_Which tells, with quite Unnecessary Frankness, of what chanced at the
Tavern of_ “The Cock and Bull” _in Fleet Street_
In the dining-room of _The Cock and Bull_ was laughter, and the clink
of glasses, and some hiccup--for the dinner was long since at an end,
and the guests held much wine--not wholly without giddiness and the
confusion of tongues. There was more than a hint of Babel.
It was the feast of Saint Valentine’s Day, and the commercial
gentlemen, fore-gathered there, made the sentiment at _The Cock and
Bull_ this night sacred to the Ladies.
Major Modeyne, being in the chair, sat at the head of the table; and
a-down it, along both sides, were city men; and at the end of all the
poetic, sallow, and vague-eyed landlord of the tavern, who, so repute
wagged a whispering tongue, had not been above taking his Double First
at Oxford--a vague prize to your ordinary mortal that savours of the
mysteries of Eleusis and a full hand of trumps at the gaming-table of
life, though ’tis said to be useless enough, being of the nature of
fireworks in the grey fastnesses of the skull. There’s something of the
awesome in big names. However that may be, our landlord was a gloomy
fellow in his cups, and ran to latinities, so that the wit came mostly
from the head, where was the Authority of the Chair--indeed, Modeyne
had repartee so long as he could keep an eyelid up, though fragments of
it had served the world of badinage before.
The debauch being dedicate to the ladies, then, our gloomy landlord
raised the glass to the respectable sentiment of _Sweethearts and
Wives_.
And, the toast being drunk, as indeed was the company, the Chair, as
an excuse to empty the glasses again, gave the toast of retort, _Other
Fellows’ Sweethearts and Wives_--the hiccup which was the full-stop
to the Major’s waggery being drowned in a shout of laughter and the
noisy drinking of the toast. Indeed, they stood up to it, one foot on
chair and one on table, giving it with musical honours, though, as the
draper, a fellow of polygamous sentiments from his own showing, said:
“This standing on chairs displayed a childlike confidence in the design
of creation and man’s destiny under all conditions to maintain the
upright position on but two legs, that would have done credit to a
Sunday-school teacher.”
He himself, reeling at his own dazzling elevation, grasped the great
lustre chandelier that depended from the ceiling, which, flaring
magnificently, gave way with him, so that he fell with it amongst the
wine-glasses; and whilst they plucked splinters of broken glass from
the lower end of him, he whimsically owned his contrition at having
tempted Providence by not sitting anchored to the good seat that
had been assigned to him. Still, said he, commerce must follow the
army; and the Major had the habit of forlorn hopes, having acquired
in youth and on the tented field the taste for “withering fires” and
“bloody engagements”--he said this with all apologies--hiccup--to any
churchwardens who might be present--hiccup--but he _meant_ bloody
engagements.
As a fact, these commercial gentlemen adored the army and navy--never
were such fire-eaters as they. A tale of carnage, as long as the
old flag came out a-top, thrilled them and roused their maddest
enthusiasms. They thundered applause upon the heels of the bloodthirsty
sentiment. They were ready to die, so they averred hiccuping, in their
very cups for the divine right of their king and the infallibility of
the upper classes. Was never such service of devotion as they swore
to the “Thin Red Line” and the “Handy Man.” Gods, it made the blood
leap to hear them--they were thirsting for self-sacrifice--each one of
them. Indeed for the dear old flag they were prepared to fling away
Christianity--riches--suburban villa--happy home--everything. The
glasses leaped to the thunder of their emotions.
Here, indeed, were they all aristocrat--hating the democracy with a
bitter hatred. The lord mayor’s coach drove at the slow trot through
all their varied ambitions, its golden caparisoned horses making it to
glitter a fixed star to their designs, a guide to their hopes--and,
from that, the ultimate step into the peerage, riches, powdered
footmen, and marble halls. It was all tucked away tight behind the
bloodshot eyes, in their secret imaginations. When they went to bed
at night, took off their trousers, and blew out the light, the dream
of these things passed in pageant along the top of their foot-rails.
To be a Nob--so they put it with vulgar lip, when confessing to their
own souls--that was the Ultimate Thing. They believed in their God--a
little hesitantly on occasions; but their belief knew no wavering in
the divine inspiration of the statesmanship of the House of Lords.
The polygamous draper but echoed the general sentiment when he
condemned the vulgarity of the masses.
The British workman had his whole contempt--(thus he delivered
himself)--the British workman did as little as he could, and got a
ridiculously high wage that was so much outside his needs that he
was always more or less drunk--hiccup--gen’rally more--hiccup--in
the public-house--hiccup hiccup--and the--gin-palace. What did these
gorgeous and brightly illuminated drinking-saloons that shone in the
darkness of the darkest street mean but the widespread overpayment
of the working-man and his consequently seeking in these costly
pleasure-houses of vice, when his so-called day’s work was done, his
illicit--hiccup--illicit joys.
Long and sustained applause.
“Hee-haw!” cooed the Major. “Too-ra-loora-lay.”
The draper turned upon him:
“Yer can’t get over it, sir--hiccup--_there_ it is.” He swept his hand
towards the landlord: “There’s your workman--hiccup--and there’s your
public-house”--he swept his hand to the Major.
The Major rapped upon the table:
“Order! order!” cried he--“the chairman is _not_ a public-house.”
He giggled, and titters turned to laughter.
The erotic draper sat down:
“The army keeps a-jumpin’ on the bloomin’ chest of commerce to-night,”
said he, “until I forget--hiccup--forget my intentions.”
The Major begged to remind the gentleman that this was not a Labour
night, but the Feast of St. Valentine, when even the greyest sparrows
skipped amorous with love’s delight along the homely necessary
waterspout.
The draper apologized handsomely; and they drank together.
The draper was now called upon, as a man of taste in the matter, to
make the speech of the evening: The Ladies--Lovely Woman.
He arose and spoke.
He apologized for having disturbed the harmony of the evening by his
earlier essay, but the British workman was the thorn in his side----
A waggish commercial person, an atheistic upholsterer and something
of a rake, called out that they had all understood that it was the
splinter of a sherry glass that had been drawn from the wound.
The Major rose and called for order--their honest draper only used
a metaphor, a So-to-Speak--besides, the splinter of glass had not
been removed from the gentleman’s side, nor by any stretch of the
imagination nor tribute to delicacy could it be called his side. The
affair of the wine-glass, and therefore all reference to it, must be
avoided--it was a painful subject, and the incident was now closed.
“Haw-haw!” guffawed the rakish upholsterer. “But the wound ain’t--it
was our honest draper that re-opened the wound.”
The Major’s eyes twinkled:
“Order, order,” cried he. “The wound, sir, and the incident are now
closed. The subject before the house is Lovely Woman.”
He sat down.
The draper licked his lips sullenly, and proceeded.
“Gentlemen,” said he, and he thrust his thumbs into the armholes of
his waistcoat, raising a drowsy eyebrow--“woman was once content to
_be_. Hiccup. To trip through the banquet of existence appealing to
man as the Beautiful; and, being beautiful, to be loved--to sit on
the knees of man and kiss him kisses. She is no longer content. Woman
has become a danger--a menace--hiccup--a pronounced menace. Damn this
hiccup! Woman, I say, has become a menace to the State. Woman is
no longer content to be beautiful--she has come out into the noisy
thoroughfare of life and demands liberty to win her own career, and to
clean up that thoroughfare. I call it unwomanly. Yet the men, like the
asses they are--hiccup--are marrying them. But, you know, I’m against
blue-stockings----”
“Order!” cried the Major--“the ladies’ underclothes are out of order.”
The draper licked his lips and blinked:
“I withdraw the stockings,” said he--“fancy, you and me, gentlemen,
mating with a female who knows as much as we do--fancy the want of
’armony there must be in the house where the lady is our equal in
intelligence and in the--all the other things that go to make up a
man’s natural superiority--hiccup.... I’m against this Pallas Athene
business myself--the woman putting on the blooming helmet and coming
out and criticising conduct. It’s indelicate. It takes the bloom off
the peach of her modesty. Not, mind you, that I’m one as plumps too
solid for modesty. Not at all. I don’t go nap on modesty. For my part,
I like a woman who can take her buss like a live thing--as women were
meant by God’s design so to do. A woman who draws the line at honest
kissing is no woman at all--and is of the nature of a public nuisance.
A woman who is cold-blooded enough to write sonnets to her love when
she might be sitting on his knees and loving her love is committing an
offence against her Original Intention--which is a sin against nature.
I ask you, then, gentlemen, to fill your glasses and drown Modesty....”