Punch: Punch (100.1891)

252

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 23, 1891.

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS!

(By a Perplexed Reader of the Penny Papers.)

When you 're lying awake, with a horrid headache (to adopt a

suggestion of Gilbert's),
When too freely you 've dined, or too heavily wined, or munched too

many walnuts or filberts ;
When your brain is a maze, and creation a haze, then each queer

social craze—there are many ! —
Gets your wits in a spool, and tbere isn't a fool for your thoughts

would advance you a penny.

You can't sleep a wink, so the question
of Drink, though you timidly shrink
from it, harries you.
Your wit's in a whirl, as you think, if
some girl with a penchant for you,
ups and marries you.
And ties you for life to the thing called
a Wife,—that figment, that fraud,
that illusion,
Where, what will you be ? And you
can't find a key to the epoch's chaotic
confusion. [ma j ority

It seems Local Option is sure of adoption, and what a tyrannic
May "opt" for one day, you're unable to say, and in vain you

appeal to Authority.
The Law of the Land is a labyrinth grand, whioh you can't under-
stand, nor can anyone,
And that is a thought, with delirium fraught, an appalling, if 'tis
not a penny one.

Now Law, the Old Antic, seems utterly frantic, absurdly romantic
and maundering ; [Sentiment wandering.

And Cool Common Sense has gone dotty and dense, in dim deserts of
Now Reason and Right, hydrocephalus quite, are both Della-Cruscan
and drivelling,

Life (barring the fun) like " The Mulberry One," seems a mixture of

diddling and snivelling.
There's Lawson who jaws on the Abstinence Cause on, and would

lay his claws on the Nation, [compensation ;

And put sudden stopper on all that's improper (as he thinks) without
And then there's Sir Edward, who, when he goes bed ward, must

have his reflections nightmarish !
It seems, from such rigs, that our biggest Big Wigs are scarce'fit to

govern a parish.

McDougall again, is agog to restrain all that gives his soul pain—

it's a squeamish one !—
He thinks he's a stayer as Jabberwock-slayer, mere Angry Boy he,
not a Beamish One ! [a dust up,

These Oracles windy do raise such a shindy, and kick such a doose of
One wauld think without them we were wrong stern and stem, and

the whole of creation would bust up.
But verily why men should noiv worship Hymen,—who, just as un-
shackled as Cupid,— [ceive. It seems stupid
(See decision He Jackson), take burdens their backs on, I cannot con-
Beyond all expression to have a "possession" whose "ownness"

there's desperate doubt of,
And which (if she's nous) you can't keep in your house, nor yet (if

she's " savvy ") keep out of !
What is " Hymen's halter " ? I fidget and falter ! The Beaks seem

to palter and fumble.
In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the
world is a jumble. [caboodle (as 'Arry sees)

Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned
Is ructions and "rot," and oiiir "rulers" a lot of confounded old

foodies and Pharisees!
Yes, that's what I think about Marriage and Drink—if you may
call it thought, which with frenzy is fraught, and gives me
a "head" like bad whiskey; whose dread is on me day and
night, makes me wake in a fright, from visions most solemn of
column on column of such "printed matter" and paragraph
chatter, as makes me feel flatter than cold eggless batter upon
a lead platter—as mad as a hatter, and who will relieve me ?
Can anyone ?

I tell you it's dreadful to face a whole bedful of spectres and spooks
(born of papers and books) with most horrible looks, limbs
contorted in crooks, and bat-wings with big hooks, which
haunt all the nooks of tester and curtain, and which, I am
certain, will drive me insane if some one can't explain where
the mischief we are, 'midst the gamble and jar of factions
and fads, of crotchets and cad3, of Tolstois and Jeunes,
and Ibsens (whose lunes are more lunatic still). Oh, I'd learn
with a will from any or aught, who could bring me, fresh
caught, with lucidity fraught (what so long I have sought) a
Clear Comforting Thought—though a Penny One 1

ft

IN RE THE INFLUENZA.

(An Autobiographical Note on the appearance of the Epidemic in the

Law Courts.)

Owing to recent sentimental legislation, many members of the
learned profession, to which I have the honour to belong, have found
their practice becoming (to quote the poet) "small by degrees and
beautifully less." Times were when ir^Sik nil 1 II 1,
I could scarcely pass a week in term , || {jj^^^^l j |'| | IjU^"
time without appearing in Court
holding a consent brier, or armed
with authority to move (unopposed)
for the appointment of a receiver.

But that was long ago—a deep con- • ''s

trast with to-day —when my ad- : ' '

mirable and excellent Clerk Posting- Mm*® vwfa --

ton, finds an hour a day ample, almost <^^^^p't^f' i\ . ■
too ample, time for posting up to date f^^J&i W&jSsL^ In
my Fee Book. However, occasionally * __!°_ "

a gleam of the old sunshine illumines, Catching,
so to speak, the chambers I occupy, and such a gleam was my
retention for the Defence in the cause of Quicksilver v. Nore. It was
a Patent Case, and one of the deepest possible interest. It is my
good fortune to know the Defendant ^personally, and it was through
his kind offices that the instructions to appear for him were left at
my chambers. My friend and client (who is unjustly said to be
eccentric in his habits) has recently patentedFand produced a most
important invention, which greatly facilitates the retention of dinner-
napkins, after those useful, nay, necessary articles have been used
for the purpose for which they are manufactured. Like all really
valuable inventions, the patent is simplicity itself, the napkin-ring
consisting of the section of the thicker end of an elephant's tusk cut
to an appropriate size and hollowed out. It is necessary to fold the
dinner-napkin in such a fashion that, when inserted through the ring,
its shape is retained by the adherent properties inseparable from
the ivory. The patent can also be produced in other materials,
such as gold, silver and jewels for the wealthy, and in bone, tin and
even glass for purchasers of smaller means. 1 must say that when
the ring was shown to me I was greatly struck with the cleverness
and simplicity of the idea, and could not understand how Mr. Quick-
silver could have allowed himself to be so badly advised as to bring
an action for infringement, merely on the strength of hit patent being
also a dinner-napkin-holder with the ring element so far introduced
that'it'consisted of a circle closed and opened by a hinge. However,
it was no part of my duty to advise the other side, so I set to work to
get up my case (as I invariably do) con amove. I hunted up all the
causes in the Digest, that seemed tefbe on all-fours with the matter
in dispute, and spent days in the Public Library of the Patent Office
searching for patents having to do with table-napkins. As the
specifications were not consecutively published, I had to wade through
a large number of these interesting documents' that treated of other
subjects. For instance, the first specification I would take out of
the box in which it was kept, would perhaps have to do with house-
raising without disturbance to the foundations, the second would
prove to be an article half umbrella, half revolver, while in the third
I would perhaps find an extremely quaint notion for a portable
pocket corkscrew. I myself picked up many ideas for future use,
and hope some day, if I do nothing else, at least to perfect a clever
little contrivance of my own for arousing the|inmates of a house in-
vaded by burglars by casement concussions. I propose calling this
valuable little instrument (which is founded to some extent on the
simple construction by which the figures in a ehild's box of wooden
soldiers are enabled to advance and retire in a scissors-like fashion),
when produced, the Policeman's Upper Floor Window Tapper.

The day for the hearing at length arrived, and, armed with a mass
of carefully selected information, I was in my seat ready'to defend
the originality of the Nore Napkin Ring, so to speak, to the death.
In my notes before me I had the skeleton of a really fine oration,
which I felt (if I mastered my normal nervousness) would bristle
with epigram, and thrill with heartfelt, brain-inspired eloquence.
So deeply interested was I in the matter, that I scarcely listened
to my friend's opening, and only became aware of what was hap-
pening in Court by the rising of the Judge. Suddenly his Lordship
bowed, and disappeared. I looked at the clock—it was only noon—
and, consequently, an hour and thirty minutes in advance of the
time usually selected for the mid-day adiournment. And then, to
my dismay, I found that his Lordship was suffering from the in-
fluenza I Well, there was nothing to do but to collect my papers,
and, assisted by Portlngton, return to my chambers. The next
day my head ached violently, and I could not move. Then I have a
reoollection of dictating to my wife long telegrams to Portington,

which I subsequentlvdiscovered were neither despatched nor delivered.
**♦*»»

When I awoke, I found that the matter of Quicksilver v. Nore had
been arranged and settled—out of Court I
Pump-handle Court. (Signed) A. Briefless, Junior.

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