A NOVEL kind of Christmas Box is suggested by a legend which _Mr. Punch_
lately beheld in the window of a hair-dresser's shop--"Presents for
Christmas." It was posted in the midst of a variety of Chignons. A box
containing a quantity of false hair is the Christmas-Box thereby
presented to the imagination of the passer-by. But who would offer it to
a young lady? Such a present is equivalent to the gift of a wig. It is a
Christmas-Box or a New Year's Gift of a class in which may be included
several other articles of a similar description, but more useful, and
much more ornamental. For instance, you might give a friend in need,
personal and pecuniary, a Christmas-Box in the shape of a set of
artificial teeth, or the "Guinea Jaw" of our friend the Dentist, or a
glass eye, or a gutta-percha nose, or a wooden leg.
Some of the "Presents for Christmas" above referred to were Chignons
which looked like horses' tails. Others of the Chignons for
Christmas-Boxes exhibited a remarkable resemblance to the tail of a
comet, from which eccentric luminary the idea of those prodigious
top-knots may possibly have been borrowed. Astronomy, along with
Geography and the Use of the Globes, has long formed a branch of female
education. An intelligent girl, fresh from boarding-school, if requested
to describe the _Coma Berenices_ might, or might not inform her
questioner that it was a celestial Chignon.
* * * * *
="Our Wig!"=
Among the names of possible candidates for the Speakership was that of
MR. SAMUEL WHITBREAD, Member for Bedford. He would be an excellent
Speaker, but, as matter of humanity, _Punch_ must have opposed this
selection. Imagine a triumph of the Anti-Liquor League, imagine the
success of a Bill for putting down Porter, and imagine a grandson of
WHITBREAD having to say "That this Bill do pass!"
* * * * *
=MY HEALTH.=
[Illustration: H]OME we return from otter-hunting. Tired, but expecting
a "Nicht wi' RUDDOCK." He is to be at dinner, and a few very intimates
are coming in the evening. The few "very intimates" have no distance to
drive--merely a matter of eight miles or so.
From my window I hear carriages drawing up exactly at two minutes to
seven o'clock. Punctuality in Cornwall is the soul of pleasure.
Odd: at the last moment I can't find either a collar or a white tie!
"Come, Desperation, lend thy furious hold!" Rummage in the drawers, in
the portmanteau. Staggered. Where can it be?--the collar, I mean.
Rummage again. Getting hot and excited. Ought always to come down to
dinner calm, cool, and collected. I shall be the only one late, and _I_
hadn't to come twelve miles to dinner. No excuse except the real
one,--"Couldn't find my collars, or a tie." Only one thing for it. Ring
the bell, and ask servant.
"O yes. Sir! We were changing the drawers from this room to Master's. I
dessay, Sir, they're in there." They are. Rapture!
_Flash._--Stirring subject for operatic and descriptive music--A
Gentleman's Toilet in Difficulties.
_Next Difficulty._--Drop a stud suddenly. Hear it fall close by my foot.
In fact, I feel, from some peculiar sensation _in_ my foot, that it is
here, on the floor, close to me. No. Hunt for it. Can't see it anywhere.
[_Mem._--Never travel without duplicate studs. Won't, another time.]
Still stooping: feeling about the carpet. Hands getting dirty again,
hair coming unbrushed, face growing warm and red.
_Flash._--The stud being, as it were, an excrescence on the carpet, can
be perceived by lying on the floor, (like an Indian listening to hear if
anybody's coming,) and directing your eye in a right line. After this,
clothes-brush required. Stud found at last exactly where I thought it
had been at first.
_Another Difficulty._--Time getting on. 7.10. PENDELL by this time
anxious below. Every one arrived. I picture to myself RUDDOCK in the
drawing-room, filling up the _mauvais quart d'heure_ by satirical
reflections on the dandy (me) who hadn't time enough to beautify himself
for dinner.
I should be down now, if it wasn't for the button on my collar-band. I
feel that it's all over with it, if not touched gently. Once off, and
worry will be my portion for the remainder of the evening. And I know
what is the result of attempting to pin it.
_Note._--"Curses not loud, but deep." Quotation adapted to
circumstances.
_Last Difficulty, I hope._--After treating the button with suppressed
emotion, dash at the white tie. I find myself asking myself, "Why the
washerwoman _will_ fold it all wrong, and starch it so that the
slightest crinkle shows?" I have no answer. Of course at any other
moment I could tie it at once, and have done with it; but now first one
end's too long, then the other end's too short; then, on the third
trial, the middle part somehow gets hopelessly tucked into itself, and I
am pulling at it, by mistake, for one of the ends. At last I get it
something like all right, but not everything that could be desired.
Waistcoat. Coat. Handkerchief! Where's handkerchief? Where is--... ha!
Down-stairs.
Everybody waiting, evidently. Apology. "Ah!" says PENDELL, "um--ah--now
you've come, we'll--um----" and rings the bell.
I recognise some of our companions out otter-hunting to-day. Galaxy,
too, of Cornish beauty, which means the darkest, brightest eyes and the
clearest, freshest complexions. Not being introduced, I look about for
Old RUDDOCK. There is an elderly gentleman sitting at a table looking
over a photograph book. This is the nearest approach to Old RUDDOCK that
I can see. Dinner announced. I take in MISS BODD, of Popthlanack, and
follow the TRELISSACS, the TREGONIES of Tregivel, and MAJOR PENOLVER,
with MRS. SOMEBODY of Somewhere. Whom RUDDOCK takes, I don't know.
_A Discovery._--I am seated next to Old RUDDOCK of Ruddock, at dinner.
PENDELL introduces us. A hale, hearty, elderly gentleman, with, if any
expression at all, rather a sleepy one, as if a very little over-feeding
would send him into a doze.