Punch (88.1885)

194 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Apbil 25, 1885.

THE LIMITED MONARCH!

With Apologies to the Shade of Cowper.

“ Her Majesty’s ship Monarch, having then continued on her
course at a speed of barely eight knots an hour, finally, when
she was distant from Malta fully 250 miles, came to a dead stop,
and broke down. After, however, signalling for help all night,
she was fortunately sighted and picked up by the steamship
Hampshire, and eventually towed into port in safety. It has
transpired that the chief engineer had already reported to the
Admiralty that the condensers of the ship had been very trou-
blesome for the past two years ; indeed, the fact was very well
known, but no effect resulted from the engineer’s report.”—
Daily Taper.

I ’at the Monarch of all I survey.

And Brassey the fact won’t dispute,

For here I’ve been sticking all day
Like some waterlogged sea-going brute !

0 Cheeseparing, where are the charms
That Northbrook has seen in thy face !

Look at me—in the midst of alarms !—

And yet mine’s but a typical case!

There are dozens afloat I could name
If matters should come to the worst,

Whose boilers,—with no one to blame,—

Must surely and certainly burst.

“ My Lords,” with smooth phrase on their lips,
These things with indifference see;

And, being quite unacquainted with ships,
Commission a porpoise like me !

But the upshot of all is quite clear ;

If matters go on as they do,

Well, the Navy will soon disappear,

And “ my Lords,” well—they ’ll disappear too !

So now that I’m docked, and they find
That I never was fit for the main.

Let us hope that a thing of the kind
Won’t occur—till it happens again !

BREAKING THE ICE.

Pompous Briton. “ A—a—a Cousin of mine met some People of your
Name residing at Naples. Could you tell me who they might be?”
Polite Foreigner. “ My eldest Bruzzer and his Family.”

Pompous Briton. “ Oh, but they are Great Swells out there ! ”

Her Latest.—“There’s nothing new under the sun
in the way of religions,” said Mrs. Bam, who has been
recently studying the subject; “ why there was even an
old pagan legend about the soul, called Moody and—
no, I mean Cupid and Sankey ; so even they 're not
new! ”

KHAN OR CANT P

(Two Extracts from an Ameer's Diary.)

Rawul Pindi, April, 1302.

Allah be praised ! Though I began here by putting on, by
mistake, one of the five Ruski uniforms sent me with a ton of
dynamite, on my last birthday, by the insupportable Rhinoceros of
the North, the Moscow Czar, yet no one seemed to mind it, and I
was not, as would have been only natural under the circumstances,
treacherously flayed alive. No—I have had, after all, a glorious
time of it with these “ Infidel English Dogs”—that is, I mean with
these “White British Brothers of the After-dinner Moon,” as I
called them, I believe, in my speech at the Banquet, when the
laughing Rajah Duffeein presented me with those six dozen pink
satin Dressing Gowns, that Battery of Naval Horse Artillery,
together with the Dessert Service and an explosive Mechanical Piano.

Yes, everything has gone off beautifully. That smooth-tongued
Hyiena of Tiflis, Murza Yakoob Blog, was quite wrong when he
said that the King of Connaught had come by the command of the
Empress, in disguise, all the way from All-der-shut, to put poison
into the coffee at the Durbar, when the seven hundred and ninety-
two spies I brought with me were not looking. No ; I am sure he
did nothing of the kind, and I found him, as the Interpreter said he
had explained to him, “a most nice-spoken young man.” Yet am I
not altogether at peace.

Last night did I sit up with the Rajah Dufferin till the East
grew grey with the coming dawn, trying, over a howl of the excel-
lent spiced and steaming pledge-drink, styled El-Rhum-Punch, the
sacred beverage, as I have since learned, that wisely accompanies the
making of all treaties in the West, to draw straight frontier lines on
several new Maps, with a burnt soda-water cork. I did, too, as the
Treaty-drink went round, pledge myself to much. To how much, I
know not 1 What matters. Kismet! We shall perhaps see as time
goes on. To bed reflective.

******

Ha! But here is the merry Rajah-Yieeroy come round to wish
me “the top of the morning,” and present to me, as a parting
gift at the Station, two hundred Emerald-Green Bathing-Machines, a
ton of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, 12,000 stand of arms, an
Iron-plated. Railway Omnibus, with conductor complete, and the “Star
of India ” in dazzling imitation. “ Have I ache in the head ? ” No.
And “Do I still adhere to the signatures and undertakings of the pre-
vious evening ? ” As he inquires, he says he will just throw into the
present, as a finish, two dozen performing Elephants and five hundred
tons of very superior gunpowder, and at the same time pay for my
ticket. My answer is a dance of joy upon the platform. The Rajah
Dufferin seems amused. So do the dear Infidel English Dogs. Allah
be praised ! A good deal to pay for extra luggage, but off at last!

******

Kabul, April, 1302.

Perhaps the great over-feeding at the Durbar is responsible, per-
haps a chill caught in walking about in the evening in merely the
light mantle of the Order of the Indian Star, given me by the
humorous Rajah Dog, Dufferin, may be the cause,—perhaps some
El-Rhum-Punch of my own make—who knows ? hut I am seized
with much melancholy. Unwelcome news from the frontier, it may
be ? The Council of Elders (may the tightest boots of Mahomet be
upon them for a fortnight!) growl curses at me, and put their hands
on their dirk-handles whenever I attempt to explain what I have
done. What have I done ? I give them the two hundred Emerald-
Green Bathing-Machines, hut they are not appeased. Is it that in
my absence the Ruski Hyienas of the North have seized on lands and
marshes and places with odd names ? No : for, by the Prophet, I
was not aware I possessed them. Alas ! that I have never learned
the geography of my native country ! Where, I wonder, did I really
draw those frontier-lines with burnt soda-water cork ? Too much
North? Who can tell? Perhaps I was pushed by the joking Rajah?
Possibly. Well, if I was, aU I can say is—“ Kismet! ”