Punch (47.1864)

September 3, 1864.]

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI

91

FROM OUR ILL-USED CONTRIBUTOR.

To Mr. Punch. The Temple.

ir,—I consider myself
an ill-used man. _ I
am aware that ill-
used men are awfully
unpopular, but I do
not care about popu-
larity. You have
sentenced me to
Penal Servitude in
London, at a time
when I ought to be
far away, like all the
rest of your young
men, and as good
conduct is no longer
to be reckoned in
regard to the re-
mission of a sentence,
I trust 1 am too faith-
ful a Protestant to
attempt any works
of supererogation. I
shall stay in town,
and I shall write,
“ since better may
not be,” but you
need not look for
any of that loyal and
gushing zeal which I display at other times in your interest.

You instruct me “to remain in London, and to take a general view
of what is going on.” Bolus latet in qeneralihus, as the old lawyers say,
but for the first word you may read dolor, as more descriptive of my
present state of mind. Besides, there is nothing going on, except the
Thames Embankment.

You have frequently remarked, and I have not dissented from the
propositions, that my style combines the easy flow of Addison with the
vigour of Macaulay, that it is studded with the wit of Sydney Smith,
and with the pregnant epithets of Carlyle, while its undercurrent of
philosophy is redolent of Tupper, and its poetic proclivities remind you
of Longfellow and Tennyson. Or if you have not exactly said that,
critics say it everyday of any author they are told to puff, and I deserve
such recognition quite as much as anybody. But, Sir, charming as my
style may be, it will be ruined by such work as that to which you have
so inconsiderately doomed me.

London would be a howling wilderness, if there were anybody left in
it to howl. Porty-eight hours have elapsed since I have spoken to any
human being except my cook (the housemaid is visiting at Ramsgate)
and the waiter at the Club, who is sulky because other waiters are
having their holiday in fine weather, and he believes—and I hope—that
he will have wet days. I am losing the gift of speech. I misapply
words. I spoke civilly to a cabman on Tuesday, though the brute put
me down two doors further than the house I wanted. I said to that
sulky waiter, “ Oblige me with some bread,” and he had the impudence
to think that I was going to be facetious with him. I promptly cured
him of that idea when he proceeded to forget the French mustard, but
you see the state to which solitude has reduced me. I am getting
nervous, too, and when my cabman was lashing his horse and tearing
up a street covered all over with heedless children, I was weak enough
to shut my eyes, and very nearly told him to drive more slowly. You
are responsible for debilitating the finest intellect in your service.

Where am I to go ? Nearly every theatre is shut. I have seen the
Ticket-of-Leave Man until 1 could prompt without book. I went so
often to that witty and enchanting entertainment, The Pyramid, that
Mr. Reed believed I wanted to steal his lovely bull-dog. Alfred
Mellon has given me nine boxes for his Concerts, which are the best
things in the world, but I am horribly afraid he thinks that I sell them,
knowing the demand for them—this is a good puff, but it is deserved.
I know Masks and Faces by heart; besides, that heart is on the waters
with Leah, and the theatre without her makes me pensive. Mr. Yining’s
house on fire excites me too much to leave me a tranquil enjoyment of
my Welsh rabbit at Paddy Green’s, and Mr. Green himself, though
he addresses me in the words of some song, “ J have always a Welcome
for Thee,” evidently imagines that I am in town, at such a time, for no
good purpose. Besides, you do not pay me a large (if inadequate)
salary to write about theatres and mutton chops.

Certainly, a few nights ago the Club was crowded, that is for the
time of year. There were four men in it, including your El-used Con-
tributor. There was Bertie Walpole (0,1 shall print names or any-
thing else, I am in no humour to be making anagrams, though by the
way I might have called him Dirty Redpole, as some of his intimate
friends do) and he told me that he had come to town to consult an
oculist. My playful retort you will have quickness enough to imagine.

but he declared that it was not all my Eye, but his, and he was savage
at a second epigram which I launched in reference to a certain greenness
which I suggested that the operator had better remove. Oculist! I
know why he came up. My lawyers are his lawyers, and though soli-
citors never betray professional confidence, one can’t help seeing papers
when they lie under your very proboscis or nose. Mr. Jehoshaphat,
of the Hebrew persuasion, has a knack of recalling some of his friends
to town, just when they least want to come. As Bertie chose to try
to mystify me, perhaps I didn’t lead the conversation into Jewry, and
make him fidget in his chair, in spite of his tenpenny cigar, the extra-
vagant beast. Then the next quarter of the party was Ted Cleveland.
He was perfectly miserable. He cannot get away at all, his partners
being off, but he did not care about that much while he knew that Miss
Maria (ne'e-ne\eic mind) was safe at her uncle the parson’s, in the country
village, with about nine she-cousins and a hobbadehoy. But Maria and
the eldest Miss Concordance have been invited to the Larches, and
Mrs. Fircone has always three or four Guards, or Treasury men, or some
such awful swells pervading the house. Ted somehow managed to let
his misery out, and Bertie and I ran the bag-fox like men. We looked
at our watches, and told him that Charley Stratton, the handsomest
chap in the 119th, must just then be taking Maria, in to dinner ; and
later we pointed out that. Charley, who has a wonderful mumble just
above a whisper, which he has artistically cultivated, must be having
good innings by that time. And we pictured a pic-nic among the rocks
by the cascade, and Maria, with abbreviated crinoline, helping
Charley to boil the kettle, which nearly made poor Teddy boil over
with jealousy and rage. The best of it was, too, that I knew Charley
had left the Larches for Scotland last week. So we had some little
pleasure that evening, but what is one Oasis in a desert P And talking
of that, what is an Oasis ?

The other man will not stand, chaff. This was Henry Yampire. I
found him in the Library, scribbling his hardest, with a lot of books
beside him. He apprised me, with much objectionable but forcible
language, that his editor (there are other tyrants beside yourself) had
sent him four or five theological works to be elaborately reviewed, and
he was knocking them off as fast as he could, for he had promised him-
self a fortnight’s good gambling at Baden-Baden. To my demand why
he did not work hi his own well-stocked study, he replied that the
painters were in it, and he referred to those apathetic mechanics with a
strength of adjective and participle which showed how earnest his theo-
logical reading had made him. I invited him to join me and Bertie at
our humble repast, but he replied savagely that he would neither eat
nor drink until he had polished off the everlasting humbug who had
written the volumes to which Yampy was doing as much justice as
he knew. I have seen the review since, and I am bound to say that
the Rev. Carney, D.D., owes small thanks to those paint-pots of Egypt.

But Bertie Walpole has, I suppose, squared it with Jehoshaphat,
and Ted sulks at home, and Yampire has ventilated his theology, and
is off to the play-tables of Baden-Baden. At all events, there is
nobody in the Club, except the impersonation of discomfort who has
the honour to address you. I have nothing to do, nothing to read, no-
body to speak to. I work away at the newspapers doggedly, but news-
papers, at this period, are sad and solemn things. One gives me a leader
to-day on the Education of the Orphans of Criminals, another on the
Drainage of the Outhouses on Farms, and a third on the Law of Patents.
Still I read them, as a prisoner counts the nails in the door of his cell.
Then I look out at a window, and see a railway van, and hope it will
break down, and a costermonger’s cart, and wish there was a law against
his bellowing, and seven empty cabs, crawling, and they remind me of
the railway station to which you have forbidden me to drive. Then I
look out at another window, but the prospect is not materially varied.
Then I go to the desk, and see what is for dinner, and behold very few
things, and none that I like, except grouse, which is four shillings, and
you know whether I am paid highly enough to afford grouse. Then I
go and smoke, and that destroys the little appetite I had, and I take
sherry and American bitters to bring it back, wnich it doesn’t. _ Then I
read the evening papers, and they are stupider than the morning ones,
and badly dried by that detestable and sulky waiter. Finally, I sit
down gloomily to dinner, and take much more wine than I want in
order to help on the evening. Lastly, I smoke again, many cigars, but
I do not enjoy them, and my mouth is hot, and gin-sling I think makes
you thirstier, nevertheless I take it. Ultimately, I go home in a
Hansom, and the driver asks me an extra sixpence because he has been
doing nothing all day. I give it him because I have been doing nothing
all day: in other times I should have told him he ought to be ashamed
of his idleness, and left him with the repartee instead of the sixpence.
But I am demoralised. Then I go into my house, and find two letters
from duns who know I am in town, and one from my wife, stating that
she and the family are delighted with Scarborough, and that she wants
money. Then I go up-stairs to bed, and find all the carpets taken away
to be cleaned or done some other nonsense with. And I can’t sleep,
having had no mental or bodily work, and when I do I dream that I am
in a drain and bellowing up the grating to be taken out, and none of the
passers-by can hear me. _ And all this is your doing.

Nevertheless I remain, with affection and respect, your dutiful
Contributor, Epicurus Rotundus.