Punch (99.1890)

204 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIVAEI. [October 25, 1890.

a fur-trimmed coat), and the principal characters of the drama have
also found their way to the Military Outpost on the borders of the
dreaded region. I say dreaded, but should have added, without
cause. M. Buchananofp shows us a very pleasant picture. _ The
prisoners seem to have very little to do save to preserve the life of
the Governor, and to talk heroios about liberty and other kindred
subjects. Prince Zosimoff attempts, for the fourth or fifth time, to
make Anna his own—he calls the pursuit "a caprice," and it is
indeed a strange one—and is, in the nick of time, arrested, by order of
the Czar. After this pleasing and natural little incident, everyone
prepares to go back to St. Petersburg, with the solitary exception
of the Prince, who is ordered off to the Mines. No doubt the Emperor
of Kussia had used the tooth-powder, and, finding it distasteful to
him, had taken speedy vengeance upon its presumed inventor.

I have but one fault to find with the representation. The play is
capital, the scenery excellent, and the acting beyond all praise. But
I am not quite sure about the title. M. Buchananoff calls his
play " The Sixth Commandment"—he would have been, in my
opinion, nearer the mark, had he brought it into closer association
with the Ninth! Believe me, dear Mr. Punch,

Tours, respectfully, Buss in Ubbe.

IN OUR GARDEN.

TJPPOSE, Toby dear boy,"
said the Member for
Sark, "we start a garden,
and work in it ourselves.
Temple did it, you know,
when he was tired of
affairs of State."

"Sir Richabd?" I
asked, never remembering
to have seen the Member
for Evesham in the com-
pany of a rake.

"No; Charles the
Second's Minister, who
went down to Sheen two
centuries before the Orle-
anist Princes, and grew
a " ~*i3e£ iflTTRn* roses. Of course I don't

A.^J^^rtwL -<g3*&mmJ& mean to be there much in

S3f ^Ig^ the Session. The thing

is to have something dur-
ing Recess to gently engage the mind and fully occupy the body."

This conversation took place towards the end of last Session but one.
By odd coincidence I had met the Member for Sark as I was coming
from Old Mobalitt's room, where I had been quietly dining with
him. Jackson and Akebs-Douglas made up party of four. It was
second week of August; everybody tired to death. Old Mobality
asked me to look in and join them about eight o'clock. Knocked at
door ; no answer; curious scurrying going round; somebody running
and jumping; heard Old Morality's voice, in gleeful notes, "Now
then, Douglas, tuck in your tuppenny ! Here you are, Jackson !
keep the mill a goin'!" Knocked again ; no answer; opened door
gently; beheld strange sight. The Patronage Secretary was " giving
a back " to the Flbst Lord of the Tbeasuby. Old Morality, taking
running jump, cleared it with surprising agility considering Akees-
Douglas's inches. Then he trotted on a few paces, folded his arms
and bent his head ; Financial Secretary to Treasury, clearing Akebs-
Douglas, took Old Morality in his stride, and "tucked in his
tuppenny " in turn.
Thought I had better retire. Seemed on the whole the proceedings

demanded privacy; but Old Morality, catching sight of me, called
out, " Come along, Toby ! Only our little game. Fall in, and take
your turn."

Rather afraid of falling over, but didn't like to spoil sport; cleared
Old Morality oapitally; scrambled over Akebs-Douglas ; but
couldn't manage Jackson.

" I can't get over him," I said, apologetically.

"No," said Akers-Douglas, " he'sa Torkshireman."

"'Tisbut a primitive pastime," observed Old Morality, when,
later, we sat down to dinner ; "but remarkably refreshing; a great
stimulant for the appetite. Indeed," he added, as he transferred a
whole grouse to his plate, " I do not know anything that more for-
cibly brings home to the mind the truth underlying the old Greek
aphorism, that a bird on your plate is worth two in the dish."

I gathered in conversation that when business gets a little heavy,
when time presses, and leisure for exercise is curtailed, Old
Morality generally has ten minutes leap-frog before dinner.

" We used at first to play it in the corridor; an excellent place;
apparently especially designed for the purpose; but we were always
liable to interruption, and by putting the chairs on the table here
we manage well enough. It's been the making of me, and I may
add, has enabled my Right Hon. friends with increased vigour and
ease to perform their duty to their Queen and Country. The great
thing, dear Toby, is to judiciously commingle physioal exercise with
mental activity. What says the great bard of Abydos ? Mens
sana in corpore sano, which being translated means, mens—or per-
haps I Bhould say, men—should incorporate bodily exercise with
mental exercitation."

Of course I did not disclose to the Member for Sark, what had
taken place in the privity of Old Morality's room. That is not
my way. The secret is ever sacred with me, and shall be carried
with me to the silent tomb. But I was much impressed with the
practical suggestions of my esteemed Leader, and allured by their
evident effect upon his appetite.

" Men," continued the Member for Sark, moodily, " do all kinds
of things in the Recess to make up for the inroads on the constitution
suffered during the Session. They go to La Bourboule like the
Mabkiss and Ratkes ; or they play Golf like Prince Arthur ; or
they pay visits to their Mothers-in-law in the United States, like
Chamberlain and Lyon Platfatr ; or they go to Switzerland,
India, Russia, Australia, and Sierra Leone. Now if we had a
garden, which we dug, and weeded, and clipped, and pruned
ourselves, never eating a potato the sapling of which we had
not planted, watered, and if necessary grafted, with our own
hands, we should live happy, healthful lives for at least a month
or two, coming back to our work having Tenewed our youth like the
rhinoceros."

" But you don't know anything about gardening, do you ? "

"That's just it. Anyone can keep a garden that has been
brought up to the business. But look what chances there are before
two statesmen of, I trust I may say without egotism, average intelli-
gence, who take to gardening without, as you may say, knowing
anything about it. Think of the charm of being able to call a spade
a Hoe ! without your companion, however contentious, capping the
exclamation. Then think of the long vista of possible surprises.
You dig a trench, and I gently sprinkle seed in it-"

"Excuse me," I said, "but supposing I sprinkle the seed, and
you dig the trench ? "

"-The seed is carrot, let us suppose," the Member for Sark

continued, disregarding my interruption, his fine face aglow with
honest enthusiasm. " I, not being an adept, feeling my way, as it
were, towards the perfection of knowledge, put in the seed the
wrong end up, and, instead of the carrots presenting themselves to
the earnest inquirer in what is, I believe, the ordinary fashion, with
the green tops showing above the generous earth, and the spiral,
rosy-tinted, cylindrical form hidden in the soil, ,the limb were
to grow out of the ground, its head downward; would that be
nothing, do you think ? I mention that only as a possibility that
flashed across my mind. There are an illimitable series of possi-
bilities that might grow out of Our Garden. Of course we don't
mean to make money out of it. It's only fair to you, Toby, that I
should, at the outset, beg you to hustle out of your mind any sordid
ideas of that kind. What we seek is, health and honest occupation,
and here they lie open to our hand."

This conversation, as I mentioned, took place a little more than a
year ago. I was carried away, as the House of Commons never is,
by my Hon. friend's eloquence. We got the garden. We have it
now ; but I do not trust myself on this page to dwell on the subject.

Feminine and a N-TJtah Gendeb.—Plurality of wives is abolished
in Utah. The husbands seem to have made no difficulty about it,
but what have the wives said ?

" Queen's Weather."—The weather is looking up. It was men-
tioned in the Court Circular last Wednesday week for the first time.

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