted with the official ultimatum and _sine quâ non_, and have subsequently learnt that the cause of this self-denying ordinance is due to the uncontrollable enthusiasm of British Public for works of art, which leads them to signify approbation by puncturing innumerable orifices by dint of sticks or umbrellas in the process of pointing out tit-bits of painting, and on account of the detrimental influence on the marketable value of pictures thus distinguished by the plerophory of the _Vox Populi_.

Nevertheless, my heart was oppressed with many misgivings at having to hand over three hostage umbrellas--one being masculine and two feminine gender--and receiving nothing in exchange but a wooden medallion of no intrinsic worth, bearing the utterly disproportionate number of over one thousand! Next, after, at Miss JESSIMINA'S bidding, having purchased a sixpenny index, we ascended the staircase, and on shelling out three shillings cash payment, were consecutively squeezed through a restricted wicket as if needles going through the eye of a camel.

I will vouchsafe to aver that my interior sensations on penetrating the first gallery were those of acute and indignant disappointment, for will it be credited that a working majority of the exhibits were second, or even third and fourth-hand mechanisms of an unparagoned dingitude, and fit only for the lumbering room?

Perhaps I shall be told that this wintry exhibition is a mere stopgap and makeshift, until a fresh supply of bright new paintings can be procured, and that it is _ultra vires_ to obtain such for love or money before the merry month of May.

Still I must persist in denouncing the penny wisdom and pound foolery of the Academicals in foisting off upon the public such ancient and fish-like articles that have long ceased to be _bon ton_ and in the fashion, since it is undeniable that many are over fifty years, and some several centuries behind the times!

It is to be hoped that these parsimonious Misters will soon recognise that it is not possible for modern up-to-date Art to be florescent under this retrograde and fossilized system, and be warned that such untradesmanlike goings-on will deservedly forfeit the confidence and patronage of their most fastidious customers.

Miss JESSIMINA remarked more than once that such and such a picture was not in _her_ taste and she would never have chosen it personally, while Miss PRIMMETT declared that she would not have had her likeness taken by Hon'ble Sir JOSH GAINSBORO, or Misters VELASKY and VANDICK, not even if they implored her on their bended marrowbones, and that, as for a certain individual effeminately named ETTY, it was a wonderment to her how respectable people could stand in front of such brazen performances! These remarks are trivial, perhaps, but even straws will serve as cocks of the weather on occasions, and, moreover, I shall certify that the most general tone was of a critical and disapproving severity, and it was quite evident that the greater portion of the spectators could have done the job better themselves.

A certain Mister TURNER came in for the BENJAMIN'S mess of obloquy, having represented Pluto, the god of wealth, in the act of carrying off a female Proserpine, but the figures so Lilliputian, and in such a disproportionate expansion of confused sceneries, that the elopement produced but a very paltry impression. The slipshod carelessness of this painter may be realised from the fact that in a composition styled "_Blue Lights to Warn Steamboats off Shoal Water_," the blue lights are conspicuous by their total absence, and the mistiness of the atmospherical conditions renders it difficult to distinguish either the steamers or the shoals with even tolerable accuracy!

In the ulterior room were sundry productions from Umbrian and Milanese and other schools, such being presumptively the teaching establishments over which Hon'ble REYNOLDS and TURNER and GREUZY and Co. predominated as Old Masters. But surely it is unfair, and like seething a kid in the maternal nutriment, to class such crude and hobbardyhoy performances with works by more senile hands!

Here I observed a painting to illustrate scenes in the life of an important celebrity, who was childishly represented many times over having separate adventures in the space of a few square feet, and of a Brobdingnacian bulkiness compared to his perspective surroundings.

Had this been the work of an Indian artist, native gentlemen out there would simply have smiled pitiably at such ignorance, and given him the gentle admonishment that he was only to make a fool of himself for his pains. There was also a picture of a Diptych, in two portions, with a background of gilt, but the figure of the Diptych himself very poorly represented as an anatomy.

Where all is so so-so, and below par, it is perhaps invidious to single out any for hon'ble mention; but loyalty as a British subject obliges me to speak favourably of a concern lent by Her Majesty the QUEEN, and representing a bombastical youth engaged in a snip-snap with a meek and inoffensive schoolfellow, who supports himself on one leg, and is occupied in sheltering his nose behind his arm, until his widowed and aged mother can arrive to rescue her beloved offspring from his grave crisis.

This at least can be commended as being true to nature, as I can attest from personal experience of similar boyish loggerheads, although, owing to preserving my _sang froid_, I was generally able to remove myself with phenomenal rapidity from vicinity of shocking kicks by my truculent assailant.

Let me not omit to mention a painting of "_Polichinelle_" by a Gallic artist, which Miss PRIMMETT said was the French equivalent to _Punch_. At which, speaking loudly for instruction of bystanders, I assured them, as one familiarly connected with Hon'ble _Punch_, who regarded me as a son, such a portrait was the very antipode to his majestic lineaments, nor was it reasonable to suppose that he would allow his counterfeit presentment to be depicted in the undignified garbage of a buffoon!

I trust that I may be gratefully remembered by my Liege Lord, and that he will be gracious enough to entertain me favourably with something in the shape of prize or bonus in reward for such open testimony as the above.

I have only to add that the custodian preserved the inviolability of our umbrellas with honorable fidelity, and that we moistened the drooping clay of our internal tenements at an Aërated Tea Company with a profusion of confectionaries, for which my fair friends with amiable blandness permitted me the privilege of forking out.

V

_In which Mr Jabberjee expresses his Opinions on
Bicycling as a Pastime._

In consequence of the increasing demands of the incomparable Miss JESSIMINA upon the dancing attendance of your humble servant, I am lately become as idle as a newly painted ship, and have not drunk in the legal wisdom of the learned _Moonshees_ who lecture in the hall of my Inn of Court, or opened the ponderous treatise of Hon'ble Justice BLACKSTONE or ADDISON on _Torts_, for many a blank day.

Still, as Philosopher PLATO observed, "_Nihil humani alienum a me puto_," and my time has not been actually squandered in the theft of Procrastination, but rather employed in the proper study of Mankind, and acquiring a more complete knowingness in _Ars Vivendi_.

So I think it worth to direct public attention to the dangers of a practice which threatens to develop into an epidemical kind of plague, and carry the deteriorating trails of a serpent over our household families, unless promptly scotched by benevolent firmness of a paternal Government.

Need I explain I am alluding to the nowaday passion for propelling oneself at a severe speed by dint of unstable and most precarious machinery? It is now the exception which breaks the rule to take the air in the streets without being startled by the unseemly spectacles of go-ahead citizens straddled upon such revolutionary contrivances, threading their way with breakneck velocity under the very noses of omnibus and other horses, and ringing the shrill welkin of a tintinnabulating gong!

Nay, even after the Curfew has taken its toll from the knell of parting day, and darkness reigns supreme, they will urge on their wild career, illuminated by the dim religious light of a small oil lamp!

I possess no knack of medical knowledge, but I boldly state my opinion that such daredevilry must necessarily inflict a deleterious result to the nervous organisms of these riders; and, who knows, of their posterity?

For no one can expect to have hairbreadth escapes from the running gauntlet continuously, without suffering a shattering internal panic, while catastrophes of fatal injury to life and limb have become _de rigueur_.

_Experto crede_--for I can support my _obiter dictum_ by the crushing weight of personal experience. A few mornings since I had the honour to escort Miss JESSIMINA MANKLETOW and a middle-aged select female boarder into the interior of Hyde Park. The day was fine, though frigid, and I was wearing my fur-lined overcoat, with boots of patent Japan leather, and a Bombay gold-embroidered cap, so that I was a mould of form and the howling nob.

Picture my amazement when, as I promenaded the path beside the waters of the Serpentine lake, I beheld a wheeled cavalcade of every conceivable age, sex, and appearance; senile gaffers and baby buntings; multitudinous women, some plump as a duckling, others thin as a paper-thread; aye, and even priests in sanctimonious black and milk-white cravats, rolling swiftly upon two wheels, and all agog to dash through thick and thin!

On seeing which, the matured lady boarder did exclaim upon the difficulties of the performance, and the vast crowd that had collected to view such a _tour de force_, but I, perceiving that those seated upon the machines used no exorbitant exertions, and, indeed, appeared to be wholly engrossed in social intercourse, responded that no skill was required to circulate these bicycles, which, owing to being surrounded with air-cushions, would proceed _proprio motu_ and without meandering.

Thereupon Miss MANKLETOW expressed an ardent desire to behold myself upon one of these same machines, and--as we were now close to the effigy of Hon'ble Duke of WELLINGTON disguised as an Achilles, near which were certain _bunniahs_ trafficking with bicycles--I, wishing to pleasure my fair companion, approached one of these contractors and bargained with him for the sole user of his vehicle for the space of one calendar hour, to which he consented at the _honorarium_ of one rupee four annas.

But, on receiving the bicycle from his hands, I at once perceived myself under a total impossibility of achieving its ascent--for no sooner had I protruded one leg over the saddle than the foremost wheel averted itself, and the entire machine bit the dust, which afforded lively and infinite entertainment to my feminine companions.

I, however, reproached the _bunniah_ for furnishing a worn-out effete affair that was not in working order or a going concern, but he, by assuring me that it was all right, cajoled me into trying once more.

So, divesting myself of my fur-lined overcoat, which I commanded a hobbardyhoy of the sweeper class to hold, I again mounted upon the saddle, while the proprietor of the machine sustained it in a position of rectitude, and then, supporting me by the superfluity of my pantaloons, he propelled me from the rear, counselling me to press my feet vigorously upon the paddles. But it all proved as the labour of Sisyphus, for the seat was of sadly insufficient dimensions and adamantine hardihood, and whenever the bicycle-man released his hold, I instantaneously endured the total upset!

Then again I reproved him for his _Punica fides_, informing him that I required a machine that would run with smooth progressiveness, precisely similar to those I beheld in motion around me. To which he replied that I must not expect to be able to ride _impromptu_ as well as individuals who had only mastered the accomplishment by long continuity of practice and industry.

"Oh, man of wily tongue!" I addressed him. "Not thus will you bamboozle my supposed simplicity! For if the art were indeed so difficult as you pretend, how should it be acquired by so many timid and delicate feminines and mere nurselings? This machine of yours is nothing but an obsolete _hors de combat_ with which it is not humanly possible to work the oracle!"

At which, waxing with indignation, he leaped upon it, and to my surprise, did easily propel it in whatsoever direction he pleased, and its motive power appeared to be similar in every respect to the rest; so, beguiled by his representations that, under his instructions, I should speedily become a _chef-d'oeuvre_, I once more suffered myself to mount the machine; but whether from superabundant energy of my foot-paddling, or the alarming fact that we were upon the descent of a precipitous slope, I was soon horrified at finding that my instructor was stripped out, and I abandoned to the lurch of my Caudine fork!

Oh, my goodness! My heart turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle _vires acquirit eundo_, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,--"Help! I am running away with myself! Half a rupee for my life-preserver!"

But they were all as if to burst with laughter, and none had the ordinary heroism to intervene, and I with ever increasing rapidity was borne helplessly down the declivity towards the gates of Hyde Park Corner, when, by the benevolence of Providence, the anterior wheel ran under a railing, and I flew off like a tangent into the comparative security of a mud-barrow!

On my return and solicitous inquiry for my fur-lined overcoat, I had the further shock to discover that it was _solvitur ambulando_!

After such a shuddering experience and narrow squeak of my safety, I confidently appeal to the authorities to extinguish this highly dangerous and foolhardy sort of so-called amusement, or at the very least to issue paternal orders that, in future, no one shall be permitted to ride upon any bicycle possessing less than three wheels, or guilty of a greater celerity than three (or four) miles per hour.

The fair Miss MANKLETOW amended this proposal by suggesting that the Public should be restricted at once to perambulators; but this is, perhaps, _majori cautelâ_, and an instance of the over-solicitude of the female intellect, for it is not feasible to treat an adult, who has assumed the _toga virilis_ and tall hat, as if he was still mewling and puking in a tucker and bib.

VI

_Dealing with his Adventures at Olympia._

The dialoquial form is now become an indispensible _factotum_ in periodical literature, and so, like a _brebis de Panurge_, I shall follow the fashion occasionally,--though with rather more obedience to a literary elegant style of phraseology than my predecessors in _Punch_ have thought worth to practise.

Time: the other morning. Scene: the breakfast table at Porticobello House, Ladbroke Grove. Myself and other select boarders engaged in masticating fowl eggs with their concomitant bacon, while intelligently discussing topical subjects (for we carry out the poetical recipe of "Plain thinking and high living").

_Miss Jessimina_ (_at the table-head_). The papers seem eloquent in laudation of the Sporting and Military Show at Olympia. How I should like to go if I had anyone to take me!

_Mr Wylie_ (_stingily_). And I would be enraptured at so tip-top an opportunity, but for circumstance of being stonily broken.

[_Helps himself to the surviving fowl egg._

_Mr Cossetter_ (_in sepulchral tone_). Alack! that doctorial prescriptions do nill for me such nocturnal jinks; otherwise----

[_He treats himself to a digestible pill._

_Myself_ (_taking a leap into the darkness and deadly breaches_). Since other gentlemen are not more obsequious in gallantry, I hereby tender myself for honour of accompanyist and _vade mecum_.

_Miss Jess._ (_lowering the silken curtains of her almond-like orbs_). Oh, really, PRINCE! So _very_ unexpected! I must obtain the expert opinion of my Mamma.

Mistress MANKLETOW did approve the jaunt on condition of our being saddled by a select lady boarder of the name of SPINK as a _tertium quid_ to play at propriety; at which I was internally disgusted, fearing she would play the old gooseberry with our _tête-à-tête_.

Having arrived at Olympia, we perambulated the bazaar prior to the commencement of the shows, and here (after parting with rs. 8 for three seats on the balcony) I did bleed more freely still, for Miss JESSIMINA expressed a passionate longing to possess my profile, snipped out of paper by the scissors of a Silhouette, for which I mulcted one shilling sterling.

And, after all, although it proved the _alter ego_ and speaking likeness of my embossed Bombay cap and golden spectacles, she found the fault that it rendered my complexion of a too excessive murksomeness; not reflecting (with feminine imperceptivity) that, the material being black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of all alike!

Farther on I presented her and the female gooseberry with a pocket-handkerchief a-piece, interwoven by a mechanism with their baptismal appellation (another rupee!).

Then we arrived at a cage containing an automatic Devil revealing the future for a penny in the slit, and Miss JESSIMINA worked the oracle with a coin advanced by myself, and the demon, after flashing his optics and consulting sundry playing-cards, did presently produce a small paper which she opened eagerly.

_Miss Jess._ (_after perusal_). Only fancy! It says I'm "to marry a dark man, and go for a long journey, and be very rich." What ridiculous nonsense! do you not think so, PRINCE?

_Myself_ (_with a tender sauciness_). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious--and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a long journey?

_Miss Jess._ (_with the complexion of a tomato_). It's time we took our seats for the performance. And you are not to be a silly!

It is notorious that the English female vocabulary contains no more caressing and flattering epithet than this of "a silly," so that I repaired to my seat immoderately encouraged by such gracious appreciation.

Of the show, I can testify that it was truly magnificent, though the introductory portion was somewhat spoilt by the too great prevalence of the bicycle, which is daily increasing its ubiquity, nor do I see the rationality of engaging a _sais_ in topped boots to attend upon each machine, under the transparent pretentiousness of its belonging to the equine genus, since it can never become the similitude of a horse in mettlesome vivacity.

My companions marvelled greatly at the severe curvature of the extremities of the cycle-track, which were shaped like the interior of a huge bowl, and while I was demonstrating to them how, from scientific considerations and owing to the centrifugal forces of gravitation, it was not possible for any rider to become a loser of his equilibrium--lo and behold! two of the competitors made the _facilis descensus_, and were intermingled in the weltering hotchpot of a calamity.

But on being disentangled they did limp away, and it is allowable to hope that they suffered no serious dismantling of their vital organs. Still, I cannot approve of these bicycle contentions, which are veritable provocative flights at the providential features.

After the termination I conducted my _protégées_ to the Palmarium, where we sat under a shrub imbibing lemon crushes, brought by a neat-handed Phyllis in the uniform of a house-maid intermixed with a hospital nurse.

Here occurred a most discomposing _contretemps_, for presently Miss JESSIMINA uttered the complaint that two strangers were regarding herself and Miss SPINK with the brazen eyes of a sheep, and even making personal comments on my nationality, which rendered me like toad under a harrow with burning indignation.

At length, being utterly beside myself with rage, I summoned one of the Phyllises and requested her to take steps to abate the nuisance, being met with a smiling "_Nolo Episcopari_." So, entreating my companions not to give way to panic and leave their cause in my hands, I went in search of a policeman.