Punch: Punch (96.1889)

24 PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [January 12, 1889.

THE DIARY OF A NOBODY.

December 17.—As I open my scribbling Diary I find the words
“ Oxford Michaelmas Term ends.” Why this should induce me to
indulge in retrospective I don’t know, but it does. The last few
weeks of my Diary are of minimum interest. The
breaking-off of the engagement between Lupin
and Daisy Mutlar has made him a different being,
and Carrie a rather depressing companion. She
was a little dull last Saturday, and f thought to
cheer her up by reading some extracts from my
Diary, but she walked out of the room in the
middle of the reading without a word. On her
„ , return I said, “ Did my Diary bore you, darling ? ”

•ifyjM J/'j She replied, to my surprise, “1 really wasn’t
J/f CA,'" listening, dear. I was obliged to leave to give

A 4 p instructions to the laundress. In consequence of

/ ■ some stuff she puts in the water, two more of
Lupin’s coloured shirts have run, and he says he
won’t wear them.” I said, “ Everything is Lupin.
It’s all Lupin, Lupin, Lupin. There was not a single button on
my shirt yesterday, but I made no complaint.” Carrie simply
replied, “ You should do as all other men do, and wear studs. In
fact I never saw anyone but you wear buttons on the shirt-fronts.”
I said, “ I certainly wore none yesterday, for there were none on.”
Another thought that strikes me is that Cowing seldom calls in the
evening, and Cummings never does. I fear they don’t get on well
with Lupin.

December 18.—Yesterday I was in a retrospective vein—to-day it
is prospective. I see nothing but clouds, clouds, clouds. Lupin is
perfectly intolerable over the Daisy Mutlar business. He won’t
say what is the cause of the breach. He is evidently condemning
her conduct, and yet, If we venture to agree with him, says he won’t
hear a word against her. So what is one to do ? Another thing
which is disappointing to me is, that Carrie and Lupin take no
interest whatever in my Diary. I broached the subject at the
breakfast-table to-day. I said, “I was in hopes that, if anything
ever happened to me, the Diary will be an endless source of pleasure
to you both, to say nothing of the chance of the remuneration which
may accrue from its being published.” Both Carrie and Lupin
hurst out laughing. Carrie was sorry for this, I could see, for she
said, “ I did not mean to be rude, dear Charlie, but truly I do not
think your Diary would sufficiently interest the public, to be taken
up by a publisher.” I replied, “ I am sure it would prove quite as
interesting as some of the ridiculous reminiscences that have been
published lately. Besides, it’s the Diary that makes the man.
Where would Evelyn and Pepys have been if it had not been for
their Diaries ? ” Carrie said I was quite a philosopher ; but Lupin,
in a jeering tone, said, “If it had been written on larger paper,
Guv, we might get a fair price from la butterman for it.” As I am
in the prospective vein, I vow the end of this year will see the end
of my Diary.

December 19.—The annual invitation came to spend Christmas
with Carrie’s mother. The usual family festive gathering to which
we always look forward. Lupin declined to go. I was astounded,
and expressed my surprise and disgust. LuriN then obliged us with
the following radical speech:—liI hate a family gathering at
Christmas. What does it mean ? Why some one says, ‘ Ah, we
miss poor Uncle James who was here last year,’ and we all begin to
snivel. Someone else says, ‘ It’s two years since poor Aunt Liz used
to sit in that corner.’ Then we all begin to snivel again. Then
another gloomy relation says, ‘ Ah, I wonder whose turn it will be
next ? ’ Then we all snivel again, and proceed to eat and drink too
much, and they don’t discover until I get up that we have been
seated 13 at dinner.”

December 20.—Went to Smirksons’, the Drapers, in the Strand,
who this year have turned out everything in the shop and devoted
the whole place to the sale of Christmas Cards. Shop crowded with
people, who seemed to take up the cards rather roughly, and after a
hurried glance at them, throw them down again. I remarked to one
of the young persons serving, that carelessness appeared to be a
disease with some purchasers. The observation was scarcely out of
my mouth, when my thick coat-sleeve caught against a large pile of
expensive cards in boxes one on the top of the other, and threw them
down. The manager came forward looking very much annoyed, and
picking up several cards from the ground said to one of the assistants,
with a palpable side-glance at me, “rut these amongst the sixpenny
goods ; they can’t be sold for a shilling now.” The result was, I felt
it my duty to buy some of these damaged cards. I had to buy more
and pay more than I intended. Unfortunately I did. not examine
them all, and when I got home I discovere d a vulgar card with a
picture of a fat nurse with two babies—one black and the other
white, and the words, “We wish Pa a Merry Christmas.” I tore
up the card and threw it away. Carrie said the great disadvantage
of going out in Society and increasing the number of our friends
was, that we should have to send out nearly two dozen cards this year.

December 21.—To save the postmen a miserable Christmas, we
follow the example of all unselfish people, and send out our cards
early. Most of the cards had finger-marks, which I did not notice
at night. I shall buy all future cards in the daytime. Lupin (who
ever since he has had the appointment with a stock and share brokers,
does not seem over-scrupulous in his dealings) told me never to rub
out the pencilled price on the backs of the cards. I asked him why.
Lupin said, “ Suppose your card is marked 9d. Well, all you have
to do is to pencil a 3—and a long stroke after it—in front of the nine-
pence, and people will think you have given five times the price for
it.” In the evening Lupin was very low-spirited, and I reminded
him that behind the clouds the sun was shining. He said, “Ugh!
it never shines on me.” I said, “Stop, Lupin, my boy, you are
worried about Daisy Mutlar. Don’t think of her any more. You
ought to congratulate yourself on having got off a very bad bargain.
Her notions are far too grand for our simple tastes.” He jumped up
and said, “ I won’t allow one word to be uttered against her. She’s
worth the whole bunch of your friends put together, that inflated,
sloping-head of a Perrupp included.” I left the room with silent
dignity, but caught my foot in the mat.

December 23.—I exchanged no words with Lupin in the morning ;
but as he seemed to be in exuberant spirits in the evening, I ventured
to ask him where he intended to spend his Christmas. He replied,
“ Oh, most likely at the Mutlars.” In wonderment I said, “What!
after your engagement has been broken off ?” Lupin said, “ Who
said it is off?” I said, “You have given us both to under-
stand-” He interrupted me by saying, “Well, never mind

that! It is on again—there ! ”

ENGLISH SOCIETY AS SHE IS SEEN.

(Through Atlantic Mists.)

How that the more respectable among English Dukes, and the
bluer blood of English gentlemen, are finding brides in the United
States, a keener interest in high life in this effete country is natu-
rally circulating throughout the States. The New York Tribune,
fortunate in the possession of a London Correspondent to whom no
baronial gates are barred, takes the lead in supplying the demand
for news in this department. “ G. W. S.” himself has contributed
a series of articles on London Society and upon ‘ ‘ The American
Girl ” as she flashes through it. “ Royalty,” writes this unconscious
humorist, “ is a caste apart. An intercourse Avith Royalty has, I
admit, an etiquette of its own.” That understood, “ G. W. S.”
ramps Avith patronising step through the inner circle of English
Society both in toAvn and country. Never, since Charles Edavard
Harrington Fitzroy Yelloavplush laid doivn his pen, has so mas-
terly an exposition of the greatness and the littleness of London
Society been set forth in print. Like Charles Edavard, “ G. W. S.”
is too intimate with the “ hupper suckles” to think much of them.

“G. W. S.’s” latest contribution is supplemented by one from
another hand. It lacks something of his lofty style, but displays all
his intimate knowledge of the subject. “A Common-sense Duchess ”
is the heading of the article, which treats of a lady lately dead.
“ Ridiculous as it may seem to Republican readers,” says this high
authority,—

-“ the Duchess was seArerely criticised for her habit of walking forth alone

from her sombre mansion and calling a cab when in a hurry, instead of letting
a half-hour go to waste Avhile the cumbersome vehicle appropriate to her
station should be made ready. The entire precinct was once thrown into a
flutter by the report, doubtless correct, that she had personally entered the
little bakery in St. James’s Street, in Avhich a postal agency was established,
and had there purchased stamps and affixed them to her letters, precisely as
one of the untitled multitude might have done.”

Nor was this all.

“ In the Avinter of 1869 the sentinel Avho mounts guard over the palace
wall of Cleveland Row had the opportunity of relieving his dreary routine by
saving a child from being run over—a radical cab-horse from Pall Mall
having so forgotten the proprieties as to break loose and endanger human
life, as well as the droAvsy tranquillity of that solemn region. A day or two
later the Duchess was seen to stop and speak to the guardsman, who was so
overcome by agitation that he could hardly hold his rifle steady. He would
have faced the cannon’s mouth with less trepidation than exchange ten words
with this exalted Peeress.”

This seems to have created a sensation equalled only by that Avith
which the West End heard of the indiscretion in “ the little bakery
in St. James’s Street.” “The verdict of the austere middle-class
throughout the neighbourhood was, that the Duchess had been repre-
hensibly unmindful of the dignity of the position, and that she
would have done better to send the soldier half-a-croAvn by her foot-
man.” “And yet,” exclaims the New York Tribune,—

-“ there are people on both sides of the Atlantic who profess to wonder

that the sooial sensibilities of Americans and Englishmen cannot at all points
be brought into sympathetic and symmetrical accord.”

There are, indeed.

NOTICE,—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS,, Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will
in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper, To this rule
there will be no exception,


x m