DOI Heft:
January 26, 1878
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17732#0029
January 26, 1878.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAKIVARI. 25
VOICES OF THE PAST.
(An Echo of the Future by Anticipation. From a Fashionable Story yet
to be Written.)
Chaptee XI.—Sib Habby Snuggleton at Home.
The dinner had passed
off excellently. The
time (midnight,
sharp) was not too late, and,
thanks to the new Act, the
guests were in their places
at the proper time.
Some of the fair
women and brave
men reclining
round the old
Squire's table
had come many-
hundreds of miles
that evening, and
yet not one of the
aerial wire cars
had been half
an hour late. In
spite of all this, a
cloud rested'upon
tbe host's brow.
Good, genial Sir
Habby Snuggle-
ton' was seriously
annoyed. Lady
Polly recognised
the fact imme-
diately.
".Down in tbe,mouth, old man? " asked the good.wife, tenderly.
" That's so," replied the Baronet. "That stoopid old Tom Pipes
the Tenor has sold me again. _ Just telephoned him when he would
be game for tuning up a bit, and he replies, ' Got a cold in my
noddle ; can't sing.' So it's no go."
The old Squire uttered these words with an air of genuine dis-
appointment. His dinners^were celebrated far and near for tbeir
luxury and refinement. Sir Habey's cooks had all taken honours
in the Culinary Schools at Oxford and Cambridge, and the intel-
lectual accessories of the feasts were always in the best taste.
"Cheer up, old bird!" said Lady Polly, affectionately. "If
Pipes has gone ropy, you can draw upon your own sound-cellar."
This suggestion was greeted with a murmur of well-bred
applause. Sir Habey's phonographic bins were known to be filled
with a choice selection of vocahvintages.
" Give it a name! " said the Squire, with a courteous wave of
the hand.
"Have you any of Gladstone's speeches?" asked a guest.
" My eyes ! how I should like to hear one ! "
"I have just one left—wuss luck; one solitary magnum!"
replied the old Squire, with a sigh. " But you shall have it."
The butler was sent for, and the remainder speech was ordered up.
"You will find his patter rather rummy," continued Sir Habby,
turning to his guests. " What we in our days consider the most
polished language was in his time regarded as slang."
"Lawks! "What a lark!" exclaimed involuntarily a bashful
young maiden of sweet seventeen.
" That's right, my gal," whispered her fashionable mother across
the table, "a filly that knows what's what should come out a bit
strong now and then, or people will think her not only deaf but
dumb."
By this time the last bottle of Gladstone in Sir Habey's sound-
cellar had been brought into the dining-room.
" Now, Gents, silence!" said the old Squire, courteously but firmly.
The phonographic apparatus was used for ten minutes, but with no
result; not a sound was heard.
"How's this?" exclaimed Sir Haeby, turning angrily to his
butler. " You must have let the oxygen get to the plates."
"Very sorry, indeed, Sir Habby," said the servant, bowing
deferentially, " but the bloke who had the place before I came was
a duffer. The cellar was all mop3 and brooms."
The man would have said more in respectful deprecation of his
master's wrath, when suddenly the silvery sound of a mellifluous
yet manly voice, as from a far-off larynx, was heard—
" Yes, Gentlemen, I say that if we act thus, we shall deserve the
scorn of our ancestors, and draw down on our heads the curses of
posterity]"
Dead silence followed for a few minutes.
" There was a last squeak in the plates, after all," exclaimed the
Squire. " Evidently the conclusion of a stirring peroration! Doesn't
the quaint old English—it is the last drop, unfortunately—sound
stunning?"
After Mr. Gladstone's speech, unluckily so brief, came a general
request for a sample of a celebrated wit who had kept the table in a
roar exactly one hundred years ago. When a pint of him was
tapped—for he was best, the Squire declared, in small quantities—
the company heard the following words in a faint voice—
" Farewell, my children. I am going to leave you. Take my
advice, have nothing to do with literature. If you are successful,
you will but rouse the jealousy and envenom the spite of small men,
and if you fail—but my strength fails me. Farewell—farewell! "
" What a sell! " exclaimed Sir Henry. " My sound-merchant
must have palmed off a dying speech upon me for a comic anecdote!
And he has labelled it ' curious' too. A regular swindle, wasn't
it ? " _ The guests assented.
" Sir Habby," cried an old bore from the end of the table, " you
know what awful health I have. I have been telling her Ladyship
the ins and outs of my case. She has suggested tapping a few
of the best doctors of the nineteenth century."
" Anything you like, dating from seventy-nine, when my grand-
father began laying down his sound-cellar," returned the old Squire,
cheerily. " In the meantime, Gents, to make up for that dying
speech which has left quite a musty taste in my ears, we will
have a sample of the full-flavoured after-dinner story from my
old grandfather's special bin—I will answer for its being of the
out-and-out plummy style of the Regency."
But as the tales of her husband's ancestor were sometimes a little
risque, Lady Polly here gracefully gave the signal of retirement
to the members of the fair sex present, and the Gentlemen were left
to their private tap. The butler set half-a-dozen bottles on the
table. As the cork was drawn, a racy flavour pervaded the room,
and this was the story.....
(End of the Chapter.)
THE BOLD BUFFER-RIDER.
One day last week, on the arrival of a fast train at Welwyn, the
porters on the platform were astounded, as the carriages emerged
from the tunnel, to see a man on the buffer of the hind brake.
The man, it turned out, was one William Bates, who had taken
this very original way of shortening a tramp in quest of work. He
did not seem to see that there was anything out of the common in
his choice of a seat. The Magistrates tried to open his eyes to a
sense of his situation by fining him ten shillings.
Surely the Welwyn Bench may be said—like William Bates
himself—to have been " sitting on a buffer " when they came down
so heavily on this poor fellow for risking his life, apparently in
blissful unconsciousness that the buffer of a railway brake is not, like
the tail of a cart, or the back-spring of a fly, a perfectly safe and
legitimate means of taking a lift. He didn't harm himself; and
so far as we can see, he didn't harm anybody else; nor can we
conceive that many are likely to follow his example.
Hymen, O Hymensee !
Asked on the spur of the moment to find rhymes for the names of
a certain Lady and Gentleman on the verge of matrimony, our dis-
tinguished poet, Mr. R. B—n—g, at once struck off this quatrain—
"Venus, sea-froth's child,
Playing old gooseherry,
To Miss Db Kothschild,
Marries Lord Kosebehy."
exanthem in essex.
A serious prevalence of smallpox is reported in the Essex borders
of the Metropolis. Cowpox does not come natural to all Essex
calves; and too many of them, perhaps, are of that breed of calves
that neglects, or even resists, vaccination.
thank you fob nothing.
" 'Tavas the Czab freed the Fenians ! " Home-Rulers declare.
" 'Tis no pardon—at best but a Russ-spite en Vair."
why and whebeeobe ?
The Home-Rulers moved their Amendment on the Address, but
we fail to see the Address of their Amendment.
The most Instbuctive of Pictob Books.—If you want to teach
young learners, send them to the Old Masters.
vol. lxxiv.
d
VOICES OF THE PAST.
(An Echo of the Future by Anticipation. From a Fashionable Story yet
to be Written.)
Chaptee XI.—Sib Habby Snuggleton at Home.
The dinner had passed
off excellently. The
time (midnight,
sharp) was not too late, and,
thanks to the new Act, the
guests were in their places
at the proper time.
Some of the fair
women and brave
men reclining
round the old
Squire's table
had come many-
hundreds of miles
that evening, and
yet not one of the
aerial wire cars
had been half
an hour late. In
spite of all this, a
cloud rested'upon
tbe host's brow.
Good, genial Sir
Habby Snuggle-
ton' was seriously
annoyed. Lady
Polly recognised
the fact imme-
diately.
".Down in tbe,mouth, old man? " asked the good.wife, tenderly.
" That's so," replied the Baronet. "That stoopid old Tom Pipes
the Tenor has sold me again. _ Just telephoned him when he would
be game for tuning up a bit, and he replies, ' Got a cold in my
noddle ; can't sing.' So it's no go."
The old Squire uttered these words with an air of genuine dis-
appointment. His dinners^were celebrated far and near for tbeir
luxury and refinement. Sir Habey's cooks had all taken honours
in the Culinary Schools at Oxford and Cambridge, and the intel-
lectual accessories of the feasts were always in the best taste.
"Cheer up, old bird!" said Lady Polly, affectionately. "If
Pipes has gone ropy, you can draw upon your own sound-cellar."
This suggestion was greeted with a murmur of well-bred
applause. Sir Habey's phonographic bins were known to be filled
with a choice selection of vocahvintages.
" Give it a name! " said the Squire, with a courteous wave of
the hand.
"Have you any of Gladstone's speeches?" asked a guest.
" My eyes ! how I should like to hear one ! "
"I have just one left—wuss luck; one solitary magnum!"
replied the old Squire, with a sigh. " But you shall have it."
The butler was sent for, and the remainder speech was ordered up.
"You will find his patter rather rummy," continued Sir Habby,
turning to his guests. " What we in our days consider the most
polished language was in his time regarded as slang."
"Lawks! "What a lark!" exclaimed involuntarily a bashful
young maiden of sweet seventeen.
" That's right, my gal," whispered her fashionable mother across
the table, "a filly that knows what's what should come out a bit
strong now and then, or people will think her not only deaf but
dumb."
By this time the last bottle of Gladstone in Sir Habey's sound-
cellar had been brought into the dining-room.
" Now, Gents, silence!" said the old Squire, courteously but firmly.
The phonographic apparatus was used for ten minutes, but with no
result; not a sound was heard.
"How's this?" exclaimed Sir Haeby, turning angrily to his
butler. " You must have let the oxygen get to the plates."
"Very sorry, indeed, Sir Habby," said the servant, bowing
deferentially, " but the bloke who had the place before I came was
a duffer. The cellar was all mop3 and brooms."
The man would have said more in respectful deprecation of his
master's wrath, when suddenly the silvery sound of a mellifluous
yet manly voice, as from a far-off larynx, was heard—
" Yes, Gentlemen, I say that if we act thus, we shall deserve the
scorn of our ancestors, and draw down on our heads the curses of
posterity]"
Dead silence followed for a few minutes.
" There was a last squeak in the plates, after all," exclaimed the
Squire. " Evidently the conclusion of a stirring peroration! Doesn't
the quaint old English—it is the last drop, unfortunately—sound
stunning?"
After Mr. Gladstone's speech, unluckily so brief, came a general
request for a sample of a celebrated wit who had kept the table in a
roar exactly one hundred years ago. When a pint of him was
tapped—for he was best, the Squire declared, in small quantities—
the company heard the following words in a faint voice—
" Farewell, my children. I am going to leave you. Take my
advice, have nothing to do with literature. If you are successful,
you will but rouse the jealousy and envenom the spite of small men,
and if you fail—but my strength fails me. Farewell—farewell! "
" What a sell! " exclaimed Sir Henry. " My sound-merchant
must have palmed off a dying speech upon me for a comic anecdote!
And he has labelled it ' curious' too. A regular swindle, wasn't
it ? " _ The guests assented.
" Sir Habby," cried an old bore from the end of the table, " you
know what awful health I have. I have been telling her Ladyship
the ins and outs of my case. She has suggested tapping a few
of the best doctors of the nineteenth century."
" Anything you like, dating from seventy-nine, when my grand-
father began laying down his sound-cellar," returned the old Squire,
cheerily. " In the meantime, Gents, to make up for that dying
speech which has left quite a musty taste in my ears, we will
have a sample of the full-flavoured after-dinner story from my
old grandfather's special bin—I will answer for its being of the
out-and-out plummy style of the Regency."
But as the tales of her husband's ancestor were sometimes a little
risque, Lady Polly here gracefully gave the signal of retirement
to the members of the fair sex present, and the Gentlemen were left
to their private tap. The butler set half-a-dozen bottles on the
table. As the cork was drawn, a racy flavour pervaded the room,
and this was the story.....
(End of the Chapter.)
THE BOLD BUFFER-RIDER.
One day last week, on the arrival of a fast train at Welwyn, the
porters on the platform were astounded, as the carriages emerged
from the tunnel, to see a man on the buffer of the hind brake.
The man, it turned out, was one William Bates, who had taken
this very original way of shortening a tramp in quest of work. He
did not seem to see that there was anything out of the common in
his choice of a seat. The Magistrates tried to open his eyes to a
sense of his situation by fining him ten shillings.
Surely the Welwyn Bench may be said—like William Bates
himself—to have been " sitting on a buffer " when they came down
so heavily on this poor fellow for risking his life, apparently in
blissful unconsciousness that the buffer of a railway brake is not, like
the tail of a cart, or the back-spring of a fly, a perfectly safe and
legitimate means of taking a lift. He didn't harm himself; and
so far as we can see, he didn't harm anybody else; nor can we
conceive that many are likely to follow his example.
Hymen, O Hymensee !
Asked on the spur of the moment to find rhymes for the names of
a certain Lady and Gentleman on the verge of matrimony, our dis-
tinguished poet, Mr. R. B—n—g, at once struck off this quatrain—
"Venus, sea-froth's child,
Playing old gooseherry,
To Miss Db Kothschild,
Marries Lord Kosebehy."
exanthem in essex.
A serious prevalence of smallpox is reported in the Essex borders
of the Metropolis. Cowpox does not come natural to all Essex
calves; and too many of them, perhaps, are of that breed of calves
that neglects, or even resists, vaccination.
thank you fob nothing.
" 'Tavas the Czab freed the Fenians ! " Home-Rulers declare.
" 'Tis no pardon—at best but a Russ-spite en Vair."
why and whebeeobe ?
The Home-Rulers moved their Amendment on the Address, but
we fail to see the Address of their Amendment.
The most Instbuctive of Pictob Books.—If you want to teach
young learners, send them to the Old Masters.
vol. lxxiv.
d