Punch (53.1867)

November 2, 1867.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

183

A FEW FRIENDS.

(PROM MY PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)

TABLEAU V.—MY FUNNY FRIEND. —(Continued.)

There are good points about m.v Funny Friend; one beimr that he
amuses my Great Aunt. I don’t think i ever saw anyone really amuse
her before this. My Great Aunt was (so to speak) “tickled” by him :
that is, she shut her eyes and smiled, as I have seen her do while
drinking warm sherry-and-water with ginger in it.

By the way, she puts ginger in everything. Her beverage at dinner
is stout, qualified, somehow, with ginger. Her tea has a dash of
ginger in it. She is perpetually “ correcting ” herself with ginger. 1
have seen her infuse a modicum of grated ginger into a boiled egg at
breakfast. Occasional spasms, which always take place out of sight,
up-stairs in her bedroom, require gingerly treatment, with brandy : the
ginger being, 1 ascertain, in comparatively smaU quantities.

My Funny Friend falls in with this notion of ginger, and humours
her. I don’t tell her that he is humbugging when he comes out with
a story of a man in India who extricates himself from the grip of a
tiger by having a small bottle of laudanumed ginger in his pocket
“The ginger hi the laudanum,” he explained, kicking me under the
table, to point the joke of the thing, “ making the tiger open its mouth :
and the laudanum in the ginger killing the ferocious animal.”

When asked what he’ll drink, Grigg replies that he “doesn’t care :
champagne will-do.” Mrs. Buzzyby produces a pint. I have it in
pints, on account of my Aunt. She professes to take only stout, but
if there’s a bottle ot champagne on the table, it always induces her to
observe, that she thinks perhaps one little glass would do her good.
One little glass might; but our glasses are not little, and she doesn’t
limit herself to one, because it is evident that to return to stout after
champagne, would not be a good thing. I can’t help making this
remark (I had made it to Grigg, who at dinner—I see through his
“fun” now—took advantage of his knowledge), because my Aunt
only pays her share of the housekeeping expenses, and “all the wine,”
she says, goodhumouredly, “of course comes to you”—meaning me.
She may be going to leave me a lot of money : she may not. But any-
how, if I could get quarter-pint bottles, I would; and, after all, it
would be better for her health.

Grigg laughs at the pint, and observes cheerily, that that’s all very
well for one, and insists upon my Aunt “joining us.” She coquettes
over this ; and I advise her not to, as she was only the other day com-
plaining of Champagne creating acidity. This startles her ; but Grigg
—(there’s malice in his fun ; I thought he was a good-natured fellow;
he isn’t)—says, “ Correct acidity with ginger.”

Once bring ginger in where my Great Aunt’s concerned, and further
argument is useless.

She admits the truth of the prescription. Mrs. Buzzyby, at my
request, produces a bottle after the pint, has been opened. Grigg
tells two funny stories. My Great Aunt shuts her eyes and smiles,
dropping her head on one side, and bringing it round again into posi-
tion. After an interval for Champagne, when he drinks my Aunt’s
health, in which I am bound to join, he commences a third story
of a feebly humorous kind exactly suited to my Great Aunt.

By the way. Fortune for a Publisher ! A Book of Select Humor-
ous Stories for Elderly Ladies, with an Appendix of Puns on Known
Words in Common Use.

Grigg, then, after his first plateful is finished-We are in the third

course; and, with an apology for his appetite, he has taken twice of
everything, which makes Mrs. Buzzyby and the little maid hate him,
I kuow. Poor Mr. Buzzyby, the Mysterious, the denizen of the
back kitchen, will fare badly.

By the way. Another notion for a Publisher. Novel in 3 vols.
Mysterious Denizen of the Back Kitchen. “ Denizen ” ought to be
“ madman,” and the title’s worth a year’s subscription of fifty people
to a circulating library.

-After his first plateful is finished, Grigg, while I am helping him

again, proposes my health. My Great Aunt (very bad for her
I’m sure) must join him in this. There is no more champagne. I say
jocularly, “ Ah, then we won’t have my healthbut Grigg doesn’t
see it in the same light.

No more does my Aunt, over whom, with the antidote of ginger in
view, a fearful recklessness has suddenly come.

Another bottle. My health is proposed. While Grigg has his
second helping (“ tucking in ” is the word for my Funny Friend’s
performance at dinner) I respond, saying how glad 1 am to see Grigg,

and particularly as “ the Air of Cokingham-” He stops me with a

shout of laughter that startles my Aunt. “ Ha ! ha ! ” he cries, effer-
vescing with his fun, “ you’ re always thinking of titles for books.
There you are.” Where am I? I ask. “ Why, don’t you see, what
you said: The Air of Cokingham.” He explains to my Aunt,
“ H.E.I.R. Air.” “Oh, dear me!” she says, “Oh dear yes,” and
sees it with her eyes shut, and smiling; warm sherry-and-water
expression again. While her eyes are shut, Grigg refills her glass, and

begs my pardon for interrupting me. 1 repeat sarcastically that
“ 1 am glad to see the Air of Cokingham has so good an effect on his
appetite.” He immediately proposes t.he health of the Air of Coking-
ham. This is too much for my Great Aunt, upon whom the Cham-
pagne is, [ regret to say, beginning to tell. Indirectly (i. e., outside
the door) it is telling on Mrs. Buzzyby. Grigg thinks another
bottle just to “ top up with,” would be the proper thing.

[fully expect to hear my Aunt suddenly propose “topping up ”
with something. She ’ll have to “ top up ” with a considerable, amount
of ginger up-stairs. I oppose this. Grigg says, “he didn’t like to-
mention if. before, because we might have Riven him presents ; but the
fact is, it is his birthday.” I do not immediately see through this, or
should have contradicted it on the spot. “ Oh,” says my Aunt,
smirking—[actually smirking ! Not all the ginger in Arabia will wash
out tins Champagne. Hope nothing serious will happen]—“ if we’d
known it was Mr. MacGrigg’s,”—she will stick to this ; and when [
correct her, he says she’s quite right; it is MacGrigg, and she is
augry with me. Angry ! never been so before !

“If we’d known it was your birthday, Mr. MacGrigg,” with an
indignant look at me, “ we would have drunk your health.”

“Not too late,” says Grigg, immediately, “/can manage another
bottle.” Well, I can’t. “Nor,” [ answer for her— (I’m hanged if I
think she ’ll be able to answer for herself, soon ! Disgraceful! The
end of a Great Aunt! Living highly respected for eighty-five years,
and then finishing, thus ! Too revolting ! Why, she might even
come to be hung for cruelty to a nephew !)—“can my Aunt: so we ’ll
have a pint in for you, unless, after all, there is another glass in the
bottle.” “ There isn’t,” on Mrs. Buzzyby’s authority, who seems to
know all about it—all, and something more, from the “light in her
laughing eye”—so in comes the pint; and Grigg undertakes it on the
strength of its being his birthday. My Aunt yields to a sip or two,
and I, for my Aunt’s sake, and to save appearances (and disappear-
ances, perhaps : my Great Aunt under the table, and Mrs. Buzzyby,
incapable, somewhere), and also to spite Grigg, just take a glass.

After this he gives auother humorous story, in which a clergyman
figures : it tells against the clergyman, and exhibits the cloth in a
ridiculous light. My Aunt, who would have prayed for the conversion
of this benighted young man had she heard this at any other time, now
keeps on smiling and shutting her eyes for at least two minutes con-
secutively. She has quite got beyond Select Humorous Stories for
Elderly Ladies. I hope Grigg won’t go any further. I refer to my
watch. Dessert is on table. My Aunt says suddenly she will retire.
I hope she doesn’t feel at all unwell. She thanks me : not at all. But
she expects us in the drawing-room : if however we don’t come up and
“we shouldn’t, meet again to-night”—this sadly and sweetly to Grigg,
who instantly becomes serious and pretends to be immensely affected,
“ why, she,” my Aunt, “ will say good-bye to Mr. MacGrigg for the
present.”

Grigg sees her to the door, where she delivers herself, into the hands
of her own maid and Mrs. Buzzyby, by both of whom she is supported
aloft to her room, where she will have fearful struggles between acidity
and ginger.

When the door is closed, “ Now,” sings Grigg, jovially,

“ Wreath the flowing bowl,

Till it does run over,”

Here he forgets the words, but continues with emphasis, but no dis-
cretion,

“ Something, something roll.

Live in—something clover.”

I say, “ Don’t make that noise, old fellow.” Mrs. Buzzyby wishes
to know if we require anything more to-night. 1 say “No,” and add
that “ Mr. Grigg will be going soon.” Mr. Grigg, however, tells
Mrs. Buzzyby “not to believe him,” meaning me, that, plaintively,
“We” (he and I) “haven’t met for years, and would she tear us
asunder so soonf” He then thumps his heart, addresses her in a
passionate strain as, “ Oh, Araminta Isabella ! Oh, Araminta ! ”
Whereat, to my astonishment, (considering that Mr. Buzzyby is
within hearing in the back kitchen) she smiles and says, “ She never
saw anyone go on half so foolish as Mr. Grigg. It’s like aTheayter,”
she adds, which being taken by my F'unny Friend as a great compli-
ment, makes him funnier than ever.

He gains his point with her, much to my annoyance. She consents
to the gentleman stopping, but not too long, and practically leaves the
guardianship of the house in my hands. So his going or staying
depends now on my hospitality, which is exactly what I didn’t want.
She also, as an idea of her own, brings in my Great Aunt’s brandy
(which she takes with ginger) and then leaves us. My Funny Friend
executes a silent dance of joy.

Have I any cigars ? ” I’ve not. Then he has. A case full.

“ Now then for a night of it,” he says, lighting up, and immediately
singing, “ We won’t go home till morning,” with his, Grigg’s, rum ti
turn t.i, ad libitum, or as he says, ad, libUzwffl-^'-rum-ti, and then roars
with laughter.

I do believe he will not go home till morning. My mind is made up ;
I go to bed at eleven. Now then.