Punch (55.1868)

December 5, 1868.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

241

ODD MEN OUT.

THE MAN WITH A NOSE.—HE MERGES INTO THE GENUS

“LIVERY-MAN.”

To College Puttyk’s nose, so to speak, followed him. It saved him,
I believe, from attendance at lectures, for what lecturer on classics or
mathematics would of his own accord invite the presence of a constant i
interruption, which he was utterly powerless to stop ?

Por if Puttyk was asked to try his hand at a passage in Herodotus,
in which he was only put on with the design of stopping his nose, j
Puttyk would get over two lines of open Greek country at a fair pace, |
and then, seeing what Americans call “a difficulty” (with them its
meaning would be illustrated by a precipice in front and a mad bull in
the rear during your afternoon’s quiet walk), would come to a standstill
and take refuge behind his pocket-handkerchief. The Lecturer, at first
would be inclined to wait patiently till Puttyk had finished; but you
might safely back Puttyk’s nose against the Lecturer for holding out.
So the “ call,” as convivialists say, being with the Lecturer, another
Undergraduate was “ called” upon for a translation, and not until the
Lecturer had got well into some learned explanation of a phrase, or
was bringing forward a variety of proofs, or disproofs, of the Greek
historian’s veracity, would Puttyk’s nose turn up again.

“ I think, Mr. IPuttyk,” said the Lecturer to him, choosing, in the
most gentlemanly and kindly manner, the conclusion of his hour after
the dismissal of the class, for his “word with Puttyk,” “you might
manage to control the noise ; for you see it disturbs everyone, and robs
us of at least fifteen out of our sixty minutes.”

Puttyk was most apologetic: “ It was a source,” he said, “ of far
greater annoyance to him than it could even be to the Lecturer. He
was afraid”—here he became melancholy—“it was a disease. He had
deferred consulting doctors about it, but now he should certainly do so.”
It was a difficult case; for if Puttyk’s nose was a bona ide affliction,
not even a College Don—no, nor the Master of the College himself—
could have the heart to insist upon a man overcoming an illness on the
spot, as it were, or getting rid of a disease “ to order,” so that he
might attend his duties in hall, chapel, and lecture-room. It was like
saying, “ Be quite well to-morrow at ten o’clock, or rustication will be

your portion. _

" H rid

lis

So, gradually P'ET
Lecturers never sin —
non-attendance, tO'~
passing regret that
:by natural (that is -
fountains. =_

Puttyk’s was ncz:
take his own lies fc E~
a belief in his own ~

co

CvJ


— o

e— (ti

*T UIV UV/mu UVAW

I have seen all the
Puttyk’s nose: !
pitched in vain con
Puttyk awake i
you want to give
with you, after a g<
He will fall as fas i
will not make headj
As I have said, :
nuisance, forms an;
suiting several meij
it jumps with his
medical treatises, t
that his (which no
nervous habit) is a
It is at this poin
with a Liver; or, _
•City of London.

— 01

— 00

o

— CO

= in

0

— -v

= CO

pocket; prescripti
agency in case he si

= CM

Yon. 55.

I o

CD

E E

— o

CD

0

CO

0

CM

0

I 67
ee.

ae.

for

ase

the

0

Since Puttyk has become a Liveryman, he has, I am glad to say,
ceased to be, regularly, the Man with the Nose. At intervals there i3
a return of the organ with all its old trumpet power; but these relapses
are few and far between.

But now Puttyk has always something the matter with him, and I
don’t wonder at it.

Tell him that (as is the fact) he looks the picture of health, he will
smile at you, and shake his fuzzy head. “ Only the picture, my dear
fellow,” he will reply, with a mournful enjoyment of his sad state—
“ only the picture, not the reality.”

“ But,” I say to him heartily determined, if I can, to shake him out
of his hypochondria, “I never saw you looking better.”

“ Very likely,” he will return in a resigned tone, as if his hours were
numbered, and your dinner 'with him to-night is to be the last, in this
world at all events.

“ I know what it is,” he says, cheerfully, of himself, “it’s Liver.”

A friend suggests walking exercise. “Well,” he says, “he does
walk.” Regularly? “Regularly.”

Then another recommends riding. “ He does ride,” he replies,
becoming somewhat irritable. “Ah! but not everyday,” his adviser
says. “Yes,” says Puttyk, boldly stretching a point, “I do; at
least,” he interpolates as a correction, so as to save himself from a
positive untruth, “ every day I possibly can.”

You’ll never see Puttyk without a pain somewhere. He acts con-
cealment, occasionally, of his miseries. He will breathe hard while
speaking to you, and put his hand to his side. You stop—what is the
matter? “Nothing,” answers Puttyk the martyr, affecting to hide
liis agony and return to the subject of conversation. This is done only
in the presence of an unbeliever, who, he’ll tell his friend afterwards, he
was afraid would have laughed because he didn’t understand his case.

He does pot, like my relative mentioned incidentally in the sketch of
the Man with an Ear, complain of loss of appetite, and then fill his
plate and himself from every dish and bottle (except the water one) on
the table.

No (he is a first-rate gourmet, by the way, and you can do worse
than dine with Puttyk), he professes an appetite; but he calls it, a
deceptive sign. He eats of everything generally, “Just to taste it, to
see if the cook has exactly followed out his directions.” He is, at all
his meals, in a chronic state of poisoning and antidote.

He commences dinner with two pills in half a tumbler of water, as a
general corrective, and generally tells you, if you make any observation
on the practice, that “ you ’re a lucky fellowto be able to do without ’em.”
The soup he may only just touch, but he asks the servant in waiting,
“Has Mrs. Lucas, the cook, put sherry in it ? ” John doesn’t know.
Puttyk tries it. “ If there’s sherry in it, it will play the deuce with
him,” he tells us. However, he doesn’t think there is (the flavour of
wine being as palpable as it should be) and eats a plateful. Between
the courses he calls Willtam, the page, and gives him minute instruc-
tions as to where he ’ll find, in his bed-room, a small bottle labelled
with Carrick the Chemist’s label and his directions. William:
returns with it, and Puttyk, who has in the meantime explained the
properties of this draught, which appear to be antagonistic to sherry
and soup, empties it into a wine-glass and drinks it off.

Now he says it doesn’t matter if he does take a glass of sherry, and
he accordingly takes that and another.

Fish invariably disagrees with him, except done in a particular way.
This is done in a particular way by his particular directions, and he
partakes of it heartily. When finished, John arrives from the kitchen
with an apology from cook, saying that “she had been unable to

manage the fish as Master wanted it, but-”

There is no but. Puttyk is angry it wasn’t mentioned before; how-
ever, it is not too late, there is a remedy. William is summoned, and
informed that, “in the top drawer, on the right-hand side of the chest
of drawers on the right, not the firstK but the second, nearer the looking-
glass ; does he understand ? ” to which he says “Yes,” and looks hope-
lessly helpless. But we hear him asking John outside, “What he did
say, blessed if he knew.” Thence William will bring down a small
square blue box, labelled “ To be taken during meals.” This, says
Puttyk, is a Trench remedy, and an admirable one. We warn him
against his nostrums ; but you might as well tell the Monument not to
stand on Pish Street Hill. He won’t hear, and he won’t be moved.
He has up, for his guests, some rare champagne. “ Champagne is

death to him,” _ he tells us; “ but, on this occasion-” and so

William is again dispatched, and this time returns with a full-grown
medicine-chest. Puttyk apologises for its appearance, and for his
leaving the table for one moment to go to the sideboard where he
doctors himself (I think, this time, homoeopathically), and returns to the
head of the table. So the dinner proceeds. Afterwards, though we
prefer getting to our cigars and coffee at once, Puttyk insists upon our
tasting some of the Port wine and the Claret, which comes from liis
fathePs cellar on purpose for us ; “We will,” he says, “get to pipes
and cigars when we take our Grog.” Grog ! after all this. So we,
out of politeness, taste his wines, which are excellent, but unnecessary
Judging by myself next morning, I don’t wonder, if this is Puttyk’s
usual course, at liis never being well.