Punch (77.1879)

160

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 11, 1879.

FRIENDS AT A DISTANCE.

(Third Series.—Summer.)

CHAPTER VIII.

Keeping alive—Description—Dinner—Discussion— Gloom—A Flash
— Suggestio?is —[Annoyance — Interruption — Jinis Opinions—

Bets— Butlet--Challenges—Half-crowns —Replies—Scoring —

Babbits—Sawbbath—Departure—End of Visit.

ruly, Nephew Jim does
keep us alive. I had
no idea how sedate we
had become until his
appearance on the
scene.

* He has a vocabu-
lary and idioms of his
own, "which he has
partly invented and
partly compiled by a

tirocess of careful se-
ection from bur-
lesques, music-hall
ditties, the Clown's
catch-words in pan-
; tomimes, and sport-
: ing slang generally.
. He is, undoubtedly,
; a tine young English
gentleman all of the
very modernest time,
and we are miles
away behind him in
the fogey land.

He is full of snatches
of various melodies,
no one of which he ever gives in a complete form. He enlivens the
house, generally, with the most telling points of popular refrains,
seldom going up or down stairs without a chorus, begun, if ascending,
with a shout at the foot of the staircase and ending with a bang of
his door on the second landing ; or, if descending, commencing with
a bang and ending with a jump of three steps taken in a flying leap.

He is hearty and jovial, in the highest possible spirits, and
decidedly impatient of the serious, political, or philosophical conver-
sation with which our sedate selves have hitherto beguiled the
evenings.

At dinner the subject that occupies our attention is the present
serious state of the country, agricultural distress, lowering of rents,
difficulties between landlords and tenants.

There are three landed proprietors at table, including our host,
and I am deeply interested in their views of the prospects of the
United Kingdom.

"It is a serious matter," observes Sir Andrew McCorrie, a
severe-looking elderly gentleman, with an inclination to lay down
the law on every subject, " and there is but one thing to be done for
the next year at least, and that is to reduce the reuts all round."

Mr. Alexander, a younger man and a lesser landlord, does not
see this in the same light. He would suggest another course.

"There is no other course," says Sir Andrew, frowning at the
idea of anyone's attempting to improve on his original suggestion.

Our host shakes his head dubiously.

"It will play the deuce with some of us," he observes, "and
there '11 be no going up to London for the Season,"—here our hostess
becomes interested in the discussion—" and precious little to do
in the country too, if the hunters are to be sold, and establishments
reduced all round."

" Ah ! " sighs our hostess, sympathetically, as if for the first time
a light was breaking in upon her as to the effects of the weather and
the crops on the parks, ball-rooms, and opera-houses.

We are all silent and sad, moodily regarding our champagne as
though it were the last glass at parting previous to our all being led
off to the workhouse.

But Nephew Jim has not come down for his holidays—he has been
reading with a Coach—to be gloomy, and at this point, being no
re>pecter of persons, he dashes in brilliantly.

" I say, Uncle,"' he cries, " I '11 tell you what you can do if you
are all hard up."

We all listen, and Sir Andrew frowns more portentously than
ever. The idea of his being included among the " hard up " ones !!

" Well," asks our host, " what ? "

"Why, look here," continues Jim, "I've got a Bogardus trap—
rifle, glass balls, and all complete. I'm a nailer at it. Bobby
Roberts laid me two to one I wouldn't hit ten out of fifteen-"

" And did you ? " asks his Aunt, pretending a sudden interest in
the Bogardus trap, partly to shield him from the evident wrath of

Sir Andrew at the irrelevancy of the interruption, and partly
because she has some sort of latent faith in her Nephew's originality,
though at present none of us clearly see how Jim's hitting ten out of
fifteen glass balls, shot out of a Bogardus trap, can possibly benefit
the struggling farmers or the unfortunate landlords.

"Yes," replies Jim, with a perfect shout of triumph that nearly
sends Sir Andrew into a fit. "I hit fourteen out of fifteen, and
pocketed his two quid. I scored off him there."

"I don't see what that has to do with what we were speaking
about," remarks Sir Andrew, sententiously, and then adds, patronis-
ingly, " which perhaps you are not yet old enough to understand."

But Jim is not going to be patronised, and not going to be put
down.

" Yes it has," he says ; " Uncle and I will go round the country
with the trap, take six to four everywhere. I '11 shoot, and Uncle
shall carry the balls——•"

"Thank you," says our host, amused,—as we all are except Sir
Andrew, who, evidently objecting to such ill-timed levity, would
interrupt if he could ; but Jim, having once started, won't let him,
and goes on enthusiastically, as though he were organising the
most brilliant scheme for the relief of the present distress.

" And," he continues, " we 'd welsh 'em. I'd make a miss or two,
just to put 'em off ; then they'd double the odds. I'd do the trick.
Uncle should collect the coin, and on we'd go again. You might
come with us," he adds, as a kindly afterthought, to Sir Andrew.

Sir Andrew's breath is literally taken away, and he replies,
severely,

" I don't shoot glass balls from—from-" He hasn't caught

the name of the trap. Jim assists him to the word.

"From Bogardus traps, ehP" says Jim. "Oh, you'd soon do it
with practice. If you came with me and Uncle, you might drive the
caravan, or beat the drum. We'd diddle 'em! Here, Waiter—I
mean Butler ! "

The Butler is doubtful as to being addressed as Waiter, but gets
over it quickly, and attends to Jim's request that he won't put quite
so much froth into his champagne next time.

" I '11 get the real stuff while I can," he explains affably to Mr.
Alexander, " as we 're all going to the workhouse."

It is all in vain, after this, that Sir Andrew attempts to state his
views on home or foreign polities, on all of which subjects Jim
expresses himself in his own peculiar style very freely, generally to
the effect that " The Nigger "—meaning either the Ameer or Cete-
wayo—" will diddle us if we don't bosh him." As a rule he offers
to back his opinions for a small sum. He is always betting half-a-
crown that something is or isn't, or that somebody won't or will. It
is only a form of expression, and never finds any takers.

The grouse is just the slightest bit full-flavoured. The guests are
too polite to notice it. Not so Jim, who at once shouts out to our
host,

"I say, Uncle."

" Weil?"

" Game's a bit lofty, eh?"

Then to the servant—not the Butler this time—who had neglected
Jim's instructions as to filling his glass.

" I say—here—you'll get yourself disliked, you will." And the
man, audibly tittering, has to return and make up for the deficiency.

The conversation turns, at last, as it must do in Scotland, at least
once during the evening, on Burns, and his merits as a song-writer
are discussed.

" In his songs," says Sir Andrew, who has seized the opportunity
presented to him by Jim's having his mouth full of hot tart, to
monopolise the conversation, " Burns showed himself pre-eminently
a genius. His songs are unequalled. I know nothing, that, for
pathos, for true poetic fire, and for local colouring, can touch them.
Where is the song-writer nowadays ? "

Jim is equal to the occasion, and suddenly recovering from the
effepts of the over-hot fruit, he looks up and answers decidedly,

" Macdermott."

Sir Andrew elevates his eyebrows, and observes that he has never
heard of the poet in question, whereupon Jim, resuming his currant
and raspberry, says,

" He's first-rate. Writes 'em and sings 'em. You go next time
you 're in town. Canterbury or Oxford," he adds, with his mouth
full.

" An Oxford man, did you say ? " asks Sir Andrew.
Jim nearly explodes.

" No. Oxford Music-Hail man. Had you there! Right you are,
says Moses. Whoa, Emma I But, I say," he goes on, cutting short
his list of ballads, and warming with his subject as he finishes his
tart, "have you heard Terry in Don Ccesar and Little Dr. Faust/
' How does he do it ?' * The Continong—the Continong! and if it
were not for the table, I am convinced that he would give us an
imitation, with dance to follow, on the spot.

Burns, as a song-writer, is nowhere after this.

" I know a fellow who sings all the songs, and plays the banjo too,
fine!" continues Jim, enthusiastically. "You ask him down, if