Punch (53.1867)

November 16, 1867.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

203

A FEW FRIENDS.

(FROM MT PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)

TABLEAU V.—MY FUNNY FRIEND. TABLEAU VI.—MY SENSIBLE

FRIEND.

I go up-stairs to bed. How shall I shake Grigg off to-morrow? I
wish Fred Langson was here (portrait No. 6, ,my Sensible Friend),
he’d advise me. Langson always advises me : or rather, I always go
to Langson for advice. While I am thinking of this, a tremendous
shouting and knocking in the street below. At our house ? No. “ Hi!
Hi! Hi!” like a man in a horse-circus. Then bang, thump, thump. It’s
that fool Grigg again, I’ll be bound. I suppose he’s locked out. Let
him be, I’m sick of him. Whereupon I jump into bed sharply. Too
sharply, or else the bed’s badly made, for I’m brought up with a jerk,
and rather hurt myself in trying to kick my legs straight out-as usual.
Odd. I’m in a sort of bag. Suddenly the remembrance of the ex-
pression “ Apple-pie bed” occurs to me. Also that I let my Funny
Friend come up here to wash his hands. Hang the fellow! (Bang,
bang, bang, with a stick at a door on the opposite side of the street.)

My light is out. I have matches—patent ones—which will only
strike on theirown box Not one will answer. My Funny Friend again—
confound him ! I shall have to let him into the house, to ask him what
the deuce he’s done with the matches. (Bang, bang, “ Hi! hi!” in
the street.) No, I won’t. I’ll make my bed in the dark. 1 try. The
sheets don’t seem big enough, or the blankets too big. Somehow, I
can’t make the bed without the blankets being out at most uncom-
fortable places. If I get the sheet at the head, I can’t get it at the
foot; if at the foot, there’s none at the head. Then my pillows tumble
down. Now I’ve lost my pocket-handkerchief. Never mind, I can
get a clean one out of my drawer. I know where they are in the dark,
as I keep everything in such resular order. I go to the usual place:
put my hand in. Boots ! My Funny Friend again : again confound
him ! The banging in the street has been going on all this time. I
hear a gruff voice. A policeman. Hurrah ! Grigg will be taken up.
People are looking out of their windows—my Aunt and her maid are—
asking if it’s fire. The policeman answers no. Is he going to walk
Grigg off? I’ve a great mind, if I could only disguise my voice, to
say, “ Take him up, he’s a nuisance : I give him in charge for disturb-
ing the peace,” or words to that effect. The Policeman does not take
Grigg up. On the contrary, he joins him in shouting, and presently
takes to throwing stones at the New Inn windows. An elderly gentle-
man looks out from somewhere, and to whatever he says I hear Grigg
reply, “ Don’t make such a noise, I can’t hear myself knocking.” At
last, the Innkeeper, whose household must be in the habit of taking
morphine, looks out, “ having,” as I hear him say, “ been asked by his
Missis if there warn’t somebody knocking.” The door is opened, and
Grigg and the Policeman disappear within.

The neighbourhood is at peace ; but I can’t get my apple-pie bed
into anything like apple-pie order. I try to sleep on the sofa. * * *
Hang the fellow ! * * this is the last I ’ll see of him in a hurry.

Next morning. Grigg not up. Don’t wonder at that. My Aunt not
up : very unwell, requires a course of ginger. Don’t wonder at that.
There is a train to town in fifteen minutes’ time. I leave Grigg to my
Aunt, injured Mrs. Bdzzyby, and her outraged husbaud with the butter
in his right boot. I go with a view to consulting my Sensible Friend.
While away (I may mention here) I received notice from Head Quarters
that my attendance as Inspector under the Olfactory Act at, Cokingham
would be dispensed with. No reason assigned. I am in future to be
restricted to London and the Home Circuit; that is, though they don’t
say so, under surveillance of the authorities. Do I know why ? I think
I do. Between my old and new duties there is an interval of holiday.
But, being in town, my Sensible Friend is the man to go to, under the
circumstances.

Fred Langson, my Sensible Friend was, on the cold day I called,
sitting before what I admitted at once was “something like a sensible
fire.” He was ready with his reason, for the blaze, “ Because,” said
he, “ it’s cold.” Such a sensible fellow! We were both glad to see
one another, and said so several times. I told him I’d recently come
from Cokingham, and he immediately replied, that he was sorry he
“ couldn’t offer me anything,” giving his satisfactory and sensible
reason, “ because there’s nothing in the house.”

I said I was cold, whereupon he returned, “ I advise you to sit near
the fire.” On my saying that I’d rather not smoke his tobacco, as it
might make me unwell, “Then,” he said, “ I advise you not to do it.”
Good sound common sense. Happening to complain of my old umbrella
being useless if it should rain, he sensibly observed, “ I advise you to
get another as soon as possible.” A story is told of him (and I believe
it) that he once saved a man’s life by advising him not to stand near a
target while rifle practice was going on, and I know that it was on his
recommendation that a man of my acquaintance who couldn’t swim a
stroke was deterred from jumping out of a boat into sixteen feet of
water. He is, in fact, a very sensible fellow, and when my Hearty
Friend alluded to him as a “ wooden-headed donkey,” and “a thorough

old humbug,” it created a breach between us which time has never
thoroughly healed.

In defending my friends of course I am obliged to admit that every-
one has a right to his own opinion, and therefore when I hear Langson
called an ass, a fool, an idiot, and a boshy old impostor, my only reply
is, “ Well, of course, everyone must speak of a man as he finds him,”
which I feel to be an unsatisfactory mode of resenting these epithets,
which do seem to imply that one must be rather a queer sort of a fellow
to have such a friend as an adviser. Langson is, of course, too sen
sible to mind what is said of him. He said as much to me one day
when I mentioned to him a few of the names I had heard him called ;
1 recollect it well, because he added that no man of sense ought to care
for abuse ; and he was sure that I would take no notice of a man who
called me behind my back a weak muff, an effeminate snob, a shallow-
pated credulous, harmless, sort of lunatic, which he said represented
the various opinions of people who professed to be my friends.

I asked, “ Who said that?” and he wouldn’t tell me. I said I’d
keep it quite secret if he’d let me know, but he wouldn’t. He laughed,
and repeated the names (he needn’t have done that), and I said such
fellows were beneath contempt. “ Because,” as I argued, “ I was sure I
wasn’t a snob, and as to being weak or a muff, or confound it, shallow-
pat.ed, that was absurd.” However, I never told him again what names
I’d heard him called, because I really am grieved to think there should
be anyone who considers me as a snob, or shallow-pated, or a muff 1 ask
myself, am I ? or am I not ? Is there any truth in it, and I do not
humbug myself when I say, not a bit. So I determined not to let this
sort of thing rankle in my mind for a minute. It does rankle, though.
I should like to know who said it.

My Sensible Friend possesses, for a young man, sensible advantage
in his appearance. He is almost bald; therefore (this is what people
who talk against him say) he is set down as clever : a kind of man who
has thought his hair off. He wears a heavy moustache, joining a beard
tinged with grey: this looks patriarchal, and in a general way so
ancient and eastern, that even scoffers would be inclined to take the
early history of the world upon his single testimony.

He speaks slowly and sedately. You might call Grigg “ the laugh-
ing philosopher,” and Langson “the crying philosopher.” You
might, but it wouldn’t be good, as Langson doesn’t cry. I tell him
that I fancy I am in disgrace at Head Quarters; that Grigg is, as the
song says, “ the cause of this anguish and that “ I want my Sen-
sible Friend’s advice as to whether I’d better explain it all at Head
Quarters,—or what ? ”

When he has heard my story, he puffs at his long heavy pipe, (his
smoking is in itself a solemn religious function), and I wait anxiously
for the first expression of his opinion. He removes his pipe from his
lips, and regards the fire steadily. I watch him. He is evidently
turning the whole matter over and over in his mind. This man a
wooden-headed ass, a humbug, pooh ! He is arguing the points pro
and con, whatever the points may be, with himself, betore delivering
judgment. He bends forward. He has come to some conclusion, and
will speak. Well? He takes a long breath, leans back again in his
chair, replaces his pipe and frowns.

EPISCOPAL PERFUME.

Tre Bishop of New York has been much pleased with his visit
to Old England. Specially has he been delighted with his brother
hierarchs. One piece of information which the good bishop gives will
be interesting to most persons : —

“ He had visited the palaces of several of the Bishops, and the atmosphere which
prevailed at those blessed places was such as to cause a glow of happiness to take possession
of ones soul."

Will any of Mr. Punch's episcopal friends (he has many) inform him
how this blessed atmosphere is generated, and where the material can
be procured, and whether the same result can be obtained in a secular
mansion? The “savour of such good ointments” would be worth
cultivating. It must be a much nicer thing than the odour of sanctity,
which Popish saints prepare by masterly inaction in the matter of
lavation. Would MM. Piesse and Lubin, or M. Rimmel call upon
one or two of the bishops and investigate? We predict great popu-
larity for Bouquet de Bishop.

A Company with a Queer Name.

A joint-stock association is advertised under the name of Accident
Insurance Company (Limited). One might think that the surest of all
accident insurance societies would be a mismanaged railway company,
with signalmen and pointsmen underpaid. Limited liability for the
consequences of parsimony or carelessness insures numerous accidents
on most lines.

Macbeth on Posters.—“ Hang out your Bangers on the outward
walls.”