Punch (95.1888)

August 4, 1888.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

51

SHARP 'S THE WORD » !

Wife. "Poor Mamma is dreadfully low-Spirited this morning, George. Only think—she has just expressed a wish to
be Cremated!"

Hmbaiul (with alacrity). " 'O'b-less my-" (Throwing down his Newspaper.) "Tell her to put her Things on, Dear!

I 'li.—I'll drive her over at once ! ! " '__

INTERVIEWING BY MACHINERY.

(By One who now knows How to do it.)

1 had received an intimation from the conductor of a popular
London paper that I was to be visited by one of his representatives,
so I pulled myself tog-ether and looked up my note-books. I pon-
dered for hours over my past life, and called to mind its most telling
incidents. I arranged my house in the most artistic fashion, and
awaited events rather anxiously. At the appointed time a lively
young gentleman introduced himself.

"Now, my dear Sir," said he, "all I want you to do is to sit
quietly and attend to me. You need not speak yourself. I am so
accustomed to this sort of thing that I can save you all that trouble.
Iron-grey hair—military moustache—about fifty. Think you are
about fifty, and the colour of your hair is hereditary ? "

I nodded.

" Quite so. Well, that will do for a start. I think you have been
a soldier : had adventures of the usual kind in South Africa. Lived
with the Boers and Afghans. Eaten half-raw mutton, and. slept for
nights in huts made of mud ? Eh ? That's it, isn't it ? "

Again I bowed my head.

" Certainly," and he jotted down a few more lines in the note-
book which he had taken from his pocket. "Literary man too.
Written lots of books. Novels—romances. You start a plot by
getting a central idea. Then you think it out. Then you find the
proper sort of persons to carrv out your notion. Put them down and
give them names ? Then think out your last incident. Get it and
SO backwards till you come to Chapter First. Then go to the seaside
and think it over again—all of it. Then begin your work and finish
it. Eh ( That's the sort of thing, isn't it ? "

Once more I silently acquiesced.

" Fancy too you were once a doctor. Laboured amongst the very
poor. Heart crushed by the misery of the East End. Saw the usual
characteristics of ' Horrible London.' Once visited a Chinese Opium
den—heathen Chinee—old woman with a small pipe—squalid sur-
roundings. Eh ? " I made the same gesture as before.

'1 Just so. Then I think you have been fairly athletic. Were in
your school Eleven and rowed in your College boat. Still have the
bat, and took away the rudder. Got both of them hanging up in
your study. Was rather fond of following the Thanet Harriers.
Once caught by the tide at Herne Bay and (mounted) had„to swim
for your life. I think I am right—stop me if I am wrong."

I did not stop him.

' Live in this house. Usual sort of old-fashioned mansion. Bro-
caded curtains, and dark-coloured wooden chests picked up in Brit-
tany. Pictures of your father, mother, grandfather, and grand-
mother. Value them all. However set highest price on a small
picture of himself, once given you by his Loyal Highness. Fond of
tics—that black poodle can do some tricks. _ Like flowers in your
garden ; water them every day when your toil is done. Can play on
the fiddle, and sometimes indulge m a game of whist at the Club.
I think that is about all you have to tell me, except when you said
owd-bye you shook me warmly by the hand, and once more got back
to the work my entrance had interrupted."

And before I could reply he had jumped up, rushed down my steps,
taken a Hansom, and gone off to interview somebody else.

"Play Up! Muskkje!"— It seems a pity," says Our Own
Times Correspondent, writing from Berehaven during the Naval
Manoeuvres, " that bands should now be all but abolished. Rightly
or wrongly, Lord Charles Beresford is credited iviih the change, ' &c.
What! Lord Chaeles, a prominent supporter and member of the
Organising Committee of the Italian Opera, "forbidding the bands"!!
We cannot believe that Our Charley can have been so misguided as
to be out of harmony with popular sentiment. Let every ship be
like the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, and have music wherever she
goes, to cheer up our hearts of oak, and set the tars' toes going to
the hornpipe.

Slight Confusion.—"Very glad," observed Mrs. Ram, "to read
that Mr. Santley is back again. He's much better employed in
singing, than in finding some Pasha or other in Egypt-"