Punch (53.1867)

114

[September 21, 1867.





PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

A FEW FRIENDS.

(IN SEVERAL TABLEAUX FROM MY PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)

TABLEAU II.—MY GLOOMY FRIEND.

Y Gloomy Friend strolling:
by the sea catches sight of
me at my window, laid by
the heels in consequence of
bathing among the jelly-
fish aforesaid. He stops and
exclaims slowly, “Rul-lo!”
from the pavement. He
sees that something is the
matter with me, and an-
nounces his intention of'
coming up. He comes up.
He is very tall, and his
voice is double-bass, so low
that it sounds as if he was
always giving a ventrilo-
quial imitation of the man
in the cellar. He appears
at the door of my room,
and then his voice, so to
speak, follows, coming up
after him. He has the air of the Ghost in Hamlet, regarding the world
generally more in sorrow than in anger. His tones are measured
and musical, inducing sleep in the listener.

I can’t rise to receive him, having my leg on a chair, and my foot
swaddled.

I address him as cheerfully as possible—for one can’t help being
slightly overcome by his height, and depth of voice,—making light of
this attack of jelly-fish. He stands in the door-way and says (that is,
the man in the cellar says), that he’s sorry to see me like this ? (I
should like to butt him in the middle of his waistcoat and make him
speak quicker.)

I tell him “ It’s nothing,” but somehow begin to realise its im-
portance. “ Gout ?” he inquires. No, not gout, I inform him, feeling
artially sorry at being obliged to disclaim any tendency to gout. I
ave a sort of hazy idea that only Dukes have gout.

“ Erysipelas ? ” he supposes, with the air of one who’s right this
time, and won’t guess again. I am a little indignant with him for this
supposition. Such a drop from gout to erysipelas : from the palace to
the hospital. So I explain to him that “It’s a curious thing ; the
sting of a jelly-fish and I continue my lecture on the subject, as if
the foot didn’t belong to me, but was a surgical model, illustrating the
effect of jelly-fish on the human toe. He is not astonished at all: it is
not “ a curious thing ” to him: in fact, it’s far from uncommon, he
says, and wonders why you don’t oftener hear of fatal cases, as the
jelly-fish sting is most dangerous. I say, “ I don’t think it can be
very dangerous.” He begs my pardon, but it is, very. (The bass
voice from the cellar says this impressively.) I force a smile, and tell
him cheerily, “ ’Twill all be right in a day or two.” He “ hopes so,”
(that is the man in the cellar, or under the chair when he’s seated,
“ hopes so”) but he adds, with great deliberation, that I ought to be
very careful. By the way, his gloominess arises mainly from a mistaken
notion of expressing sympathy with misfortune.

I enforce the fact on him that “ I am taking care; ” and determine
in my own mind to take more care than ever. In order to prove my
own solicitude for myself, I tell him that I am in the Doctor’s hands.
This doesn’t cheer him up at all: he only wants to know (lowest note
in the bass cleff) “"What, Doctor?” I tell him defiantly, as daring
him to name a better; which however he does at once. “ Oughtn’t to
have gone to Tipkin,” says he, naming my man, “ you wanted Bun-
bury for this sort of thing.” The thought of my mistake in consulting
Tipkin instead of Bunbury makes him more gloomy than ever. I
have half a mind to apologise to Tipkin when he comes again, and say,
“ I’m very sorry to have troubled you, but I want Bunbury.” Before,
however, getting rid (mentally) of Tipkin, I ask, “ Why Bunbury ? ”
Just to give Tipkin a chance.

“Well,” says a sepulchr.l voice from somewhere, “ Tipkin’s a
humbug.” This is unsatisfac ory. I say, for my own comfort, that
all Doctors are alike. I feel I’m wrong there. My Gloomy Friend
points to Bunbury as a brilliant exception. Bunbury, it appears,
would have had me all right in a day. (Tipkin’s been two days
already). Bunbury wouldn’t have poulticed, not he, being apparently
above such treatment. (Tipkin is, so to speak, all poultice.) Bunbury
goes upon the dieting plan. So does Tipkin, I exclaim, scoring one,
as it were, for poor Tipkin. “ Not the right dieting system,” says my
Gloomy Friend: “ his system,” he goes on to explain, “ does more
harm than good.” He calls me to witness my own condition, how
I ’m lowered iu two days. [I give Tipkin up : I wish I could shake
him off ana call in Bunbury. By the way, I might be “ not at home ”

when Tipkin calls, and give his medicines to the boots to do what, he
likes with. They may be useful to him : for his children, if any.I
“ Tipkin,” my Gloomy Friend, more basso profondo than usual, sup-
poses, “ has sent you lots of draughts.” “ He has,” 1 admit, be-
ginning to look upon Tipkin as nothing better than a swindler.
“ And he ’ll send a lot more, of course,” says His Gloominess, as if
communing with himself over a melancholy future. 1 admit again that
Tipkin has expressed his intention of so doing. [I am getting savage
with Tipkin, and when the medicine does come, hang me if I don’t
think I’ll send it back again to him with my compliments, and ask him
to take it himself.] By the way, 1 needn’t take it. “ But,” the voice
from the tomb reminds me, “you’ll have to pay for it.” He dares
say, merely to prevent utter despondency on my part, that it will be
all right in time : only he advises me if I “ find myself getting worse
to send for Bunbury,” which I promise to do.

He now returns to his first theme, and expresses his opinion that
what I’ve got is incipient gout, aggravated by the poison of the jelly-
fish. Is the jelly-fish poisonous? I ask, for I own I am startled bv
that word. He looks up at me with calm, pitying surprise. “ Poison ?”
says he, smiling gloomily, “ of course.” He commences au explanation
of the different kinds of jelly-fish. Did I fall among red ones, or white
ones? or green ones? Were they long and filmy, or wide and almost,
opaque bodies ? Red I think and filmy, is my answer; though I don’t like
admitting they were “filmy.” I feel somehow that all their sting lies in
their being “filmy.” “ Bad,” he says, in his lowest tone ; my knell. I
follow my own coffin, in imagination, to the nearest churchyard.
Epitaph, “ Killed by Jelly-fish.” During my meditation he is silent.
Then he rises as ii to go, and the voice of the man in the cellar comes
up a step or two, as he rises towards the ceiling (he must be six feet
three) and hopes he ’ll see me better soon. I apologise for not getting up
and he replies, “No ; not on any account; you must be careful.” But
ne doesn’t leave me. He stands silently at the window regarding the
passers-by. He sees excursionists packed into a sailing-boat, and fore-
tells some accident. He is of opinion that many things “ oughtn’t to
be allowed.” Pleasure-boats for excursion parties being one of them.
A nurse with a child passes, and he points out to me how the little boy
(or girl) is tending towards being bandy-legged. To make him lively,
I attract his attention towards some more children toddling about,
with their shoes off, in the sea. “How happy, how careless!” I
exclaim, sentimentally. He is sadly indignant with their attendants,
or parents. This is also a thing which “ should not be allowed.”
Why ? I ask. “ Do you not know,” he returns (bass cadence iu a
minor key), “ that it is in this way the seeds of rheumatism are
sown? ” I am aghast. It was only the other day I was encouraging
some little nephews and nieces to run for halfpence into the waves.
When they are old and rheumatic they will curse my memory and turn
. my picture to the wall. Street-niggers, bands, organs, beggars, all
“ oughtn’t to be allowed.” Here I agree with him. I suggest that
we may soon see all such nuisances rigidly prohibited by an Act. This
prospect does not satisfy him. He is very gloomy over it in fact.
“ Break up these bands of niggers,” he says, “ disperse the urganmen,
stop fiddlers, and men with dogs, ponies and monkeys, and what then ?
Why you cast on the streets a swarm of idlers, and feed a revolution.”
His views of literature, the stage, art, society are all of the same colour.
Everything wrong everywhere. Hotel charges “ shouldn’t be allowed,”
he thinks, and thence, arguing from the price of a glass of soda-water
and sherry at a large hotel, he prophesies the gradual commercial
, decline and fall of the British Empire. After all this I feel inclined to
pity everybody, pay my hotel bill if possible, draw my mouey out of the
| bank, sell most of my valuables, pack up a bag and go to some
elevated spot on the Continent, where I can watch the decay of my
mother country, and spend a shilling a day at the most.

By the way I have heard of some place in Switzerland near a snow
mountain and a lake, where you can live like a prince at a hotel for
two francs a day, and ride on a donkey. The latter included in the
charge. Shall go there. Wine of the country two pence a bottle.

He has not gone when luncheon is brought in by the waiter. My
Gloomy Friend reminds me that I ought to be very careful in my
diet. He will not, he says, take anything himself, luncheon being an
unwholesome meal. On the waiter’s laying him a plate, however, he
j sits and helps himself freely to pressed beef, rolled tongue and pickles,
observing, after looking at his watch, that it was later than he expected,
and therefore he shall make this his dinner. This is overheard by the
waiter, and I find “ one dinner” entered in my bill, as taking place at
l my luncheon time. By the way he is very anxious to know if it isn’t
my hour tor taking medicine, and begs me not to defer that ceremony
on his account. I assure him that the prescribed moment has not yet
arrived.

He becomes dreadfully gloomy on the subject of pickles, which
leads him to speak of the adulteration of food. This of course is “a thing
which shouldn’t be allowed.” After eating and drinking for three-
quarters of an hour, he settles himself in an arm-chair, and a solemn
voice, now fVom the deepest dungeon below the castle-moat, requests a
cigar. It is brought. He surveys it mournfully. He doubts its
goodness, inveighs against the price of all tobacco, and smokes it down