A KICK FROM A FRIENDLY FOOT
She is a radiant damsel with features fair and fine;
But since betrothed to Bosom's friend she never can be mine!
_Original Poem by H. B. J. (unpublished)._
Mr Bhosh's bosom-friend, the Lord Jack Jolly, had kindly undertaken to
officiate as his Palinurus and steer him safely from the Scylla to the
Charybdis of the London Season, and one day Lord Jolly arrived at our
hero's apartments as the bearer of an invite from his honble parent the
Baronet, to partake of tiffin at their ancestral abode in Chepstow
Villas, which Bindabun gratefully accepted.
Arrived at the Jollies' sumptuous interior, a numerous retinue of
pampered menials and gilded flunkies divested Mr Bhosh of his hat and
umbrella and ushered him into the hall of audience.
"Bhosh, my dear old pal," said Lord Jack, "I have news for you. I am
engaged as a Benedict, and am shortly to celebrate matrimony with a
young goodlooking female--the Princess Petunia Jones."
"My lord," replied Mr Bhosh, "suffer me to hang around your patrician
neck the floral garland of my humble congratulations."
"My dear Bhosh," responded the youthful peer of the realm, "I regard you
as more than a brother, and am confident that when my betrothed beholds
your countenance, she will conceive for you a similar lively affection.
But hush! here she comes to answer for herself.... Princess, permit me
to present to you the best and finest friend I possess, Mr Bindabun
Bhosh."
Mr Bhosh modestly lowered his optics as he salaamed with inimitable
grace, and it was not until he had resumed his perpendicular that he
recognised in the Princess Jones the charming unknown whom he had last
beheld engaged in repelling the assault of a distracted cow!
Their eyes were no sooner crossed than he knew that she regarded him as
her deliverer, and was consumed by the most ardent affection for him.
But Mr Bhosh repressed himself with heroic magnanimity, for he reflected
that she was the affianced of his dearest friend and that it was
contrary to _bon ton_ to poach another's jam.
So he merely said; "How do you do? It is a very fine day. I am delighted
to make your acquaintance," and turning on his heels with a profound
curtsey, he left her flabbergasted with mortification.
But those only who have compressed their souls in the shoe of
self-sacrifice know how devilishly it pinches, and Mr Bhosh's grief was
so acute that he rolled incessantly on his couch while the radiant image
of his divinity danced tantalisingly before his bloodshot vision.
Eventually he became calmer, and after plunging his fervid body into a
foot-bath, he showed himself once more in society, assuming an air of
meretricious waggishness to conceal the worm that was busily cankering
his internals, and so successful was he that Lord Jack was entirely
deceived by his _vis comica_, and invited him to spend the Autumn up the
country with his respectable parents.
Mr Bhosh accepted--but when he knew that Princess Petunia was also to be
one of the _amis de la maison_, he was greatly concerned at the prospect
of infallibly reviving her love by his propinquity, and thereby
inflicting the cup of calamity on his best friend. Willingly would he
have imparted the whole truth to his Lordship and counselled him to
postpone the Princess's visit until he, himself, should have
departed--but, ah me! with all his virtue he was not a Roman Palladium
that he should resist the delight of philandery with the radiant queen
of his soul. So he kept his tongue in his cheek.
However, when they met in the ancient and rural castle he constrained
himself, in conversing with her, to enlarge enthusiastically upon the
excellences of Lord Jack. "What a good, ripping, gentlemanly fellow he
was, and how certain to make a best quality husband!" Princess Jones
listened to these encomiums with tender sighing, while her soft large
orbs rested on Mr Bhosh with ever-increasing admiration.
No one noticed how, after these elephantine efforts at self-denial, he
would silently slip away and weep salt and bitter tears as he weltered
dolefully on a doormat; nor was it perceived that the Princess herself
was become thin as a weasel with disappointed love.
Being the ardent sportsman, Mr Bhosh sought to drown his sorrow with
pleasures of the chase.
He would sally forth alone, with no other armament than a breechloading
rifle, and endeavour to slay the wild rabbits which infested the
Baronet's domains, and sometimes he had the good fortune to slaughter
one or two. Or he would take a Rod and hooks and a few worms, and
angle for salmons; or else he would stalk partridges, and once he even
assisted in a foxhunt, when he easily outstripped all the dogs and
singly confronted Master Reynard, who had turned to bay savagely at his
nose. But Bindabun undauntedly descended from his horse, and, drawing
his hunting dagger, so dismayed the beast by his determined and
ferocious aspect that it turned its tail and fled into some other part
of the country, which earned him the heartfelt thanks from his fellow
Nimrods.
[Illustration: DISMAYED THE BEAST BY HIS DETERMINED AND FEROCIOUS
ASPECT (Illustration III)]
Naturally, such feats of arms as these only served to inflame the ardour
of the Princess, to whom it was a constant wonderment that Mr Bhosh did
never, even in the most roundabout style, allude to the fact that he had
saved her life from perishing miserably on the pointed horn of an
enraged cow.
She could not understand that the Native temperament is too sheepishly
modest to flaunt its deeds of heroism.
Those who are _au fait_ in knowledge of the world are aware that when
there are combustibles concealed in any domestic interior, there is
always a person sooner or later who will contrive to blow them off; and
here, too, the Serpent of Mischief was waiting to step in with cloven
hoof and play the very deuce.
It so happened that the Duchess occupied the adjacent bungalow to that
of Baronet Jolly and his lady, with whom she was hail-fellow-well-met,
and this perfidious female set herself to ensnare the confidence of the
young and innocent Princess by discreetly lauding the praises of Mr
Bhosh.
"What an admirable Indian Crichton! How many rabbits and salmons had he
laid low that week? Truly, she regarded him as a favourite son, and
marvelled that any youthful feminine could prefer an ordinary peer like
Lord Jolly to a Native paragon who was not only a university B.A., but
had successfully passed Bar Exam!" and so forth and so on.
The princess readily fell into this insidious booby-trap, and confessed
the violence of her attachment, and how she had striven to acquaint Mr
Bhosh with her sentiments but was rendered inarticulate by maidenly
bashfulness.
"Can you not then slip a love-letter into his hand?" inquired the
Duchess.
"_Cui bono?_" responded the Princess, sadly. "Seeing that he never
approaches near enough to me to receive such a missive, and I dare not
entrust it to one of my maidens!"
"Why not to Me?" said the Duchess. "He will not refuse it coming from
myself; moreover, I have influence over him and will soften his heart
towards thee."
Accordingly the Princess indicted a rather impassioned love-letter, in
which she assured Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret passion and
fully reciprocated it, also that she was the total indifferent to Lord
Jack, with much other similar matters.
Having obtained possession of this _litera scripta_, what does the
unscrupulous Duchess next but deliver it _impromptu_ into the hands of
Lord Jack, who, after perusing it, was overcome by uncontrollable wrath
and instantaneously summoned our hero to his presence.
Here was the pretty kettle of fish--but I must reserve the sequel for
the next chapter.