Punch (102.1892)

112

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 5, 1892.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. XI.—TO PLAUSIBILITY.

My Dear Plau,

I should be the most ungrateful dog if I failed to acknow-
ledge the pleasure I have received during my life from the society of
your friends and proteges. I don't speak of mere material, meat-
and-money advantages. Probably, if a strict account could be
stated, it might be found that in these paltry matters a balance,

much weighed down by the responsibilities of his freshmanhood at
Oxford, was pleased to unbend and smile approvingly at the amazing
sallies of the wizard Cobbyn.

One story I remember in particular, though I dare not attempt to
repeat it as Cobbyst told it. It was about the wretched adventures
of a certain travelling companion of his on a shooting expedition in
Albania. It was a story that never seemed to cease,—a bad
recommendation for most stories, I admit; but in this case so
artfully and with such surprising humour and force was it told, so

large or small, was still due to me. Who knows ? Strict accounts ' vividly did it depict a long series of ludicrous sufferings culminating
are hateful; and even if I did lose here and there I did it, I fancy, in the total loss of the sufferer's clothes and his involuntary appear -
with my eyes open, and was not sorry to indulge these gentlemen ance in the full uniform of a Turkish Zaptieh, with other surprising
with the idea that their fascinations had conquered me. No. What and endless episodes, that at the last we had in the midst of our
I speak of is rather the genuine pleasure I have derived from some ! gasps of helpless laughter to implore the narrator to stop for the sake
of the finest acting (in ordinary life, not on the boards) that the of our sides and the resounding rafters of the Oeneral's house,
world ever saw, acting in which I protest that the tears, the sighs, | At other times the irresistible Wilfrid would pose reminiscently as
the misery, the gallantry, the courage, the loyal sentiments and the \ the gallant protector of outraged virtue, or as the hero of some
honourable promises all rang with so sincere a sound that the very ; deathless story of courage and coolness by which empires had been
actor himself was subdued like the dyer's hand to the colours he | saved from disaster. And he was so persuasive, so convincing, that
worked in, until he believed himself to be the most unjustly perse- | our imaginations, which would have refused to follow a smaller man
cuted of mankind, the most upright of gentlemen, on lower flights, soared obediently after him through

or whatever the special emotion he simulated re- arL empyrean of impossible romance. Nor did he

quired that he should seem to be for the moment. W „ A stop at this. General Tempest was the pattern of

That he might possibly be what, as a matter of m^ Wm old-world punctilio, but before a week was out he

fact, he often was, a rogue and a knave, mattered \f Oafclf introduced Cobbyst, of whom he knew nothing

little to me at the time. He was evidently himself Ik/aT except what Cobbyn told him, to all the best people

ignorant of his potentialities, and in any case they i xWL. *n Dansington ; nor shall I ever forget the air with

could not spoil my aesthetic enjoyment of a notable /nfellte* which this glorious rascal took the portly old

performance. And after all who is to undertake to iMRm w55e&. Countess of Cauda mors down to her second supper

draw the line between the good man and the bad? mmmi ^CTtfJfflfflL a^ tne County Ball. He rode Alexander's chest-

1 have known men with regard to whom I was ^mS\ ilPliftlk nu^> an<^ Alexander never murmured. The

convinced that they were admirably equipped by aBKM\ ' ^^Ssfk Oeneral's ancient retainer went on his many

nature for a career of roguery ; somewhere in the JiBm/II ^./lllfflBim errands, and neither the General nor his man saw
backs of their heads I know they carried a complete bBM|1IIv^-^. JHllii» anything out of the way in the proceeding. Even
set of intellectual implements for the task, but

HI Clara looked, I thought, with some favour—but as

temptation, as it happened, ever came to open the P^£*ff|- '^l^Wf Clara always breaks into indignant denials when-

door of that secret chamber, and the unconscious 'HSH,^ Jfj^%&3Bffl evGr *s nmtecl, I will proceed no further. As

owners of it passed through life honoured by their ^^^MlMff^l0lii^^^^^ ^e members of the Dansington Club they were

fellow-citizens, and their actions still smell sweet ^WmaMmJmM/Mmmr enthusiastic in Cobbyn's praises. The young
and blossom in their dust. Others, of course, were Wiwfllw/fl^^^f'^W sparks imitated his fashions in ties and collars, the

not so fortunate. Their crisis pursued and captured ^0:'//wiwMmwi^ bucks repeated to one another his stories, and

them, revealed them to themselves and others, and :dfpiLfl^mi^^m one and all vowed he was "an uncommon good

in many cases only left them, alas, after cropping wHmmmliWwmt$ fellow, by Gad."

both their hair and their reputations. But I leave ^fflHnfH^^ To me Cobbyn was always profusely polite, with

these divagations, which can have but little interest lUmBulm^mi that flattering politeness which induces the flattered

for you. What I rather wish to do is to recall to -iV^K/Fyumtt to think himself just a shade cleverer and sharper

your memory the curious personality and the Wffi&m vilUSk and better than his fellow-creatures, and on the day

chequered adventures of our common friend, IlffSlif W$ljmm before my departure he honoured me by borrowing

Wilfrid Cobbyn. IiMb&B wImH a ten-pound note of me and writing my London

I met him some six years ago when I was on a www W&Htk address witli much ceremony on the back of an

visit to my father's old friend, General Tempest, at |jjpa8| HB envelope, which I afterwards found lying about in

Dansington. Most people, 1 take it, have heard of lijHH tomb a passage of the General's house.

Dansington, that home of educational establish- HH wSSm Three months afterwards there was a tempest in

ments, amusement, and retired Indian Generals. hHH WiHra Dansington. Cobbyn had gone away for two days

Old General Tempest — Leonidas Marlborough fH» W|Bml and had stayed away for good. His intimates and

Tempest he had been christened by a warlike father, fm&tiB wWffii the Dansington tradesmen became uneasy, rumours

whose military aspirations had been crushed by the SlMi wiiMk. began to spread, and the resultwas a crash whichmade

necessity for a commercial career, and who had unl'Bm WWimi some very knowing fellows look extremely foolish,

taken it out of fate by devoting his son to heroism JM^h »|J and filled the Club with honest British imprecations,

at the baptismal font, and by subsequently buying J^^^m^^T^fT ^jpL Little Tom Spindle, who commanded a troop of the
him a commission in a crack regiment—General ^S^tS*^^ j'ffl' ^l®, Eallowshire Yeomanry (the Duke of Dashborough's
Tempest was, in the days of which I speak, a hos- " Hussars) and had the reputation of spending a royal

pitable veteran whose amiability and good-nature had survived many income with beggarly meanness, had backed one of Cobbyn's bills for

severe campaigns in which he had taken and given hard knocks
wherever hard knocks were to be found. His benevolence and
hospitality were proverbial far beyond the limits of Dansington, and
his daughter Clara was one of the prettiest girls in the United
Kingdom.

On the occasion of this visit I found a fellow guest, the identical
Wilfrid Cobbvn whom I have already mentioned. He had been
there for a fortnight, I learnt from Alexander, the eldest hope of the
Tempests, and had made himself a favourite with every member of
the family. How they got to know him I never quite discovered—
indeed, I doubt if any of them could have told me—and as to his
previous history all they seemed to know was that his father had
property " somewhere in the West of England," that he himself had.
travelled a great deal, and was now close upon thirty years old. I

£1,000. Sir Paul Packthread, one of the greatest of the local
magnates, had lent him £500 without a scrap of security, and Colonel
Chutney had put £300 into the Ephemeral Soapsuds Company,
Limited, of which Cobbyn was to have been the managing director.
I cannot go through the whole long list. He had fieeced all that was
fleeceable in Dansington, and had vanished into the clouds. How he
managed to do it, by what artful proposals he conquered the avarice
of Spindle, prevailed over the mercantile sagacity of Packthread,
and subdued the fiery temper of Chutney, will never be known.
Partly, no doubt, he succeeded by being here and there perfectly
truthful and candid. He was the son of a well-to-do country Squire,
but the father had long since ejected his offspring from the paternal
mansion; he had really travelled and had often displayed pluck.
But his chief gifts were his good-humour, his ardent imagination,

am free to admit that after my first dinner in his company I had ! and a persuasive tongue that gained for him the trusting confidence
very little inclination to worry myself about the details of his past, of his victims almost before he himself knew that he meant to
so cheerful and fascinating did I find his gay companionship. I victimise them.

cannot quite explain the charm of the man. He had a roving blue ! They tell me he is now established somewhere in the West of

eye, a ruddy and glowing complexion, and a laugh that seemed to America. Wherever he goes he is sure to be popular—for a time.

kick all gloomy fancies into Hinders, and to carry those who heard it Goodbye, dear old Plau !

in a helter-skelter gallop of mirth. And then what stories the I hope I haven't bored you.

fellow could tell! He had the General and me in perpetual convul- Yours trustfully,

sions, and even Alexander, a somewhat awkward and taciturn youth, Diogenes Robinson'.