HOW I MET AN INCORRIGIBLE PUNSTER.
As the Midland Circuit was perhaps my favourite, although I liked them
all, there would necessarily be more to interest me there than on any
other, and at our little quiet dinners, for which there was no special
hour (it might be any time between eight o'clock in the evening or
half-past one the next day), there were always pleasant conversations
and amusing stories. With a large circle of acquaintances, I had
learnt many things, sometimes to interest and sometimes to instruct.
Although I never sat down to open a school of instruction, a man
should not despise the humblest teaching, or he may be deficient in
many things he should have a knowledge of.
There was once an old fox-hunting squire whose ambition was to be
known as a punster. There never was a more good-natured man or a more
genial host, and he would tell you of as many tremendous runs he had
had as Herne the hunter. After-dinner runs are always fine.
The Squire loved to hunt foxes and make puns.
We were sitting on a five-barred gate one evening in his paddocks,
and while I was admiring the yearlings, which were of great beauty, I
suddenly saw looking over his left shoulder the most beautiful head of
a thoroughbred I ever beheld, with her nose quite close to his ear.
"Halloa, my beauty!" said he. "What, _Saltfish_, let me see if I've a
bit of sugar, eh, _Saltfish_?--sugar--is it?"
His hand dived into the capacious pocket of his shooting-coat and
brought out a piece of sugar, which he gave to the mare, and then
affectionately rubbed her nose.
"There, _Saltfish_--there you are; and now show us your heels."
I knew by his mentioning the mare's name so often that there was a pun
in it, so I waited without putting any question. After a while he said
(for he could contain his joke no longer),--
"Judge, do you know why I call her _Saltfish_?"
"Not the least idea," said I.
"Ha!" he explained, with a prodigious stare that almost shot his blue
globular eyes out of his head: "because she is such a capital mare for
a _fast day_! Ha, ha!"
Suddenly he stopped laughing from disappointment at my not seeing the
joke. He repeated it--"fast day, fast day"--then _glared at me_, and
his underlip fell. At last the old man tossed his head, and whipped
his boot with his crop. I have no doubt I deprived that man of a great
deal of happiness; for if anything is disappointing to a punster, it
is not seeing his joke. He had not done with me yet, however, and
before abandoning me as an incorrigible lunatic, asked if I would like
to see Naples.
"Naples! By all means, but not at this time of year."
"Oh, I don't mean the town--no, no; but if you don't mind a little
mud, I'll show you Naples. Come along this lane."
"Watercourse, you mean. I don't mind a little mud," said I; "it washes
off, whoever throws it"--and I looked to see what he thought of that,
knowing he would tell it at dinner.
"Good!" said he; "devilish good! Wash off, no matter who throws
it--devilish good!"
Down we came off the gate, and through the mud we went, he leading
with a fat chuckle.
"You don't see the joke, Hawkins--you don't see the joke about that
fast day;" and he gave me another look with his great blue eyes.
I didn't know it was a joke; I thought it was the mare's name, and I
heard him mutter "Damn!"
"This is the way," he said angrily. We seemed to travel through an
interminable cesspool, but at last reached the open, and coming to
another gate, he extended his arms on it, after the manner of a
squire, and said,--
"There, there's _Naples_. Isn't she lovely?"
"Where?" I asked.
"There; and a prettier mare you never saw. Look at her!"
"She's a beauty--a real beauty!" I exclaimed.
He breathed rather short, and I felt easy. His manner, especially the
distending of his cheeks, showed me that he was about to bring forth
something--a pun of some sort.
"Do you know," he asked, with another turn of his eyes, "_why_ I call
her _Naples_?"
"No, I haven't the faintest idea. Naples? no."
"Well," he said, "I've puzzled a good many. I may say nobody has ever
guessed it. I call that mare _Naples_ because she's such a beautiful
_bay_."
I was glad I was not sitting on the gate, for I might have fallen
and broken my neck. As I felt his eyes staring at me I preserved a
dignified composure, and had the satisfaction of hearing him mutter
again, "Damn!"
"This is our way," said he.
I have no doubt he thought me the dullest fool he ever came near.
Our adventures were not ended. We went on over meadow and stile until
we came to "The Park," a tract of land of great beauty and with trees
of superb growth. He was sullen and moody, like one whose nerves had
failed him when a covey rose.
I saw it coming--his last expiring effort. In the distance was a
beautiful black mare, such as might have carried Dick Turpin from
London to York. He was watching to see if I observed her, but I did
not.
"Look," he said, in his most coaxing manner, "don't you see that mare
yonder--down there by the spinny?"
"What," I said, "on the left?"
"Down there! There--no, a little to the right. Look! There she is."
"Oh, to be sure, a pretty animal."
"Pretty! Why, there's no better bred animal in the kingdom. She's by
---- out of ----."
"She ought to win the Oaks."
"Come, now, _isn't_ she superb?"
"A glory. A novelist would call her a _dream_."
"Ah, I thought you would say so. You know what a horse is."
"When I _see_ one," I said. "I thought you said this was a mare."
This is what the Squire thought,--
"Well, of all the dull devils I ever met, you are the most utterly
unappreciative!"
He was at his wits' end, although you must be clever if you can
perceive the wits' end of a punster.
"That's _Morning Star_," said he. "Now do you know _why_ I call her
_Morning Star_?"
I answered truthfully I did not.
"Why," he said, with a merry laugh, "_because she's a roarer_."
"What a pity!" I exclaimed. "But I don't wonder at it if she has to
carry you and your jokes very far."
He took it in good part, and we had a pleasant evening at the Hall.
He discharged a good many other puns, which I am glad to say I have
forgotten. But there was a man present who was a good story-teller.
Some I had heard before, but they were none the less welcome, while
one or two I related were as good as new to my host and old Squire
Fullerton, who had once been High Sheriff, and was supposed to know
all about circuit business. He prefaced almost everything he said
with, "When I was High Sheriff," so I asked him innocently enough
how many times he had been High Sheriff, on which my host, being a
quick-witted man, looked at him with a broad grin, while he balanced
the nutcrackers on his forefinger.
"Well," said Fullerton, "it was in Parke's time."
"Yes; but which of them?" I asked. "Are you alluding to Sir Alan? They
did not both come together, surely."
"Now, lookee, Fullerton," said my old friend, tapping the mahogany
with the nutcrackers, as though he was about to say something
remarkably clever; "one of 'em, Jemmy, had a kind of a cast in one of
his eyes--didn't he, Judge?"
"Yes," said I; "but their names were not spelt alike."
"No, no!" cried the squire; "I'm coming to that. One eye was a little
troublesome at times, I believe--at least they said so in my time
when _I_ was High Sheriff--and that made him a little ill-tempered
at times. Now, that Judge's name was spelt P-a-r-k-e" (tapping every
letter with his nutcrackers), "so the Bar used to call him '_Parke
with an "e"_;' and what do you think they used to call the other,
whose name was Park?--Come, now, Judge, you can guess that."
I suppose I shook my head, for he said, "Why, you told me the story
yourself four years ago--ah! it must be five years ago--at this very
table, when old Squire Hawley had laid two thousand on Jannette for
the Leger. 'This is it,' said you; 'they call one of them Parke with
an "e," and the other Park with an "i."'"
"Very well," I said, after they had done laughing at the way in which
my host had caught me; "now I'll tell you what the Duke of Wellington
said one morning. You recollect his Grace met with an accident and
lost an eye, which was kept in spirits of wine. On asking him how he
was, the Duke answered,--
"'Oh, Lord Cairns asked me yesterday the same question; and I said,
"I am rather depressed, but I believe my eye is in pretty good
spirits."'"