[Illustration: "DISCUSSION AT OUR LAST MEETING."]
The final question discussed at our last meeting had been: What shall
our hero be? MacShaugnassy had suggested an author, with a critic for
the villain. Brown's fancy was an artist. My idea was a stockbroker,
with an undercurrent of romance in his nature. Said Jephson, who has a
practical mind, approaching at times the commercial: "The question is
not what we like, but what the female novel-reader likes."
"That is so," agreed MacShaugnassy. "I propose that we collect feminine
opinion upon this point. I will write to my aunt, and get from her the
old lady's view. You," he said, turning to me, "can put the case to your
wife, and get the young lady's ideal. Let Brown write to his sister at
Newnham, and find out whom the intellectual maiden favours, while
Jephson can learn from Miss Medbury what is most attractive to the
common-sensed girl."
This plan we had adopted, and the result was now under consideration.
MacShaugnassy opened the proceedings by reading his aunt's letter. Wrote
the old lady:
"I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a
soldier. You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to
America with that _wicked_ Mrs. Featherly, the banker's wife,
was a soldier, and so was your poor cousin Robert, who lost
eight thousand pounds at Monte Carlo. I have always felt
singularly drawn towards soldiers, even as a girl; though your
poor dear uncle could not bear them. You will find many
allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old Testament (see
Jer. 48,14). Of course one does not like to think of their
fighting and killing each other, but then they do not seem to
do much of that sort of thing nowadays."
"So much for the old lady," said MacShaugnassy, as he folded up the
letter and returned it to his pocket. "What says culture?"
[Illustration: BROWN READ AS FOLLOWS.]
Brown produced from his cigar-case a letter addressed in a bold round
hand, and read as follows:
"What a curious coincidence! A few of us were discussing this
very subject last night in Millicent Hightopper's rooms, and I
may tell you at once that our decision was unanimous in favour
of soldiers. You see, my dear Selkirk, in human nature the
attraction is towards the opposite. To a milliner's apprentice
a poet would no doubt be satisfying; to a woman of intelligence
he would be an unutterable bore. The man of brain is not for
the woman of brain. What the intellectual woman requires in man
is not something to argue with, but something to look at. To an
empty-headed woman I can imagine the soldier type proving vapid
and uninteresting; to the woman of mind he represents her ideal
of man--a creature strong, handsome, well-dressed, and not
too clever."
"That gives us two votes for the army," remarked MacShaugnassy, as Brown
tore his sister's letter in two, and threw the pieces into the
waste-paper basket. "What says the common-sensed girl?"
"First catch your common-sensed girl," muttered Jephson, a little
grumpily, as it seemed to me. "Where do you propose finding her?"
"Well," returned MacShaugnassy, "I looked to find her in Miss Medbury."
As a rule, the mention of Miss Medbury's name brings a flush of joy to
Jephson's face; but now his features wore an expression distinctly
approaching a scowl.
"Oh!" he replied, "did you? Well, then, the common-sensed girl loves the
military, also."
"By Jove!" exclaimed MacShaugnassy, "what an extraordinary thing. What
reason does she give?"
"That they look so nice when they're dressed, and that they dance so
divinely," answered Jephson, shortly.
"Well, you do surprise me," murmured MacShaugnassy, "I am astonished."
Then to me he said: "And what does the young married woman say? The
same?"
"Yes," I replied, "precisely the same."
"Does _she_ give a reason?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," I explained; "because you can't help liking them."
There was silence for the next few minutes, while we smoked and thought.
I fancy we were all wishing we had never started this enquiry.
That four distinctly different types of educated womanhood should, with
promptness and unanimity quite unfeminine, have selected the soldier as
their ideal, was certainly discouraging to the civilian heart. Had they
been nursemaids or servant girls, I should have expected it. The worship
of Mars by the Venus of the white cap is one of the few vital religions
left to this devoutless age. A year or two ago I lodged near a barracks,
and the sight to be seen round its huge iron gates on Sunday afternoons
I shall never forget. The girls began to assemble about twelve o'clock.
By two, at which hour the army, with its hair nicely oiled and a cane in
its hand, was ready for a stroll, there would be some four or five
hundred of them waiting in a line. Formerly they had collected in a wild
mob, and as the soldiers were let out to them two at a time, had fought
for them, as lions for early Christians. This, however, had led to
scenes of such disorder and brutality, that the police had been obliged
to interfere; and the girls were now marshalled in _queue_, two abreast,
and compelled, by a force of constables specially told off for the
purpose, to keep their places and wait their proper turn.
At three o'clock the sentry on duty would come down to the wicket and
close it. "They're all gone, my dears," he would shout out to the girls
still left; "it's no good your stopping, we've no more for you to-day."
"Oh, not one!" some poor child would murmur pleadingly, while the tears
welled up into her big round eyes, "not even a little one. I've been
waiting _such_ a long time."
"Can't help that," the honest fellow would reply, gruffly, but not
unkindly, turning aside to hide his emotion; "you've had 'em all between
you. We don't make 'em, you know: you can't have 'em if we haven't got
'em, can you? Come earlier next time."
[Illustration: "NOW THEN, PASS ALONG."]
Then he would hurry away to escape further importunity; and the police,
who appeared to have been waiting for this moment with gloating
anticipation, would jeeringly hustle away the weeping remnant. "Now
then, pass along, you girls, pass along," they would say, in that
irritatingly unsympathetic voice of theirs. "You've had your chance.
Can't have the roadway blocked up all the afternoon with this 'ere
demonstration of the unloved. You'll have to put up with your ordinary
young men for to-day. Pass along."
In connection with this same barracks, our charwoman told Amenda, who
told Ethelbertha, who told me a story, which I now told the boys.
Into a certain house, in a certain street in the neighbourhood, there
moved one day a certain family. Their servant had left them--most of
their servants did at the end of a week--and the day after the moving-in
an advertisement was drawn up and sent to the _Chronicle_ for a
domestic. It ran thus:
WANTED GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven. Wages, £6;
no beer money. Must be early riser and hard worker. Washing
done at home. Must be good cook, and not object to
window-cleaning. Unitarian preferred.--Apply, with references,
to A. B., &C.
That advertisement was sent off on Wednesday afternoon. At seven o'clock
on Thursday morning the whole family were awakened by continuous ringing
of the street door bell. The husband, looking out of window, was
surprised to see a crowd of about fifty girls surrounding the house. He
slipped on his dressing-gown and went down to see what was the matter.
The moment he opened the door, fifteen of them charged tumultuously into
the passage, sweeping him completely off his legs. Once inside, these
fifteen faced round, fought the other thirty-five or so back on to the
door-step, and slammed the door in their faces. Then they picked up the
master of the house, and asked him politely to conduct them to "A. B."
[Illustration: "SURPRISED TO SEE ABOUT FIFTY GIRLS."]
At first, owing to the clamour of the mob outside, who were hammering at
the door and shouting curses through the keyhole on those inside, he was
too confused to understand anything, but by dint of great exertion they
succeeded at length in explaining to him that they were domestic
servants come in answer to his wife's advertisement. The man went and
told his wife, and his wife said she would see them, one at a time.
Which one should have audience first was a delicate question to decide.
The man, on being appealed to, said he would prefer to leave it to them.
They accordingly discussed the matter among themselves. At the end of a
quarter of an hour, the victor, having borrowed a packet of pins and a
looking-glass from our charwoman, who had slept in the house, went
upstairs, while the remaining fourteen sat down in the hall, and fanned
themselves with their bonnets.
"A. B." was a good deal astonished when the first applicant presented
herself. She was a tall, genteel-looking, well-dressed girl. Up to
yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton's, and before that
she had been under-cook for two years to the Duchess of York.
"And why did you leave Lady Stanton?" asked "A. B."
"To come here, mum," replied the girl.
The lady was puzzled.
"And you'll be satisfied with six pounds a year?" she asked.
"Certainly, mum, I think it ample."
"And you don't mind hard work?"
"I love it, mum."
"And you're an early riser?"
"Oh yes, mum, it upsets me stopping in bed after half-past five."
"You know we do the washing at home?"
"Yes, mum. I think it so much better to do it at home. Those laundries
ruin good clothes. They're so careless."
"Are you a Unitarian?" continued the lady.
"Not yet, mum," replied the girl, "but I should like to be one."
The lady took her reference, and said she would write her.
"I do hope you will give me a trial, mum," pleaded the girl, as she rose
to go; "I would try so hard to give you satisfaction."
The next applicant offered to come for three pounds--thought six pounds
too much. She also expressed her willingness to sleep in the back
kitchen: a shakedown under the sink was all she wanted. She likewise had
yearnings towards Unitarianism.
The third girl did not require any wages at all--could not understand
what servants wanted with wages--thought wages only encouraged a love of
foolish finery--thought a comfortable home in a Unitarian family ought
to be sufficient wages for any girl.
This girl said there was one stipulation she should like to make, and
that was that she should be allowed to pay for all breakages caused by
her own carelessness or neglect. She objected to holidays and evenings
out on principle; she held that they distracted a girl from her work.
[Illustration: "MET THE NEXT DOOR LADY ON THE DOOR-STEP."]
The fourth candidate offered a premium of five pounds for the place; and
then "A.B." began to get frightened, and refused to see any more of the
girls, convinced that they must be lunatics from some neighbouring
asylum out for a walk.
Later in the day, meeting the next door lady on the door-step, she
related her morning's experiences.
"Oh, that's nothing extraordinary," said the next door lady; "none of us
on this side of the street pay wages; and we get the pick of all the
best servants in London. Why, girls will come from the other end of the
kingdom to get into one of these houses. It's the dream of their lives.
They save up for years, so as to be able to come here for nothing."
"What's the attraction?" asked "A. B.," more amazed than ever.
"Why, don't you see," explained the next door lady, "our back windows
open upon the barrack yard. A girl living in one of these houses is
always close to soldiers. By looking out of window she can always see
soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her, or even call up to
her. They never dream of asking for wages. They'll work eighteen hours a
day, and put up with anything just to be allowed to stop."
"A.B." profited by this information, and engaged the girl who offered
the five pounds premium. She found her a perfect treasure of a servant.
She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a sofa in the
kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her dinner.
[Illustration: "A SOLDIER'S ARM ROUND THE WAIST."]
The truth of this story I cannot vouch for. Myself, I can believe it.
Brown and MacShaugnassy made no attempt to do so, which seemed
unfriendly. Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache. I admit
there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average intellect.
As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by Ethelbertha,
who had it from Amenda, who got it from the charwoman, and exaggerations
may have crept into it. The following, however, were incidents that came
under my own personal observation. They afforded a still stronger
example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British
domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them also to
the boys.
"The heroine of them," I said, "is our Amenda. Now, you would call her a
tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?"
"She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability," answered
MacShaugnassy.
"That was my opinion also," I replied. "You can, therefore, imagine my
feelings on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a
Panama hat upon her head (my Panama hat), and a soldier's arm round her
waist. She was one of a mob, composed of all the unoccupied riff-raff of
Folkestone, who were following the band of the Third Berkshire Infantry,
then in camp at Sandgate. There was an ecstatic, far-away look in her
eyes. She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand she
beat time to the music."
"I should say you were suffering from a mild attack of D.T. when you saw
all that," said MacShaugnassy.
"So I might have thought myself," I said; "but Ethelbertha was with me
at the time, and she saw it too. We stared after the procession until it
had turned the corner, and then we stared at each other.
"'Oh, it's impossible,' said Ethelbertha to me.
"'But that was my hat,' I said to Ethelbertha.
"The moment we reached home Ethelbertha looked for Amenda, and I looked
for my hat. Neither were to be found.
[Illustration: "AND HUNG MY HAT UP."]
"Nine o'clock struck, ten o'clock struck. At half-past ten, we went down
and got our own supper, and had it in the kitchen. At a quarter-past
eleven, Amenda returned. She walked into the kitchen without a word,
hung my hat up behind the door, and commenced clearing away the
supper things.
"Ethelbertha rose, calm but severe.
"'Where have you been, Amenda?' she enquired.
"'Gadding half over the county with a lot of low soldiers,' answered
Amenda, continuing her work.
"'You had on my hat,' I added, somewhat gloomily. It was not the right
view to take of the case, I know, but, personally, that fact grieved me
more than all the other incidents in the proceeding put together, sad
though I felt these to be. It was an expensive hat, and Ethelbertha said
it suited me (there are not many that do). After seeing it that night on
Amenda's head, my pride in it was gone.
"'Yes, sir,' replied Amenda, still continuing her work, 'it was the
first thing that came to hand. What I'm thankful for is that it wasn't
missis's best bonnet.'
"Whether Ethelbertha was mollified by the proper spirit displayed in
this last remark, I cannot say, but I think it probable. At all events,
it was in a voice more of sorrow than of anger that she resumed her
examination.
"'You were walking with a soldier's arm around your waist when we passed
you, Amenda?' she observed interrogatively.
"'I know, mum,' admitted Amenda, 'I found it there myself when the music
stopped.'
"Ethelbertha looked her enquiries. Amenda filled a saucepan with water,
and then replied to them.
"'I'm a disgrace to a decent household,' she said; 'no mistress who
respected herself would keep me a moment. I ought to be put out on the
doorstep with my box and a month's wages.'
"'But why did you do it then?' said Ethelbertha, with natural
astonishment.
"'Because I'm a helpless ninny, mum.' There was no trace of bitterness
or passion in Amenda's tones. She spoke in the calm, even voice of a
person stating facts.
"'I can't help myself,' she went on; 'if I see soldiers I'm bound to
follow them. It runs in our family. My poor cousin Emma was just such
another fool. She was engaged to be married to a quiet, respectable
young fellow with a shop of his own, and three days before the wedding
she ran off with a regiment of marines and married the colour-sergeant.
That's what I shall end by doing. I've been all the way to Sandgate with
that lot you saw me with, and I've kissed four of them--the nasty
wretches. I'm a nice sort of girl to be walking out with a
respectable milkman.'
"She was so deeply disgusted with herself that it seemed superfluous for
anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed her tone
and tried to comfort her.
"'Oh, you'll get over all that nonsense, Amenda,' she said, laughingly;
'you see yourself how silly it is. You must tell Mr. Bowles to keep you
away from soldiers.'
"'Ah, I can't look at it in the same light way that you do, mum,'
returned Amenda, somewhat reprovingly; 'a girl that can't see a bit of
red marching down the street without wanting to rush out and follow it
ain't fit to be anybody's wife. Why I should be leaving the shop with
nobody in it about twice a week, and he'd have to go the round of all
the barracks in London, looking for me. I shall save up and get myself
into a lunatic asylum, that's what I shall do.'
"Ethelbertha began to grow quite troubled. 'But surely this is something
altogether new, Amenda,' she said; 'you must have often met soldiers
when you've been out in London?'
"'Oh, yes, one or two at a time, walking about anyhow, I can stand that
all right. It's when there's a lot of them all together with a band that
I lose my head.'
[Illustration: "'WHEN THERE'S A LOT OF THEM WITH A BAND, I LOSE MY
HEAD.'"]
"'You don't know what it's like, mum,' she added, noticing Ethelbertha's
puzzled expression; 'you've never had it. I only hope you never may.'
"We kept a careful watch over Amenda during the remainder of our stay at
Folkestone, and an anxious time we had of it. Every day some regiment or
other would march through the town, and at the first sound of its music
Amenda would become restless and excited. The Pied Piper's reed could
not have stirred the Hamelin children deeper than did those Sandgate
bands the heart of our domestic. Fortunately, they generally passed
early in the morning when we were indoors, but one day, returning home
to lunch, we heard distant strains dying away upon the Hythe Road. We
hurried in. Ethelbertha ran down into the kitchen; it was empty!--up
into Amenda's bedroom; it was vacant! We called. There was no answer.
"'That miserable girl has gone off again,' said Ethelbertha. 'What a
terrible misfortune it is for her. It's quite a disease.'
"Ethelbertha wanted me to go to Sandgate camp and enquire for her. I was
sorry for the girl myself, but the picture of a young and
innocent-looking man wandering about a complicated camp, enquiring for a
lost domestic, presenting itself to my mind, I said that I'd rather not.
"Ethelbertha thought me heartless, and said that if I would not go she
would go herself. I replied that I thought one female member of my
household was enough in that camp at a time, and requested her not to.
Ethelbertha expressed her sense of my inhuman behaviour by haughtily
declining to eat any lunch, and I expressed my sense of her
unreasonableness by sweeping the whole meal into the grate, after which
Ethelbertha suddenly developed exuberant affection for the cat (who
didn't want anybody's love, but wanted to get under the grate after the
lunch), and I became supernaturally absorbed in the day-before-
yesterday's newspaper.
[Illustration: "'WHO LOCKED YOU IN THERE?'"]
"In the afternoon, strolling out into the garden, I heard the faint cry
of a female in distress. I listened attentively, and the cry was
repeated. I thought it sounded like Amenda's voice, but where it came
from I could not conceive. It drew nearer, however, as I approached the
bottom of the garden, and at last I located it in a small wooden shed,
used by the proprietor of the house as a dark room for developing
photographs.
"The door was locked. 'Is that you, Amenda?' I cried through the
keyhole.
"'Yes, sir,' came back the muffled answer. 'Will you please let me out;
you'll find the key on the ground near the door.'
"I discovered it on the grass about a yard away, and released her. 'Who
locked you in there?' I asked.
"'I did, sir,' she replied; 'I locked myself in, and pushed the key out
under the door. I had to do it, or I should have gone off with those
beastly soldiers.'
"'I hope I haven't inconvenienced you, sir,' she added, stepping out; 'I
left the lunch all laid.'"
Amenda's passion for soldiers was her one tribute to sentiment. Towards
all others of the male sex she maintained an attitude of callous
unsusceptibility, and her engagements with them (which were numerous)
were entered into or abandoned on grounds so sordid as to seriously
shock Ethelbertha.
When she came to us she was engaged to a pork butcher--with a milkman in
reserve. For Amenda's sake we dealt with the man, but we never liked
him, and we liked his pork still less. When, therefore, Amenda announced
to us that her engagement with him was "off," and intimated that her
feelings would in no way suffer by our going elsewhere for our bacon, we
secretly rejoiced.
[Illustration: "HER ENGAGEMENT WAS 'OFF.'"]
"I am confident you have done right, Amenda," said Ethelbertha; "you
would never have been happy with that man."
"No, mum, I don't think I ever should," replied Amenda. "I don't see how
any girl could as hadn't got the digestion of an ostrich."
Ethelbertha looked puzzled. "But what has digestion got to do with it?"
she asked.
"A pretty good deal, mum," answered Amenda, "when you're thinking of
marrying a man as can't make a sausage fit to eat."
"But, surely," exclaimed Ethelbertha, "you don't mean to say you're
breaking off the match because you don't like his sausages!"
"Well, I suppose that's what it comes to," agreed Amenda, unconcernedly.
"What an awful idea!" sighed poor Ethelbertha, after a long pause. "Do
you think you ever really loved him?"
"Oh, yes," said Amenda, "I loved him right enough, but it's no good
loving a man that wants you to live on sausages that keep you awake
all night."
"But does he want you to live on sausages?" persisted Ethelbertha.
"Oh, he doesn't say anything about it," explained Amenda; "but you know
what it is, mum, when you marry a pork butcher: you're expected to eat
what's left over. That's the mistake my poor cousin Eliza made. She
married a muffin man. Of course, what he didn't sell they had to finish
up themselves. Why, one winter, when he had a run of bad luck, they
lived for two months on nothing but muffins. I never saw a girl so
changed in all my life. One has to think of these things, you know."
Later on, she engaged herself to a solicitor's messenger. She did
this--as she frankly avowed to Ethelbertha--to assist her family, who
were prosecuting some petty law case at the time. He was a smart, steady
man, a great favourite with his employers, and, out of kindly feeling
towards him, they did the business for Amenda's father, charging only
"out-of-pockets."
[Illustration: "GAVE HER A COCOANUT."]
Six months after the case was ended, she broke off the match. She said
that, on reflection, she could not help seeing what an advantage he
would have over her--he being in a solicitor's office, with the law at
his fingers' ends--should she ever find it necessary to summons him.
"But, my good girl," said Ethelbertha, quite distressed, "one doesn't
marry a man with the idea of subsequently summonsing him!"
"No, mum," said Amenda, "one always hopes one will never need to, I'm
sure, but it's just as well to be prepared. I knew a girl, when I was in
service at Hastings, that loved a printer, and they were both going to
commit suicide because her parents didn't want 'em to marry; and now he
costs her four shillings a month regular in summonses. It's no good
shutting one's eyes to things, mum."
But the most shamefully mercenary engagement that I think Amenda ever
entered into was one with a 'bus conductor. We were living in the North
of London then, and she had a young man, a cheesemonger, who kept a shop
in Lupus Street, Chelsea. He could not come up to her because of the
shop, so once a week she used to go down to him. One did not ride ten
miles for a penny in those days, and she found the fare from Holloway to
Victoria and back a severe tax upon her purse. The same 'bus that took
her down at six brought her back at ten. During the first journey the
'bus conductor stared at Amenda; during the second he talked to her,
during the third he gave her a cocoanut, during the fourth he proposed
to her, and was promptly accepted. After that, Amenda was enabled to
visit her cheesemonger without expense.
[Illustration: "'I DESIRE SHARING CROSS.'"]
He was a quaint character himself, was this 'bus conductor. I often rode
with him to Fleet Street. He knew me quite well (I suppose Amenda must
have pointed me out to him), and would always ask me after her--aloud,
before all the other passengers, which was trying--and give me messages
to take back to her. Where women were concerned he had what is called "a
way" with him, and from the extent and variety of his female
acquaintance, and the evident tenderness with which the majority of them
regarded him, I am inclined to hope that Amenda's desertion of him
(which happened contemporaneously with her jilting of the cheesemonger)
caused him less prolonged suffering than might otherwise have been
the case.
He was a man from whom I derived a good deal of amusement one way and
another. Thinking of him brings back to my mind a somewhat odd incident.
One afternoon, I jumped upon his 'bus in the Seven Sisters Road. An
elderly Frenchman was the only other occupant of the vehicle. "You vil
not forget me," the Frenchman was saying as I entered, "I desire
Sharing Cross."
"I won't forget yer," answered the conductor, "you shall 'ave yer
Sharing Cross. Don't make a fuss about it."
"That's the third time 'ee's arst me not to forget 'im," he remarked to
me in a stentorian aside; "'ee don't giv' yer much chance of doin' it,
does 'ee?"
At the corner of the Holloway Road we drew up, and our conductor began
to shout after the manner of his species: "Charing Cross--Charing
Cross--'ere yer are--Come along, lady--Charing Cross."
The little Frenchman jumped up, and prepared to exit; the conductor
pushed him back.
"Sit down and don't be silly," he said; "this ain't Charing Cross."
The Frenchman looked puzzled, but collapsed meekly. We picked up a few
passengers, and proceeded on our way. Half a mile up the Liverpool Road
a lady stood on the kerb regarding us as we passed with that pathetic
mingling of desire and distrust which is the average woman's attitude
towards conveyances of all kinds. Our conductor stopped.
"Where d'yer want to go to?" he asked her severely--omnibus conductors
have a manner of addressing all pedestrians as though they were lost
children or suspicious loiterers--"Strand--Charing Cross?"
[Illustration: "THE CONDUCTOR COLLARED HIM."]
The Frenchman did not hear or did not understand the first part of the
speech, but he caught the words "Charing Cross," and bounced up and out
on to the step. The conductor collared him as he was getting off, and
jerked him back savagely.
"Carnt yer keep still a minute," he cried indignantly; "blessed if you
don't want lookin' after like a bloomin' kid."
"I vont to be put down at Sharing Cross," answered the little Frenchman,
humbly.
"You vont to be put down at Sharing Cross," repeated the other bitterly,
as he led him back to his seat. "I shall put yer down in the middle of
the road if I 'ave much more of yer. You stop there till I come and
sling yer out. I ain't likely to let yer go much past yer Sharing Cross,
I shall be too jolly glad to get rid o' yer."
The poor Frenchman subsided, and we jolted on. At "The Angel" we, of
course, stopped. "Charing Cross," shouted the conductor, and up sprang
the Frenchman.
"Oh, my Gawd," said the conductor, taking him by the shoulders and
forcing him down into the corner seat, "wot am I to do? Carnt somebody
sit on 'im?"
[Illustration: "'BLESSED IF I DIDN'T RUN HIM ON TO VICTORIA.'"]
He held him firmly down until the 'bus started, and then released him.
At the top of Chancery Lane the same scene took place, and the poor
little Frenchman became exasperated.
"He keep on saying Sharing Cross, Sharing Cross," he exclaimed, turning
to the other passengers; "and it is _not_ Sharing Cross. He is fool."
"Carnt yer understand," retorted the conductor, equally indignant; "of
course I say Sharing Cross--I mean Charing Cross, but that don't mean
that it _is_ Charing Cross. That means that--" and then perceiving from
the blank look in the Frenchman's face the utter impossibility of ever
making the matter clear to him, he turned to us with an appealing
gesture, and asked:
"Does any gentleman know the French for 'bloomin' idiot'?"
A day or two afterwards, I happened to enter his omnibus again.
"Well," I asked him, "did you get your French friend to Charing Cross
all right?"
"No, sir," he replied, "you'll 'ardly believe it, but I 'ad a bit of a
row with a policeman just before I got to the corner, and it put 'im
clean out o' my 'ead. Blessed if I didn't run 'im on to Victoria."
(_To be continued_.)
* * * * *
THE SKATER.
BY WILLIAM CANTON. ILLUSTRATED BY A. L. BOWLEY.
[Illustration]
O'er glassy levels of the mere
She glides on slanting skate;
She loves in fairy curves to veer
And weave her figure eight.
Bright flower in fur, I would thy feet
Could weave my heart and thine, my sweet,
Thus into one glad life complete!
Harsh winter, rage thy rudest:
Freeze, freeze, thou churlish sky;
Blow, arctic wind, thy shrewdest--
What care my heart and I!
* * * * *
MY SERVANT ANDREAS
BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.
[Illustration: "ANDREAS."]
I think it quite likely that some of my young American friends, about
ten months ago, were burning to have an opportunity of accompanying
General Miles down the Pacific coast, and of describing in glowing
sentences to their countrymen at home how Uncle Sam's young man turned
to flight the Chilian insurrectionists, who were breathing out
threatening and slaughter against the great Northern Republic. There is
an undoubted fascination in the picturesque and adventurous life of the
war correspondent. One must, of course, have a distinct bent for the
avocation, and if he is to succeed he must possess certain salient
attributes. He must expose himself to rather greater risks than fall to
the lot of the average fighting man, without enjoying any of the
happiness of retaliation which stirs the blood of the latter; the
correspondent must sit quietly on his horse in the fire, and, while
watching every turn in the battle, must wear the aspect as if he rather
enjoyed the storm of missiles than otherwise. When the fighting is over,
the soldier, if not killed, generally can eat and sleep; ere the echoes
of it are silent, the correspondent of energy--and if he has not energy
he is not worth his salt--must already be galloping his hardest towards
the nearest telegraph wire, which, as like as not, is a hundred miles
distant. He must "get there," by hook or by crook, in a minimum of time;
and as soon as his message is on the wires, he must be hurrying back to
the army, else he may chance to miss the great battle of the war. The
correspondent must be most things to all men; he must have the sweet,
angelic temper of a woman, be as affable as if he were running for
office, and at the same time be big and ugly enough to impress the
conviction that it would be extremely unwise to take any liberties
with him.
The career, no doubt, has some incidental drawbacks. No fewer than five
British correspondents were killed in the recent campaigns in the
Soudan. General Sherman threatened to hang all the correspondents found
in his camp after a certain day, and General Sherman was the kind of man
to fulfil any threat he made. I suppose there was no correspondent
taking part in the Franco-German and Russo-Turkish wars who was not in
custody over and over again on suspicion of being a spy. I have been a
prisoner myself in France, Spain, Servia, Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Russia, Roumania and Bulgaria; and I may perhaps venture to remark in
passing that I cannot recommend any of these countries from this point
of view. But the casual confinements, half irritating, half comic, to
which he may be subjected, do not bother the war correspondent of the
old world nearly as much as do the foreign languages which, if he is not
a good linguist, hamper him every hour of every day. He really should
possess the gift of tongues--be conversant with all European languages,
a neat assortment of the Asiatic languages, and a few of the African
tongues, such as Abyssinian, Ashantee, Zulu, and Soudanese. But how few
in the nature of things can approximate this polyglot versatility. Often
in Eastern Europe, and in Afghanistan, I have envied Messrs. Swinton,
Smalley, Whitelaw Reed, and the other notable war correspondents of the
American Civil War, in that they had not the difficulties of outlandish
tongues to contend with. I own myself to be a poor linguist, and have
many and many a time suffered for my dullness of what the Scotch call
"up-take." It is true that I was fairly conversant with French and
German, and could express my wants in Russian, Roumanian, Bulgarian,
Spanish, Turkish, Hindustanee, Pushtoo, and Burmese, every word of which
smatterings I have long since forgotten. But the truth is that the
poorest peoples in the world in acquiring foreign languages are the
English and the French; the readiest are the Russians and Americans. It
was, after a fashion, a liberal education to listen to the fluency in
some half-dozen languages of Poor McGahan, the "Ohio boy," who graduated
from the plough to be perhaps the most brilliant war correspondent of
modern times. His compatriot and colleague, Frank Millet, who has fallen
away from glory as a war correspondent, and has taken to the inferior
trade of painting, seemed to pick up a language by the mere accident of
finding himself on the soil where it was spoken. In the first three
days, after crossing the Danube into Bulgaria, Millet went about with
book in hand, gathering in the names of things at which he pointed, and
jotting down each acquisition in the book. On the fourth day he could
swear in Bulgarian, copiously, fervently, and with a measure of
intelligibility. Within a week he had conquered the uncouth tongue. As
he voyaged lately down the Danube from source to mouth, charmingly
describing the scenic panorama of the great river in the pages of
_Harper_, those of you who have read those sketches will not have failed
to notice how Millet talked to German, Hungarian, Servian, Bulgarian,
Roumanian, and Turkish, each in his own tongue, those diverse languages
having been acquired by him during the few months of the
Russo-Turkish war.
[Illustration: "MACGAHAN AND FRANK MILLET."]
By this time, you may be wondering just where "Andreas" comes in.
Perhaps I have been over long in getting to my specific subject; but I
will not be discursive any more. It was at the _table d'hote_ in the
Serbische Krone Hotel, in Belgrade, where I first set eyes on Andreas.
In the year 1876, Servia had thought proper to throw off the yoke of her
Turkish suzerain, and to attempt to assert her independence by force of
arms. But for very irregularly paid tribute she was virtually
independent already, and probably in all Servia there were not two
hundred Turks. But she ambitiously desired to have the name of as well
as the actuality of being independent; the Russians helped her with
arms, officers, and volunteer soldiers; and when I reached Belgrade, in
May of the year named, there had already been fighting, in which the
Servians had by no means got the worst. No word of the Servian tongue
had I, and it was the reverse of pleasant for a war correspondent in
such plight to learn that outside of Belgrade nobody, or at least hardly
anybody, knew a word of any other language than the native Servian. As I
ate, I was being attended by a very assiduous waiter, whose alertness
and anxiety to please were very conspicuous. He was smart with quite
un-Oriental smartness; he whisked about the tables with deftness; he
spoke to me in German, to the Russian officers over against me in what I
assumed was Russian, to the Servians dining behind me in what I took to
be Servian. I liked the look of the man; there was intelligence in his
aspect. One could not call him handsome, but there was character in the
keen black eye, the high features and the pronounced chin, fringed on
either side by bushy black whiskers.
[Illustration: "ANDREAS AS A FORAGER."]
I had brought no servant with me; the average British servant is worse
than useless in a foreign country, and the dubiously-polyglot courier is
a snare and a deception on campaign. I had my eye on Andreas for a
couple of days, during which he was of immense service to me. He seemed
to know and stand well with everyone in Belgrade; it was he, indeed, who
presented me in the restaurant to the Prime Minister and the Minister
for War, who got together for me my field necessaries, who helped me to
buy my horses, and who narrated to me the progress of the campaign so
far as it had gone. On the third day I had him in my room and asked
whether he would like to come with me into the field as my servant. He
accepted the offer with effusion; we struck hands on the compact; he
tendered me credentials which I ascertained to be extremely
satisfactory; and then he gave me a little sketch of himself. It was
somewhat mixed, as indeed was his origin. Primarily he was a Servian,
but his maternal grandmother had been a Bosniak, an earlier ancestress
had been in a Turkish harem, there was a strain in his blood of the
Hungarian zinganee--the gipsy of Eastern Europe, and one could not look
at his profile without a suspicion that there was a Jewish element in
his pedigree. "A pure mongrel," was what a gentleman of the British
Legation termed Andreas, and this self-contradictory epithet was
scarcely out of place.
Andreas turned out well. He was as hardy as a hill-goat, careless how
and when he ate, or where he slept, which, indeed, was mostly in the
open. It seemed to me that he had cousins all over Servia, chiefly of
the female persuasion, and I am morally certain that the Turkish strain
in his blood had in Andreas its natural development in a species of
_fin-de-siècle_ polygamy. Sherman's prize "bummer" was not in it with
Andreas as a forager. At first, indeed, I suspected him of actual
plundering, so copiously did he bring in supplies, and so little had I
to pay for them; but I was not long in discovering that all kinds of
produce were dirt cheap in Servia, and that as I could myself buy a lamb
for a quarter, it was not surprising that Andreas, to the manner born,
could easily obtain one for half the money. He was an excellent
horsemaster, and the stern vigour with which he chastised the occasional
neglect of the cousin whom he had brought into my service as groom, was
borne in upon me by the frequent howls which were audible from the rear
of my tent. There was not a road in all Servia with whose every winding
Andreas was not conversant, and this "extensive and peculiar" knowledge
of his was often of great service to me. He was a light-weight and an
excellent rider; I have sent him off to Belgrade with a telegram at
dusk, and he was back again by breakfast time next morning, after a
gallop of quite a hundred miles.
No exertion fatigued him; I never saw the man out of humour; there was
but one matter in regard to which I ever had to chide him, and in that I
had perforce to let him have his own way, because I do not believe that
he could restrain himself. He had served the term in the army which is,
or was then, obligatory on all Servians; and on the road or in camp he
was rather more of a "peace at any price" man than ever was the late Mr.
John Bright himself. When the first fight occurred, Andreas claimed to
be allowed to witness it along with me. I demurred; he might get hit;
and if anything should happen to him, what should I do for a servant? At
length I gave him the firm order to remain in camp, and started myself
with the groom behind me on my second horse. The fighting occurred eight
miles from camp, and in the course of it, leaving the groom in the rear,
I had accompanied the Russian General Dochtouroff into a most
unpleasantly hot place, where a storm of Turkish shells were falling in
the effort to hinder the withdrawal of a disabled Servian battery. I
happened to glance over my shoulder, and lo! Andreas on foot was at my
horse's tail, obviously in a state of ecstatic enjoyment of the
situation. I peremptorily ordered him back, and he departed sullenly,
calmly strolling along the line of Turkish fire. Just then, Tchernaieff,
the Servian Commander-in-Chief, had, it seemed, ordered a detachment of
infantry to take in flank the Turkish guns. From where we stood I could
discern the Servian soldiers hurrying forward close under the fringe of
a wood near the line of retirement along which Andreas was sulking.
Andreas saw them too, and retreated no step further, but cut across to
them, snatching up a gun as he ran, and the last I saw of him was while
he was waving on the militiamen with his billycock, and loosing off an
occasional bullet, while he emitted yells of defiance against the Turks,
which might well have struck terror into their very marrow. Andreas came
into camp at night very streaky with powder stains, minus the lobe of
one ear, uneasy as he caught my eye, yet with a certain elateness of
mien. I sacked him that night, and he said he didn't care, and that he
was not ashamed of himself. Next morning, as I was rising, he rushed
into the tent, knelt down, clasped my knees, and bedewed my ankles with
his tears. Of course I reinstated him; I couldn't do without him, and I
think he knew it.
[Illustration: "SNATCHING UP A GUN AS HE RAN."]
But I had yielded too easily. Andreas had established a precedent. He
insisted, in a quiet, positive manner, on accompanying me to every
subsequent battle; and I had to consent, always taking his pledge that
he would obey the injunctions I might lay upon him. And, as a matter of
course, he punctually and invariably violated that pledge when the
crisis of the fighting was drawing to a head, and just when this "peace
at any price" man could not control the bloodthirst that was
parching him.
One never knows how events are to fall out. It happened that this
resolution on the part of Andreas to accompany me into the fights once
assuredly saved my life. It was on the day of Djunis, the last battle
fought by the Servians. In the early part of the day there was a good
deal of scattered woodland fighting in front of the entrenched line,
which they abandoned when the Turks came on in earnest. Andreas and I
were among the trees trying to find a position from which something was
to be seen, when all of a sudden I, who was in advance, plumped right
into the centre of a small scouting party of Turks. They tore me out of
the saddle, and I had given myself up for lost--for the Turks took no
prisoners, their cheerful practice being to slaughter first and then
abominably to mutilate--when suddenly Andreas dashed in among my
captors, shouting aloud in a language which I took to be Turkish, since
he bellowed "Effendi" as he pointed to me. He had thrown away his
billycock and substituted a fez, which he afterwards told me he always
carried in case of accidents, and in one hand he waved a dingy piece of
parchment with a seal dangling from it, which I assumed was some
obsolete firman. The result was truly amazing, and the scene had some
real humour in it. With profound salaams, the Turks unhanded me, helped
me to mount, and, as I rode off at a tangent with Andreas at my horse's
head, called after me what sounded like friendly farewells. When we were
back among the Russians--I don't remember seeing much of the Servians
later on that day--Andreas explained that he had passed himself for the
Turkish dragoman of a British correspondent whom the Padishah delighted
to honour, and that, after expressing a burning desire to defile the
graves of their collective female ancestry, he had assured my captors
that they might count themselves as dead men if they did not immediately
release me. To his ready-witted conduct I undoubtedly owe the ability to
write now this record of a man of curiously complicated nature.
When the campaign ended with the Servian defeat at Djunis, Andreas went
back to his headwaitership at the Serbische Krone in Belgrade. Before
leaving that capital I had the honour of being present at his nuptials,
a ceremony the amenity of which was somewhat disturbed by the violent
incursion into the sacred edifice of sundry ladies all claiming to have
prior claims on the bridegroom of the hour. They were, however,
placated, and subsequently joined the marriage feast in the great arbour
behind the Krone. Andreas faithfully promised to come to me to the ends
of the earth on receipt of a telegram, if I should require his services,
and he were alive.
[Illustration: "ANDREAS DASHED IN AMONG MY CAPTORS."]
Next spring the Russo-Turkish war broke out, and I hurried eastward in
time to see the first Cossack cross the Pruth. I had telegraphed to
Andreas from England to meet me at Bazias on the Danube below Belgrade.
Bazias is the place where the railway used to end, and where we took
steamer for the Lower Danube. Andreas was duly on hand, ready and
serviceable as of old, a little fatter, and a trifle more consequential
than when we had last parted. He was, if possible, rather more at home
in Bucharest than he had been in Belgrade, and recommended me to
Brofft's Hotel, in comparison with which the charges of the Brunswick in
New York are infinitesimal. He bought my wagon and team, he found riding
horses when they were said to be unprocurable, he constructed a most
ingenious tent, of which the wagon was, so to speak, the roof-tree, he
laid in stores, arranged for relays of couriers, and furnished me with a
coachman in the person of a Roumanian Jew who he one day owned was a
distant connection, and whose leading attribute was, that he could
survive more sleep than any other human being I have ever known. We took
the field auspiciously, Mr. Frederic Villiers, the war artist of the
London _Graphic_, being my campaigning comrade. Thus early I discerned a
slight rift in the lute. Andreas did not like Villiers, which showed his
bad taste, or rather, perhaps, the narrowness of his capacity of
affection; and I fear Villiers did not much like Andreas, whom he
thought too familiar. This was true, and it was my fault; but really it
was with difficulty that I could bring myself to treat Andreas as a
servant. He was more, in my estimation, in the nature of the
confidential major-domo, and to me he was simply invaluable. Villiers
had to chew his moustache, and glower discontentedly at Andreas.
I had some good couriers for the conveyance of despatches back across
the Danube to Bucharest, whence everything was telegraphed to London;
but they were essentially fair-weather men. The casual courier may be
alert, loyal, and trustworthy; he may be relied on to try his honest
best, but it is not to be expected of him that he will greatly dare and
count his life but as dross when his incentive to enterprise is merely
filthy lucre. But I could trust Andreas to dare and to endure--to
overcome obstacles, and, if man could, to "get there," where, in the
base-quarters in Bucharest, the amanuenses were waiting to copy out in
round hand for the foreign telegraphist the rapid script of the
correspondent scribbling for life in the saddle or the cleft of a
commanding tree while the shells were whistling past. We missed him
dreadfully when he was gone--even Villiers, who liked good cooking,
owned to thinking long for his return. For, in addition to his other
virtues, Andreas was a capital cook. It is true that his courses had a
habit of arriving at long and uncertain intervals. After a dish of
pungent stew, no other viands appearing to loom in the near future,
Villiers and myself would betake ourselves to smoking, and perhaps on a
quiet day would lapse into slumber. From this we would be aroused by
Andreas to partake of a second course of roast chicken, the bird having
been alive and unconscious of its impending fate when the first course
had been served. No man is perfect, and as regarded Andreas there were
some petty spots on the sun. He had, for instance, a mania for the
purchase of irrelevant poultry, and for accommodating the fowls in our
wagon, tied by the legs, against the day of starvation, which he always,
but causelessly, apprehended. I do not suppose any reader has ever had
any experience of domestic poultry as bedfellows, and I may caution him
earnestly against making any such experiment.
I do not know whether it is a detraction from Andreas's worth to mention
that another characteristic of his was the habit of awaking us in the
still watches of the night, for the purpose of imparting his views on
recondite phases of the great Eastern question. But how trivial were
such peccadilloes in a man who was so resolute not to be beaten in
getting my despatch to the telegraph wire, that once, when three
pontoons of the bridge across the Danube were sunk, he crossed the gap
hand over hand by the hand-rope, sloshing down with the current as the
slack of the rope gave to his weight! Andreas became quite an
institution in the Russian camp. When Ignatieff, the Tsar's intimate,
the great diplomatist who has now curiously fizzled out, would honour us
by partaking sometimes of afternoon tea in our tent, he would call
Andreas by his name and call him "Molodetz"--the Russian for "brave
fellow." In the Servian campaign Dochtouroff had got him the Takova
cross, which Andreas sported with great pride, and Ignatieff used to
tell him that the Tsar was seriously thinking of conferring on him the
Cross of St. George, badinage which Andreas took as dead earnest.
MacGahan used gravely to entreat him to take greater care of his
invaluable life, and hint that if any calamity occurred to him, the
campaign would _ipso facto_ come to an end. Andreas knew that MacGahan
was quizzing him, but it was exceedingly droll how he purred and bridled
under the light touch of that genial humourist, whose merits his own
countrymen, to my thinking, have never adequately recognised. The old
story of a prophet having scant honour in his own country.
[Illustration: "CROSSED THE GAP HAND OVER HAND."]
After the long strain of the desperate but futile attack made by the
Russians on Plevna in the early part of the September of the war, I fell
a victim to the malarial fever of the Lower Danube, and had to be
invalided back to Bucharest. The illness grew upon me, and my condition
became very serious. Worthy Andreas nursed me with great tenderness and
assiduity in the lodgings to which I had been brought, since they would
not accept a fever patient at Brofft's. After some days of wretchedness
I became delirious, and, of course, lost consciousness; my last
recollection was of Andreas wetting my parched lips with lemonade. When
I recovered my senses, and looked out feebly, there was nobody in the
room. How long I had been unconscious I had no idea. I lay there in a
half stupor till evening, unable from weakness to summon any assistance.
In the dusk came the English doctor who had been attending me. "Where is
Andreas?" he asked. I could not tell him. "He was here last night," he
said; "you have been delirious for seven days." The woman of the house
was summoned. She had not seen Andreas since the previous night, but,
busy about her own domestic affairs, had no suspicion until she entered
the room that Andreas was not with me still.
Andreas never returned. It appeared that he had taken away all his
belongings. One day, when gradually mending, I put my hand under the
pillow with intent to find my watch, which was an heirloom, and wind it
up. I could find no watch. No more could I find the bag of ducats which
was alongside the watch before I lost my senses. Search was made
throughout the room without success, and, with whatever reluctance to
believe a thing so utterly unlikely, I could not refrain from the
conviction that Andreas must have carried off both money and watch.
The thought caused a relapse, but at length I attained convalescence,
and was able to drive out. But the doctor was firm that during the now
imminent winter I was not to return to the field. Fortunately, my able
colleagues, MacGahan and Millet, were there; and I was therefore the
less distressed by Dr. ----'s peremptory sentence on me. I was
condemned to return to England as soon as I should be strong enough to
travel.
When I had to leave the Plevna front, my colleagues temporarily took
charge of my field equipment. But I had brought back to Bucharest my
best riding horse, and during my illness he had been standing at livery
in the stables of the English Tramway Company. Determining now on the
melancholy necessity of selling an animal which had on many a hard day
and many a long night-ride served me staunchly, I drove to the stables,
and instructed the manager to sell my horse. "Your horse!" he exclaimed,
in evident surprise; "your horse was sold weeks ago! Your man, Andreas,
came here with a message that we were to dispose of it; and I sold it
next day to General Todleben on his way through Bucharest to take the
command before Plevna. It fetched a good price, 105 ducats, more than
you gave for it; Andreas called for the money, and, of course, I gave
it to him."
So Andreas was thief and rogue--deliberate thief and rogue. I was angry,
but I was yet more heart-sorry that so fine and true a native should
have thus fallen. Just as I was leaving Bucharest for England, a letter
came to me from a friend in Galatz, a commercial city of Roumania, near
the mouth of the Danube. Its P.S. only is worth quoting. "So you have
parted with your man, Andreas. I thought from what you had told me that
you would retain him for life. He is here now, I saw him drunk in the
street yesterday. He told Kennedy that he believed you were dead."
[Illustration: "ANDREAS DROPPED ON HIS KNEES."]
I went straight to Galatz, a long half-day's journey. Andreas was not
hard to find; he was smoking in the "Concordia" saloon. I saw him before
he saw me; he had a furtive air, he was pallid and his lips twitched; he
looked to me on the verge of _delirium tremens_. I approached him from
behind, and uttered the one word, "Andreas!" At the word, he started as
if he had been shot, spun round, dropped on his knees, with his hands
raised beseechingly, and cried in a broken voice, "Before God, master, I
thought you were dead, else I should never have done it! I have not had
a happy moment since I threw away my good name--I could not go home!
Kill me, send me to prison, punish me how you choose. I shall rejoice to
suffer!" And the poor wretch grovelled before me on his stomach.
I had meant to punish him; but he was too broken for chastisement. I
could not send to prison the man who had saved my life among the
pine-trees of Djunis. I wonder if he really thought me dead--not that,
if so, his act was thereby materially palliated. And I thought of two
little sentences which my mother taught me when I was a child: "Judge
not that ye be not judged," and "Lead us not into temptation." I pulled
the man on to his feet and grasped his hand, then with the words, "Give
me my father's watch--good-bye, Andreas. I shall remember all the good
in you, and forget those last bad days." I turned from him, and quitted
the "Concordia" with a lump in my throat that I could not swallow down.
* * * * *
TOLD BY THE COLONEL.
X.
A MATRIMONIAL ROMANCE.
BY W. L. ALDEN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK.
"And by the way," continued the Colonel, "a curious thing about this
Josiah Wilson was that he was married for fifteen years and never had
any wife whatever."
The Colonel had begun a story concerning one Josiah Wilson, which
promised to be interesting, but his incidental allusion to Mr. Wilson's
matrimonial experience awakened our curiosity, and we begged him to
interrupt his narrative long enough to tell us how it came to pass that
Josiah was a married man who never had a wife.
[Illustration: "HOWLED FOR HELP."]
"The marriage laws in the United States," said the Colonel, giving his
chair an increased tilt backwards, which was his usual way of beginning
a fresh anecdote, "are as peculiar in their way as are the divorce laws.
You would think to look at them that they would permit anybody to marry
anybody else in any way that either of them might choose, but for all
that they sometimes make it impossible for a man or a woman to get
married. There was a couple who intended to be married in a balloon,
which is a style of lunacy that is quite fashionable in some parts of
the country, though I can't see why a man should want to risk his neck
in a balloon on his wedding day unless it is that it takes so much
courage to be married at all that a man forgets all about such minor
dangers as are connected with ballooning. The bride, the minister, and
two witnesses of assorted sexes went up in the balloon at the appointed
time, and, naturally, the bridegroom intended to go with them, but he
accidentally caught his foot in a neglected guy-rope, and went up head
downwards about twenty feet below the car. The party in the balloon
could not haul him up because they could not get hold of the rope, and
the bride would not consent to give up the trip, because the groom had
always been a little shy, and she was afraid that, if she let him go
this time, she might not be able to land him again. So the parson went
on with the ceremony, and the groom made most of his responses in bad
language, and howled for help when he wasn't swearing. When the ceremony
was over, the aeronaut managed to land the balloon without seriously
damaging the bridegroom, but when, a year or two afterwards, the bride
wanted to get her divorce, the court held that there had never been any
marriage, for the reason that both the groom and the bride had not
appeared together in the presence of the officiating minister, and that,
furthermore, there was no provision in the law which would permit a man
to be married upside down.
[Illustration: "SMITH'S BULL-DOG."]
"But to get back to Josiah Wilson. He lived in Indiana, close to the
boundary line between that State and Illinois, and he courted Melinda
Smith, a young woman who lived a little way up the mountain side with
her father and three brothers. The girl was anxious to be married, but
her family was dead against it. You see Josiah was a Republican and a
Methodist, while the Smiths were Democrats and Baptists, and, naturally,
they hated each other like poison, and one night as old man Smith and
Josiah met on their way to rival prayer meetings, they exchanged
revolver shots, without, however, doing any harm. Then once Josiah had
most of the calf of his leg taken off by the Smiths' bull-dog, and twice
the Smith boys came into the sitting-room where Josiah was calling on
Melinda, and suggested to him with their shot-guns that he had better go
home. Gradually Josiah and Melinda came to the conclusion that her
family was resolved to discourage the match, so they determined to elope
and be married without the knowledge or consent of anybody.
"One dark night Josiah carried a ladder and planted it under Melinda's
window. He had advised her to walk out of the front door, which was
always left unlocked at night, but she refused, saying that if she was
going to elope she should do it in the proper way, and that if Josiah
had no respect for her, she had some little respect for herself. She
climbed down the ladder with a good deal of difficulty, because she
insisted that Josiah should help her, and also that he should stand
forty yards away, for reasons connected with her ankles, and he found it
rather trying to follow out these contradictory orders. However, Melinda
reached the ground at last, and the pair started in a carriage that had
been waiting just around a bend in the road, in company with the
Methodist minister. Their plan was to drive to the next town and there
to be married, but it happened that one of the Smith boys, being
restless, got up in the night, and, looking out of the window, saw the
ladder standing at Melinda's window. In about twenty minutes after the
young people had started, the whole Smith family and their shot-guns
were following the runaways in a waggon, and gaining on them fast.
"The Methodist minister, whose hearing was unusually good, heard the
sound of hoofs before Josiah noticed it, and told the young people that
there was not the least doubt that they were pursued, and would be
overtaken in a very few minutes. 'And then, you know,' he added, 'the
chances are that, being Baptists, they will shoot first, and ask for
explanations afterwards. The only thing for us to do is to get the
marriage ceremony over before they come up. Then they will see that
opposition is of no use, and will listen to reason.'
[Illustration: "THEY WERE MARRIED."]
"Josiah and Melinda at once consented, and the parson, noticing a little
clearing in the woods on the left hand side of the road, and a flat sort
of tombstone standing in the middle of it, said that he would stand on
that stone and marry his young friends so quick that it would make their
hair curl. He was particularly glad to meet with a handy tombstone, for
he said that a tombstone was the next thing to a church, and that to be
married by the side of a tomb would be almost as solemn as to be married
in a minister's study. So the party hastily descended; the parson
mounted the stone; Josiah and Melinda joined hands in front of him, and
they were married, and the parson had kissed the bride and pocketed his
fee just as the Smiths' waggon drove up and the Smith boys cocked their
guns and covered the party. But the parson was wide awake. He had his
revolver out and old man Smith covered before anybody had taken aim at
him, but, instead of shooting, he remarked that he was a minister of the
blessed gospel of peace; that there was no necessity for bloodshed, and
that he would blow a hole through old Smith unless the Smith boys
lowered their weapons and consented to argue the matter. 'The fact is,
Colonel Smith,' said the parson, 'you're too late. The young people are
legally married, and the sooner you accept the situation the better. I
married them not two minutes ago, standing on that identical tombstone.'
[Illustration: "'YOU'LL COME STRAIGHT HOME WITH ME.'"]
"Colonel Smith was a lawyer, and the sharpest one in that part of the
country. He saw the force of the minister's remarks, so he told the boys
to put up their guns, and he shook hands with the minister. Then he
inquired, in a careless sort of way, where Josiah and Melinda had stood
while they were being married. The parson showed the footprints of the
bride and groom, and then Colonel Smith turned to Melinda and said,
'You'll come straight home with me. There hasn't been any marriage yet.
That stone is the boundary mark between Indiana and Illinois, and you
were standing in Indiana and that other idiot was standing in Illinois
when the parson tried to marry you. Nobody can marry in two States at
the same time, and I shan't recognise the pretended marriage till a
court of law compels me to do so, which will be never. I hope this will
teach you the folly of fooling with Methodism. When you want to get
married next time try a Baptist minister, who will know the difference
between a tombstone and a boundary mark.' There were too many Smiths,
and they were too well armed to be reasoned with successfully, so the
upshot was that Melinda went home with her family, and Josiah and the
parson went to see a lawyer.
"The next day Josiah brought a suit for divorce against Melinda. It was
a friendly suit, you understand, and his only object was to test the
question of the validity of his marriage, for, of course, no man can get
a divorce unless he first proves that he is married. Old man Smith
conducted the case on his side, and a lawyer named Starkweather, who is
now a member of the Illinois Legislature, appeared for Josiah Wilson.
Colonel Smith argued that while the parson who conducted the alleged
marriage ceremony could undoubtedly have married a couple in the State
of Indiana, he could not marry a woman in Indiana to a man in Illinois,
for the reason that the man and the woman could not be in the same place
while they were in two different commonwealths, and that hence Josiah
and Melinda had not legally appeared together before the officiating
minister. Furthermore, he argued that the minister at the time of the
pretended marriage was standing neither in Indiana nor in Illinois, but
on the boundary line; that the statute defined the boundary line as 'an
imaginary line' running from such and such a point to such and such a
point, and that a minister who stands in a purely imaginative locality
stands virtually nowhere, and hence cannot perform any function of
his calling.
"On the other hand, Josiah's lawyer claimed that the minister had
married Melinda Smith in the State of Indiana; that consequently she
must have been married to somebody, and that that somebody was
unquestionably Josiah Wilson. As to the point that the minister stood in
an imaginary locality because, as was alleged, he stood on the boundary
line, the lawyer maintained that it was a physical impossibility that a
minister weighing two hundred and fifty pounds could stand in a purely
imaginative place. Moreover, he was prepared to prove that, while
performing the ceremony, at least one of the minister's feet was in the
State of Indiana, which was sufficient to make him legally present in
that State.
"The arguments lasted three days, and the court before which it was
tried, consisting of three judges, took all the third day to deliver its
verdict. It decided that Melinda Smith was legally married to some
person unknown, though not to Josiah Wilson, and that Josiah Wilson was
also married to some unknown woman, who was not Melinda Smith, whoever
else she might be; that no marriage between the plaintiff and the
defendant had ever taken place, and that no divorce could be granted,
but that if either of them married anyone else, he or she would be
guilty of bigamy.
[Illustration: "SHE WAS A GOOD DEAL CAST DOWN."]
"The Smiths, with the exception of Melinda, were delighted with the
decision, for it made it reasonably certain that Josiah could never be
recognised as her husband. She was a good deal cast down about it, for,
like every other Indiana girl, she had looked forward to being married
and divorced as the natural lot of woman. Now it appeared that she was
married, but in such an unsatisfactory way, that she could never have a
husband, and never be divorced from anyone. As for Josiah, he was
furious, but there was no help for it, the law was against him, and, as
a law-abiding man, he was obliged to respect it, especially as he could
not hope to kill off all four of the Smiths, if he decided to make a
family feud of it; he himself having no family whatever, and no one to
help him to keep up his end of the feud.
"For the next fifteen years Josiah lived a single man except in name,
and Melinda mourned her hard fate and kept house for her father and
brothers; but one day Josiah's lawyer, who was by this time in the
Legislature, came to him and offered to have his marriage to Melinda
made legal in all respects for five hundred dollars. The lawyer was so
certain that he could do this that he was willing to wait for his pay
until after he had gained a verdict, and Josiah, after a little
bargaining such as every self-respecting man would have made, in his
place, consented to the lawyer's terms. It seems that the lawyer had
accidentally discovered that there had been a mistake in the survey of
part of the boundary line between Indiana and Illinois, and at the very
place where Josiah and Melinda were married, A rectification of this
mistake would move the line ten feet west, and so place the spot where
the pair stood during their wedding entirely within the state of
Indiana. The proper steps to obtain the rectification of the boundary
were taken, and it was rectified. Then Melinda in her turn began a suit
for divorce against Josiah, and had no difficulty in proving the
marriage and in obtaining a decree. Josiah paid the lawyer his five
hundred dollars, and was overjoyed at being finally able to call his
Melinda his own. But he met with a little disappointment. Now that
Melinda had obtained her divorce she thought she might as well live up
to it, and marry a fresh husband. So she married the Methodist minister,
who had just lost his third wife, and lived happily ever afterwards.
[Illustration: "OFFERED TO HAVE HIS MARRIAGE MADE LEGAL."]
"It was just after this that Josiah, being perhaps made a little
reckless by his disappointment, became involved in the affair that I was
going to tell you about when you interrupted me, and wanted to hear
about his marriage. Matrimony is a mighty curious thing, and you can
never tell precisely how it is going to turn out. That is one reason why
I was never married but once, though I spent ten years of my life in
Chicago, and had friends at bar who stood ready to obtain divorces for
me at any moment and without a dollar of expense."
* * * * *
[Illustration: IDLERS.]
* * * * *
"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."
No. II.--GEORGE GROSSMITH AND THE HUMOUR OF HIM.
BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.
(_Photographs by Messrs. Fraddle and Young and Alfred Ellis._)
[Illustration: MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]
A little, slight man, with a thin, clever, mobile, clean-shaven face, a
sharp inquisitive nose surmounted by a perpetual pair of _pince-nez_,
and a rather sarcastic mouth, from which wit and humour as light and
airy as the cigarette smoke which accompanied each remark
continually flowed.
Mr. George Grossmith, the well-known actor and society clown.
He stands on the hearthrug of his own special sanctum in his handsome
house in Dorset Square, with his back to the fire, cigarette in his
mouth, his hands now in his pockets, now waving in the air, as he
vivaciously tells me the story of his busy, energetic and wonderfully
interesting life.
[Illustration: MRS. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]
"I was born," said he, "in 1847. I come of a family of actors and
reciters. My father, whose portrait you see there on the wall, was a
well-known lecturer and entertainer. Sixty or seventy years ago my uncle
created a great sensation as a child actor, and he was commonly known as
the 'celebrated infant Roscius.' Come out into the hall," continued the
lively little entertainer, "and I will show you some old engravings
which represent him in his favourite characters. Then my brother Weedon,
as you know, is, of course, a well-known actor, as well as a clever
artist, and part author with myself of several sketches which have
appeared in _Punch_. My eldest son now begins to display the family
tendency to a most alarming extent. For my own part, I started my career
as a reporter at Bow Street Police Court, a training which I have found
invaluable in many respects ever since. My subsequent history as actor
and society clown is so well known that I need not trouble you with it
any further."
"I suppose you find the taste of your audiences has gone up considerably
within the last twenty years, do you not?"
"Why, yes," he replied. "They wouldn't stand to-day what they used to
roar at then. My music is quite elaborate compared with the two or three
chords which easily satisfied people in the sixties and early seventies.
Listen to this," continued my host, as he sat down to the _piano_ and
struck a couple of very simple chords. Then he glided softly into what
he termed a modern accompaniment. It was all the difference between "Ten
Little Niggers" and a slumber song of Schubert.
[Illustration: MR. GROSSMITH'S HOUSE.]
"And do you find the public very critical?"
"Well," he replied, with a smile, "they are very kind. It is your
professional critic who is severe, though I can honestly say they
invariably treat me well. Criticism up to a certain point is good
enough. Beyond that point it is absolutely disabling to me. My father
was a very severe critic. When we went out together he used to take the
first half-hour, and then go to the back of the hall and criticise me.
But it so hampered me by causing me to think of and consider every pose
that I had to beg of him to desist. And then again, as regards
criticism, I always think--it may be very conceited on my part--that I
know a great deal more what the public want than my critics do. I
declare to you I should have to take everything out of my sketches if I
attempted to carry out all the suggestions that are made to me. I can
absolutely feel the public pulse after so many years upon the platform.
I am almost always right. When I first started 'See me Dance the Polka'
it fell quite flat. I gave it up, although I felt sure it ought to go.
The public then demanded it, and it went with a swing. The public had
changed its mind. Not I."
[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]
"And how do you prepare your sketches?" said I, as Mr. Grossmith lit
another cigarette, and took up his position on the hearthrug again.
"Anyhow and anywhere the idea comes to me for a sketch. I am seated in a
railway train, and I think of a sea-side sketch. I close my eyes and try
to recall every single feature of interest on a crowded fashionable
beach in the height of the season. Nothing is too unimportant. The way
in which an old lady settles herself comfortably into her chair, the
manner in which a man, especially a shy man, walks into the room, all
these things, slightly exaggerated, but still true to nature, are
immensely appreciated. First I have the idea, then I elaborate,
sometimes for months, then I produce on the stage, and the people say,
'How remarkable it is you should invent all this on the spur of the
moment!' That, of course, is a great compliment. The song-writing is
always amusing," continued Mr. Grossmith, as he placed in my hand a
little notebook in which were suggestions and elaborations innumerable.
One thing I noticed, which he himself had condemned, but which was
decidedly amusing, although it has never been allowed to see the
light of day:
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]
"I've been engaged to many,
Quite a score of times at least;
I don't think I with safety _can say_
Where I met my first _fiancée_.
Oh! 'tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all;
So I may say I have loved and _lost a lot_,
And my fickleness has _cost a lot_."
"Ah!" said Mr. Grossmith, as he leaned over me and saw what I was
reading; "my better judgment told me that was not good enough for
the public."
Then came a pencilled note in this little book, "You can take a horse to
water, but can't make him drink." "That gave me an idea," cried Mr.
Grossmith, as he sprang to his feet. "You can take a boy to the piano,
but you can't make him play.' Thought I to myself, that would make a
capital sketch. And here is how I set about it," continued he, as he
proceeded to illustrate his remarks. "Imagine a little fellow in the
corner there. I then begin in dumb show to encourage him to come to the
piano. 'Come on, my boy; you know you can play that pretty piece you
played yesterday. Come on, there's a good fellow!' Wonderful what you
can do with persuasion! He refuses. I attempt to lead him to the piano.
He won't budge an inch. I carry him under my arm and seat him in front
of the instrument, the audience roaring all the time. At last his
mistakes are so many and so ridiculous, I lose all patience and catch
him a mighty box upon the ears! Tableau!! Of course there is no boy on
the platform at all, I am quite alone, but I have so thoroughly lost
myself in my imagination that people have declared years after, 'Oh! but
I am quite sure you had a boy with you; why, don't you remember how you
boxed his ears?'"
[Illustration: "I ENCOURAGE HIM."]
[Illustration: "I ATTEMPT TO LEAD HIM."]
[Illustration: "I CARRY HIM."]
[Illustration: "I LOSE ALL PATIENCE."]
No less marvellous than his power of acting is his power of mimicry. "I
will show you how I do Irving," said he, and in a moment the little man
had ruffled his hair, had assumed to the life not only Irving's peculiar
gait, but, even more remarkable still, had managed to secure almost
exactly the very expression of the great tragedian's face.
[Illustration: "HOW I DO IRVING."]