Punch (81.1881)

August 13, 1881.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI, 61

SHOOTYNGE YE GROUSE. A.D. MDCCCLXXXI.

{From a Rare Print of tlw Period.)

NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A CITY WAITER.

Robert at Greenwich.

I've bin. a spending1 just a week or 2 at Grinnidge for a change of
hair and a change of the Scenes, and its wunderfool what a difference
one finds there tho' its only 10 miles from Gildhall.

In the Citty there 's a good deal of sameness, the dinners is the
same, and the Toastes is the same, and the speeches is the same, and
we werry seldom sees no Ladies, but at Grinnidge the wariety as I
finds in the same Tavern in a weak or too is somethink estonishing.
Why some of my best and sollemest patrons will do that sort of thing
at Grinnidge or Richmond on the sly, as werry few dares to do,
except of coarse at Parris, where I'm told as how they all indulges
in a style of High Life and freedom from everythink, as would make
there pore wives stare if they was there, which luckily they never
ain't.

For instance now, on Monday I waited on a little party of 4, what
one of the Gents called a Party Carry, tho' I'm sure I don't know
why, for I heard 'ein call the Ladies Rosy and Topsy.

Ah, they was a nice jolly party, they was! Everythink of the
best and plenty of it. Plenty of fun and plenty of larfter, and no
black looks when I took 'em the Bill, as there would ha' been if
they'd ha had their poor Mother in laws with 'em.

I suppose the Ladies was their Neeces. If I was to say as I'd seen
the Gents afore, under werry diffrent circumstances, at the Ladies
dinner of the Grocers' Company for instance, where they was as
sollem as Judges, I should be behaving in a way as I shood be
ashamed of, espeshally as they gave me 5s. when they paid the Bill,
and one of 'em acshally winkt at me with one of his eyes.

Winks is rum things, winks is. I wunder who inwented 'em.
The rule seems to be that if you winks with both your 2 eyes at
wunce, it's only a tempory weakness of natur, and you does it and
there 's an end.

But if you winks with only one eye ! Ah ! what does that mean ?
In the case I've just eluded to, what did it mean ? Why this is
what it meant:—■

(( "Robert," it said, as distinkly as if it could have spoken,
Robert, we are old friends, so I can trust you to keep it dark. So
keep it dark, Robert, keep it dark ! " And all this said with just
one wink of one eye !

What a pity we can't inwent a langwidge of eye winks, what a
lot of talk it would save to be sure.

_ Well, on Wensday we had the Society for prewenting somethink
right or encouridging somethink wrong, or wisey wursey, for some-
how, after dinner the speeches got a little mixt, and were so awful
long, that I couldn't make tales nor heads of 'em.

Well, at starting they were about as sollem a set as I ever seed,
outside the Manshun House, and looked about as conwivial as so
many Cemetery Parsons, but by the time they had finisht dinner,
the ices seemed to thaw 'em, and their tungs went like one a clock
wen they got their deserts, and such was the grand effect of our werry

Nutty Old Sherry, and our fine old Fruity Port, that before breaking
up they all stood up and took hands and sang " Old Lang Sign ! "

On Thursday we had a Cricket Club, and awerry different set they
was. Full of fun and full of go, and with as fine a set of appetites
as I ever stood and wundered at. But what strange notions they
seemed to have of the importance of Cricket! I werily believes as
they thinks more of Docter Grace and his Brother than they does of
the Lord Mare, and his Sherryiffs!

Why to hear these jolly fellows talk, one would think that not
only was hard hitting the one grate dooty of a Christian Gentleman,
and good bowling the great aim of egsistence, but that the highest
object of any man's ambishun should be to run up a good score.
That wouldn't do for the Trafalgar, 'cos we never gives no credit.

And yet they seemed as modest as they were jolly, and wen one
Gent's helth was drank because he made the great catch of the
season, he acshally blusht. Of course I thort at fust he had married
a nairess with lots of money, 'till Brown set me right.

Another on 'em was spoken of as being the best long stopper of the
Club, and he proved the fact by seeing them all out and going away
last. They called their Chairman a Capting, but he didn't seem to
know much about the Army and Navy when he gave their Toast, so
praps, as Brown said, he only belonged to the Horse Marines. »

Cricket must be a fine noble game to produce such a jolly set of
fine noble looking fellows, true Gentlemen too, every one of 'em,
and all werry libral to the poor Waiter, as all true Gentlemen
always is. {Signed) Robert.

DUNRAYEN.

[The Earl of DxjnrAven, in protesting against the short time allowed_ for
the consideration of the Irish Land Bill, said " he was not a strict Sabbatarian,
and had even advocated in that House the desirability of enjoying reasonable
recreation on the Sunday, but it was impossible that racking one's brains oyer
the tangled intricacies of that Bill could be considered wholesome recreation
for anyone."]

And Dunraven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
O'er that blessed Bill of Billy's, puzzling at it o'er and o'er ;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a child's that hath been screaming,
And the gaslight o'er him streaming shows them heavy, red, and sore ;
And his voice from out its pages rises in a muffled roar :—
" Hang the Bill! it is a bore ! "

theatrical.

Varney was far better as a villain in Kenilwortli than as a
composer of Operas Bouffes. La Heine des Halles was the most
idiotic, wearisome, tuneless piece we ever remember seeing in Paris.
It doesn't seem to have gained much by being caUed Gibraltar, and
gibr-altered (as its adapter, Mr. Murray, would say) for the Hay-
market. "Gib "doesn't mean "going." Murray come up! ut
this is the un-varney-ish'd truth.

vol. lxxxi.

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