Punch (55.1868)

November 21, 1868.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

221

Impatient Traveller {in Ireland). “Now, then, is this Trap ready? Where’s the Ostler?”
Small Boy. “ Shdre, oi 'll P-hut 'm op for ye, Sor. The other Man’s gone iv a Arrand ! ! ”

ODD MEN OUT.

THE MAN WITH A VOICE.—SECOND SPECIES OF THE
GENUS.—THE BIG MAN WITH THE LITTLE VOICE.

A very big man, six feet two in his stockings, and six feet four in
his boots; that is, allowing, as they say at cribbage, “ two for his
heels.” A prominent man, carrying as it were all before him, or cer-
tainly nearly all. Middle-aged and prematurely bald, being exposed to
the nipping and eager air at that height from the ground. His voice
takes you entirely by surprise, it is so small, but at the same time so
sweet. After Tupton, with his shouting, and Silford, with his
double basso profondo, Norringer’s voice comes as a comforting
revelation.

Norringer warbles, or now he thinks he warbles as he used to
warble when a young man. Now he rather wobbles than warbles,
but still there are many wffio agree with me, that the.y’d rather hear
Norringer at forty-three, than most amateur or professional tenors
at twenty-five, that is as long as Norringer sticks to his own fine.

That’s it: having a voice, having been praised for his voice, having
come at last to consider his as the voice of all voices, a pocket-voice as
it were, easily taken out to evening parties, and capable of being car-
ried up and down anywhere without the smallest inconvenience,—
having, 1 say, become accustomed to regard it in this light, he stops at
nothing.

You lament, before Norringer, that your musical party, so evenly
balanced will come to grief, because Silford’s basso won’t be there.

“ Well,” says Norringer diffidently, he is always diffident in open-
ing up a suggestion, “ Well, is the music difficult ? ” You reply—No,
not very.

“ Have you got it ? ” Norringer asks.

“ Yes, here it is.” You show it to him. Norringer looks over it
with what he intends to be the eye of a musician, and hums something
indistinctly (he takes precious good care to be indistinct) which has in
it the character of the air before him, and causes perhaps somebody to
say, “ I didn’t know you were such a musician, Norringer,” being
taken in by this reading at sight.

“ Oh, didn’t you? ” says Norringer, cheerfully.

“ There are very few things,” he continues, looking round at the
company with a jolly cheery sniggle (as much as to convey, “It’s very
absurd my having to make this mention of myself, which everyone here
knows to be true,”)—“There are very few things I can’t do : in music,
at least.” By which reservation he hints that he is perhaps not so expert
in gunnery, architecture, surgery, painting, and a few other arts and
sciences, although, somehow, he does give you to understand (by silent
eloquence) that he’s not such a very Dad hand at even these matters ; ;
in fact, when it comes to conversation on any one of them he generally j
professes “ to know something of these matters,” whatever may be the |
topic in dispute. Of course, he knows well enough, without formu- j
lating the syllogism, that tbe majority, reasoning from what he can do
in music, will give him credit for a great deal he can’t do out of it.

“ Well,” says Norringer, after reading the bass part aforemen- |
tioned, “ this isn’t out of my compass.”

Some one expresses a doubt of this, whereupon Norringer sits down
to the piano, and playing a few chords, goes down to his lowest note,
“which,” he says, “of course, isn’t very clear to-day, because it’s j
just after luncheon,” or dinner, or supper, as the case may be, or j
because it isn’t after any of those meals, either excuse being a good
one for each individual constitution.

Hear Norringer singing something quite above his reach, or below
it. You tell him it doesn’t suit him. Norringer immediately “ begs
your pardon; it does suit him exactly; in fact, it might have been
written for him, so exactly does it suit his organ ; only his organ is so
delicate that the slightest irritation caused either by some inconsiderable
humidity in the atmosphere, or having early in the morning forgotten to
take a lemon, or having, unfortunately, eaten a fig the night before, or
not having had anything since breakfast—for my organ (he explains)
requires much sustenance, and that at regular times—at once affects
the bronchial tubes, and causing a certain roughness in the orifice of
the glossal pipe, prevents the voice, which is purely from the chest, not
in the head or throat—not (he assures you earnestly) in the head or
throat (as if he would be indeed hurt if you thought that)—from issuing
forth with its usual clarity.” You thank him for the explanation, and
probably observe—if you know nothing about anatomy or medicine
yourself—that he appears to be “ quite a doctor in these matters.”