Punch (59.1870)

December 17, 1870.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

255

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

no. vi.—my military acquaintance—being memoirs of pipkin.

e is five feet five and
a half in his slippers,
and five feet seven
in his boots, when
new. As his boots
get older so his
martial height dimi-
nishes. He, as it
were, lowers the
standard.

I don't know any
man more military
looking—for his size
and circumference.

I mention circum-
ference because he
prides himself (at his
Tailor's) on having a
very big chest. Ac-
cording to his own
description he is
all chest, develop-
ing the farther you
get from chin down-
wards. But, after all,
anatomical nomen-
clature is arbitrary,
so why shouldn't
little Pipkin call it

chest if he likes ? By every law he has a right to do what he likes
with his own, nay even to performing the Japanese Tommy Trick
of the Happy Despatch with his own sabre—if he had one. His
whiskers are a kind of regulation clip, not unlike a pair of worn-out
hairbrushes after coming out of the soda-water wash, and of about
that brilliancy of colour. Be is shaved late in the day, down some it—as a made-up

believe, knowing Pipkin (he was to have been a Captain—perhaps he
is; indeed, I fancy that 1 have heard him say so at one period of a
long evening, but he is a trifle silent on his Militia exploits, as a true
hero always should be)—the tailor, so the legend runs, knowing our
friend Pipkin, requested money for the uniform in advance, which
somewhat disgusted this tremendous warrior, and he resigned his com-
mand, after paying for one week's hire of military costume from
Nathan's—period unknown.

His term of endearment is " Old Man," for any one from eighteen
to forty. I should say he knows very few men past forty ; they know
him by that time. The older Pipkin becomes, the younger must be his
intimates.

I see him from the Club window, lounging down Pall Mall.
Here come his little legs, looking as symmetrical as a Punch doll's,
encased in tightish trousers, half ring-man, half trainer, with not the
slightest trace of the cavalry officer in either legs or boots, which look
as if they'd been picked up second-hand and widened out at the toes
with a glove-stretcher. Even his trousers seem as if they'd been left
him by a friend. Every one knows of the absurd conditions annexed
to certain wills; some men have to drive a four-in-hand every day for
a hundred thousand a-year; others to wind up a watch twice in an
afternoon, or visit the Monument after dark, or anything else equally
absurd and ridiculous. 1 think little Pipkin must be enjoying a legacy
on condition of wearing one pair of trousers, or never coming out in
anything but secondhand clothes and boots, the second gloss well on
the former, and the latter past polishing. He is dingy by daylight, but
as they say, " lights up well at night." Indeed, to see Pipkin in a stall at
the theatre, sealed mind you, is a real imposition. Pipkin, in a stall, as
a half-length portrait, has a military bearing. One glance at Pipkin,
full length, dispels the illusion. He eschews gloves, except at evening
parties, and then his gloves and tie can be done well at eighteenpence
the lot, and a profit to the cheap haberdasher. His hands are in
keeping with his military tone generally, and are, so to speak, uniform
with it, being of an emphatic and undisguised red.

For his moustache he uses a great quantity of some horrid stuff
called (L believe) " fixature," which makes both little stubbly points
stand out as far as they'll go, like a clipped Louis Napoleon. They
have about as much point as Pipkin's jokes, which, indeed, are of the
flattest kind. Apparently he melts down the fixature and washes in

But for all this he is my Military Acquaintance.

{To be resumed with our next Cigarette?)

BRAVE WORDS.

Says General Faidherbe, in his Proclamation to the "Army of
the North " : -

"M. Gtambetta has declared that, to save France, tie requires from you
three things—discipline, morality, and contempt of death."

How can contempt of death be bred except by familiarity ? When
a man has died he may feel contempt for death, if he exists better off.
Before death, to contemn death, if he thinks, he needs to be sure that
death is contemptible.

remote alley, for twopence—the Barber putting a penny on to his bas for tue most part a gummy appearance, as if a postage-stamp
usual charge on account of the respectability ot the connection. | W01Ild adaere to his cheek affectionately propria motu, and without any

Being shaved, as I have said, late m the day, there is, up to about external emollient aid
three in the afternoon, a gentle tinge of blue about the lower part of Yet have I heard ladies ask, "Is Mr. Pipkin in the army ?" and I
his expressive countenance, which, being ot a settled sunset hue (L confess to a pleasurable feeling in being able to answer in the negative,
mean it never gets below a certain point ot colour), looks, on the
whole, like a sort of Perpetual Perambulating Providential Promise of
fine weather to-morrow. He would make an excellent sign for the Rain-
bow Tavern in Fleet Street, whenever that ancient hostelrie may require
an advertisement. Indeed, it would pay Pipkin to have his likeness
taken in brilliant oils, and sell replicas of it to various public-houses.
As a sort of Marquis of Granbt, Junior, in any uniform, he would
be invaluable to no end of landlords up and down the country from
Land's Eud to the North Pole. In previous states of existence he
must have been a lobster boiled, then a rabbit, then a guinea-pig, and
then he appears in the present stage of progression. But what he will
be—excent found out a humbug—it is impossible to speak with any-
thing like certainty.

My Military Acquaintance, from having passed the greater part of
his life in some place where there were barracks perpetually chang-
ing their occupants, has, himself, a really large circle of Military
Acquaintances, of whom he talks, individually and collectively, as his
bosom friends; that is when he is pretty sure that the person he
is addressing is not well informed on the subject. Thi3 is a peculiar
trait—among other peculiar traits—in the character of my Military
Acquaintance; every one is " a capital fellow," or " a first-rate chap."

" Ho you know Chipton, of the Forty-first ?" Pipkin will ask you.
If you do happen to know Chipton intimately, and if Chipton be at
all likely to turn up, then Pipkin will be guarded in his statement
respecting Chipton, of the Forty-first, and will merely say that " he
knows him," without a qualification of any sort, except a sort of a
knowing look, meant to imply that he could say something about
Chipton if he liked, but he won't. In this case it is most likely that
he has once met Chipton at the Regimental Mess, to which he has at
some time or other induced one of the youngsters to invite him,
where he perhaps sat next to Chipton, or remarked to him before
dinner that it had or had not been a fine day. For on the strength of
as much as this, Pipkin would ask Chipton to do him a favour, and
think nothing of it.

If, on the other hand, Chipton, of the Forty-first, being the subject
of conversation, is in India, then little Pipkin will be sure to " know up ab0ve the world so high.

him very well—intimately, his dearest friend, best fellow out—old Even in the realm of Nature all is not natural. The influence of our
Chipton ! " and here he will break off, as if words failed him (which, artificial state of society seems to be felt in scenes where it might
indeed, they often do, specially good ones), to express all Chipton's have been thought all would be simple and unstudied, for in the last
immense merits. monthly history of the weather in the Times, we are surprised by the

Martial ardour once led little Pipkin into the Militia. The tailor, I intrusion of " the conventional black cloud."'

Hyems and Hymen.

The marriages continue to be vastly out-numbered by the births and
deaths. One day last week the Times, announced eighteen births and
as many as forty-one deaths, but only seven marriages. The cold
weather may co-operate with the Married Women's Property Act. The
sea-side is now not eligible for the honeymoon. Young couples would
be likely to catch cold there, and then, if they took the most agreeable
of remedies for that affection, their honeymoon would become a rum-
and-honeymoon.

The Irish Papists' Petition.

The Irish Church you severed from the State ;

Choose their own rule, you say, let foreign Powers:
Now, then, impose the reign which Romans hate

On Rome, because the Pope's religion's ours.