Punch: Punch (101.1891)

October 3, 1891.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 161

force of the explosion. I turned to niy Lieutenant, who was standing
beside me, to give a necessary order. As I was about to address him,
the machine-guns in the enemy's tops belched forth a myriad pro-
jectiles, and the unfortunate Lieutenant was swept into eternity.
All that was left of him was his right hand, which, curiously enough,
remained for a minute suspended in the air in its proper relative
position to what had been the Lieutenant's body. 1 mastered my
emotion with an effort, as I reverently grasped and shook the melan-
choly relic. Then, shedding a silent tear, 1 dropped it over the side,
and with an aching heart, watched it disappear beneath the wave
on which many of its former owner's happiest hours had been spent.

Chapter Y.

This catastrophe ended the battle. The allied fleets had been swept
off the face of the ocean. I packed what remained of H.M.S. Bander-
snatch in my tobacco-pouch, attached myself to^a hen-coop, and thus
floated triumphantly into Portsmouth Harbour.

CHARLEMAGNE AND I.

Aix-la-ChapeUe, Monday.—I have always had a strange longing
to know Charlemagne. To shake him * by the hand, to have
opportunity of inquiring after his health and that of his family, to
hear his whispered reply—that indeed were bliss. But Charlemagne
is dead, and desire must be curbed. The only thing open to an
admirer is to visit the place of his last repose, and brood in spots his
shade may yet haunt. Charlemagne was buried at Aix-la-
Chapelle (German Aachen), but since my arrival in the town, I And
great difficulty in discovering his tomb. The great soldier Emperor
resembled an unfortunate and unskilful pickpocket in one respect.
He was always being taken up. He died in the year 814, and was left
undisturbed till the year 1000, when the Emperor Otto the Third
opened his tomb, and, finding his great predecessor sitting on a marble
chair, helped him down. The marble chair is on view in the Cathedral
to this day (verger, 1 mark) to witness to the truth of this narrative.
One hundred and sixty-five years later, Frederick Barbarossa
opened the second tomb where Otho had placed C, and transferred to
a marble sarcophagus what, at this date, was left of him. In the
following century C. was canonised. "Whereupon nothing would
satisfy Frederick the Second but to go for the bones again. They
were now growing scarce, and only a few fragments fill the reliquary
in which at length all that is left of my revered friend (if after this
lapse of time 1 may call him so) reposes.

I have been fortunate in securing a relic, not exactly of Carolo,
but of the time at or about which he lived. It is a piece of tapestry,
on which fingers long since dust have worked a sketch of the
Emperor going to his bath. Considering its age, the tapestry is in
remarkably fresh condition. The old Hebrew trader, whom for a
consideration I induced to part with it, said he would not charge any
more on that account; which I thought very considerate. He also
said he might be able to get me some more pieces. But this, I think,
will do to go on with.
_ But if tfiere be nothing left of Carolo Magno, there still is the
city he loved, in which he lived and died. Here is the Eaiserquelle,
bubbling out of Biichel in which, centuries ago, he laved his lordly
limbs. Going down into my bath this morning I observed in the
dim light the imprint of a footstep on the marble stair.

"That might have been Charlemagne's," I said to Yaheob, my
bath attendant.

" Ja wohl," said Yaheob, nodding in his friendly way, and, going
out, he presently returned with a hot towel.

That did not seem to follow naturally upon my observation, which
was, indeed, born of idle fancy. (I know very well C.'s death even-
tuated long prior to the building of the stately colonnade that fronts
the present baths, and that therefore the footprint is illusory.) I am
growing used to a certain irrelevancy in Yaheob's conversation. My
German is of the date of Charlemagne, and is no more understood
here than is the Greek of Socrates in the streets of Athens. Yaheob
was especially told off for my sendee because he thoroughly under-
stood and talked English. He says, " Ye-es " and " Yer well."
But when I offer a chance remark he, three times out of five, nods
intelligently, bolts off and brings me something back—a comb and
brush, a newspaper, but oftenest, a hot towel. Once, when I asked
him whether there were two posts a day to London, he lugged in an
arm-chair.

I get on better with William. "William is a rubber—not of whist,
bien entendu, but of men. In build William is pear-shaped, the
upper part of him, where you would expect to find the stalk, broad-
ening out into a perpetual smile. He has lived in the Baths twenty-
three years, and yet his gaiety is not eclipsed. If he has a foible it
is his belief that he thoroughly understands London and its ways.

"Aver big place," he remarked this morning, "where dey kills
de ladees."

This reference not being immediately clear, WYlliam assisted dull
comprehension by drawing his finger across his throat, and uttering

a jovial "click! " But it was only when, his eyes brimming over
with fun, he said, " Yak de Beeper," that I followed the drift of his
remark.

It is gratifying to the citizen of London travelling abroad, to
learn that in the mind of the foreigner the great Metropolis is
primarily and chiefly associated with " Jace the Ripper" and his
exploits.

"I rob you not hard," William incidentally remarks, pounding
at your chest as if it were a parquet flooring he was polishing ; '' but
I strong so I can break a shentleman's ribs."

I make due acknowledgment of the prowess, being particularly
careful to refrain from expressing doubt, or even surprise. William,
always smiling, repeats the assertion just as if I had contradicted
him. Try to change subject.

" I wonder if Charlemagne had a massage man in his suite ? " I
say, "and who
was his Doc-
tor ? Now if
he had had Dr.
Beandis, I be-
lieve he would
have been
alive at this
day. But we
cannot have
everything.
Charle-
magne "had
the Iron Crown
of Lombardy ;
we have Dr.
Brandis."

"Tee s,"
said "William.
still gloating
over his own
train of
thought; "eef
I like I break
a shentle-
man's ribs."

Sometimes
William's
smile, con-
tract i n g,
breaks into a
whistle, hor-
ribly out of
tune. He
rather fancies
his musical
powers, and is

proud of his " I would break hees ribs!

intimate ac-
quaintance with the fashionable chansons current in London to-
day, or as he puts it, "Vat dey shings at de Carrelton Clob."
Then he warbles a line of the happily long-forgotten " Cham-
pagne Chaelie,'^with intervals of "Oh what a surprise!" He
sings both to the same tune, and fortunately knows only two lines of
one and a single line of the other.
Try to bring him back to Carolo Magno.

" Wouldn't you," I ask " give all you are worth to have lived in
the time of Charlemagne ? Suppose some day you walked into this
room and discovered him sitting on his marble throne as Otho found
him with the Iron Crown on his head and his right hand grasping
the imperial sceptre, what would you do ? "

" I would break hees ribs," said William, his face illumined by a
sudden flash of delighted anticipation.

Alack! we are thinking of two personages sundered by centuries.
My mind dwells on Charlemagne, whilst "William is evidently
thinking of Champagne Chablie.

"AXNALS OF A VERY QUIET FAMILY."

There were eight of us, each within a year or so of one another.
Father was a verv quiet man, engaged all day in his study.
Mother was equally quiet.

Father would never allow a trumpet, drum, or any instrument of
torture, except the piano, to be brought into the house.
Mother quietly saw his orders carried out.

In due course we all left home one after the other, and having
been so quiet for so long, each one of us has contrived to make a
considerable noise in the world since, and are all doing weU. " Doing "
may be used in the widest possible sense. Among other accomplish-
ments we blow our own trumpets, as you see. As father and mother
object to noise, we have not encouraged their visits.