Punch (37.1859)

November 26, 1859.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 213

Elegant Party. “ There’s one comfort now-a-days ; a good-looking
Young Feller, with a helegant figger, can always be a model
to a Photographer ! ”

IMAGINARY CONVERSATION.

Scene—Hyde Park. Mr. Gladstone, coming from Brampton, mestt
Mr. Disraeli coming from Park Lane.

Mr. Gladstone. My dear Disraeli, how are you ? What a bracing
morning! Which way are you going ?

Mr. Disraeli. Can you doubt ? To the Serpentine. Have I not
been declined by the Scotchmen, for Lord Rector of Glasgow.
Ought I to survive it P But before I die let me congratulate you
upon being more acceptable to Sawneydom.

Mr. G. Yes, 1 have been chosen Lord Rector of Edinburgh, but
we won’t be proud, because that’s wrong. (They laugh) If your
appointment with Orcus is not urgent, take a turn with me.

Mr. D. Political, do you mean. What, going to change again?

Mr. G. I never changed my politics, my dear Mr. Disraeli. But
no politics are the worse for having a little India-rubber in them.

Mr. D. To rub out one’s former lines with ?

Mr. G. Nay, epigram in the open air, before dinner-

Mr. D. I am schooled. You mean that elasticity has its advan-
tages. True, but elastic things have a habit of coming back with a
snap that is the deuce and all. Sometimes it jerks folks out of Uni-
versity seats.

Mr. G. [tartly). And sometimes it don’t. But let that pass.

Mr. D. That pretty ancle, do you mean? Yes, it does the owner
credit, wdioever she is. But whence comes the Chancellor or tiie
Exchequer ?

Mr. G. I have been at the Brompton Boilers.

Mr. D. Trying some machinery for a new taxation ?

Mr. G. Oh, don’t talk about that. No, I’ve been looking at the
pictures, with the new Lord Mayor, who admires them hugely.

Mr. D. Eh ? Then he aspires to the title of Sheep-Shanks’s Mare.

Mr. G. Too bad; but I will take care he hears it.

Mr. D. If you like. I shall hardly have to make a Ministerial
speech during his tenure of office, unless you fellows display pre-
ternatural genius for getting into a hole. May one ask after
Reform ?

Mr. G. As well as could be expected. In fact, getting on nicely.
At least so I am told. But I mind my own business.

Mr. D. I take the hint, of course, and am dumb.

Mr. G. No, no, I didn’t mean that. I should be happy to tell you
anything I knew, but really I know nothing about it. At the proper
time I shall know all, I presume.

Mr. D. Avoid presumption, and tell me how it happens that you are
at this eleventh hour sending out for returns on which, I suppose, you
are going to build your Reform statistics ?

Mr. G. Eleventh hour be hanged, and put the returns in your pipe
and smoke them.

j Mr. D. A la bonne heure. Don’t be astonished if t hey are smoked
I on t he Speaker’s left, some fine afternoon in February coming,
j Mr. G. About questioning time, with a prefix to the effect that
somebody would be the last person in the world to embarrass
administrative arrangement by inquisitorial indiscretion, but having

had the honour of holding a not irresponsible office-. (They j

laugh heartily) All right. We shall have an answer for you, 1 dare
say.

Mr. D. Nay, there’s no want of answering in a Whig Administra-
tion, except that the thing itself never answers.

Mr. G. My dear fellow, mercy. Remember I am only just out of l
the society of a Lord Mayor. Frankly, I do not see why all infor-
mation could not have been obtained without writing public letters,
but some people have a mania for official correspondence. But as to
your eleventh hour, we have got, four clear months.

Mr. D. Four, that’s April. Taxes fust, eh?

Mr. G. I can’t say. But even if so, it is in conformity with the ,
principle of the Reform Act. First pay your taxes, and then come i
for the franchise.

Mr. D. Yes, and if ever there was a pettifogging Whig innovat ion :
upon constitutional right, that was one. The idea of making a candi-
date for Parliament, an assistant clerk to the tax-gatherer!

Mr. G. De cette eglise je n'etais pas sacristain, my dear friend. I was
not one of the Reform Ministry—I was (slily) never even a Radical.

Mr. D. No, and your mental process has therefore been incomplete
and unhealthy. Every boy ought to be first a Republican-radical, and
next a jure-divino Tory.

Mr. G. And then sober down, or rather up, to a-- j.

Mr. D. Conservative-Liberal, like me.

Mr. G. Or Liberal-Conservative, like me.

Mr. D. And so become an ornament to his age and a blessing to his
country, like both of us. (They laugh) What, a fleet of little ships
! those children are launching on the water! Talking of that, Pakington
: hopes and trusts that you are doing justice to his conceptions, and keep-
ing his navy up ?

j Mr. G. He’s very good, but give notice of your question.

Mr. D. I hear that the Duke of Somerset has made four civil
answers in five weeks. What trouble you must have taken with him. |
Who has been the Rarey ? I

Mr. G. Patriotism, I suppose, but I know nothing about it.

Mr. D. Shall you be offended if I ask whether Her Majesty’s
Coalition are on speaking terms ?

Mr. G. Bless you, mostf affectionate terms. Are we not always _
having Cabinet Councils ? There goes a child into the water while
his nurse is engaged with the soldiers.

Mr. D. Exactly what some of you hope will happen in the case of
your Reform child. And the invasion idea may save you yet.
i Mr. G. I’ll tell Lord John that you called him a nurserymaid.

[ But it is truly kind in you to be so much concerned for our welfare.
They might as well get that child out, though, before he is drowned.

I see three courses open to me—to go to the Humane Society house,
and report the circumstance, to tell the nurserymaid that she ought to
be ashamed of herself, or to mention the incident to the policeman I
see on the other side of the Park. L

Mr. D. Perhaps, if one saved the litlle lad, it would only be to pre-
serve him to be brought up aPeelite. On the whole, 1 think a masterly j
inactivity may be the most humane policy. Ah ! the butcher-boy has
fished him out. He is saved without my intervention.

Mr. G. I trust the country may be as fortunate. Well, good
morning.

Mr. I). Good morning. _ (They part.

Mr. G. (aside). Vinegar varmint!

Mr. D. (aside). Oily beggar !

A GOOD YOUNG MAN.

Monsieur Louis Veuillot implores of Monsieur Edmond About
to become tin bon feune hownie. It to be a good young man is to act,
and write, and indulge in abuse and blackguardism alter the style ot
Monsieur Veuillot ; if to be a good young man is to fill yourself with
the worst prejudices, and then to hurl anathemas against everyone who
will not share those prejudices with you; if to be a good young man, j
is to do the dirty work of the Church, and to believe in aL the lies and
miracles that the stupid priests may wfisli to cram down your throat; 1

if to be un bon feune homme is in any wrny to resemble Monsieur
Veuillot, then we implore of Monsieur Edmond About to remain
as he is, and to abjure with all possible loathing so pernicious an
example. It is sad to see an old serpent, like Monsieur V euillot,
breaking his teeth by attempting to bite the numerous wise saw's con-
tained in Monsieur About’s work of La Question llomume.

How to deal with Tory Candidates who bribe.—Send them j
to a Reform-a-Tory School.