STONE WALLS DO NOT MAKE A CAGE
Oh, give me back my Arab steed, I cannot ride alone!
Or tell me where my Beautiful, my four-legged bird has flown.
'Twas here she arched her glossy back, beside the fountain's brink,
And after that I know no more--but I came off, I think.
_More so-called original lines by aforesaid young English
friend. But I have the shrewd suspicion of having
read them before somewhere.--H. B. J._
And now, O gentle and sympathetic reader, behold our unfortunate hero
confined in the darkest bowels of the Old Bailey Dungeon, for the mere
crime of being an impecunious!
Yes, misters, in spite of all your boasted love of liberty and fresh
air, imprisonment for debt is still part of the law of the land! How
long will you deafen your ears to the pitiable cry of the bankrupt as he
pleads for the order of his discharge? Perhaps it has been reserved for
a native Indian novelist to jog the elbow of so-called British
jurisprudence, and call its attention to such a shocking scandal.
Mr Bhosh found his prison most devilishly dull. Some prisoners have been
known to beguile their captivity by making pets or playmates out of most
unpromising materials. For instance, and _exempli gratia_, Mr Monty
Christo met an abbey in his dungeon, who gave him a tip-top education;
Mr Picciola watered a flower; the Prisoner of Chillon made chums of his
chains; while Honble Bruce, as is well-known, succeeded in taming a
spider to climb up a thread and fall down seven times in succession.
But Mr Bhosh had no spider to amuse him, and the only flowers growing in
his dungeon were toadstools, which do not require to be watered, nor did
there happen to be any abbey confined in the Old Bailey at the time.
Nevertheless, he was preserved from despair by his indomitable native
chirpiness. For was not _Milky Way_ a dead set for the Derby, and when
she came out at the top of the pole, would he not be the gainer of
sufficient untold gold to pay all his debts, besides winning the hand of
Princess Petunia?
He was waited upon by the head gaoler's daughter, a damsel of
considerable pulchritude by the name of Caroline, who at first regarded
him askance as a malefactor.
But, on learning from her parent that his sole offence was insuperable
pennilessness, her tender heart was softened with pity to behold such a
young gentlemanly Indian captive clanking in bilboes, and soon they
became thick as thieves.
Like all the inhabitants of Great Britain, her thoughts were entirely
engrossed with the approaching Derby Race, and she very innocently
narrated how it was matter of common knowledge that a notorious
grandame, to wit the fashionable Duchess of Dickinson, had backed
heavily that _Milky Way_ was to fail like the flash of a pan.
Whereupon Mr Bhosh, recollecting that he had actually entrusted his
invaluable mare with her concomitant jockey to the mercy of this
self-same Duchess, was harrowed with sudden misgivings.
By shrewd cross-questions he soon eliminated that Mr McAlpine was a
pal of the Duchess, which she had herself admitted at the Victoria
terminus, and thus by dint of penetrating instinct, Mr Bhosh easily
unravelled the tangled labyrinth of a hideous conspiracy, which caused
him to beat his head vehemently against the walls of his cell at the
thought of his utter impotentiality.
Like all feminines who were privileged to make his acquaintance, Miss
Caroline was transfixed with passionate adoration for Bindabun, whom she
regarded as a gallant and illused innocent, and resolved to assist him
to cut his lucky.
To this end she furnished him with a file and a silken ladder of her own
knitting--but unfortunately Mr Bhosh, having never before undergone
incarceration, was a total neophyte in effecting his escape by such
dangerous and antiquated procedures, which he firmly declined to employ,
urging her to sneak the paternal keybunch and let him out at daybreak by
some back entrance.
And, not to crack the wind of this poor story while rendering it as
short as possible, she yielded to his entreaties and contrived to
restore him to the priceless boon of liberty the next morning at about 5
A.M.
Oh, the unparalleled raptures of finding himself once more free as a
bird!
It was the dawn of the Derby Day, and Mr Bhosh precipitated himself to
his dwelling, intending to array himself in all his best and go down to
Epsom, where he was in hopes of encountering his horse. Heyday! What was
his chagrin to see his jockey, Cadwallader Perkin, approach with
streaming eyes, fling himself at his master's feet and implore him to be
merciful!
"How comes it, Cadwallader," sternly inquired Mr Bhosh, "that you are
not on the heath of Epsom instead of wallowing like this on my shoes?"
"I do not know," was the whimpered response.
"Then pray where is my Derby favourite, _Milky Way_?" demanded Bindabun.
"I cannot tell," wailed out the lachrymose juvenile. Then, after
prolonged pressure, he confessed that the Duchess had met him at the
station portals, and, on the plea that there was abundance of spare time
to book the mare, easily persuaded him to accompany her to the buffet of
Refreshment-room.
There she plied him with a stimulant which jockeys are proverbially
unable to resist, viz., brandy-cherries, in such profusion that he
promptly became catalyptic in a corner.
When he returned to sobriety neither the Duchess nor the mare was
perceptible to his naked eye, and he had been searching in vain for them
ever since.
It was the time not for words, but deeds, and Mr Bhosh did not indulge
in futile irascibility, but sat down and composed a reply wire to the
Clerk of Course, Epsom, couched in these simple words: "Have you seen my
Derby mare?--BHOSH."
After the suspense of an hour the reply came in the discouraging form of
an abrupt negative, upon which Mr Bhosh thus addressed the abashed
Perkin: "Even should I recapture my mare in time, you have proved
yourself unworthy of riding her. Strip off your racing coat and cap, and
I will engage some more reliable equestrian."
The lad handed over the toggery, which Bindabun stuffed, being of very
fine silken tissue, into his coat pocket, after which he hurried off to
Victoria in great agitation to make inquiries.
There the officials treated his modest requests in very off-handed
style, and he was becoming all of a twitter with anxiety and
humiliation, when, _mirabile dictu!_ all of a sudden his ears were
regaled by the well-known sound of a whinny, and he recognised the
beloved voice of _Milky Way_!
But whence did it proceed? He ran to and fro in uncontrollable
excitement, endeavouring to locate the sound. There was no trace of a
horse in any of the waiting-rooms, but at length he discovered that his
mare had been locked up in the Left-Luggage department, and, summoning a
porter, Mr Bhosh had at last the indescribable felicity to embrace his
kidnapped Derby favourite _Milky Way_!