The dialoquial form is now become an indispensible factotum in periodical literature, and so, like a brebis de Panurge, I shall follow the fashion occasionally,--though with rather more obedience to a literary elegant style of phraseology than my predecessors in Punch have thought worth to practise.
Time: the other morning. Scene: the breakfast table at Porticobello House, Ladbroke Grove. Myself and other select boarders engaged in masticating fowl eggs with their concomitant bacon, while intelligently discussing topical subjects (for we carry out the poetical recipe of "Plain thinking and high living").
Miss Jessimina (at the table-head). The papers seem eloquent in laudation of the Sporting and Military Show at Olympia. How I should like to go if I had anyone to take me!
Mr Wylie (stingily). And I would be enraptured at so tip-top an opportunity, but for circumstance of being stonily broken.
[Helps himself to the surviving fowl egg.
Mr Cossetter (in sepulchral tone). Alack! that doctorial prescriptions do nill for me such nocturnal jinks; otherwise----
[He treats himself to a digestible pill.
Myself (taking a leap into the darkness and deadly breaches). Since other gentlemen are not more obsequious in gallantry, I hereby tender myself for honour of accompanyist and vade mecum.
Miss Jess. (lowering the silken curtains of her almond-like orbs). Oh, really, PRINCE! So very unexpected! I must obtain the expert opinion of my Mamma.
Mistress MANKLETOW did approve the jaunt on condition of our being saddled by a select lady boarder of the name of SPINK as a tertium quid to play at propriety; at which I was internally disgusted, fearing she would play the old gooseberry with our tête-à-tête.
Having arrived at Olympia, we perambulated the bazaar prior to the commencement of the shows, and here (after parting with rs. 8 for three seats on the balcony) I did bleed more freely still, for Miss JESSIMINA expressed a passionate longing to possess my profile, snipped out of paper by the scissors of a Silhouette, for which I mulcted one shilling sterling.
And, after all, although it proved the alter ego and speaking likeness of my embossed Bombay cap and golden spectacles, she found the fault that it rendered my complexion of a too excessive murksomeness; not reflecting (with feminine imperceptivity) that, the material being black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of all alike!
Farther on I presented her and the female gooseberry with a pocket-handkerchief a-piece, interwoven by a mechanism with their baptismal appellation (another rupee!).
Then we arrived at a cage containing an automatic Devil revealing the future for a penny in the slit, and Miss JESSIMINA worked the oracle with a coin advanced by myself, and the demon, after flashing his optics and consulting sundry playing-cards, did presently produce a small paper which she opened eagerly.
Miss Jess. (after perusal). Only fancy! It says I'm "to marry a dark man, and go for a long journey, and be very rich." What ridiculous nonsense! do you not think so, PRINCE?
Myself (with a tender sauciness). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious--and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a long journey?
Miss Jess. (with the complexion of a tomato). It's time we took our seats for the performance. And you are not to be a silly!
It is notorious that the English female vocabulary contains no more caressing and flattering epithet than this of "a silly," so that I repaired to my seat immoderately encouraged by such gracious appreciation.
Of the show, I can testify that it was truly magnificent, though the introductory portion was somewhat spoilt by the too great prevalence of the bicycle, which is daily increasing its ubiquity, nor do I see the rationality of engaging a sais in topped boots to attend upon each machine, under the transparent pretentiousness of its belonging to the equine genus, since it can never become the similitude of a horse in mettlesome vivacity.
My companions marvelled greatly at the severe curvature of the extremities of the cycle-track, which were shaped like the interior of a huge bowl, and while I was demonstrating to them how, from scientific considerations and owing to the centrifugal forces of gravitation, it was not possible for any rider to become a loser of his equilibrium--lo and behold! two of the competitors made the facilis descensus, and were intermingled in the weltering hotchpot of a calamity.
But on being disentangled they did limp away, and it is allowable to hope that they suffered no serious dismantling of their vital organs. Still, I cannot approve of these bicycle contentions, which are veritable provocative flights at the providential features.
After the termination I conducted my protégées to the Palmarium, where we sat under a shrub imbibing lemon crushes, brought by a neat-handed Phyllis in the uniform of a house-maid intermixed with a hospital nurse.
Here occurred a most discomposing contretemps, for presently Miss JESSIMINA uttered the complaint that two strangers were regarding herself and Miss SPINK with the brazen eyes of a sheep, and even making personal comments on my nationality, which rendered me like toad under a harrow with burning indignation.
At length, being utterly beside myself with rage, I summoned one of the Phyllises and requested her to take steps to abate the nuisance, being met with a smiling "Nolo Episcopari." So, entreating my companions not to give way to panic and leave their cause in my hands, I went in search of a policeman.
Unfortunately some time flew before I could find one at liberty to understand my crucial position, nor could I obtain from him a legal opinion as to whether I could administer a cuff or a slap in the ear to my insulters without incurring risk of retaliation in kind.
And, on returning to the spot with a large, stout constable, I had the mortification to discover that the two impolite strangers had departed, and that Misses MANKLETOW and SPINK were similarly imperceptible.
However, after prolonged search and mental anxiety, I returned alone, and was rewarded by finding my fair friends arrived in safety; and hearing that the two strangers had explained, in the gentlemanly terms of an apology, that they had mistaken them for acquaintances.
Consequently I am thankful that I did not execute my design of assault and battery, more especially as I am the happy receiver of many handsome compliments on all sides upon the tactfulness and savoir faire with which I extricated myself from my shocking fix.
At which my countenance beams with the shiny resplendency of self-satisfaction.
