Mr Jabberjee is a little over-ingenious in his excuses.
Since shaking the dust off my feet at Porticobello House, I have not succeeded to pluck the courage for a personal interview with Miss JESSIMINA, and my correspondence, duly forwarded per Mr BHOOBONE LALL JALPANYBHOY, of Highbury, has consisted mainly of abject excuses for non-attendance on plea of over-study for Bar Exam, and total incapacity to journey due to excessive disorderliness in stomach department.
This, unhappily, at length inspired her with the harrowing dread that I was on the point of being launched into the throes of eternity, if not already as dead as Death's door-nail, and so, with feminine want of reflection, she performed a hurried pilgrimage to Highbury.
Now, whether on account of the beetleheadedness of a domestic, or Baboo JALPANYBHOY'S incompetency in the art of equivocation, I am not to say--but the sequel of her inquiries was the unshakable conviction that I had not struck root in the habitation from which my letters were ostensibly addressed.
And in a subsequently forwarded letter she did reproach me pathetically with my duplicity, and accused me of being a fickle--by which I was so unspeakably cut up that I abstained from the condescension of a rejoinder.
Next I became the involuntary recipient of another letter in more intemperate style, menacing me that with a hook or a crook, she would dislodge me from the loophole in which I was snugly established, and that several able-bodied boarders were the hue of a full cry in pursuit.
Since Hereford Road is in dangerous proximity to Ladbroke Grove, I was sitting tight in my apartments on receipt of this grave intelligence, with funk in my heart, and the Unknown hovering above me, when my young friend HOWARD ALLBUTT-INNETT, Esq., arrived with his bicycle, like a god on a machine, and perceiving the viridity of my countenance, inquired sympathetically what was up.
At first, being mindful of the excessive liveliness with which he had bantered my residence in a boarding-house of such mediocre pretensions, I was naturally disinclined to reveal that I was in the plight of troth with the proprietress's daughter; but eventually I overcame my coyness, and uncovered the pretty kettle of fish of my infandum dolorem, and my ardent longing to hit upon some plan to extricate myself from the suffocating coils of such a Laocoon.
"My dear old chap," he said kindly, after I had unfolded the last link of my tale of woe, "I will put you up in a dodge that will perform the trick. Don't see the young woman, or she will get round you with half a jiffy. Write to her that you are not worthy of a rap, and no more a Prince than I am!"
Hearing his last words, I started, and did, like the ghost of Hamlet, Senior, "jump at this dead hour," being convinced that young HOWARD had found out (perhaps from Hon'ble CUMMERBUND) that my title was a bogus, and anticipating that, if he divulged the skeleton of my bare cupboard to his highly genteel parents, I should infallibly experience the crushing mortification of a chuck out.
However, I hid the fox that was nibbling my vitals by inquiring, in a rather natural accent, what he meant by such a suggestion.
"Are you such an innocent, simple old Johnny, Prince," he said, with reassuring bonhomie, "as not to catch the idea? Do you not know that European feminines in all ranks of society--alack, even in our own!--are immoderately attracted by anyone possessed of riches and a title--or of either of the two? As an au faït in the female temperament, I shall wager that it is nine out of ten that if you spoof this mercenary young minx into believing that you are merely a native impecunious nonentity, and not to be shot at with powder, she will instantaneously drop pursuing such a hot potato."
To this speech (reported verbatim to best of my ability) I did shake my head sorrowfully, and reply that I greatly feared that JESSIMINA'S devotion to this unlucky self was too severe to be diverted, or even checked, like a cow that is infuriated or non compos mentis, by the mere relinquishment of such tinsel and gewgaw wraps as a title or worldly belongings, having frequently (and that, too, prior to our engagement) protested her preference for very dark-complexioned individuals, and her vehement curiosity to behold India.
But he, as he ascended his bicycle with a waggish winkle in his eye, repeated that I might try it on at all events.
Still, I could not induce myself to adopt his spoofish strategy, for I reflected that, though it might convince her that I was unmarriageable, it would only increase her fury and the vengeance of her champion boarders. So at length I composed a moving epistle, as follows:--
Poet SHAKSPEARE has shrewdly observed that "a true lover never did run a straight course," and the sincerity of present writer's affection is incontestably proved by his apparent crookedness of running, and keeping dark outside the illuminating rays of thy moon-like countenance. The cause is the unforeseen cataclysm of a decree from my family astrologer or dowyboghee, whom I have anxiously consulted upon our joint matrimonial prospects. [MEM. TO THE READERS.--This was what young ~HOWARD~ would term "~the bit of spoof~." I am no ninny-hammer to consult an exploded astrologer!] Miserabile dictu! the venerable and senile pundit reports that such an alliance would infallibly plunge us into the peck of troubles, since the sign of your natal month is the meek and innocent Lamb--while mine is the more ferocious Lion!
A very slight familiarity with Natural History, &c., will show you the utter incompatibility of temper between such an uncongenial couple of animals, and the correctness of said astrologer's prediction that it must infallibly be the Lamb who would be whiphanded in the unequal conflict.
In consequence, though I am beating the floor with my head as I write, and moistening the carpet with the copiousness of my lachrymations, I must bid you the final and irrevocable adieu and au revoir, since I am unwilling to act as a selfish. Think of me as "a prince out of thy star," to quote the reference of SHAKSPEARE'S character, Polonius, to Hamlet, under precisely similar circumstances. You will please forget me instanter, and accept this as my last solemn so-long, which I utter on the threshold of preparation for the stern and dreaded ordeal of Bar Exam. In frantic haste,
Your ever faithful and broken-hearted Baboo,
HURRY.
P.S.--No answer required.
But after an interval of a very few posts, in spite of my strict injunctions to contrary, I got the answer that she was deeply moved by my self-sacrifice, and had never loved me more. Having been brought up in a Christian disbelief of all astronomy, she was not in fear of my "doweybogey" or any other native bogies, and nothing should part us, if she could help it. She added, that I had been seen about Westbourne Grove recently.
On receipt of this touching and beautiful communication I was again in the stampede of panic, and realised that I must have immediate resort to some stronger description of "Spoof."
It is calamitous that I cannot find a card up my sleeve with the single exception of my young friend HOWARD'S dodge, which I fear will prove too filamentous.
However, a faint heart never got rid of a fair lady!
