Punch or The London charivari (3.1842)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

73

OPENING OF THE OYSTER SEASON.

This glorious festival came off last week with all the eclat of former
years ; and our own reporter having been despatched to the spot, we are
■enabled to give the following particulars.

Billingsgate was a scene of bustle and confusion from first to last, and
•vehicbs of every description were waiting on the beach, to do honour to
uativi worth in the usual manner.

Mr. Goldham, the Inspector of Fish, whose duty it is to rub his nose
■every morning along the whole line of fish-stalls, was very soon upon the
ground, having slipped on a piece of orange-peel at the entrance of the
market. Mr. Goldham wore the insignia of the Doubtful Mackarel, and
was looking remarkably well. He was preceded by a division of police ;
and having'gone through the awful ceremony of condemning a quart of
•stale shrimps, he gave a long audience to a suspicious looking flounder,
•which was, however, permitted to remain in the market.

The grand ceremony of the day at length commenced ; and, in looking
from that busy shore on to those well-laden vessels, it was impossible that
the bosom of the spectator should not feel a thrill of pride, as he said to
himself, " Those—those are English craft ; and this—ay, this—is British
commerce!" Mr. Goldham, who had been looking remarkably well all
■the morning, now began to look considerably better ; for the flush of
ambition lighted up his features, as he surveyed the Oyster fleet riding
before him in the offing of Billingsgate.

At precisely the proper hour the word was given to land ; when the
•coast was immediately thronged with natives, some carried in sacks on
4he shoulders of the people, and others brought in basket-loads on to the
beach, where Mr. Goldham, having in vain endeavoured to preserve his
-dignity, was at length regularly run down, and compelled to seek the
■hospitality of an adjacent wine-vault.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF COURTSHIP.

Chapter. VI.—Of what a man does when he is rejected.

The astonishment of Apollo when he was kicked out of Heaven—
the surprise of Sancho Panza when disappointed of his dukedom—
the wonder of Joseph Hume when out-voted at Leeds, were tame,
■quiet manifestations of chagrin compared with those which break
from a man who is rejected.

The man who is rejected jumps into his cab, and being determined
to drive home and hide his despair in the deepest recesses of the
Albany, gallops off in a contrary direction, at a rate which causes
sober wayfarers to keep close to the wall, and basket-women to
tremble for their stalls. Being suddenly brought to a halt by a
regiment of brewers' drags in the City, he comes for a moment to
Ms senses, and makes uj his mind to visit his banker, from whom lie
demands letters of credit upon every town or city from Calais to
Pesth, having suddenly formed a desire to scamper over the Conti-
nent of Europe, and to bury his sorrows in the deserts of Arabia,
instead of his chambers in the Albany.

Notwithstanding this stern determination, he gets, somehow or
■other, to his rooms at an early hour the next morning, and flings
himself on the bed. During a restless sleep, his brain is visited with
an exquisite amalgam, in which the hopes, disappointments, events,
and determinations of the past day are mixed up in tortuous con-
fusion. An angel in Brussels lace and butterfly's wings is first
presented to his disordered imagination, in the likeness of Rose
•Robinson (for we are tearing a leaf out of the history of Frank
Kennedy, which, nevertheless, fits the records of most rejected
lovers), who appears as an Eastern houri, torn from his arms by
the Honourable Mrs. Couple, in the form of an Arabian Bedouin,
who drags her from his longing arms upon a brewer's drav, driven
by an Hungarian Chief across the frontiers of Prussia, to the eastern
-extremity of Cheapside. He then fancies himself at his banker's,
playing at short whist, and—transforming the-clerks into waiters at
Evans's ;—when asked " how he will take" his check for five hundred
pounds, desires it in "sheep's kidneys, stewed in cay'enne, and fried
in brandy," with a bowl of punch made of Guinness's stout, and
Moet's champagne. Whilst the senior cashier is singing "The
Humours of a Country Fair," he espies Sir Charles Simper talking
to the houris at the bar in Brussels lace and butterfly's wings ;
whereupon he finda himself in Battersea Fields, directly opposite to
a screw barrel, himself discharging another, loaded to the muzzle.
At last he wakes with bis nightcap pulled tightly over his face, and
» choking sensation in his throat—such as is felt by persons a few
■weeks after they have been found out in a murder.

Returning consciousness brings its desolation, together with an

were to send for an ounce of maguesia, whether the apothecary's
apprentice could be kind enough to make a mistake, and supply in
its place sugar-of-lead. At all risks he orders soda-water and strong
coffee, with writing materials to follow ; desiring his servant, mean-
time, to clean his duelling-pistols.

Having dressed and settled himself before his writing-desk, he
selects a sharp-pointed pen, and determines to give the wayward
lady another chance; for of course she lias by this time quite
repented of her refusal. After breaking the nebs of several steel
pens and bitten two or three quills into shreds, he boldly inscribes
upon the paper these words—" After the agony I have suffered,"—
and then waits another visitation from the epistolary Muses, with
upturned eyes and intense resignation. But a moment's considera-
tion assures him that "agony" is not a happy expression so in-
discriminately applied as it is to the toothache and the feelings of
the heart; he therefore scores it out and substitutes " torture by
which time he is inspired with another brilliant member of the
sentence by adding to " After the torture I have suffered " a piece of
pleasing intelligence in the words " I sit down"—then, at the end of
another pause, " to express"—what, he is unable at the moment to
make up his mind.

This half-sentence having completely exhausted his epistolary
treasury, he suddenly remembers an adage which declares that none
but the courageous deserve the favour of the fair; and he thinks
it his duty to call las rival out. With a degree of alacrity and
readiness which would do honour to a Treasury secretary, he pens a
note to a friend in the Army to come to him immediately, occupying
the interval by hunting up from the corners of his memory some
decent excuse for asking his antagonist to be so good as to stand uj
to be shot at. Having .recollected, that at the club on the previous
evening, he had put forth a flat contradiction to an assertion of th«
rejected that the Bishop of Jerusalem wore a silk apron on landing
at Alexandria, he sends by his friend the Major an application fo1
instant apology, which, if carefully nursed and skilfully fermented, lu
trusts will, with care and the blessings of good management, come ti
a speedy duel.

Having eased his conscience in this matter, he actually accom
plishes a letter of expostulation to his adored, and awaits the answe-
in tremulous expectation. He knows well enough what will be iti
purport.—it will evince a mortification of her rejection. In thai
case, he will have a good mind to take her at her word, and neve)
see her more ! Yet—can he be cruel I Can he let remorse lie like
a worm i' the bud, and feed on her damask cheek ? Can he relent
lessly marry the tailer's widow with a plum, to spite the lovely Rose
with a mere twenty-three thousand ? Forbid it, feeling ! forbid it,
generosity ! He will respond to her forthcoming half-retracting note
in a gentle, forgiving spirit. He will not disappoint her—fickle, capri-
cious as she has been. In short, he will on no account whatever
break her heart.

active curiosity about the taste of prussic acid, and he wonders if he With this charitable resolve, the reacted takes up the i

up tne i )ws-