Punch or The London charivari: Punch or The London charivari (2.1842)

96

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

crowded. People should not give such large parties unless there is
accommodation for everybody. Have you been very gay yet i I have
—considering how early it is in the season ; in fact, mama says I
go out too much. I have been up every night this week, and once
to Covent Garden; but I don't like 'Elena Uberti' so well as
• Norma,'—do you ? 1 hear the Germans are coming when Madame
Vestris finishes the season—what do you think of them ? Staudigl
was the best, certainly, but I did not see much in any of the others
—did you ? "

u Why, co speak the truth

"Exactly; you mean they were overrated. But what is your
opinion of ! Acis and Galatea' at Drury-Lane ? Everybody is talk-
ing about the sea in the first scene, and Phillips's mask ; but what
a number of times he says, ' Oh, ruddier than the cherry !' I thought
we were going to have nothing else—a regular pottle of them. Do
you not think it a pity, with such beautiful scenery and dresses, that
they did not have some pretty ballet instead ? "

" Indeed, to speak the truth, I think—"

"So do I. I wonder who that young lady is opposite. I don't
much like her dress, — tulle over rather-too-dirty-to-be-worn-again
white satin : it looks as if it had just made its appearance from
the rough-dried box. I'm afraid you are a quiz by your laughing ; I
like a little quizzing now and then—good-temperedly, you know.
I think it is your turn to begin ' L'Ete.'

Here was a little pause ; but as the figure concluded she com-
menced again, and continued to the last with an uninterrupted series
of remarks and unanswered questions about Baden-Baden, Exeter-
Hall, the Spitalfields weavers, the Polytechnic Institution, Prince
Albert, Miss Rainforth, Kensington-gardens, and Bellini.

MOANS OF THE MYSTERIOUS.

Who is it looks from that lone chamber,

And casts his eye from earth to heaven ;
As if his soul aspired to clamber

Up to the last—from the former driven ?
Who is it utters a deep-drawn moan,

A sigh from the bosom—not the throat.
Who is it ? 'Tis Snooks ! he is all alone,

Expecting the tailor to bring his coat.

Who is it that stands in the midnight gloom,

While a flickering light on his features falls.
And through the air we hear the boom

Of his loud and long self-echoed calls :
Who is it ? His gestures are full of despair,

And fainter grows his angry shout :
Who is it ? Oh, who ? 'Tis Snooks, I declare,

Return'd from a party —they've lock'd him out.

OUR OWN DEAR COLONEL'S LAST.
■ Oolonbi,," said the luminary of Knaresborough, "I've just been asked why I am
like Salisbury Plain ? " " I can't guess," replied Sibthorp, " mnless you are supposed
to be the greatest fiat in England."

THE MUFF DESPATCHES.—No. III.

Dear Ancient Brick, Clodpole, February 28, 1842.

Yon will, I am sure, be delighted to hear that I have caught two fresh
patients since last week. One is a nervous old girl, who takes four draughts
a day of gin-and-water, coloured with cochineal ; and the other is old
Mrs. Pinkey's housekeeper, who says, " she've got such a fluttering at
her stomach as quite terrifies her into the no-hows." I appear to have
done her a great deal of good by the cautious use of my new " life pill,"
which, entre nous, is composed of equal parts of linseed-meal and ginger-
bread beaten up with a few drops of treacle. Jack Randall and I have
made nearly a peck of them against I get to attend the Union. They will
keep in any climate, if the mice don't get at them, and are unimpaired by
age—with the exception of getting as hard as bullets ; but even then they
are not useless, for Jack sits at my first-floor window, and shoots them
through a stethoscope at Mrs. Pinkey's blackbird, that hangs out next
door but one. This he only does on cloudy days ; when the sun shines,
he gets my dentist's mirror, and dazzles the bird out of its wits, by mak-
ing jack-o'-lanterns on the cage.

Of course, with this increase of business, I must have a footboy with a
gold band around his hat. I got the crier to say I wanted a stout active
lad, and I was immediately overwhelmed with candidates for the sixpence
a day and grub themselves which I promised, finding them in clothes, oc-
casional physic, and acciuation. I send you a portrait of the one we
think of engaging.

please, sir, did you want a stout active lad?

I should like your boy above all others, only I do not think Bryant could
spare him. Besides, I fear he would find Clodpole precious dull after the
excitement of your office ; and the occasional visit of a Punch to the village
might have the same effect upon his mind as the Ranz des Vaches upon
the Swiss exile, and cause him to walk his chalks.

The present specimen is certainly rather a slow coach ; but he is the
best we could get; and Jack Randall says, whenever the servant-boys
hereabouts get stupid and drowsy, the people cut their hair, and give
them a black draught, which wonderfully revives them. I shall dress
him in green, with a confluent eruption of buttons on the regions of the
thorax.

We intend buying a basket for him with an oilcloth top, to take out
physic with, or rather to look like it ; and Jack and I mean to drill it into
him never to go out without it. Three draughts in a boy's beefy hand
look like nothing else but four-and-sixpence ; but with a basket no one can
tell the extent of medicine it conceals, although in reality it may only be
a pound of short sixes or a dozen shop eggs.

With all sorts of good wishes, believe me,

Yours, very extensively, Joseph Mufk.

ON DITS.

" I'm a 'tickler friend to you," as the snuff said to the nose.

" I shall be glad to hear from you at all times," as the deaf man said to the ear-
trumpet.

"Let me collect myself," as the man said when ha was blown-up by th* powder
mill.

"Loaded with slugs," as the gardener said to the wall-flower.

UN CALEMBOURG NOMPAREIL.

Pourquoi est ce que le nom familier en Anglais de Sarah revient a une contradic-
tion en Francais ?
Farce que son nom qui est propre est celui qui est Sal.