Punch (99.1890)

100

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVAEI.

[August 30, 1890.

KEPT IN TOWN—A Lament.

The Season's ended; in the Park the vehicles are far and few,
And down the lately-crowded Row one horseman canters on a sorew
By stacks of unperoeptive chairs ; the turf

is hnrnt, the leaves are brown,
A stagnant sultriness prevails—the very

air's gone out of town!

Belgravia's drawn her Winds, and let her
window-boxes run to seed;

Street-urchins play in porticoes—no pow-
dered menial there to heed;

Now fainter grows the lumbering roll of
luggage-cumbered omnibus:

Bayswater's children all are off upon their
annual exodus.

On every hoarding posters flaunt the charms

of peak, and loch, and sea,
To madden those unfortunates who have to stay in town—like me !
Gone are the inconsiderate friends who tell one airily,'' They 're off!"
And ask " what you propose to do—yacht, shoot, or fish, or walk, or

golf?"

On many a door which opened wide in welcome but the other day,
The knocker basks in calm repose—conscious " the family's away."
I scan the windows—half in hope I may some friendly faoe detect—
To meet their blank brown-papered stare, depressing as the cut direct!

I pass the house where She is not, to feel an unfamiliar chill;
That door is disenchanted now, that number powerless to thrill!
'Twas there, in yonder balcony, that last July she used to stand ;
Upon some balcony, more blest, she's leaning now, in Switzerland,

Her eyes upon rose-tinted peaks—but no, of sense I'm quite bereft!
The hour is full early yet, and table d hole she '11 scarce have left.

Some happy neighbour's handing her the salad-But I '11 move, I

think;

I see a grim caretaker's eye regard me through the shutter's ohink.

Yes, I '11 away,—no longer be the sport of sentiment forlorn,
But soale the heights of Primrose Hill, pretending it's the Matterhqrn;
Or hie me through the dusk to sit beside the shimmering Serpentine,
And, with a little make-believe, imagine I am up the Rhine.

Alas! the poor devioe, I know, my restlessness will ne'er assuage:
Still Fancy beats, with pinions clipped, the wires of its Cockney cage!
No inch of turf to prisoned larks oan represent the boundless moor;
And neither Hyde nor Regent's Park suggests a Continental Tour!

VOCES POPULI.

IN AN OMNIBUS.

The majority of the inside passengers, as usual, sit in solemn silence,
and gaze past their opposite neighbours into vacancy, A. couple
of Matrons converse in wheezy whispers.
First Matron. Well, I must say a bus is pleasanter riding than
what they used to be not many years back, and then so much
cheaper, too. Why, you can go all the way right from here to Mile
End Road for threepence 1

Second Matron. What, all that way for threepence—[with an
impulse of vague humanity.) The poor 'orses !

First Matron. Ah, well, my dear, it's Competition, you know,—
it don't do to think too much of it.

Conductor {stopping the bus). Orchard Street, Lady !

[ To Second Matron, who had desired to be put down there.
Second Matron {to Conductor). Just move on a few doors further,
opposite the boot-shop. (To First Matron.) It will save us walking.

Conductor. Cert'inly, Mum, we'll drive in and wait while you're
tryin' 'em on, if you like—we ain't in no 'urry !

[ The Matrons get out, and their places are taken by two young
girls, who are in the middle of a conversation of thrilling
interest.

First Girl. I never liked her myself—ever since the way she
behaved at his Mother's that Sunday.

Second Girl. How did she behave ?

[A faint curiosity is discernible amongst the other passengers to
learn how she—whoever she is—behaved that Sunday,

First Girl. Why, it was you told me! You remember. That
night Joe let out about her and the automatic scent fountain.

Second Girl. Oh, yes, I remember now. {General disappointment.)
I couldn't help laughing myself. Joe didn't ought to have told—
but she needn't have got into such a state over it, need she ?

First Girl. That was Eliza, all over. If Geoege had been sensible,
he'd have broken it off then and there—but no, he wouldn't hear a

word against her, not at that time—it was the button-hook opened
his eyes!

[ The other passengers strive to dissemble a frantic desire to know
how and why this delicate operation was performed.

Second Girl {mysteriously). And enough too! But what put
Geoege off most was her keeping that bag so quiet.

[The general imagination is once more stirred to its depths by
this mysterious allusion.

First Girl. Yes, he did feel that, I know, he used to come and go
on about it to me by the hour together. " I shouldn't have minded
so much," he told me over and over again, with the tears standing in
his eyes,—" if it hadn't been that the bottles was all silver-mounted!"

Second Girl. Silver-mounted ? I never heard of that before—no
wonder he felt hurt!

First Girl {impressively). Silver tops to everyone of them—and
that girl to turn round as she did, and her with an Uncle in the oil
and colour line, too—it nearly broke George's 'art!

Second Girl. He's such a one to take on about things—but, as I
said to him, " Geoege," I says, " You must remember it might have
been worse. Suppose you'd been married to that girl, and then
found out about Alf and the Jubilee sixpence—how would that
have been ?"

First Girl {unconsciously acting as the mouth-piece of the other
passengers). And what did he say to that f

Second Girl. Oh, nothing—there was nothing he could say, but I
could see he was struck. She behaved very mean to the last—she
wouldn't send back the German concertina.

First Girl. You don't say so! Well, I wouldn't have thought
that of her, bad as she is.

Second Girl. No, she stuck to it that it wasn't like a regular
present, being got through a grocer, and as she couldn't send him
back the tea, being drunk,—but did you hear how she treated Emma
over the crinoline 'at she got for her ?

First Girl {to the immense relief of the rest). No, what was that ?

Second Girl. Well, I had it from Emma her own self. Eliza
wrote up to her and says, in a postscript like,—Why, this is Tottenham
Court Road, I get out here. Good-bye, dear, I must tell you the rest
another day.

[Gets out, leaving the tantalised audience inconsolable, and long-
ing for courage to question her companion as to the precise
details of Eliza's heartless behaviour to Geoege. The com-
panion, however, relapses into a stony reserve. Fnter a
Chatty Old Gentleman who has no secrets from anybody,
and of course selects as the first recipient of his confidence
the one person who hates to be talked to in an omnibus.
The Chatty O. G. I've just been having a talk with the police-
man at the corner there—what do you think I said to him ?
His Opposite Neighbour. I—I really don't know.
The C. O. G. Well, I told him he was a rich man compared to
me. He said, " I only get thirty shillings a week, Sir." " Ah," I
said, " but look at your expenses, compared to mine. What would
you do if you had to spend eight hundred a-year on your children's
education ? I spend that—every penny of it, Sir.
Mis Opp. N. {utterly uninterested). Do you indeed?—dear me!
C. 0. G. Not that I grudge it—a good education is a fortune in
itself, and as I've always told my boys, they must make the best
of it, for it's all they'11 get. They're good enough lads, but I've
had a deal of trouble with them one way and another—a deed of
trouble. {Pauses for some expression of sympathy—which does not
come—and he continues:) There are my two eldest son3—what must
they do but fall in love with the same lady—the same lady. Sir!
(iVb one seems to care much for these domestic revelations—possibly
because they are too obviously addressed to the general ear.) And,
to make matters worse, she was a married woman—{his principal
hearer looks another way uneasily)—the wife of a godson of mine,
which made it all the more awkward, y' know. (His Opposite
Neighbour giving no sign, the C. 0. G. tries one Passenger after
another.) Well, I went to him—{here he fixes an old Lady, who
immediately passes up coppers out of her glove to the Conductor)—
I went to him, and said— (addressing a smartly dressed young Lady
with a parcel, who giggles)—I said, " You're a man of the world—
so am I. Don't you take any notice," I told him—{this to a callow
young man, who blushes)— they're a couple of young fools," I
said, "but you tell your dear wife from me not to mind those boys
of mine—they '11 soon get tired of it if they 're only let alone."
And so they would have, long ago, it's my belief, if they'd met
with no encouragement—but what can / do—it's a heavy trial to a
father, you know. Then there's my third son—he must needs go
and marry—(to a Lady at his side with a reticule, who gasps faintly)—
some young woman who danoes at a Music-hail—nice daughter-in-
law that for a man in my position, eh ? I've forbidden him the
house of course, and told his mother not to have any communication
with him—but I know, Sir,—(violently, to a Man on his other side,
who coughs in much embarrassment)—I know she meets him once a
week under the eagle in Orme Square, and J can't stop her! Then
I'm worried about my daughters—one of 'em gave me no peace till