DOI issue:
September 14, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16880#0116
104
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
I September 14, 1867.
A FEW FRIENDS.
(IN SEVERAL TABLEAUX FROM MV PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)
at 915, that gives me an
TABLEAU I. (Continued.)
N a weak moment, after supper, during
the smallest hours of the night I agreed
to bathe in the sea, early, provided that
my Hearty Friend would call me. This I
said relying either upon his being too tired
to get up, or upon his forgetfulness.
The Morning. At some hour I awake;
suddenly, as if I’d been jerked into a
state of supernatural wakefulness. Won-
der what the time is ? Will look at my
watch. I postpone looking at my watch
Feel one moment as if I could get up and
walk, or ride, or take some violent, exercise.
Somehow I shut my eyes. On opening
them again, with difficulty this time, and
not at all as if jerked into any state of
wakefulness, I feel too tired to do anything.
Look at my watch—815. Shall get up
__ ji„j__ o__hour more—second sleep always the best.
Thank Goodness (think to myself as I turn on my side for a snooze)
my Hearty Friend has forgotten all about his confounded bathing.
/ can’t get up. If he had come when I first woke I could have jumped
out of bed and into the water (so to speak) at once. But now here I
drop off to sleep.
A thumping at my door—a shouting—a halloaing. My Hearty
Friend has burst into the room.
By the way, in hotels always lock your door, not so much for protec-
tion of goods as against being called in the morning by a boisterous
friend: you can defy him, from under the bed-clothes, when the door
is locked.
I pretend to be more drowsy than I am, in order to excite his com-
passion. I have a vague notion of appealing to him that he wouldn(t
rouse a man when he’s down. I say, dreamily, “ Hallo, it’s you, is
it P ” as if I’d forgotten all about him.
He thumps the bed. (Hate a fellow thumping the bed when I want
to go to sleep.) “Now, then,” he bawls, “get up!” I would give
him sixpence to go away. “ Hallo ! hallo ! hi! hi! hi! ” He is
heartiness itself this morning. I ask him “Not to make a row,” and
call him “old fellow,” under the impression that this will conciliate
him. He won’t be conciliated by anything less than my getting up
and bathing. “ What sort of a morning is it?” I want to know, as if
my decision to stop in or go out depended upon the state of the weather.
“ Lovely,” he returns, striding to the window and tearing the cur-
tains open. A great part of his heartiness is violence—mere violence.
1 hate having the sun let in before you’re prepared for it: result,
biliousness. I say, “ Do shut the curtains.” He won’t, so I silently
appeal to him by closing my eyes, and disappeariag under the counter-
pane, where I feign sleep.
“ Poof!” he snorts, pretending to be overcome by the closeness of
the atmosphere. “ How the deuce you can sleep without the window
open, I don’t know.” Whereupon he opens the window.
“ Now then,” says he, impatiently, “come along.” In five minutes,
I tell him, I ’ll be with him. (I think to myself, that if he once gets
outside the room I ’ll whip out of bed, lock the door, and have another
hour’s doze.) He bothers five minutes. I pay no attention, thinking
to disarm him by feigning sleep. Not a bit; he will, he says, pull the
clothes off. I remonstrate, clinging to the sheets. He tugs at them—
so do I. (If I ever again ask my Hearty Friend to call me in the
morning, I’m--but never mind.)
I beg him to leave me, and I ’ll get up—not he. He expresses his
opinion that “I’m not half a chap.” With only a sheet remaining
(he has pulled all the other things off, anyhow) I try to snuggle into
the pillow again, and show him how really sleepy I am, and how very
cruel and unfriendly it is on his part to tear me away from my bed, and
perhaps make me ill for the day.
He says he won’t stand it any longer, and barbarously drags the
sheet off. I clutch at it—it has gone. At this moment I hate him,
and if there were guards with halberds and arquebusses outside, I
would clap my hands, and order my Hearty Friend to be taken to the
deepest dungeon. Or, I could now (even in this costume) commence
an action at law against him, and carry my appeal (still in this costume)
to the Lords, if necessary—I get up grumbling. Being up, I have
doubts as to whether I ’ll bathe or not. My Hearty Friend is
practical, and says, “ Get on your boots.” I drag myself through my
trousers and into my boots. I am becoming more drowsy. If he
would only retire now I’d go to bed again, though I know the sheets
and blankets would be most horribly uncomfortable.
We won’t bathe in the sea,” I say. He replies that we will, and
that any other bathing is unhealthy and bosh. He is so dreadfully
hearty this morning, and I am so feeble. He points out to me that I
am wasting all the morning. I submit that Brill’s is the place to
bathe. [A Brill-iant, idea, as my Funny Friend, whose picture is
further on, would say.]
“Brill’s be blowed,” replies my Hearty Friend; “ all vapouring,
and only five feet of water in the deepest part.” He adds that I ’d
better bring my towels, comb, and come along (or Comb along, as my
Funny Friend would say—dreary time to make a joke, when you’re
half awake and going to bathe against your will). As he knows all
about it, I take on his recommendation my towels and comb ; though,
as I call to mind former days, the machines used to be provided with
such necessaries.
1 want, to dress for the day. He won’t give me time for anything
but slippers, trousers, and coat. I am to dress when I come back. I
don’t know what [ look like—I feel like a beggar. I protest, suppose
we meet anybody ? “ They won’t notice you,” he says—this is un-
satisfactory. “ Come along! ” says he—and we come along accord-
ingly.
1 point oat to him that the machines are on the left, while we are
going towards the right. This is ruin to slippers, I’ve had to cross a
watered, muddy road, gravelly, gritty pavement, down hard burning
stone steps on to a shingly beach ) He despises machines ; a boat, he
says, is the only thing to bathe out of. That’s why he told me to bring
towels. I can swim, he supposes, as a matter of course. Oh yes, of
course, but not having bathed in the sea for years I am not quite cer-
tain of how I might get on in deep water. Oh, all right, he says. The
boat is ready. The command given by the boatman (a blue gentleman
in enormous boots) is to go to the seat near the ‘ starn ’ and hold on. I
did get near the starn, my Hearty Friend was safely seated in the
starn ; but I didn’t hold on, at least not at the right time. The boat-
man, who had been waiting for a wave, which arrived sooner than the
wave which I was watching, suddenly launched the Maria into the sea,
and sent me against my Hearty Friend’s knees. [It was, I think, at
this moment that I gave the first blow to my foot, alluded to in num-
ber one of this series, which has caused me to lie up and look over my
photograph book of friends.] My Hearty Friend laughed ; had I
fallen over, he would, I believe, have laughed more. We are rowed
out.
“ Good bathing, here ? ” asks His Heartiness. “ About sixteen foot
o’ water,” answers the grumpy mariner. He was very grumpy. He
only spoke when spoken to ; except once, when a mate of his passed
in a fishing-boat; and he smiled once, it was almost a grin, when I did
get into the boat again after finishing bathing.
By the way, he was a man of no information. I don’t mean that he
wasn’t well up in Buckle’s History of Civilisation, Montalembert’s
Western Monks, Macaulay’s Essays, and such like works, but that on
matters connected with his own profession, he was singularly uncer-
tain, to say the least of it. I like obtaining information from these
sort of men, and asked him, while drying myself, “ If it was deeper
out there by the new pier, than here?” He didn’t know. “How
deep was it there?” He couldn’t say. “ Was there a band to-day
on the pier ? ” It wasn’t, in his opinion, unlikely. “ At what time ? ”
Didn’t know. Made use of the opportunity, and asked him, “what
the sailors called ‘the offing.’ ” The what, sir ? “ The offing.” Ah !
he didn’t know. “ He’s heard of the offing ? ” He evidently thought
he was being chaffed, as he became more grumpy than ever, and shook
his head.
Our Bathe. My Hearty Friend plunged in boisterously, head-fore-
most; splash, bash, wliish, wetting me, and all the clothes I’ve taken
off. _ He is up. again shaking his head, blowing, and expressing his
opinion that “it {puff) is {puff) first {poo—poo—blowing out salt
water like a Triton without a conch horn) rate. Come in ! ” this in-
vitation is to me. Will my things be all right ? won’t blow away ?
Boatman returns, “ All right.”
Can he steady the boat while I jump in. He can, he says, but he
doesn’t. I think my swimming is all right; I feel it coming back to
me. In order to prevent disappointment, I announce my intention of
not going in head-foremost. “ Come along ! ” shouts His Heartiness
from the sea. I am standing on the stern seat holding on to the bul-
warks or gunwale (1 mean the side of the boat) in the attitude of the
Greek slave tying his shoe, or some statue of that, sort, only I haven’t
got a shoe on to tie. The boat lurches, and how I go in I don’t know;
it seems to me as if my knees touched the water first, and my nose
last; but I can’t be certain. Underneath with bright green all about
me, except for a tew floating things like red fungi, which I remember
are jelly-fishes. My swimming is all right, gradually, but I am pain-
fully aware of being flustered at first. I feel I shaLl never get to the
boar, again. Iam exhausted and inclined to throw up my hands and
go down among the jelly-fishes. “ Hi! ” this to the boatman. My
breath is going. A minute more and the jelly-fishes will gloat over
me. I grasp his oar; nearly upsetting him ana his boat too. I don’t
care : I must breathe. “ l haven’t,” I explain to the boatman, cling-
ing to the blade ot the oar, “ bathed {gasp) in the {gasp) sea {gasp,
gasp) for years {gasp, gasp, gasp)!’ 1 let go the oar, and announce my
intention of coming in. “ How ? ” “ Steps,” says the boatman. My
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
I September 14, 1867.
A FEW FRIENDS.
(IN SEVERAL TABLEAUX FROM MV PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)
at 915, that gives me an
TABLEAU I. (Continued.)
N a weak moment, after supper, during
the smallest hours of the night I agreed
to bathe in the sea, early, provided that
my Hearty Friend would call me. This I
said relying either upon his being too tired
to get up, or upon his forgetfulness.
The Morning. At some hour I awake;
suddenly, as if I’d been jerked into a
state of supernatural wakefulness. Won-
der what the time is ? Will look at my
watch. I postpone looking at my watch
Feel one moment as if I could get up and
walk, or ride, or take some violent, exercise.
Somehow I shut my eyes. On opening
them again, with difficulty this time, and
not at all as if jerked into any state of
wakefulness, I feel too tired to do anything.
Look at my watch—815. Shall get up
__ ji„j__ o__hour more—second sleep always the best.
Thank Goodness (think to myself as I turn on my side for a snooze)
my Hearty Friend has forgotten all about his confounded bathing.
/ can’t get up. If he had come when I first woke I could have jumped
out of bed and into the water (so to speak) at once. But now here I
drop off to sleep.
A thumping at my door—a shouting—a halloaing. My Hearty
Friend has burst into the room.
By the way, in hotels always lock your door, not so much for protec-
tion of goods as against being called in the morning by a boisterous
friend: you can defy him, from under the bed-clothes, when the door
is locked.
I pretend to be more drowsy than I am, in order to excite his com-
passion. I have a vague notion of appealing to him that he wouldn(t
rouse a man when he’s down. I say, dreamily, “ Hallo, it’s you, is
it P ” as if I’d forgotten all about him.
He thumps the bed. (Hate a fellow thumping the bed when I want
to go to sleep.) “Now, then,” he bawls, “get up!” I would give
him sixpence to go away. “ Hallo ! hallo ! hi! hi! hi! ” He is
heartiness itself this morning. I ask him “Not to make a row,” and
call him “old fellow,” under the impression that this will conciliate
him. He won’t be conciliated by anything less than my getting up
and bathing. “ What sort of a morning is it?” I want to know, as if
my decision to stop in or go out depended upon the state of the weather.
“ Lovely,” he returns, striding to the window and tearing the cur-
tains open. A great part of his heartiness is violence—mere violence.
1 hate having the sun let in before you’re prepared for it: result,
biliousness. I say, “ Do shut the curtains.” He won’t, so I silently
appeal to him by closing my eyes, and disappeariag under the counter-
pane, where I feign sleep.
“ Poof!” he snorts, pretending to be overcome by the closeness of
the atmosphere. “ How the deuce you can sleep without the window
open, I don’t know.” Whereupon he opens the window.
“ Now then,” says he, impatiently, “come along.” In five minutes,
I tell him, I ’ll be with him. (I think to myself, that if he once gets
outside the room I ’ll whip out of bed, lock the door, and have another
hour’s doze.) He bothers five minutes. I pay no attention, thinking
to disarm him by feigning sleep. Not a bit; he will, he says, pull the
clothes off. I remonstrate, clinging to the sheets. He tugs at them—
so do I. (If I ever again ask my Hearty Friend to call me in the
morning, I’m--but never mind.)
I beg him to leave me, and I ’ll get up—not he. He expresses his
opinion that “I’m not half a chap.” With only a sheet remaining
(he has pulled all the other things off, anyhow) I try to snuggle into
the pillow again, and show him how really sleepy I am, and how very
cruel and unfriendly it is on his part to tear me away from my bed, and
perhaps make me ill for the day.
He says he won’t stand it any longer, and barbarously drags the
sheet off. I clutch at it—it has gone. At this moment I hate him,
and if there were guards with halberds and arquebusses outside, I
would clap my hands, and order my Hearty Friend to be taken to the
deepest dungeon. Or, I could now (even in this costume) commence
an action at law against him, and carry my appeal (still in this costume)
to the Lords, if necessary—I get up grumbling. Being up, I have
doubts as to whether I ’ll bathe or not. My Hearty Friend is
practical, and says, “ Get on your boots.” I drag myself through my
trousers and into my boots. I am becoming more drowsy. If he
would only retire now I’d go to bed again, though I know the sheets
and blankets would be most horribly uncomfortable.
We won’t bathe in the sea,” I say. He replies that we will, and
that any other bathing is unhealthy and bosh. He is so dreadfully
hearty this morning, and I am so feeble. He points out to me that I
am wasting all the morning. I submit that Brill’s is the place to
bathe. [A Brill-iant, idea, as my Funny Friend, whose picture is
further on, would say.]
“Brill’s be blowed,” replies my Hearty Friend; “ all vapouring,
and only five feet of water in the deepest part.” He adds that I ’d
better bring my towels, comb, and come along (or Comb along, as my
Funny Friend would say—dreary time to make a joke, when you’re
half awake and going to bathe against your will). As he knows all
about it, I take on his recommendation my towels and comb ; though,
as I call to mind former days, the machines used to be provided with
such necessaries.
1 want, to dress for the day. He won’t give me time for anything
but slippers, trousers, and coat. I am to dress when I come back. I
don’t know what [ look like—I feel like a beggar. I protest, suppose
we meet anybody ? “ They won’t notice you,” he says—this is un-
satisfactory. “ Come along! ” says he—and we come along accord-
ingly.
1 point oat to him that the machines are on the left, while we are
going towards the right. This is ruin to slippers, I’ve had to cross a
watered, muddy road, gravelly, gritty pavement, down hard burning
stone steps on to a shingly beach ) He despises machines ; a boat, he
says, is the only thing to bathe out of. That’s why he told me to bring
towels. I can swim, he supposes, as a matter of course. Oh yes, of
course, but not having bathed in the sea for years I am not quite cer-
tain of how I might get on in deep water. Oh, all right, he says. The
boat is ready. The command given by the boatman (a blue gentleman
in enormous boots) is to go to the seat near the ‘ starn ’ and hold on. I
did get near the starn, my Hearty Friend was safely seated in the
starn ; but I didn’t hold on, at least not at the right time. The boat-
man, who had been waiting for a wave, which arrived sooner than the
wave which I was watching, suddenly launched the Maria into the sea,
and sent me against my Hearty Friend’s knees. [It was, I think, at
this moment that I gave the first blow to my foot, alluded to in num-
ber one of this series, which has caused me to lie up and look over my
photograph book of friends.] My Hearty Friend laughed ; had I
fallen over, he would, I believe, have laughed more. We are rowed
out.
“ Good bathing, here ? ” asks His Heartiness. “ About sixteen foot
o’ water,” answers the grumpy mariner. He was very grumpy. He
only spoke when spoken to ; except once, when a mate of his passed
in a fishing-boat; and he smiled once, it was almost a grin, when I did
get into the boat again after finishing bathing.
By the way, he was a man of no information. I don’t mean that he
wasn’t well up in Buckle’s History of Civilisation, Montalembert’s
Western Monks, Macaulay’s Essays, and such like works, but that on
matters connected with his own profession, he was singularly uncer-
tain, to say the least of it. I like obtaining information from these
sort of men, and asked him, while drying myself, “ If it was deeper
out there by the new pier, than here?” He didn’t know. “How
deep was it there?” He couldn’t say. “ Was there a band to-day
on the pier ? ” It wasn’t, in his opinion, unlikely. “ At what time ? ”
Didn’t know. Made use of the opportunity, and asked him, “what
the sailors called ‘the offing.’ ” The what, sir ? “ The offing.” Ah !
he didn’t know. “ He’s heard of the offing ? ” He evidently thought
he was being chaffed, as he became more grumpy than ever, and shook
his head.
Our Bathe. My Hearty Friend plunged in boisterously, head-fore-
most; splash, bash, wliish, wetting me, and all the clothes I’ve taken
off. _ He is up. again shaking his head, blowing, and expressing his
opinion that “it {puff) is {puff) first {poo—poo—blowing out salt
water like a Triton without a conch horn) rate. Come in ! ” this in-
vitation is to me. Will my things be all right ? won’t blow away ?
Boatman returns, “ All right.”
Can he steady the boat while I jump in. He can, he says, but he
doesn’t. I think my swimming is all right; I feel it coming back to
me. In order to prevent disappointment, I announce my intention of
not going in head-foremost. “ Come along ! ” shouts His Heartiness
from the sea. I am standing on the stern seat holding on to the bul-
warks or gunwale (1 mean the side of the boat) in the attitude of the
Greek slave tying his shoe, or some statue of that, sort, only I haven’t
got a shoe on to tie. The boat lurches, and how I go in I don’t know;
it seems to me as if my knees touched the water first, and my nose
last; but I can’t be certain. Underneath with bright green all about
me, except for a tew floating things like red fungi, which I remember
are jelly-fishes. My swimming is all right, gradually, but I am pain-
fully aware of being flustered at first. I feel I shaLl never get to the
boar, again. Iam exhausted and inclined to throw up my hands and
go down among the jelly-fishes. “ Hi! ” this to the boatman. My
breath is going. A minute more and the jelly-fishes will gloat over
me. I grasp his oar; nearly upsetting him ana his boat too. I don’t
care : I must breathe. “ l haven’t,” I explain to the boatman, cling-
ing to the blade ot the oar, “ bathed {gasp) in the {gasp) sea {gasp,
gasp) for years {gasp, gasp, gasp)!’ 1 let go the oar, and announce my
intention of coming in. “ How ? ” “ Steps,” says the boatman. My