(_Specially written by Walker Weird, to usher in the Year 1890_)
[Illustration]
UNREDD, the writer, and SPOYLPAPEROS, the sketcher, were in the
presence of a weird figure, that grotesquely genuflected before them.
"Fear not, my sons," explained the WEIRD, cutting a sad caper; "fear
not. _He-who-must-be-obeyed_ has need of ye. And, as _He_ has need, ye
must be well-bred," as we say in the yeast.
"And you are?--"
"The Ghost of a Joke!" murmured the extinct witticism, sadly; "and my
name is SILLIBILLI." And then a strange thing happened.
All of a sudden the Writer and the Sketcher found themselves thrust
into the presence of _He-who-must-be-obeyed_. After pushing down his
two captives, SILLIBILLI himself fell upon his hands and knees, like
a pig journeying to market. The men of the pen and pencil looked about
them, and for miles could see nothing but prostrate forms. In front of
them was a heavy white drapery, seemingly hiding a figure. At length
the curtain began to move, and suddenly, from above its folds,
appeared a most beautiful red nose--never had they seen such a long
and curved nose. Then came a voice, sweet and soft, and yet full of
power, reminding those present of something between a murmuring brook
and a thunderbolt.
"Strangers!" said the voice, in English, but much purer and more
classical English than the Arriarris talk, "Strangers, When is
the portal to a saloon not the portal to a saloon? Tell me that, O
Strangers!"
"When it is an Egyptian potsherd," stealthily whispered SILLIBILLI.
"Begone, thou white headed old fool!" cried _He-who-must-be-obeyed_,
angrily. "It is not the answer; and, if it were, who art thou to thus
reply? Begone, thou feeble cry of a donkey long defunct!" The voice
rose in its anger clear and cold, and the Writer and the Sketcher
fancied they could see two gleaming eyes above the drapery.
SILLIBILLI beat his stupid old head thrice on the ground, and crawled
out of the apartment as he had crawled into it.
[Illustration: "_It made a quaint gesture with the assistance of a
palm-tree._"]
"Neither of ye know," continued the Lord of the beautiful red nose.
"Then begone, and search for that joke--trace it to its source--to its
saucy source."
There was a pause, and then a strange thing happened. A mighty shout
of laughter rose from the very depths, and seemed to fill the entire
universe. _He_ seemed pleased, and gracefully inclined his nose as if
acknowledging a compliment. Then he continued, less sternly,
"Away to the land of the Joks, and the Judimows--the Quipps and the
Kranx. Away, to find a way!"
Once again came the roar of mighty laughter. From far, far away it
came with a dreadful muttering noise, that grew and grew to a crash
and a roar, which combined in itself all that is terrible and yet
splendid in the possibilities of sound. Then it passed away, and
disappeared in a murmured guffaw.
Then UNREDD and SPOYLPAPEROS, feeling sure of the presence of two
gleaming eyes above the beautiful red nose, turned sharply round and
fled.
And they journeyed on and on, through the snow and the ice, until
they came to the land of the desert, in which they found themselves
(strange to say) in a warmer atmosphere than that to which they had
grown accustomed in the regions of the North Pole. Then a strange
thing happened. They witnessed a fight between an elephant and a cat.
The elephant managed to get well on the bank of the river which ran
(conveniently) through the desert, in spite of the cat nipping on to
one of its legs. Gradually the cat began to swallow the leg, then the
body, then the head, until nothing but the trunk of the elephant was
left. A strange thing had happened--the elephant had been swallowed by
the cat!
"He was evidently going out of town," said UNREDD, airily.
"So I see," replied SPOYLPAPEROS, and he pointed to the trunk.
Once more came the dreadful muttering noise that ended in a roar of
laughter, and again a shadowy form floated past them--the Ghost of
a Joke! And when they looked towards the cat it too had gone, having
disappeared (so they subsequently ascertained) with a grin. They then
knew the creature's breed--it was a Cheshire cat!
And now they were in front of the Sphinx, who was looking down upon
them with a most fiendish and terrifying expression. Surrounding this
ancient Egyptian Monument were numberless scrolls (many inscribed
"[Greek: Dekl.ned--Thanks]") sent there by a forgotten people. UNREDD
picked up one of comparatively modern date. It was a strange scroll,
full of hieroglyphics and languages of many races. Here was the
ancient Greek--and the more modern Arabic. There was something that
seemed to be Russian--there a line that might be antediluvian Irish.
All jumbled up together, in seemingly hopeless confusion.
"See," cried UNREDD, excitedly, "I can make out 'When is the door of
the neighbour'"--and then he stopped.
"Quite so," replied SPOYLPAPEROS, "but it has no answer. Stay
though--what is this? "The duck of the gardener (gardener's duck)
puts his head into the pond belonging to the grandmother of the sailor
(sailor's grandmother) for the reasons of the diver (diver's reasons.)
This is very strange!"
"Indeed, it is," acquiesced UNREDD, and then he cried, on making a
farther discovery, "See the Author's name!"
And then they found inscribed on the scroll a word written as
follows:--
[Greek: OLLENDORPh].
Perfectly bewildered, they threw the paper away. Then a strange thing
happened. All of a sudden, with one accord, they put to the Sphinx the
question that _He-who-must-be-obeyed_ had asked them. The mouth of the
head seemed to move, and one of the huge eyelids appeared to quiver.
Moreover, it made a quaint gesture with the assistance of a palm-tree.
Then came a voice, saying, in hieroglyphics--
[Illustration]
There was a pause, and then UNREDD, in consultation with his
companion, deciphered the meaning.
"You be blowed?" they both shouted, and the Sphinx gravely inclined
its head. Then, of a sudden, after jumping from one mountain-top to
another mountain-top, clinging to a precipice by their eyebrows, and
sliding down a glacier and an avalanche, the two travellers came to
the source of nothing, or, to use the local name, the source of the
Nihil.
"When is a door not a door?" they asked, impelled as if by some hidden
power.
In a moment the most beautiful Joke that ever was known appeared
before them. It had the semblance of something they had seen
before--lovely beyond compare. A flood of liquid laughter followed,
and the Joke bathed in it, dancing about in the merry mixture most
joyously. It was a dread and wonderful sight.
They felt that but half their task was accomplished--but only half.
Had not _He-who-must-be-obeyed_ ordered them to seek out the solution
of the Great Conundrum? That Great Conundrum had lived through the
ages. It had been known to the Romans and the Greeks, and had died
(for a while) with the Dead Languages. It had been buried in the land
of the Assyrians, from whence had come a kindred spirit, the precursor
of the Hibernian bull. That bull, which was in the changing seasons
to cause roars of mighty merriment echoing into the far ages of the
Future from the distant dimples of the Past. So, after their first
surprise, they welcomed the gladsome Presence. They watched it as it
jumped and leaped in the flood of liquid laughter. They were mad with
a nameless delight, and danced round and round in a wild delirium
of quaint possibilities! The Joke smiled upon them, and seemed
to recognise in them the followers of the Great _Jo-Mill-Ar_,
or _One-who-has-caused-the-dullest-dogs
to-shake-their-heavy-sides-with-tuneless-laughter_.
Then the Joke grew in comeliness. The Question was only half of its
stature--it required the Answer. They felt that the reply would come
with the mighty murmur of merriment that the Writer and the Sketcher
had already noticed. At length it was upon them. The Answer came!----
"When it is _an egress_."
"Look!--look!--look!" shrieked UNREDD.
_The Joke was growing old before their eyes!_ The wit was shrivelling
up! The fun was evaporating! Smaller and smaller it grew, until it was
nearly gone.
"I will not die!" came a cry. "Generations yet unborn shall hear me.
Many shall think me good--many shall be amused. Oh--h--h!" and the
Joke had fallen flat! They knew its real name, then--it was "_Ded
an-Gone, the Jest Departed_." And now it was still!
[Illustration: DED'-AN-GONE; OR, JEST DEPARTED.
"_In a moment the most beautiful Joke that ever was known appeared
before them. It had the semblance of something they had seen
before--lovely beyond compare. A flood of liquid laughter followed,
and the Joke bathed in it, dancing about in the merry mixture most
joyously. It was a dread and wonderful sight._"]
And so were UNREDD and SPOYLPAPEROS. Alas! for their melancholy
fate--they had died of laughter! They had their desert!
[Illustration: "_They had their desert!_"]
* * * * *
INCIDENT IN THE INDIAN SPORTING TOUR OF ALIBI PASHA (COLONEL ALIAS
ALIBI).
[Illustration]
SIR,--You were sending your Correspondents all over the world, and you
never did a better thing than when you summoned me to your presence,
and said, "Colonel, are you ready?" and I replied, "I am!" If
it hadn't been for my uncommon clearness of vision, the party
of detectives whom you sent out in search of me would never have
discovered me in my rocky lair on the southern coast of Cornwall,
to which secluded spot I had for a time retreated, your Colonel _en
retraite_, the only time he ever retreated in his life, and then not
from foes, but from too many and too kind friends, in order to scheme
out at my leisure a new and original plan for tracing the real and
only source of the Nile at half the cost of STANLEY'S expedition, with
double the profits. "The _Genuine Nile Water Company Limited_," and
the "_Nile Sauce for Cheops and Steaks_," will be two of the greatest
financial successes of this or any other time.
"Yeo ho, my boys! Yeo ho!" I shouted from the height above to four
toiling minions in the cockle-shell of a boat below. My! how glad they
were. Odds Colonels and cockle-shells! but, it I hadn't exerted my
lungs, they'd have returned disconsolate to you, as you were waiting
at the railway station, with your baggage all labelled, and your dog
_Toby_ waving adieux to your followers. What a wigging they'd have
got! But, seeing me, you smiled as you wert wont to smile, and in
two-twos the historic question was asked--"Colonel, are you ready?"
(as I have already reminded you), and the equally historic answer had
been given, "I am!"
[Illustration: "Yeo ho, my boys! Yeo ho!" I shouted.]
My weapons and my sporting togs are always at hand, packed for
travelling at the shortest possible notice. And here let me remark
to you that, when you were in the desert, had you been armed with
my patent revolving, twenty-times-a-second, double-action repeating
rifle, the strange story of the conflict between yourself and the
ostrich would have been utterly impossible. Excuse me, Sir, but, as
it is, I consider it scarcely within the bounds of probability. I know
probability will take big bounds, and I'm a bit of a traveller myself,
but your escape uninjured from that wild bird, and the escape also
of TOBY, who is not a sporting dog, is one of the strangest tales on
record, by the side of which, perhaps, even the daring exploit, which
I am now about to narrate as a plain unvarnished tale, may seem a mere
ordinary, every-day occurrence. But to proceed.
To India. I promised you my diary of sports and pastimes from the
moment of my arrival. Here it is, from the first day to the moment of
my posting you the last scrap by special messenger. Now, to commence
* * * (_We omit the first six hundred pages._) * * * The next day
SWINDLAH KHAN came to my Kabob where I was sitting, wiling away the
time by teaching my favourite Cheetah the three-card trick, which
the sagacious animal can now perform as easily as if he were the
learnedest pig in Europe--(I am bringing him over, to back him for
matches of this sort in England--shall probably get up a company
to work it--Learned Pig and Cheetah Company (Limited). Capital,
£280,000,000--but of this, more anon)--and, after accepting the
_puffum_, which is always offered to a visitor filled and lighted,
SWINDLAH waited for me to open the conversation.
"SWINDLAH, mebhoy," said I, addressing him familiarly, in his own
native language, in which I am a proficient, and shall now give a
translation, "What's up?"
"ALIBI PASHA," he replied, bending his head, and looking out of the
corner of his eyes--a trick he has when he means mischief--(I know the
old rascal by this time)--"Is it on or off?"
For the moment I had forgotten our wager of the previous night. I
confess I had imbibed so much _loshun_ that for once and away I was
not quite certain whether I was actually sober or not--nor, indeed,
did I decide the point until I had argued it out myself, and settled
that, if I went to bed in my _bhootahs_ (worn here on the foot, and
very much worn under it), I must be more or less inebriated, but that,
if I assumed the ordinary _shimmy dinnee_--(do you remember my song on
this Indian night-habit, to the tune of "_Bonnie Dundee_"?--it was in
the cold weather, when the stinging winter night-fly is about, and I
couldn't find the article of apparel anywhere,--
Then haul down my curtains, and call up my men,
And search every cupboard agen and agen.
It has a frilled border as far as the knee--
It's the prettiest thing is my _shimmy dinwee_.
But, as I didn't quote this to SWINDLAH KHAN, I only allude to
it here, and you will find it _in extenso_, as they did in the
linen-press, further on, during the course of these Memoirs)--and
retired to my _dhownee_ (bed), I must be all right. _Dhownee_ v.
_Bhootah_, and the first won. Yet next morning it was with difficulty
I could exactly recall the term of the wager.
[Illustration: Waiting for the Colonel.]
"Yes, SWINDLAH," says I. "It is the Wild Hog Hunt to which you are
alluding." He bowed. "Fifty thousand lakhs of rupees," I continued,
"which your executors pay to mine in case you come to grief, or mine
to yours in case the like happens to me." Again he bowed, and I went
on. "And if we both survive, the money is paid to whichever of us two
kills the Wild Hog of Ghrûntah." We shook hands over it. I didn't, as
a rule, shake hands with SWINDLAH KHAN, who was the veriest old thief
in all India, and an abominably cruel tyrant into the bargain.
[Illustration: A Strange Story.]
The fact is, that this Wild Hog, which from time to time ravaged
various parts of the country that trembled under the sway of SWINDLAH,
was secretly fed, kept alive, and incited to ferocity by the minions
of the cunning despot, who, when he wanted a larger loan than usual,
or coveted the property of some private person, would privately order
this Hog to be starved for a fortnight, and then suddenly let out to
run a-muck.
[Illustration: An Awful Boar for Travellers.]
Naturally the poor natives, and the rich ones too for the matter
of that, clamoured for protection at the hands of their ruler, who
pretended he could see no other way of dealing with the difficulty
than by raising a force of sharpshooters, armed with lances and bows
and arrows, no guns being permitted, as the noise would disturb the
SWINDLAH, who, about this time, invariably feigned to be laid up at
home with a bilious headache. His subjects had to subscribe for the
support of these sporting warriors, and the money came in from all
quarters into SWINDLAH'S treasury for the purpose of killing this
formidable scourge. The presence of this Wild Hog obstructed trade,
as no Travellers, commercial or otherwise, would run the risk of
encountering this dangerous monster. Of course, the Hog was never
killed, as to have put an end to its existence would have been
analogous to killing the Goose that laid the Golden Eggs. When I came
into the country, SWINDLAH did his best to entrap me. I had thirty of
the narrowest escapes that ever man experienced. (_Here we omit 1200
pages of this most thrilling narrative._) SWINDLAH had dared me to
kill the Wild Hog alone: I had replied, "Yes, but it must be worth my
while. So make it a bet, which will slay the beast, you or I, and I'm
on. And the entire beast must be brought back as evidence. A leg, or
a tusk, or an eye, or a bristle won't do. It must be the whole Hog or
none."
As I have said, so 'twas done. The barbarous SWINDLAH had determined
on collaring my coin, and taking my life. He had secreted men in the
jungles, in the passes, on the mountain-tops, to spear me, arrow me,
shoot me,--if they could. What did I care? I had the whole country at
my back, for they were ready to rise as one man--(and, as a matter
of fact, only one man did rise, and he was beheaded at once by the
nearest native policeman, who afterwards apologised handsomely to the
family for the mistake),--and take vengeance on the tyrant. But this
depended on my success; otherwise, so crushed and craven were even
the noblest spirits among them, they dared not move one little finger.
Shall I proceed? Yes. I bore a charmed life. The Wild Hog was wilder
than ever. Mounted on my good old mare, _Wheezer_, which had carried
me over many a stiff country in Old England, and accompanied by my
faithful hound, _Yelpa_, I sought out the wild beast in his lair.
SWINDLAH himself came by a circuitous route.
Suddenly there was an awful roar--I call it a roar, but it was really
the noise of a volcano in action--and the place shook as though in the
throes of an earthquake. Above me, on a rock, on the other side of a
ravine (eighty feet by fifty) stood the huge monster, hideous, raging,
tearing up roots, trees, stocks, stones, anything and everything.
In all my life I never saw such a horrid boar! "At him, _Yelpa!_"
I cried, giving at the same time my well-known whistle of attack.
_Yelpa_ cleared the ravine at a bound. Then followed an awful
struggle. SWINDLAH below looked up in delight. "If the dog kills him,
it's no bet!" he shouted.
"Come on, and kill him yourself, if you can!" I cried, putting
_Wheezer_ at the leap. My brave mare needed no spurs.
[Illustration: A HAZARDOUS LEAP!]
At that moment _Yelpa_ missed his footing and fell. In less than the
100th part of a second I had lassoed him round the collar, and saved
my gallant and faithful friend; but there was no time for attending to
his wounds, as at that instant the Wild Hog, frantic with rage, sprang
from the rock straight at me, mouth open and bristles erect. One
billionth part of a second of suspense, and the next minute my
pig-sticking spear had passed through him, and _Wheezer_, I, and the
Hog sank exhausted on the other side of the ravine, just as a shriek
broke on my ear, and I was able to see that SWINDLAH'S underbred horse
having refused a narrower place lower down, had, in consequence (for
this, strange as it may appear, was the first time that braggart
SWINDLAH had ever been out riding) pitched SWINDLAH right over his
head into the abyss below. I returned home in triumph. Bonfires and
rejoicings all night. Torch and Nautch till daybreak. No one thought
of looking for SWINDLAH till next morning, when nothing was found of
him except his turban. His horse was browsing peacefully within a
few yards of the spot where SWINDLAH had disappeared. The money I
had fairly won was never paid, but the nobility and gentry subscribed
towards a medal, which was struck in commemoration of the event.
I send one to you, one to the Vatican, and a third to the British
Museum. I need hardly say that after this--(_We omit the remainder, as
the work will probably be published in full at some future time_).
* * * * *
[Illustration:
1889 1890
A MERRY CHRISTMAS,
AND
A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
]
* * * * *
[Illustration: MR. PUNCH APPEARS AT THE CARNIVAL OF NATIONS!
"Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all."--TENNYSON'S
"_Ulysses_."
]
* * * * *