Punch: Punch (56.1869)

February 20, 1869.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES.

CHAPTER FIFTH—THE STORY OF THE JOLLY OLD COCK, THE GOOSE,
AND THE LITTLE DUCK, INTERRUPTED BY A DORMOUSE AND A
BAT—THE DORMOUSE AT HOME—HIS HABITS—HIS PROFESSION
— HE LECTURES ON CHAMBER PRACTICE, AND GIVES THE
GOOSE SOME EXCELLENT ADVICE.

Dawson Dormouse is the sleepiest fellow I ever met. I don’t,
know what he was as a boy, but at college, where Goosey made his
jsrgsdiitance, his somnolent habits were proverbial.

No one, with any experience of Dormouse, ever thought of asking
him to breakfast at nine. Such an invitation has often received from a
Night Bird the answer, “My dear fellow, I don't sit up so late ," but
Dormouse hadn’t this excuse; in fact, he had no excuse, but would
accept the offer of hospitality with the proviso, “ If I don’t oversleep
myself,” which was tantamount to informing his host that he either
wouldn’t come at all; or, if he did come, would not make liis appearance
till mid-day.

He has always been the same ; as he was, so he is, and in all proba-
bility will be to the end. Dormouse is not a man who lives fast; he
does not, for instance, agree with those Sad Dogs who assert that
“not going home until daylight doth appear” is a necessary condition
of conviviality. On the contrary, Dormouse will dine with a party
determined to make a night of it; will join them in that determination;
will drink toasts, will take his share in sustaining ihe conversation,
will help himself and pass the bottle, will smoke, will, in short, not be
behind any one there in promoting the pleasure of the evening ; but,
about half-past eleven, some one will suddenly exclaim,—

“ Hullo ! where’s Dormouse ? ”

Two or three wags will instantly look under the table, where,
perhaps, they will be in another two hours, and, not finding him there,
will discover, on further inquiry, that he had left about three-quarters
of an hour ago. Whereupon they will cry, “What a fellow that
! Dormouse is ! ” and apply themselves, in a most Christian spirit, to
I make up for his defection.

| Dormouse, in the above instance, has kept to his expressed resolu-
! tion to “ make a night of it,” only he has done it in his own way.

He “makes a night of it ” in bed: and a precious long one it is too :

' for though Dormouse has no regular time for rising, he is punctual to
! half an hour in retiring.

“ Dormouse is a horribly provoking fellow,” young Bat tells me,
and tells him, too, to his face. Young Bat is of opinion that night

j was made for “ sitting up.” He will stay up long past the smallest

J hours without any sort of excitement, or even without a companion, as
i if he expected the end of the world between twelve and six in winter,
and therefore it was no use his going to bed. When he is satis lied
that another day has commenced, he looks at himself and his wry hair
! in the glass, shakes his head, ana after observing confidentially, that
“this sort of thing won’t do—he must give up these late hours,” he
| jumps into bed, and closes his eyes to the fact of the grey dawn.

Nothing will induce Dormouse to sit up with Bat, although he’ll
begin an evening with him. Dormouse will look in at Bat’s rooms,

’ on his road home, at nine o’clock.

“ Capital! ” cries Bat ; “ come along, and sit down. Have a
j cigar ? ”

Dormouse returns that he doesn’t mind if he does. A cautious
i character is Dormouse’s, you’ll observe. A somnambulist never
1 comes to harm if you only let him walk on : and in my opinion Dor-
; mouse is never thoroughly awake. He sits down by the fire and
I commences his cigar. Conversation gets along at a fair pace; they
S are plunging into the topics most interesting to Bachelors, and Bat is
J warming up when Dormouse looks at the clock, then corroborates its
j evidence by his watch (some men have this morbid craving for absolute
I certainty), and then says,

“ Eleven o’clock! I didn’t know it was so late.”

“Late !” exclaims Bat : “Nonsense ! the night’s only beginning.

I Have another cigar.”

“ Thank you, I will,” replies Dormouse ; and Bat, banding him a
, light, is rejoicing at the success of his scheme for delaying his de-
\ parture, when Dormouse takes up his greatcoat, and observes that the
! cigar he has taken “ will just see him home.”

“ Oh, hang it! ” says Bat, “ stop a few minutes longer.”

1 It is always a request for “ a few minutes ” with Bat. This ex-
pression means anything from a quarter of an hour to half a day.
Dormouse is adamant.

“ Well, then,” says Bat, with an air of decision, as if he must really
j make this a matter of business, “ stop till the half-hour exactly, and
! then go.”

Anybody but Dormouse would yield to this: in fact, Bat knows
that, this concession once made, to gain another half-hour after that is
j a comparatively easy matter.

But Dormouse is granite in his determination. He merely shakes his
head pleasantly, and, putting on iui hot, still puffing Bat’s cigar, which

69

his friend considers as obtained under false pretences, he wishes Bat
good night.

“ Oh, you're not going? ” says Bat, trying to make it appear that
he really can't believe Dormouse to be in earnest.

But Dormouse is in earnest, and moves towards the door. Bat is
at his wits’ end for any pretext to delay him, in order that he may have
some one to sit up with.

“Oh,” says Bat, suddenly, “Just stop ! I wanted to say something
very particular to you.” Dormouse pauses, and Bat feels that the
corner of the thin end of the wedge is just wriggling in, and that the
greatest delicacy of manipulation is required.

Dormouse waits a few seconds. Bat assumes a puzzled air, as if j
he was trying to recall what he so particularly wanted to say to Dor-
mouse. Invention fails him : he can only implore his friend to “ wait
a minute, and he’ll think of it.” But Dormouse observes that “it
doesn’t matter : he ’ll look in again another evening.”

Now, nothing annoys Bat more, at this juncture, than the postpone- j
ment of a sitting. He is inclined to say, indeed sometimes does say, ,
“Ah, perhaps I shan’t be here another night,” and adds, that he is
probably going to Devonshire or Cornwall for a week : which is merely i
a little romance of his to induce Dormouse to seize the present
moment.

“ Well,” replies the imperturbable Dormouse, “ I must take my
chance—good night.” And before Bat has time to think of another
excuse for procrastination, Dormouse has crept down-stairs, and is
out of the house.

Dawson Dormouse is studying the Law. His'notion is to take up
Chamber Practice. I think his idea is that there’s no moving in this
line.

“ You see,” he says, while in his dressing-gown and arm-chair, with
his feet on the fender and his breakfast, at two o’clock p.m., by his
side. “ Chamber practice will just suit me. In the first place, it’s
practice,”—his friend admitted that it was,—“and then it’s in a
Chamber.” This also I owned sounded far from improbable.

“ Well, then,” he continues, putting one foot over the other, to give
each its due turn at the fire. “ A chamber’s comfortable; there’s no ■
rushing into Court at ten o’clock in the morning. In fact,” he says,
pursuing his idea of chamber practice, “ there’s no reason why you
shouldn’t see people in bed, or in your dressing-gown.”

I suppose my face assumes an air of doubt upon this point, as he
continues, “Why not ? I give up these chambers and I have chambers
in Lincoln’s Inn : very good. 1 sleep there—my bed-room adjoins my
sitting-room. Client comes to clerk in the outer room; Clerk shows
him into the chamber. I am in bed, in the next room, with his papers
on the counterpane. Client wants my opinion. “ What do you think
of So-and-so ? ” says he in the sitting-room. “ Well,” I should reply
from my bed-room, “it’s a case of Tenant-in-Eee,” or whatever it
might be, you know. “ All right,” he says, goes away, and I make my
fifty guineas (with something included for the clerk, you know, who
opens the door, and brushes one’s clothes, and so forth) without stirring
out of bed. That's chamber practice.”

“You don’t wear a wig, I suppose?” asked Goosey, who was
present, and for whom the public work of the bar had many attractions.

“ A wig ? ” repeats Dormouse, thoughtfully, as if this was a |
question on which he had read a great deal at one time, but had subse-
quently forgotten. “A wig? Well—I suppose not in chamber j
practice.”

“Yet,” says Goosey, “all barristers have the same dress.” _

“ Ah, yes,” returns Dormouse ; “ but not in chamber practice—that >
is, it would be absurd to suppose that I should be obliged to wear a
wig and a gown in bed, while I am giving my opinions.”

“ Of course,” says Goosey. “ But no one does practise in bed.”

“ Why not ? ” asks Dormouse, who has evidently only chosen this
department of the Law on the distinct understanding (between himself
and imaginary Vice-Chancellors) that he can do business in his own
style, and in comfort.

When Goosey was going to the Bar, how the Moles helped him I
will presently record.

{To be Continued.)

Great Ingratitude.

Cumberland and Westmoreland people are about to petition the
House of Commons against the appointment of Mr. Henry Lowther
as their Lord Lieutenant, Mr. Disraeli’s last snug little arrangement,
done just as the door in Downing Street was closing upon him. Un-
reasonable Counties ! Why not De satisfied to remain contented and
happy under the sway of your great family at the Castle, and. so enable
us, envious outsiders, to realise the idea of a Lowther Arcadia ?

IRISH ITEM.

There have been floods in Cork. Cork, as usual, kept afloat not-
withstanding.