Punch: Punch (101.1891)

October 17, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

185

" AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM ! "

{A Pendant to Mr. JVillmm Watson's " The Key-Board.")

FrvE-and thirty black slaves, Dusky slaves and pallid,

Half-a-hundred white, Ebon slaves and white, [stool

All their duty but to make When Minx mounts her music-
Shindy day and night, Neighbours fly with fright.

Now with throats of thunder, Ah, the bass's thunder!

Now with clattering lips, Oh, the treble's trips!

"While she thumps them cruelly Eugh, the horrid tyrannies

With stretched finger-tips. Of corned finger-tips !

When she quits the chamber Silent, silent, silent,

All the slaves are dumb, All your janglings now ;

Dumb with rapture, till the Minx Notes false-chorded, slithering

Pedal-aided row! [slaps,
Where is Minx, we wonder ?
Ah! those scrambling skips !

Back shall come to strum,
Dumb the throats of thunder,

Hushed chromatic skips,
Lacking all the torturing
Of strained finger-tips.

With her finger-tips

CHARLEMAGNE AND I.

Aix-Ja-ChapeUe, Monday. — Charlemagne was doubtless well
advised in selecting this town for his residence. However that be,
it is not a matter for us to dogmatise about. I have heard a lamented
friend, suddenly and all too soon lost, say there are few things more
regrettable than the tendency of the present age to review the
actions of great men, not lost but gone before, and to pass judg-
ment upon them without having enjoyed the opportunity of hearing
what they might have to say in justification or palliation of the
proceedings challenged.

That is true and tersely put. Still I may observe that if C. lived
at this period and had his choice, say between Aix - la - Chapelle
and Homburg or Aix-les-Bains, it is doubtful whether he would
have built his cathedral here. Unlike the two latter watering-
places, Aix-la-Chapelle has other fish to boil besides the invalids who
come hither attracted by the fame of its hot springs. It is a
manufacturing town, and has all the characteristics of one. At
Homburg or Aix-les-Bains you walk up a street, turn a corner and
find yourself among pine-trees, or in a smiling valley with a blue
lake blinking at the sun. Here the baths are in the centre of the
town, and, like a certain starling, you feel you " can't get out."

But invalids musn't be choosers, and if Rustem Roose sends you
to Aix-la-Chapelle—he 's always sending somebody somewhere—to
la-Chapelle you must carry your Aix, in the hope that you may leave
them there.

" I wonder," said the Member for Sark, who as usual is grumbling
round, '' if the local female population was less unlovely in Charle-
magne's time P Probably, since he married with a frequency not
excelled by our Henry VIII. But what was Hildegarde like—
Hildegarde, his favourite spouse ? If she in any way resembled
the women who throng the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle to-day, C.'s lot
was not a happy one. Never in any city, in either hemisphere, have I
suffered such a nightmare of ugly ill-dressed women as is here found."

That is a most unfair and unjustifiable remark to make. Brim-
stone evidently does not agree with Sark who is more disagreeable
than ever. The only thing that has touched his stony nature since
he came to Aix is the unselfish devotion of the local aristocracy to
the interests of the town. Visitors mustering in the Elisengarten
for their morning cups, notice the group of musicians in tbe orchestra
by the entrance-gate. Every man wears a top-hat, the only head-
gear of the kind seen in Aix. Sark, attracted by this peculiarity,
made inquiries, and learned from an intelligent native that these are
nobles in disguise, who, desirous of contributing to the common weal,
turn out at seven every morning to play the band. They are willing
to sink aU social distinctions, save that tixejwiU wear the cylindrical
hat of civilisation. Not comfortable, especially in wet weather ; but
it adds an air of distinction to the group.

" Very nice of them," Sark grudgingly admits; " but"—he must
have the compensation of a sneer—"imagine our House of Lords
forming themselves into groups to play the band in Palace Yard,
with Halsbury wielding the mace by way of baton ! They 'd never
do it, Toby, even in top-hats. Germany 's miles ahead of us in this
matter."

Sorry to find Squire of Malwood, who spent a morning here on his
way to Wiesbaden, agreeing in Sark's view of the standard of female
beauty at Aix.

" Strange," he mused, " that Nature never makes an ugly flower
or tree or blade of grass ; and yet, when it comes to men and women,
behold ! " and he swept a massive arm round the blighted scene in
the crowded Kaiserplatz.

A small boy who thought the beneficent stranger in blue serge was
chucking pfennings about the Square, careered wildly round in search
of the treasure. We walked on without undeceiving him. To
quote again from an old friend: "There is nothing more conducive

to the production and maintenance of a healthy mind in a sound
body than enterprise and industry, even when, owing to misapprehen-
sion or miscalculation, their exercise leads to no immediate reward."

It had been quite a surprise one morning to find the Squire
striding into the coffee-room at " Nuellens."

" Thought you were down at Malwood," I said, "looking after your
flocks and herds, your brocoli and your spring onions."

" So I had hoped to be," he said, as we strolled up and down under
the trees in the Elisengarten. " But the fact is, Toby, dear boy, I
could not stand the weather. I am of a sensitive nature, and it cut
me to the heart . > n \

to see. cold fth^ h ..jftii./L '
winds nipping
the fruit and
trees, the flood
of rain beating
down the corn,
the oats, and
the mangel-
w u r z e 1.
People make a
mistake about
me. They re-
gard me as an
ambitious
politician,
caring for no-
thing but the
House of Com-
mons and the
world of poli-
tics. At heart
I am an agri-
culturist.
Give me three
acres and a
cow — any-
body's, I don't
care — and I
will settle
down in peace
and quietness,
remote from
political
strife, never
turning an ear
to listen to the
roll of battle
at Westmins-
ter. I am
often dis-
tr aught be-
tween the -^s^ was niadc the gem so small
attractions of And <vhy so huge the granite ?

interludes in Be™USi T t1 men sb°uld set

.it £ 1 he larger value on it.

the lives of b

Cincinnatus and of William of Orange's great Minister. Of the
two I think I am more drawn towards the rose-garden at Sheen than
by Cincinnatus's unploughed land. Before I die 1 should like to
create a new rose and caU it ' The Grand Old Man.' "

Quite a revelation this of the true inwardness of the Squire.
Would astonish some people in London, I fancy, if ever I were to
mention this conversation. But, to quote once more from a revered
authority: " We all live a dual life, and are not actually that which,
upon cursory regard, the passer-by believes us to be. Every gentle-
man, in whatever part of the House he may sit, has a skeleton in the
cupboard of his valet."

The Squire stayed here only a morning, passing onto other scenes.
I watched his departure with mingled feelings ; sorrow at losing a
delightful companion, and apprehension of what might happen if he
were to remain here to go through the full cure. The place is, as
Sark says, the most brimstony on the same level. You breathe
brimstone, drink it, bathe in it, and take it in at the pores. At the
end of three weeks or a month you are dangerously saturated with
the chemical. An ordinary lucifer match is nothing to a full-bodied
patient at the end of three weeks treatment at Aix-la-Chapelle. If
the Squire had stayed on, I should never have seen his towering
frame pass underneath a doorway without my heart leaping to my
mouth. Some day he would have accidentally struck his head against
the lintel and would have ignited as sure as a gun.

If Charlemagne were now alive, I feel certain from what I know of
him, he would have exhausted the resources of civilisation in search
of a preventive of this ever-present and dangerous risk. Under
Carolo Magno the patient might have gone about the streets of Aix-
la-Chapelle with sweet carelessness, knowing that, however much
brimstone he carried, he would strike only on the box.