Punch (67.1874)

96

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[September 5, 1874.

PUNCH AND PROTOGEN.

F the Inaugural Address de-
livered to the British As-
sociation by Professor
Tyndaei,, though marked
throughout by a philosophical
temperance, one passage
seems obviously incompatible
with teetotalism. Discussing
the question as to the
“Primordial Form—whence
it came,” the learned Pro-
fessor said:—

“ Trace the line of life back-
wards. W e reach at length those
organisms which I have compared
to drops of oil suspended in a
mixture of alcohol and water.”

This would he a nearly
exact definition of whiskey -
toddy brewed with a slice of
lemon-peel. The Professor
might as well have given a
name to his liquor. Might he
not have at once admitted,
perhaps with as much like-
lihood of being right, that the
first of all living organisms
was Punch ?

THE ONLY FULL, TRUE AND PARTICULAR ACCOUNT
OF THE ESCAPE OF MARSHAL BAZAINE.

(Communicated by Our Own Jteliarble Correspondent.)

Acqtjit Madame Bazaine, the English Ladies, and the entire
Bazaine family, of any complicity in the plot. Alone I did it; at
least with another fellow, who was really more nuisance than assist-
ance, being very nearly a perfect fool, and almost stone deaf on one
side, which infirmity, however, caused him to be useful as a mere
blind.

My friendship, the Marshal’s and mine, began, years ago, at the
day-school where I first met Old Bazzy, or, as the boys used to call
him, Don Caesar de Bazaine. When I heard of his imprisonment
(you know I lead a rover’s life, ever ready for adventure, being here
to-day and gone to-morrow, whenever it’s at all inconvenient to
stay any longer.—N.B. The P.O. Order to the address mentioned in
my private card. Vous comprenez), I exclaimed, ‘ ‘ What! Bazzy
a captive! Never! ”

In five minutes my determination and passage were taken. Oppo-
site the fortress is a small island formed by the ocean-birds, entirely
covered with sea-weed and a peculiar sort of marine mushroom,
much prized by the natives of the southern coast. This island is
hidden by the horizon during the day, and only reappears under
certain conditions at night. Here I soon knocked up a little house
out of five or six wild sea-birds’ nests, and took up my abode, with
the boy above alluded to, a sort of distant connection of mine,
whose parents have entrusted him to me for a small annual honora-
rium, knowing that I am a good hand at bringing forward back-
ward boys.

Disguised as an under-butler, Bob (my boy), making a pretence
of selling oranges to the Governor, entered the fortress, and wrote,
in chalk, on the wall which he knew Bazaine must pass in the
course of his evening’s walk, “ Allez-vous promener.” The Governor
sucked the oranges, threw the peel playfully at Bob’s head, told
him to send in his bill, and then merrily kicked him down the steps.

From that moment the communication between the prisoner and
myself was uninterrupted. It was of the simplest character:
matches that would light only on the box, rockets that would burn
under water, squibs that played with sea-serpents on the ocean,
and Roman candles that shot up in the air. In the daytime, a tune on
the barrel-organ (which, luckily, I had in my carpet-bag) would
attract his attention, and through his telescope he would then see
what I wrote up with a bit of chalk on my black board, kindly lent
for this purpose by Dr. Croft, of the Polytechnic. Bob in the
meantime was employed in constructing a small boat, with a rudder
and oars, out of the materials offered to his ingenuity by a hip-bath,
three hootjaeks, a corkscrew, a walking-stick, and two cricket-bats
(which I happened, fortunately, to have by me).

On the-of-(I purposely omit dates), the prisoner tele-

graphed to me—“ Pas de corde.” (“ No rope.”) Having my dic-
tionary and conversation-book by me, I at once knew what he
meant, and returned “ Ne soyez pas stupide.” This was on my black

board, and had anyone besides the Marshal seen it, I could, at once,
have rubbed it out, written something else, and explained that I
was only teaching French, after breakfast, to my idiot boy, Bob.
However, the whole thing was so admirably contrived that the
soldiers and sailors, the Governor himself, and the gaolers, only
took me for a rather larger bird than usual perched on the little
isle ; while some disputed as to whether I were a gull or a lump of
sea-weed. (Aha! 1 knew who the gull was. Aha!) Once they
wanted to decide this by firing at me, but the Governor, on behalf
of Fair France, would not allow such a waste of powder and shot.
Old Bazzy has—I must confess it—no sort of ingenuity. He was
always the same. When he found he hadn’t a rope, he thought it
was all up with him. “ Que faire f ” he telegraphed briefly. I
understood him at once, and replied (of which reply I give the
translation), “You stupid old muff! Yah! Where’s your silly
old noddle ? What would you do without me f Haven’t you got
your epaulettes, your shoe-strings, your pocket-handkerchief, your
neck-tie, and the elastic band that keeps your hat on your stupid
old head in a high wind ? And how about boot-laces ? Then fix it
as arranged. Come over the cliff. The boat will be below. No
ceremony. Drop in when you like. Name your own time. Knife
and fork ready, a hearty welcome, and a tune on the accordion.”
This last alluded to Bob, who is learning; that instrument whenever
I am absent from home, or whenever he is.

From this moment the Marshal went to work like a trump. Bob,
disguised as a muffin-boy, with a bell, was sent on shore with a rope
of onions for the Governor’s dinner. The Governor took the onions,
and then old Bazzy prevailed on him to play at horses with him on
one of the terraces. Bazzy, pretending to be the horse, thus got the
string round his arms, while the Governor drove him.

Bazzy then pretended to run away (a good joke this, at which we
roared—Bazzy and I—afterwards), and so secured the string.

Unfortunately, just at this time, my rockets and squibs came to
an end, for that ass Bob had let a lot off on his own birthday, while
I was asleep. As an excuse, he said it (his birthday) only came
once a year. He had also pitched away my last piece of chalk, and
had begun cutting up my black-board to finish the boat.

There was nothing for it but to write on soup-plates and table-
napkins, and send them in on the high tide, when they would be
thrown by the violence of the wave right up to the parapet where
Bazzykins was waiting to receive them.

Thus the time for his escape was fixed.

At eight o’clock in the evening Bob and myself started off in our
model boat, using our two cricket-bats for oars. Had Bob learnt
rowing, or could he have heard my directions, we might have got on
faster. As it was, we got our oars mixed up together, and, in the
midst of a tempestuous sea, I was obliged to punish Bob severely in
order to make him understand his position.

The rudder, carved out of my old black-board, now came in most
usefully. I had seen the celebrated man who paints with his toes,
and I knew that I could steer with my feet (for why should my feet
be idle after once kicking Bob soundly?) while I rowed with one
hand and waved my signals with the other. Finding that, up to
this time, we had not made much progress, owing to Bob’s obstinacy
in pulling dead against me, I hit upon an expedient, which turned
out most satisfactory: we sat back to back and pulled in contrary
directions, and thus we soon found our wildest hopes realised.

I could not help remarking how much the difficulty of the manage-
ment of a frail barque in a stormy sea by two persons totally
ignorant of seamanship had been over-rated. “ I wish Plimsoll
were here,” I cried, as we dashed gaily over an Atlantic wave whose
height I should be afraid to estimate. The rocks were now in view,

figantic, awful! The overhanging beetle-browed cliffs, fifteen hun-
red feet above the level of the sea, presented a prospect sublime
and appalling. We gave the signal with a tune on the accordion by
Bob, and another by me on the organ. After playing for some con-
siderable time, our attention was attracted by a shadow, which in
the calm moonlight seemed to be jumping about inexplicably. I
raised my eyes, and right above our heads was the gallant old boy
himself, in full uniform, and wearing his cocked hat, hanging on by
a rope of his own making. He was high up in the air, midway be-
tween us and the summit of the cliff. Such a rope he’d made _! I
couldn’t help bursting out into a roar of laughter. Bootlaces, onion-
peel, string, handkerchiefs, and last of all, the elastic band, which
naturally kept the whole thing bobbing up and down, making the
Marshal dance in the air like a Marionette.

“ Tu te moques de moi!” he said, savagely. He’s got a bad
temper has dear old Bazzy, and, of course, it was not improved by
his absurd situation. No man of importance likes to be -discovered
in a ludicrous predicament, and no man likes to be laughed at
specially by friends.

“ I swear I can’t help it! ” I protested, holding my sides ; and
even Bob stopped playing “ I never go East of Temple Bar ” on his
accordion, and literally shrieked with convulsive merriment.

Old Bazzy literally kicked the air (it was all he could do) m
spasms of rage.