Punch: Punch (89.1885)

July 18, 1885.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

35;'

NO MEMORY FOR FACES.

For mnemonic exercises I've an inborn predilection,

?einf? gifted with the faculty of vivid recollection.

I remember fervid eulogies pronounced upon my charms
As I sweetly crowed and. gurgled, lying in my nurse's arms;
1 can quote the longest monologues e'er written by the Bard,
And can reel you off hexameters and sapphics by the y ard ;

J- ve the liveliest remembrance of events and names and places
And of dates, despite their dulness,—but I can't remember faces!

That I cannot keep in mind the diff'rent shades of eyes and hair,
'r distinguish grim old maids from merry school-girls, young and
T fair;

ihat I never know my Father when I meet him in the street,
out mistake him for some Alderman or Chaplain to the Fleet;
ihat my intimate acquaintances unrecognised I pass,

And am puzzled by my own face when I see it in the glass,
seems incredible, no doubt; but 'tis the gospel truth, I vow !
' "aa got me, you may fancy, .into many a fearful row.

At a dinner-party once I had to sit, as chance befel,

■twixt two men who shook my hand and seemed to know me very
well,—

ihey were pleasant, chatty fellows, and I soon found out, indeed,
inat on Politics, Keligion, and the Drama they agreed.

„ it imagine my confusion when they murmured, sweet and low,

Introduce us! That's a man I should extremely like to know."
" t ?y ?-nswer *n ea°h oase I had to blush, as it was this
I should really be too happy,—but I don't know who he is!"

Iwas strolling down the Strand, and musing on the Missing Link,
W hen a rascal snatched my watch-chain, and was off, as quick as
wink.

1 pursued him for some minutes at considerable speed,

And had very nearly caught him; but my nose began to bleed.
When I met him next (as I believed) he looked a perfect swell,
And was lounging on the door-step of a mansion in Pall Mall.

I laid hold of him with promptitude—a course that cost me dear—
For he proved, to my discomfiture, a pugilistic Peer !

I'm acquainted with a worthy old Colonial Bishop, whom
I regret to say I've frequently mistaken for his groom.

As they really don't resemble one another in the least,

I feel sure that he considers me an idiotic beast.

So, I have no doubt at all, do many other friends of mine
In the legal, or the naval, or the military line,

Whom, alas! I have offended—quite unwittingly, I trow—
By addressing them as people whom they didn't even know!

I've mistaken pious Countesses for Ladies of the Ballet,
Archa;ologists for publicans, a Statesman for his valet;

I've upset the equanimity of once unruffled lives
By just "mixing up" my dearest friends, and, what was worse,
their wives.

I went up, the other day, to an intolerable bore,

Whom I afterwards discovered I had never seen before,

And insisted upon asking him to dinner. Need I say
That he's stuck to me like putty ever since that dreadful day!

With keen agony, from week to week, I ask myself anew
To remove this disability what is it I can do ?

I have studied physiognomy and every plastic art,

And I've stared at people's features till I've learnt them off by
heart.

But, confound it! my experiments have all been made in vain,

For I ne'er can recollect to whom the faces appertain;

Yet they haunt me, and I know them, in the visions of the night,—
But throughout my waking hours I can never get them right!

I am gravitating fast towards a chasm of despair,

My annoyances are greater than I possibly can bear;—

I would try the hermit dodge, and see my fellow-men no more,

Were it not that life-long solitude is such a horrid bore.

If I thought it wouldn't hurt, I would my own quietus make
With a bodkin, or a bullet, or a slice of poisoned cake;

For my cup of life is brimming full of sorrows and disgraces,
All resulting from the fact that—I've no memory for faces !


COMFORTING.

Cabby (to Fare). " Sit well back, Sie. My 'Oss is subject to Fits, an' 'e's hapt to get 'is 'Eels over the Splash-board !!'