Punch (70.1876)

164

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 29, 1876.

HAPPY THOUGHTS OF A DISTINGUISHED
AMERICAN ENGINEER.

A distinguished American En-
gineer has just startled the
speculative world with a scheme
for decanting the Black Sea into
the Caspian. Although at least
three hundred miles apart, the
distinguished American Engineer
assures us that a cutting of less
than two hundred miles is all that
is wanted to unite the two. Of
course the D. A. E. ought to know
his business, and, judging by the
other transcendental propositions
for changing the normal con-
dition of our badly - organised
globe which are to be found in
the said D. A. E.'s memoranda,
there can be no reason to suppose
that the scheme will not meet
with entire success.
_ But the 1). A. E. has other
schemes to follow, hot and hot, like chops at a London eating-
house. Here are his Mems. of a few of them :—■

Mem. A.—Scheme for converting the Falls of Niagara into a
natural bridge. Construction of works for blasting a tunnel beneath
the cataract. Consequent counteraction of force and reversal by
suction of the Falls themselves. Gradual change of current and
solution of problem.

Mem. B.—Establishment and registration of Great Geyser Hot
Bath Company (Limited). Conduct of series of iron pipes from
principal Geyser Depot in Iceland. Submarine service. Every
man to have his own Geyser turned on by proprietary tap.

Mem. C.—Scheme to supply the Serpentine with pure water from
Lake Ontario, by cutting a connecting canal beneath the Atlantic
Ocean. To be considered.

Mem. D.—The Philanthropic Super-Volcanic Omelette Society.
It has been discovered that if, on the principle of the common
syphon, the ocean could be poured into the well-known volcanoes
Vesuvius, Etna, Hecla, Chimborazo, and others, their active fires
might be extinguished, and the thousands of ostrich eggs now
wasted every year in Africa—having been collected by the hordes of
negro races now ravaged by the slave trade—might be cooked over
the smouldering embers to the amount probably of 6,100,800
per diem.

The mode of construction of these syphons, and the necessary
works for sinking them in the seas contiguous to the volcanic hres,
is as yet the secret of the distinguished American Engineer.

Mem. E.—Cyclopean Dyke Scheme, to cut out the Submarine
Channel Companies. Massive Dykes of Cyclopean masonry to be
constructed on either side the lines of transit from Dover to Calais,
one to the north, the other to the south. The Dykes, once con-
structed, mere child's play to drain the intermediate space. (Mem.,
to supply therewith salt water and fish to the Westminster and
Margate Aquaria.) To turn the current of the North Sea towards
the Baltic, and that of the English Channel round the Bay of
Biscay, and there vou are—an isthmus of Dover. The rest follows
at once. Limited liability.

GONE WRONG!

a new novel. by miss rhody dendron,

Authoress of " Cometh Dovm like a Shower," 11 Red in the Nose is She,"
" Good/ Buy Sweet Tart/" "Not Slily, But don't Tell."

Chapter. VIII.— What the Author says.

" Good-bye, Jeames ! " Bella said, after a long silence. " I'm

going-" .

" Call me Ddsovee," he exclaimed to her, in his great despair'.

" ' Dusover ! ' " she murmured, in the moonlight.

He rose, unsteadily, as the grand Camelopard draws itself up to its
towering height, Agamemnon-like, among its fellows ; he sprang
after her, laid his iron hand on her arm, and said, in a low, hissing
whisper,—hissing as though he were disgusted with her present
performance—

" Are you a-goin' P "

"lam.';

" You give me up ? "
" Like a conundrum."

He groaned aloud, and smote his hands together violently; if he
had hissed before, this she was fain to accept as a sign of his ap-

plause ; and so, smiling, she curtsied gracefully in the strong lime-
like moonbeams, as Dusover, taking a bouquet from his tail coat-
pocket, threw it to her with a bitter, cruel smile.

_ Once more the soft, white, resolute, bewitching face let fall the
rich fringe of its drooping eyelids on the peach-like bloom of her
full, round cheek, as she made a deep, classically-bending obeisance.

"Where are we now?" he asked, hoarsely, huge pearl-beads of
perspiration standing on his wide, bold forehead.

"Here!" she replied, braving him in the moonlight, helpless,
powerless, tearless, doubtless, but dauntless: the soft eyes were
looking hard at him: the white face showed nothing, now, save
black looks : not a bit pretty now : only very pale, very brave, and
very perspiring.

' You have kept me here too long," she said. And so saying, she
turned—there, on the spot, where she was standing, she turned, as
the whitest, purest, mildest milk will turn, when detained too long
in a warm corner, as Bella had been this night,

" Stop a moment! " he said, quite broken-voiced. And he clasped
her once more in his strong, rigid, despairing, straining arms.

" My darling ! " he went on in a sweet, wavering voice, to which
the soft words, uttered through a speaking-trumpet, on the swelling
bosom of the silent listening ocean, could be but as the tender
sucking-pig's whisper on a warm autumnal eve, " You brave little
child ! You soft little person ! You cheery, sweet, doughy, little
apple-dumpling of my eye ! You little, cruel, darling ! " And the
sound of his passionate, murmuring words, pierced into her very
soul, as though she were listening to the beating of the muffled drum
of her ear, over the grave of her buried hopes. They two, standing
on that silent crystal shore, on a sheet of silver sand,—the sea—the
great German Ocean, all silver too,—all German silver—booming, and
lowing at their feet—its waves "running in" one another like
playful police-children about the crowded strand; the bearded
oysters on their little beds dreaming of happy months without any
letter " r " in them : the unsleeping winkle singing his pleasant
song, and not caring one pin for any mortal being ; the pulpy,
bilious sponge drinking in deep, cooling, saline draughts ; and they
two, looking strangely, wildly, dreamily into each other's eyes.

It cannot last for ever ! They cannot remain thus, hand-in-hand,
motionless, fixed, obstructing the traffic for all time.* No : the un-
loving, constable-like, sentimentless coastguard will pass this way,
and bid these two "Move on!" Nay, even the routine-loving,
mechanical sea will wash the polish from their patent leather boots
in sighing, murmuring protest against the wanton trespass.

Her solemn, tragic eyes, fixed on his plain, burnt face—tanned all
over, thickly, like a circus—travel slowly upward from his great,
mellow, medlar-coloured beard to his rich, deep-toned, drooping
moustache, and, ascending the point of his ugly nose, rest for some
seconds, sadly, on that bridge of size. So they remain: a strange
sight in the middle of the strand: a tall, ugly man, a fair, be-
witching woman ; her lovely eyes on his plain face.

" Tell me," he says, with a very whitey-brown look, and a hoarse,
nervous laugh, " do you still love me ? "

She feels a fiery, searing pain that, but for her bravery, would
make her'scream m sudden agony, as she has seen—at some vague
time she could scarcely recall when—the Clown start, after he had
unwittingly placed the red-hot poker in his trousers-pocket, and
then had sat on it.

"Bella!" he cries, impulsively clutching her small, passive
hands.

She does not answer. She is listening to a whistling oyster, and a
talking fish.

The pale moon is becoming paler with her night watch, tireder
and tireder she grows of this love-making, love-destroying scene,
and the first blushing, crimson-red, morning star, slowly shines forth,
as though drawing aside the dark blue curtain of night, and holding
its small, bright candle to the rising sun-god.

A small buoy, unperceived by them till now, breaks restlessly
from its moorings, and seems threatening to float with the stream to
Wollum, and tell what he has witnessed of their meeting.

Could she bear exposure ? Could he f

He could ; strong, hard, japanned, brown-burnt as he was, he
could bear any amount of exposure, as men always can. But for
the tender shrinking woman, what of her ? Would she be bent and
broken, like the timid bulrush, before the searching blast of a
sirocco of scandal ? No ; it would be her death. The buoy knew
that, and could make terms.

" We must part," she says, coldly.

" I hate parting," he answers, abruptly.

" So do I," she returns. " But the buoy is waiting ; and if you
will not part, I must."

She draws from a small purse a shining coin, and tosses it dis-
dainfully to the buoy, whose silence has been, she thinks, thereby
purchased.

Once more their hands interlocked, and the fair, broad -moon is
* What the Public says.—•" We are glad to hear it cannot'last for erer."