Chapter XVII

"And that is why I wander here,
Alone and sadly loitering,
Whilst the sedge shakes not with glancing plume,
And no birds sing!"

* * * * *

BOURNEMOUTH'S chief magistrate, by decision and order of the corporation of that town, has been deprived of a strip of land, alleged to be public property, which he had enclosed within his own private grounds. The sight of sixty workmen ruthlessly "removing his summer-house and shrubs, and throwing tons of mould over the cliffs," could not have been a very exhilarating one for the erstwhile owner, who must have felt like Mayor-ius 'mid the ruins of Cart-hage.

* * * * *

THE EMPTY CUPBOARD.

OLD MOTHER HUBBARD SHE WENT TO THE CUPBOARD TO GET HER POOR DOG A BONE, WHEN SHE GOT THERE THE CUPBOARD WAS BARE, AND SO THE POOR DOG HAD NONE.

["Mr. CHAPLIN, speaking in the House of Commons on the 19th August, said that it was not possible to prepare and produce measures for the relief of Agriculture this Session."--_Daily Paper._]]

* * * * *

ROUNDABOUT READINGS.

"Roundabout Ridings" would be the more correct title, for he who writes these lines has yielded to the joint influences of the prevalent craze and the glorious weather, and has been touring in North Devon on (and off) a bicycle. I say "off" advisedly, for the hills in that delightful country are so numerous, so long, and so steep, that out of every hundred miles you accomplish you will find that you have walked at least fifty while you painfully shoved your wheel before you. And when you reach the laborious summit and pause panting, you are as likely as not to gather your breath and strength under a notice informing you that the descent beyond, down which you had hoped to spin with extended legs, is dangerous to cyclists.

* * * * *

And thereupon, if the sun is shining in full strength, and you are spent and parched, you may possibly decide that in order to make a bicycle tour in North Devon a complete and splendid success, it is essential that you should do it without a bicycle. But later on, when you have reached the end of your journey, have had your bath, your rub down and your brush up, and are waiting placidly for your dinner with an appetite well set and a thirst calculated to drain a vat of cider, then you will realise that even in the precipitous Devonshire country bicycling is a real delight.

* * * * *

Putting aside for the moment the question whether or not you ought to take a bicycle, I hold that the following ingredients go to make a successful bicycle tour. (1) A tall youngster from Oxford possessing incalculable yards of totally irresponsible arms and legs, a happy knack of conversational prattle, a shock of fair hair, and imperturbable good humour. These details, though important, are not essential. It is, however, absolutely essential that he should make all plans for the day's ride, settle on the stopping places and hotels, and carry maps and guide-books. You can then enjoy the satisfaction of abusing him heartily whenever things go wrong. You will also find that whenever you want the map he will either have left it in the pocket of a coat which has been sent on by train, or stowed it away in the darkest recess of the bottom of his kit-case.

* * * * *

The second ingredient is a private clown of quaint humour and original ideas. This is the sort of man who finds interest and amusement in everything, and provokes you to laughter by the most unexpected sallies. Before you have had time to turn round he will be on terms of easy familiarity with drivers of coaches, porters at hotels, ladies who serve behind bars, and rustics whom he may meet on the road. In five minutes he knows the details of all their personal history, their length of service, the manner of their work, the size of their families, their adventures, and their chief desires in life. They all treat him with the highest consideration and go out of their way to make things easy for him. At Lynton our own particular clown sent the hotel band into convulsions by dancing a step dance while they were solemnly playing a German march. The incongruity of the situation so tickled the trombone that for at least two minutes he was utterly unable to carry on the pumping operations entailed by his instrument. His ruin was completed when he was asked to join our party with the special object of inflating the back-tyres of our bicycles. Even the conductor relaxed into a smile.

* * * * *

The third ingredient is a paymaster. If you can find a handsome, well-built, agreeable and intellectual man for the position (as we did) so much the better. You will thus add an air of character and distinction to your tour. In that respect, I admit, we were fortunate beyond the average. I need only add, as a slight reminder to my companions, that they have not yet repaid to me the money I disbursed for them.

* * * * *

The fourth ingredient is one rainy day. It helps you to enjoy the fine weather all the more, and it gives you an opportunity of investing yourself in the pretty little gray waterproof cape which bicycle outfitters provide for wet weather. From a ticket attached to the collar of mine, I discovered that it was called an "electric poncho." I can only say that it fully deserved the title. Wet weather, moreover, adds a pleasing element of uncertainty to bicycling by making your back wheel skid, so that you never know, from one moment to the other, what you may be doing. If three of you are riding in a line, it is more than probable that, in the twinkling of an eye, you will be piled three deep on the side of the road.

* * * * *

You ought also to insure at least one hotel dance in the course of your journey. All hotel dances are the same, and therefore one is quite sufficient as a sample. Hotel dances are attended by eight ladies and six men. One of the men is a boy. He has two sisters, who are also present at the dance. He dances three times with one sister, and three times with the other. His seventh dance he devotes to a lady no longer in her first youth, who has captured his young affections, and after the mad excitement of this episode he goes to bed. Another of the men is always elderly, bald and stout. He displays the courtly gallantry which is understood to be an attribute of the old school. He is a rigorous stickler for the etiquette of the ballroom. He dances the Lancers with a solemn precision and the waltz with a precise solemnity, and that is the only distinction he makes between them. He is a great hand at well-turned compliments of a ponderous nature, and it is a liberal education to see him conducting his partner back to her seat. A third man is an amusing rattle. He makes his partners giggle by his total ignorance of the Lancers, and incurs the frowns of the bald man by his dashing exploits in the waltz. The ladies all wear high dresses, they have interchangeable _chaperons_, and make a noble pretence of enjoying themselves. In the fifth dance the bald man falls down, and long before twelve o'clock everything is over and peace reigns again in the hotel.

* * * * *

Clovelly is the proud possessor, not merely of the steepest High Street in the world, but also of a "poet-artist" (so he describes himself), who is also (I again quote his own description) a "professional qualified photographer." Here is an extract from his enthusiastic poem entitled "A Peep from the Hobby Drive, Clovelly."

How charming is the old High Street,
Pitched with pebbles, rough--how steep;
There donkeys stand with coal and sand,
And women with their brush in hand.

Out boldly stands the grand old pier,
To check the waves that may come near;
And fishermen upon it stand,
Yarning with their pipes in hand.

Among such grandeur, artist, rest--
To imitate it at thy best;
For should some beauty fall to ground,
Thy picture has it, safe and sound.

* * * * *

From the _Fishing Gazette_ I take the following story:--

Last spring, while a party of tourists were fishing up North, a well-known lawyer lost his gold watch from the boat in which he was sitting. Last week he made another visit to the lakes, and during the first day's sport caught an 8lb. trout. His astonishment can be imagined when he found the watch lodged in the throat of the trout. The watch was running, and the time correct. It being a "stem winder," the supposition is that, in masticating its food, the fish wound up the watch daily.

I happen to know that this story is incomplete, and I venture to add some missing details. The fish--a particularly thoughtful animal--finding that there was no chain to the watch, resolved to supply this defect, and, by a well-known process in metallurgy, converted some of its scales into a complete Albert, which it connected with the watch. The watch used to lose two minutes a week. With admirable patience the fish regulated it, and restored it to its owner in perfectly accurate trim. When it was originally lost the watch was a simple one. It has now become a repeater, with a special dial indicating the days of the week, the month, and the year A.D. By a trick, learnt from a fried whiting in early life this trout contrived every day to insert its tail into its mouth, and, by using it as a brush, to keep the watch clean, and free from rust. When the fish had been boiled and eaten, the watch stopped, out of sympathy, and has not gone since.

* * * * *

_Generous Dealer_ (_examining ring_). "HE ASKS TWENTY. HE THINKS HE'LL GET EIGHTEEN. IT'S WORTH SIXTEEN. I'LL GIVE FOURTEEN. HE PAID TWELVE. I'LL OFFER TEN!"]

* * * * *

A CRY FROM CHICAGO.

Better fifty years of Europe
Than a cycle of Porkopolis!
Freedom's shackled with a new rope
In Mock-Modesty's metropolis.
Ladies--aye and men--in tights
To Chicago prudes proves shockers;
So they limit wheelman rights
By forbidding--knickerbockers!
Nay, the manly human calf
To these Aldermen's so shocking,
They prohibit--do not laugh!--
All display of--the male--stocking!!

We must don a costume baggy
From the throat unto the ankles;
Something stuffy, chokey, draggy!
Yah! In freemen's hearts it rankles
This restriction. Don't let's heed 'em!
If they bother thus our biking.
Ho! for Battersea and freedom!
Cyclists of Chicago, striking,
Like their sires for Independence,
'Gainst the prigs our wheel-rights blocking,
Claim, in all their old resplendence,
Knicker free and liberal stocking!

* * * * *

MUSIC MINUS CHARMS.

(_The Latest Developments of the Educational Department._)

"Where are we going next?" asked the Taught of the Teacher. They had just left the portals of the School Board.

"To a place that should be inscribed with the words 'All hope abandon who enter here,' and which is known as the Slums," was the sad reply.

The Teacher and the Taught travelled on until they were lost in a maze of workmen's buildings.

"Not so very bad," commented the Taught.

"Surely a man and his family might live peaceably enough in these seemingly comfortable flats."

"You do not know all," said the Teacher. "Much has been done for the artisan, but the School Board have driven him to despair. Listen!"

Then the two investigators heard sounds of shrieking and wailing. There was a hubbub of dreadful groans and sighs.

"These are not human," cried the Taught.

"They are not," was the answer. "Have you ever heard the like?"

"Never. And yet I should say that the tones came from violins--played, no doubt, by imps."

"No, it is not that." And then came the full explanation.

"The dreadful discord to which we are listening is caused by the practice of the scholars of the School Board. The energetic youngsters are being taught at the expense of the ratepayers how to play the 'fiddle.'"

* * * * *

THE BRITISH BATHER.

(_By a Dipper in Brittany._)

[See the correspondence in the _Daily Graphic_]

Mrs. GRUNDY rules the waves,
With Britons for her slaves--
They're fearful to disport themselves,
Unless the sexes sort themselves
And take their bathing sadly, for French gaiety depraves!

'Tis time no more were seen
The out-of-date "machine";
Away with that monstrosity
Of prudish ponderosity--
Why can't we have the bathing tent or else the trim _cabine?_

I think we should advance
If we took a hint from France,
And mingled (quite decorously)
On beaches that before us lie All round our coasts--we do abroad
whene'er we get the chance!

O'er here in St. Maló
The thing's quite _comme il faut_;
Why not in higher latitude?
I can't make out the attitude Of those who make the British dip
so "shocking," dull and slow!

* * * * *

LANCASHIRE riflemen who "pay their shot" at the average rate of £5 per annum for "marking," are certainly entitled to every modern improvement on their range at Altcar, and it is no wonder that there has been some grumbling at the non-introduction of canvas-targets since their invention years ago. However, this defect, we read in the _Liverpool Daily Post's_ "Volunteer Notes," will shortly be removed, and the desired innovation substituted, so that Bisley marksmen who, hitherto, indulged in sneers at the deficiencies of Altcar, must now cease making a butt of the northern range.

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, Monday, August 26._--Doorkeepers and police puzzled by notable gathering of strangers. Came in one by one. No one seemed to know another; yet there was about them, according to Mr. HORSLEY'S testimony, certain signs of brotherhood. None wore top hats; every man's hair was longer than it is ordinarily worn; several carried cloaks, mostly brown about the seams, cut, as far as Mr. HORSLEY can remember, something after pattern of cloak worn by Lord TENNYSON when he came to be sworn in as a peer of the realm, and was, on first presenting himself, turned away by the policeman in the outer hall under the impression that he was collecting empty bottles.

Most of the strangers had orders for special gallery. Some had seats under the gallery. Others (these, it turned out when the secret was fully disclosed, were the sonneteers) found seats on the higher, but, in the House of Commons, less distinguished, slopes of Parnassus, allotted to undistinguished strangers who ballot for places.

They were the candidates for the Poet Laureateship, or rather some of them. Walking out after questions were over, SARK found a double row of poets sitting on the stone benches right and left of the corridor, waiting for a possible turn at the ballot--waiting with same dogged patience, same unquenchable hope, with which they tarry for public recognition.

All due to JOHNSTON of Ballykilbeg. Turning aside for moment from the vexed Bermothes of theology, and the suspicious conduct of Irish Members of the Catholic faith, BALLYKILBEG permitted his gaze to fall on the vacant chair of the Poet Laureate. Gave notice of intention to ask PRINCE ARTHUR at to-day's sitting what he meant to do about it. Hence this commotion in the drear woods and the hungry thickets that clothe the foot of Parnassus.

"Sorry for 'em," said BALLYKILBEG, looking up towards crowded galleries. "They're a poor-looking lot. Don't believe there's a Master of an Orange Lodge among 'em. Anyhow they're all out of it. My man is WILFRID LAWSON. Don't mean to say he put me up to ask the question with any ulterior personal views. But he knew what I was at, and he knows my opinion of him. We don't agree in politics, and he's not sound on the Pope of Rome. But for verse that fetches you, the poetry you can understand without first tying wet cloth round your head, give me WILFRID LAWSON. PRINCE ARTHUR refers me to THE MARKISS. I'll call and see him, taking with me a choice selection of WILFRID'S verse, which I'll read to him."

_A. J. B._ "What on earth is the use of getting a brand new rod, when you're caught up on these bothering things every five minutes?"]

_Business done._--Votes in Supply.

_Tuesday._--Scotch votes on; the WEIRISOME WEIR stands where he did, at corner seat of front bench below Gangway. This convenient situation for fixing Corporal HANBURY with gleaming eye. Also the metal grating which serves as flooring of House is useful as adding reverberating sound to WEIRISOME'S voice when occasion makes it desirable it should issue from his boots. If it were not for the matting laid over the grating, effect would be much more tremendous. WEIRISOME makes the best of it. Blood curdling to hear him just now denouncing some Procurator Fiscal whose office is in Edinburgh, and his house in Ross-shire. Or is it the other way about? The worst of WEIRISOME making our flesh creep by his ventriloquial talents is, that we get a little mixed about his points. However it was, the Procurator Fiscal had committed a heinous crime. Only by exercise of supernatural forbearance that WEIRISOME refrained from moving to reduce salary of Secretary for Scotland by £2000.

Effect of supernatural rumblings of his voice increased by ghastly pauses in flow of conversation. HANBURY, as yet new to post of Financial Secretary, will by-and-by get accustomed to its trials. Meanwhile it is painful for Cap'en TOMMY BOWLES, moored immediately behind his old colleague, to observe his hair gradually standing up whilst House is hushed in awesome silence what time WEIRISOME is solemnly reaffixing his _pince-nez_ with intent to continue his remarks.

Chairman more than once attempted to fill up pauses by reminding WEIRISOME what was the precise bearing of vote before Committee. Once sternly threatened to inforce rule which permits Chairman to order a rambling speaker to shut up, and sit down. WEIRISOME apparently paid no attention. A few minutes later, fancying he saw sign of movement in the Chair, he stopped; with wide sweep of arm put on his _pince-nez_; held manuscript up with apparent intention of consulting it; covertly regarded JAMES W. over the top. Concluding he meant business, WEIRISOME, without another word, solemnly, slowly--to the agonised looker on the process seemed to occupy sixty seconds--dropped into his seat.

_Business done._--A good deal in Committee of Supply.

_Friday, 2 A.M._--It is the unexpected that ever happens in House of Commons. Wednesday is ordinarily humdrum day; SPEAKER takes Chair at noon; all over before six. Accordingly, having met at noon on Wednesday, House sat till two o'clock next morning, proceedings culminating with scene in which DICK WEBSTER, of all men, was convicted of disorderly conduct.

"Really," said J. G. TALBOT, nervously rubbing his hands, "I don't know what we shall see next. Probably the Chaplain, in full canonicals, conducted to Clock Tower by Serjeant-at-Arms for having spoken disrespectfully of the Archbishop of CANTERBURY. The sooner this Session is over, the better it will be for Church and State."

By way of balancing eccentricity of uproarious Wednesday, the sitting just drawing to close has been unrelievedly dull. Yet it was the sitting solemnly set aside for Irish votes. Battle-royal expected, with nothing left at its close but few fragments that had once been GERALD BALFOUR, and here and there the limb of an Irish Member. Nothing happened, not even a division. Only long succession of dreary diatribes, with GERALD BALFOUR occasionally interposing with new promise of benignant sway.

"Very odd," said Truculent TIM, annoyed to find himself mollified. "The voice of the new Chief Secretary is uncommonly like the voice of ARTHUR BALFOUR. But the hands promise to rule after the fashion of the hands of JOHN MORLEY."

_Business done._--All the Irish votes passed.

_Friday._--House sat to-day, pegging away again at Supply, so as to prorogue next week. Navy Votes on; Cap'en TOMMY BOWLES attempts to boss the show, making light of Lord High Admiral JOKIM, openly alluding to Corporal HANBURY as a horse-marine, this too much for an ancient friendship strained by altered circumstances.

"TOMMY," said the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, turning round upon his former ally, after he had been up for twentieth time dictating marine tactics to the Sea Lords and policy to the First Lord; "did you ever hear a story LUBBOCK tells about the Maori convert? As he had not been seen for some weeks inquiry was made as to his welfare. 'Oh,' explained the chief of his tribe, 'he gave us so much good advice that at last we put him to death.' Think it over TOMMY. It's a nice story, and there's a moral in it."

_Business done._--Nearly all.

* * * * *

_Mrs. Jones._ "COME ON, OLD SLOWCOACH! LET'S RACE UP THIS NEXT HILL, OR WE'LL BE LATE FOR TEA!"

[_Jones is beginning to doubt the wisdom of having sold his Pony and Trap, and taken to Bicycles. He lives seven miles from a Town where Mrs. J. takes him shopping four times a week with the greatest regularity._ ]

* * * * *

A PIECE FULL OF POINT.

Messrs. CLEMENT SCOTT and BRANDON THOMAS are to be congratulated on the success of their adaptation of the _Maître d'Armes_, produced at the Adelphi Theatre on Saturday last. The play, which appeared, like the longest remembered dramas of the late DION BOUCICAULT, in August--traditionally "the dead season of the stage"--seems destined to be as popular as the best-liked of its predecessors. For once--but, it is to be hoped, not "and away"--Mr. WILLIAM TERRISS has a chance of showing his quality in a character worthier of his powers than the customary hero of "walking gentleman" romance. Like Mr. HENRY NEVILLE when he appeared as _Henry Dunbar_, after a long course of _Ticket of Leave Man_, Mr. TERRISS makes the most of his opportunity. Miss MILLWARD is excellent as the child of the fencer--a criticism which applies equally "to every one concerned." Well written, well mounted, and well played, there is no reason why _The Swordsman's Daughter_ should not prove the truth of heredity and "run through"--the season.

* * * * *

"Full of wise saws" is "Amateur Angler," in the _Fishing Gazette_, concerning the river Wye. He complains that "he tried for trout, but caught chub," which, however, we are told "is a comely fish"--quite chub-stantial, doubtless--and "gives as much sport, at times, as a gentlemanly trout." "Lordly salmon" are also to be found. Evidently the Wye is peopled by the upper crust of the piscatorial world, and this, perhaps, explains the reason for "the river being netted and poached in every conceivable way," or wye, as Cockneys say.

* * * * *

With sorrow we read, in the _South Wales Daily News_, the announcement of the demise of "Billy," the celebrated goat, that for ten years had been an honoured and favourite member of the First Battalion, Welsh Regiment. This excellent animal, who died from the ravages of rheumatism contracted on the march, seems to have belonged to the "giddy" species of goat, for we learn that "he could hold his own with the best in drinking stout, beer, wine, or spirits." With these Anti-Local Veto propensities, it would not have been astonishing had the bibulous "Billy," like a certain historical personage, met with his end by drowning in a butt.

* * * * *

A DIALOGUE OF THE NIGHT.

["The art of setting forth a scene, an incident, in the shape of conversation natural, fluent, easy, and witty, is not so common an accomplishment as the large supply produced on Mr. CRAUFURD'S demand may seem to suggest."--_The "Daily News" on "Dialogues of the Day" edited by Mr. Oswald Craufurd._]

SCENE--_The Elysian Fields, at nightfall._

PRESENT--_The shades of_ Lord _and_ Lady SPARKISH, Lord _and_ Lady SMART, Colonel ALWIT, Mr. NEVEROUT, Miss NOTABLE, _and some other characters in_ Dean SWIFT'S "_Polite Conversation_."

_Lady Smart_ (_laying down her book with a yawn_). Egad! Our posterity cannot _talk_, they can only prattle.

_Lord Sparkish._ Or rather _patter_.

_Miss Notable._ Pray, my lord, what is "patter"?

_Lord Sparkish._ All sauciness and slang, like the soliloquy of a Cheap Jack.

_Mr. Neverout._ Modish conversation, to-day, seems to borrow its diction from the music-hall, and its repartee from the 'bus conductor.

_Miss Notable._ Oh fie! Now our "Polite and Ingenious Conversation," as the dear Dean of ST. PATRICK reported it, was vastly different. Did not Mr. SWIFT declare that he defied all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town to equal it in wit, humour, smartness or politeness?

_Lady Sparkish._ Yes; yes, indeed! And he had scruples about prostituting "this noble art to mean and vulgar people."

_Mr. Neverout._ Egad, the penny daily paper and the sixpenny illustrated weekly have altered all that. "Mean and vulgar people" now write books and journals, as well as read 'em.

_Miss Notable._ For my part I don't like dialogues, except upon the stage. They are so mortally dull.

_Lady Sparkish._ Nay, but my dear girl, the Dean says, you must remember, "Dialogue is held the best method of inculcating any part of knowledge; and I am confident that public schools will soon be founded for teaching wit and politeness, after my scheme, to young people of quality and fortune."

_Mr. Neverout._ Perhaps the present rage for dialogues is the first step in that direction.

_Lady Answerall._ Pah! there _are_ no "young persons of quality" now!

_Lord Sparkish._ Though plenty of young persons of fortune!

_Mr. Neverout._ Quite a different thing, my Lord! In _our_ days School Boards, Labour Members, and American Millionaires had not been invented. CREECH had indeed translated HORACE into the vernacular, but JOWETT had not Englished the Platonic Dialogues for the benefit of Extension Lectures and hack journalists.

_Colonel Alwit._ Faith, I could never stomach that inquisitive bore SOCRATES and his dreary dialoguists. That gay, wicked, but debonair dog, LUCIAN, was more to my mind.

_Mr. Neverout._ Ah! who of our latter-day dialogue-mongers could equal the smart and really _quite fin-de-siècle_ cynic of SAMOSATA?

_Miss Notable._ Well, as TIBBALDS, said:--

"I am no schollard, but I am polite,
Therefore be sure I'm no Jacobite."

So I've not read your LUCIANS and PLATOS and things. But I like _Gyp_, and _Anthony Hope_. I vow he hath a true touch of "the quality," and he vastly delights me.

_Mr. Neverout._ Does he not go nigh to make you blush, now and anon?

_Miss Notable._ Blush? Ay, blush like a blue dog.

_Lady Smart._ Still I maintain the Town to-day cannot _talk_.

_Mr. Neverout._ Any more than it can write letters.

_Lady Sparkish._ There is nought _genteel_ in their gabble, nor truly smart in their repartee.

_Lord Sparkish._ And they cannot _badiner_ a bit.

_Lady Smart._ Like that _dear Bellamour!_

_Miss Notable._ Or that _delightful Lovelace!_

_Lady Smart._ Modern dialogues are _dull!_

_Mr. Neverout._ If our dear Dean, now, could furnish them with a fresh supply of those entertaining and improving "polite questions, answers, repartees, replies, and rejoinders," such as he took thirty years in collecting, there might be a chance for them.

_Lord Sparkish._ Or if we could send them some really modish dialogues from the shades!

_Lady Sparkish._ Faith, suppose we send 'em _this!_

_Miss Notable._ Ah, do let's!!!