Punch: Punch (101.1891)

216

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 31, 1891.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. Y.—TO GUSH.

Mr Dearest Darling- Person,

How sweet and amiable of you to allow a humble being like
myself to write to you. Dropping your own special style (which, to
be perfectly frank with you, 1 could no more continue through the
whole of this letter than I could dine off treacle and butter-scotch),
I beg to say that I am heartily glad to have this opportunity of
telling you a few things which have been on my mind for a long
time. In what corner of the great realm of abstractions do you
make your home ? I imagine you whiling away the hours on some
soft couch of imitation down, with a little army of sweet but irrele-
vant smiles ready at all times to do your bidding. You are refined,
I am sure. You cultivate sympathy as some men cultivate orchids,
until it blooms and luxuriates in the strangest and gaudiest shapes.
Your real face is known of no other abstraction; indeed, you never
see it yourself, so well-fitted and so constant is the mask through
which you waft the endearments which have caused you to be avoided
everywhere. This, I admit, is imagination ; but is it very far from
the truth ? Perhaps I ask in vain, for truth is the very last thing
that may be expected of you and of those who do your bidding upon
earth. I will not, therefore, press the cuiestion, but proceed at once
to business.

About a month ago I met your friend, Algernon Jessamy.
"What is there about Al-
gernon that inspires such
distrust ? He is very pre-
sentable ; some people have
gone so far as to call him
absolutely good-looking. He
is tall, his figure is good, his
clothes fit him admirably,
and are always speckless;
his features are regular, his
complexion fresh, and his
fair hair, carefully parted in
the middle, lies like a smooth
and shining lid upon his head.
I pass over all his remaining advan-
tages, whether of dress or of nature. It
is enough to say that, thus equipped,
and with the additional merits of wealth
and a good position, Algernon ought
to have found no difficulty in being one
of the most popular ' men in town.
Perhaps he would have been if he had
not tried with such a persistent energy
to make himself " so deuced agreeable."
The phrase is not mine, but that of
Sammy Miggs, who has a contempt for
Algernon and his methods, which he
never attempts to conceal.

" Algy, my boy," I have heard him
say, while the unfortunate Jessamy
smiled uneasily, and shifted on his seat,
"'Algy, my boy, I've known you too

ran through him, a smile of heavenly welcome irradiated his face,
he darted towards me with both hands stretched out and almost fell
round mv neck before all the astonished cabmen.

" My dear, dear fellow," he gasped, apparently struggling hard
with an overpowering emotion, " this is almost too much. To think
that I should meet the one man of all others whom I have been
literally longinsr to see. Now you simply must walk with me for a
bit. I can't afford to let you go without having a good talk with
you. It always refreshes me so to hear your opinions of men and
things."

Ignoring my assurance that I had an important appointment to
keep, he linked his arm closely in mine and dragged me with him in
the direction from which I had come. How he pattered and chat-
tered and flattered. He daubed me over with flattery as I have seen
bill-stickers brush a hoarding over with paste. Never in my life had
I felt so small, so mean and such a perfect fool, for though I own I
have no objection to an occasional lollipop of praise, I must say I
loathe it in lumps the size of a jelly-fish. Yet such is the fare on
which Jessamy compels me to subsist. And the annoying part of it
was that every lump which he crammed down my throat contained
an inferential compliment to himself, which I was forced either to
accept, or in declining it to appear a churl. I was never more chur-
lish, never less satisfied with myself. Amongst other things we
spoke of the affairs of "The Dustheap," a little Club of which we
were both members. Jessamy opined it w7as going to the dogs.
"Just look," he said, " at the men they've got on the Committee;
mere nobodies. I've always wondered why you are not on it. Men
like you and me wouldn't make the ridiculous mistakes the present
lot are constantly making. Fancy their electing Mumpley, a regular
outsider, without enough manners for a school-boy. I really don't
care about being in the same room with him." At this very moment,
by one of those curious coincidences which invariably happen, the
abused Mumpley himself, a wealthy but otherwise inoffensive stock-
broker, hove in sight. " There comes the brute himself," said Jes-
samy ; and in another moment his arms were round Mumplet's neck,
and he was protesting, with all the fervour of a heartfelt conviction,
that Mumpley was the one man of all others for whom his heart had
been yearning. That being so, I left them together, and departed to
my business.

Now do3s Jessamy imagine that that kind of thing makes him a
favourite ? It must be admitted that he is not very artistic in his
methods ; and I fancy he must sometimes perceive, if 1 may use a
homely phrase, that he doesn't go down. But the poor beggar can't
help himself. He is driven by a force which he finds it impossible to
resist into the cruel snares that are spread for the over-amiable.
You, my dear Gush, are that force,rand to you, therefore, the sugary
Jessamy owres his failure to win the appreciation which he courts so
ardently.

And now I think I have relieved my mind of a sufficient load for
the time being. If I can remember anything else that might interest
you, you may count upon me to address you again. Permit me in the
meantime to'subscribe mvself with all proper curtness,

Yours. &c. Diogenes 11obin?on.

THE PRODIGY SON

Sir,—I have not seen Pamelas Prodigy, but I have just read the
criticism in the Times, which says of it, "It must be regarded either
long to give in to any of your nonsense. \ 100%!!%^ as a boyish effusion or a sorry joke." The criticism then points out

All that butter of yours is wasted here, * ^§fa€|f| j how it lacks " wit, humour, literary skill," and apparently is wanting

so you'd better keep it for someone who
likes it. Try it on Quisby," he con-
tinued, indicating the celebrated actor, ^PJP^ ! self : not only a host, but the Manageress of
who was at that moment frowning *§9e^ ; the theatre who, with her partner in the
furiously over a notice of his latest performance; "he loves it in business, is responsible for the selection of
firkins, and I '11 undertake to say you '11 never get to the bottom of
his swallowing capacity. You '11 have to exhaust even your stock,
Algy, my boy ; and that's saying a lot."

So thoroughly uncomfortable did the suave and gentle Algernox
look, that I afterwards ventured to remonstrate "mildly with the
gadfly Miggs.

"What Y" he said, "made him uncomfortable, did I? And a jolly autocrat, sharp as a needle and with the
good job too. Bless you, I know the beggar through and through. " heye of an 'awk"in theatrical matters,
I wasn't at Oxford with him for nothing. "Wish I had been. He's as Mrs. John "Wood, have made so fatal a
the sort of chap who loses no end of I.O.U.'s at cards one night, and
when he wins piles of ready the next never offers to redeem them.
You let me alone about Algy. I tell you I know him. There's no
bigger humbug in Christendom with all his soft sawder and gas about
everybody being the dearest and cleverest fellow he's ever met.
Bah'!"

And therewith Sammy left me, evidently smarting under some
ancient sore inflicted by the apparently angelic Algernon.

However, this little incident was not the one I intended to narrate.
I met Algy, as I said, about a month ago. It was in Piccadilly. At
first, as I approached, I thought he did not see me, but suddenly he
seemed to become aware of my presence. An electric thrill of joy

in everything that goes to make a successful play,—everything that
is?, except the actors. Mrs. John Wood was in it: she is a host in her-

pieces. Now granting the critic to be right
—and, on referring to others, I find a con-
sensus of opinion backing him up—at whose
door lies the responsibility of having delibe-
rately selected a failure ? Under what com-
pulsion could so clever and experienced an

mistake—that is, if the critics arc right, and
if it be a mistake ? "To err, is human "— Much, put out
and, including even Mrs. John Wood, and the ' - ■ ,

critics, we area! human,—" To forgive, divined—the critics not being
divine could not forgive; the public apparentlv, did forgive—and, will,
of course, forget. 'Tis all verv well to fall foul of the unhappy author
—whom we will not name—after the event ; but why was the piece
ever chosen, and why was not the discovery of its unfitness made
during rehearsal P No! "as long as the world goes round" these
things will happen in the best regulated theatres, and experience is
apparently no sort of guide in such matters.—Yours faithfully,

"Not There, Not There, My Child!"

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