Punch (100.1891)

February 21, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

85

_ He paused, and waited for Lord John's reply. It came prompt,

MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS. and in the expected words.

No. XIII.—THROUGH SPACE ON A FORMULA. . "(V*; a plum-pudding cake ?'/ said Lord John. The rest

/T1 T1 o i << ^ 7 7 ^ 7 7 ■ v t,* » laughed heartily. 1 hey loved their jokes, small and old.

{By Rules Spurn, Author of "Gowned and Curled %n Eighty Stays, "Are we agreed ? "
" Twenty Thousand Tweaks Sundered the Flea," "A Tea with Ice," j i< ^ye are ,>s

Doctor <m .Koc&s and Peppermint," "A Cab-Fare from ' The \ « gave yQU anything to ask?"
" " The Confidence of the Continent," "Attorney to Dissenters it Nothing. When do we start ? "
up at Perth," "Lieutenant Scatter cash," «fee.) c< y^e are 'Qn our ^y,"

[" This," writes the Author, " is one of my best and freshest, although on a ] " Shall we not melt as we approach ? "
moderate computation it must be my thousand and first, or so. But I have j " Certainly not."
really lost count. Still it's gTand to talk in large numbers of leagues, miles, " How so ? "

vastnesses, secrets, mysteries, and impossible sciences. Some pedants imagine << ^re ghall have a constant frost."
that I write in French. That's absurd, for every schoolboy knows (and; " Are vou sure ? "

lots of them have told me) that I write only in English or in American, 1 u ri„_j-„,-T, t \,a„a +„u„„ „ „t tlt^j- '„„ „ D+^«v

I have some highly dried samples of vivid adventure ready for immediate ~ Certain. I have taken in a supply of Matinees, and a stock of
consumption. Twopence more and up goes the donkev, up, up, up to be a 1 rl7e~ac 1 -Lrageaies. _ _

satellite to an undiscovered star. Brave Donkey ! I follow."—S. S.] „ Q°od> Vut.how to raise the Wind ?'"

T Scarcely had the question heen asked, when a frightful explosion

Chapter 1. ^ | 8hook the iceberg to its foundations. The Doctor rushed to the gas-

The iceberg was moving. There was no doubt of it. Moving bag. It was empty. He frowned. Lord John was smoking his
with a terrible sinuous motion. Occasionally an incautious ironclad pipe ; the Colonel was turning over the pages of an old Algebra. He
approached like a foolish hen, and pecked at the moving mass, muttered to himself, "That ought to figure it out. If x = the
Then there was a slight crash, followed by a mild convulsion of amount of non-compressible fluid consumed by a given labourer in
masts, and spars, and iron-plates, and y days, find, by the substitution of

100-ton guns, then two or three gurgles — poached eggs for kippered herrings,

and all was still. The iceberg passed f how many tea-cups it will take to

on smiling in triumph, and British f make a transpontine hurricane. Yes,"

Admirals wrote to the Times to declare 1 he went on, that's it. Yes, Sirree."

that they had known from the first Y jj v ^Y And at these words the vast mass of

that H.M.S. Thunderbomb had been /' ,; congealed water rose majestically out

so faultily constructed, as to make a !| Elm' 'pMjjfa} inMUht ^e oceail> an(^ floated off into the

contest with a hen-coop a certainty j \\\" ^js**. \\\W$f$fl(l) nebular hypothesis. But the Philoso-

for the hen-coop. !J§?M \ j^hHb=> " ; pher had vanished.

And still the iceberg was moving. == ffW _ ^^■■^^^s^lf^\ J~" Chapter III

"Within its central chamber sat a ^^dfMj _- — ^^-dJfs J'Jil^W' ^ „ . . J . .

venerable man, lightly clad in nankeen ^^^^^^^^^^.^^Pf^f , ^ hen the explosion narrated m the

breeches, a cap of liberty, and a ^^^T^S^r^5-K\#^:^% — last chapter took place, the Philosopher

Liberty silk shirt, He was writing W ^^^^Wj^^RW^^^ ~ bd been looking ont of the window,

cabalistically. He did not know why, f ^1 rS*S&&5&f%^m& T 6 3sho?k ha9- furled him with the

nor did he know what "cabalistically" rito, ^m^^^^WM^mr^ 4 sPeed °f a Plrate bus through the

meant. This was his punishment. , »k TW^^3BfflliB^ \ a£ So°? hl becamve a 8Peck; S^Jj

Why was he to be punished? Those ffeMfl . ^^i&MSml^ «J a^?7a^s he reached a point in his

who read shall hear. The walls of Jj^ll f jl : ^/ /iiliMK flight situated exactly 4O000 miles

the chamber were fitted with tubes, =fMf H f B | ^iVMP^'* over a London publisher s office. There

and electric wires, and knobs and but- £Efe/ H ffflm was a short contest. Centrifugal and

tons. A bright fire burned on the WBm WW ^felMfe centripetal fought for the mastery, and

hearth. The thick Brussels carpet / ,7 if\\\\ ] \ ]TMmf the latter was victorious. The pubhsher

was littered with pot-boilers, aU fiz- |T 1 If 'fM I was at home The novel was accepted,

zing, and sputtering, and steaming, 3LxN ? ' !/ ':U$im^W^^ ^ and the Philosopher started to rejoin

like so many young Curates at a ^, ' Vx | ^l1' ^ his comrades lost in the boundless

Penny Reading. Suddenly the Philo- \ I ^'K tracts of space,

sopher looked up. He spoke to himself. \ v\ Chaptek IY.

"Everything is ready," he said, and "Mi faith," said Lord John, "I

am getting tired of this. Shall we never reach the Sun ? "

"Courage, my friend," was the well-known reply of the brave
little Doctor. "We deviated from our course one hair's-breadth on
the twelfth day. This is the fortieth day, and by the formula for
the precession of the equinoxes, squared by the parallelogram of an
ellipsoidal bath-bun fresh from the glass cylinder of a refreshment
bar, we find that we are now travelling in a perpetual circle at a
distance of one billion marine gasmeters from the Sun. I have now
accounted for the milk in the cocoa-nut."

" But not," said the Philosopher, as he popped up through a con-
cealed trap-door, " for the hair outside. That remains for another
volume." With that, he rang a gong. The iceberg splintered into
a thousand pieces. The voyagers were each hurled violently down
into their respective countries, where a savage public was waiting
to devour them.

pressed a button by his side. There was a sound as of a Continent
expectorating, a distant nose seemed to twang, the door opened, and
a tall lantern-jawed gentleman, wearing a goat-beard and an
expression of dauntless cunning, stepped into the room.

"I guess you were waiting round for me," said Colonel Zedekjah
D. GrOEAN& (for it was indeed he), and sat down in an empty arm-
chair, as if nothing had happened.

The Philosopher appeared not to notice. "Next character,
please," he said, pulling out a long stop, and placing his square leg
on the wicket which gave admission to his laboratory, while he
waited for the entrance of the Third Man. There came a murmur
like the buzz of a ton of blasting powder, in a state of excitement.
A choir of angels seemed to whisper "Beefsteak and Pale Ale," as Lord
John Bullpup dashed, without a trace of emotion, into the room, and
sneezed three times without stopping to wipe his boots on the mat.

" One more," said the Philosopher. He hurled himself, feet first,
at the ceiling, knocked his head against the floor, and called down
the tube. " Py smjs.'" came the answer, and the typical, light-
hearted Frenchman, M. le Docteur Reveesi, with his thousand
thunders, and his blue lower chest, tripped jauntily up to the other
three. " And now," remarked the Philosopher, "we have got the
lot complete. The story can start. Hurry up! Hark forrard!

En avant!" ^ TT

Chaptee II.

" Lend me your ears," said the Philosopher. They lent them, but
without interest. Yet they were all keen business men. "Attention,
my friends! " he continued, somewhat annoyed. "You know why
I have summoned you. We have to make another journey together.
The moon, the sea, the earth—we have voyaged and journeyed to
them, and they are exhausted. It remains to visit the Sun, and to
perform the journey in an iceberg. Do you see ? Colonel Gobang
will supply the craft, Lord John Bullpup the stupid courage, and you,
M. le Docteur," he added, admiringly, "will of course take the cake."

vol. c. :

TOLSTOI ON" TOBACCO.

[Count Tolstoi has been declaiming against Tobacco in The Contemporary
Rtvieiv, and this in no way exaggerates his views.]

Tolstoi fuming, in a pet,
Raves against the cigarette ;
Says it's bad at any time.
Leads to every kind of crime ;
And the man who smokes, quoth he,
Is as wicked as can be.

Tolstoi knew a man who said
He cut off a woman's head ;
But, when half the deed was done.
Lo, the murderer's courage gone!
And he finished, 'tis no joke,
Only by the aid of smoke.

Tolstoi asks us, when do boys
First essay Nicotian joys P
And he answers, quite aghast,
When their innocence is past.
Gamblers smoke, and then again
Smoking pleases the insane.

Tolstoi, when he writes this stuff,
Swears he's serious enough ;
Lately Marriage earned his sneers ;
At Tobacco now he jeers ;
Proving that, without the weed,
Some folks may be mad indeed.