Miss Thimblebee loquitur.—"_Turn your heads the other way my dears,
for here are two horridly handsome Officers coming._"
]
"SAY YOU DID IT!"
A ROMANCE OF SMILES AND TITTERS.
TITTER THE SECOND.
The sound of the stranger's retiring footsteps had scarcely died upon
the ear, when, as he had predicted, the soldiers came up, led by the
drover, of whom the late proprietor of the Mantello had spoken.
"I tell you it's hereabouts I missed him," said the owner of the lost
purse. "And ecco!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the prostrate
figure of Goffoni, enveloped in the cloak, "by all the Saints! here lies
the rascal, shamming asleep, too, as I live!"
The sleep, however, was no make-believe on the part of poor Goffoni,
who, under the growing influence of the opiate, was rapidly sinking into
the joint embraces of Messrs. Morpheus and Mors, and had just commenced
nodding off—to Death.
"Come, get up here!" shouted one of the soldiers, giving Goffoni a kick
that even in his drowsy state had the effect of making him open his
eyes. "Get up, I say! We want you about a little bit of highway robbery
that you've been having a finger in this evening—do you hear?" And the
military querist punctuated the ribs of the wretched Signor with a heavy
note of interrogation from his regulation boot.
"Yes, I hear!" replied the agonized Goffoni; "I know! a highway robbery!
I did it! I did it!"
"Mark that, gentlemen!" said the drover to the soldiers. "The fellow
confesses he did it; mark that!"
"Oh, you did it, did you?" said the soldier. "Come, then, you must go
with us. So quick! stir yourself, I say." And again the regulation-boot
hammered away at the sides of the unfortunate Goffoni.
"Do let me die here, _do_!" implored the moribund Signor G.
"Die here!" returned the man of war. "No, no! you'll have to die in a
rather more public place than this, I'm thinking. But come! we're not
going to be played the fool with in this manner. Get up, I tell you once
more!" So saying, the soldier took the prostrate Signor by the collar
and set him on his legs.
"Oh! why _wont_ you let me be quiet?" groaned Goffoni; "I've taken
poison—indeed I have!"
"Taken poison!" the soldier exclaimed, with a sneer; "taken a purse, you
mean, and it will prove just as fatal to you, I'll be sworn. However,
we're not to be gulled by any such flams, don't think it. So let's see
what you've got in your pockets. Oh! a pair of diamond earrings, eh?
Very pretty indeed! the produce of some other robbery, no doubt! A gold
watch, and ditto snuff-box! Equally honestly come by, I'll wager. A good
stroke of business you've been doing this evening, my man! And here's a
silk purse, with lots of money in it; and here's a leathern one without
a soldo."
"The leathern one's mine!" cried the drover; "but it was full when the
scoundrel took it from me."
"Of course it was! and the rogue's emptied the contents of the one into
the other. But that don't matter—the mere finding of the purse upon him
is quite enough to take the breath out of his body. So, come! give over
this shamming," continued the soldier, violently shaking the drowsy
Signor, who was again nodding under the somnorific effects of the
laudanum. "We're too old birds to be caught by such chaff as this, I can
tell you. So on to prison with you—get on."
Whereupon two of the soldiers placed themselves, one on either side of
the ill-fated Goffoni, and commenced dragging him by the collar to the
Casa di Correzione, while the two others attended him in the rear, and
by the aid of their bayonets, applied to that part of his person where a
gentleman's honour is supposed to reside, kept continually dissipating
the incipient slumbers of the somnolent Signor, and goading him like an
untractable donkey on to the nearest house of entertainment for brigands
and patriots.
* * * * *
The bayonets of the soldiers were so efficacious in counteracting the
somniferous tendency of the opiate which Signor Goffoni had swallowed,
that by the time he had reached the gates of the Casa di Correzione, a
distance of at least five miles from the scene of his capture, the
exercise had done him so much good that it had "worked off" all his
drowsiness, and he was, the morning after, in the most miserable state
of perfect convalescence.
Goffoni instantly began protesting his innocence; but the incredulous
jailor assured him it was to no purpose, and that he might look upon
himself as a dead man; for that his own confession, let alone the
circumstantial evidence, was quite enough to settle his business.
The wretched Signor called himself a fool, an idiot, a jackass, a
nincompoop, and a volume of other titles equally complimentary to his
intellect, for ever having consented to take another man's crime upon
himself—as he pledged his honour to the jailor he had done in the
present instance.
The jailor, however, was a man of too great experience to place much
faith in the honour of gentlemen charged with highway robbery. And so to
the Signor's asseveration, he replied with a knowing wink—"Gammon! Well,
I've heard many lame defences in my time, but, hang me! if that isn't
the most rickety concern I ever listened to. I should like to know the
judge," he continued, "that you think would swallow such indigestible
stuff as that. For everyone is aware that gentlemen in your line of
business an't quite such born donkeys as to take other men's sins upon
their shoulders, when they've always got a pretty tidy load of their
own. So if you follow my advice, my man," considerately added the
jailor, "you'll plead guilty like a Christian, and then, perhaps, you
may be lucky enough to get off with the galleys for life."
Goffoni, however, finding his declarations of innocence made no
impression upon the officers of justice, determined at length upon
seeking the advice and consolation of some counsel learned in the
chicanery of the law. But the Gentleman in Black afforded him little
comfort; for though he himself, he said, had no doubt of the truth of
the Signor's strange statement, still, he thought that Goffoni would
find it extremely difficult to make a court of justice believe that
human stupidity could go to such lengths. And he was afraid that his
unfortunate client must make up his mind to the worst; for that, of
late, the robberies in the neighbourhood had so much increased that the
authorities had resolved to make an example of the very next culprit.
Whereupon Goffoni again declared that he was a fool, an idiot, &c., for
ever having consented to stand as godfather to a foot-pad, and take the
transgressions of a gentleman with a passion for highway robbery, upon
himself. And he tore his toupée and he thumped his cranium, as though he
were trying to cudgel his brains for allowing him to—say he did it.
[THIRD TITTER, _page 150_.]
[Illustration:
THE DESECRATION OF THE BRIGHT POKER.
]
[Illustration:
BRITANNIA DISTRIBUTING THE BRIGHT POKER OF CIVILIZATION TO THE
SAVAGES.
]
[Illustration:
The Bright Stove; or the Modern Englishman's Fireside.
]
REPORT OF THE SOCIETY
FOR THE PROPAGATION OF CIVILIZATION,
AND THE HANDBOOK OF ETIQUETTE
ALL OVER THE WORLD.
The Distingué Committee of this Society, which has for its noble object
the elevation of the poor degraded Savage, and the dissemination of
horse-hair petticoats and finger-glasses among all the dark members of
the human family, have published their Report.
The Report states the Committee have distributed to their coloured
relations their sister Agogos's celebrated "Code of Good Manners;" as
well as the instructive little tract "How to Live well upon a Hundred
a-year;" which have effected a great moral change. And the Committee are
now engaged in preparing the "Savage's own Edition" of "The Guide to the
Toilet," and have made arrangements with a philanthropic Parisian
Milliner for the weekly publication of a "Courier des Dames Noires" in
the wilds of Africa and America.
[Illustration:
A Case of Real Distress.
]
In Domestic Economy they have succeeded in introducing the Bright Poker
to the hearths of the benighted savages, and so impressing them with the
noble truth that there are Pokers for use and Pokers for ornament. They
have not, however, as yet, been able to confer upon them the enjoyment
of the Silver Fork; but still they have accustomed them to the use of
that article in Britannia Metal, which having, as a moral writer justly
observes, quite the appearance of Silver, lends to the dinner-table all
the show of plate.
In the article of Food the poor things have much improved. They have now
given over eating their meat raw, while some families had advanced in
Civilization so far as to have fed Turkies before the Fire, until they
died from enlargement of the Liver, so that they might be able to
partake of the luxury of the "Paté de Foie Gras."
[Illustration:
THE WIVES OF ENGLAND SWEARING TO PROTECT UNSULLIED THE BRIGHT POKER.
]
"SAY YOU DID IT!"
A ROMANCE OF SMILES AND TITTERS.
TITTER THE THIRD.
Goffoni, however, though he hardly relished the idea of bidding adieu to
the world, and a generous Italian public, on the boards of a scaffold—
and which he now felt there was something stronger than a mere
probability of his doing—at length began to contemplate his lot with all
the melodramatic magnanimity of injured innocence. And though he had but
little of the martyr in his constitution, yet as Fate had cast him the
part, he was determined to fudge up as much stoical sternness as his
nature would allow him to throw into the character. Besides, deserted by
his Carlotta, he had still no great desire to continue a solitary unit
on the slate of creation; so that, to use his own expression, it
mattered not when he was sponged out. "What was the world to him?" again
he asked himself, and again he gave himself precisely the same answer,
videlicet,—"a wilderness, a desert!" Existence, he said, he viewed as a
piece of burnt rag, with but a few bright specks flitting across its
dark surface; and he cared not how soon "the parson and the clerk"
appeared to announce the departure of his vital spark.
But Goffoni had no sooner made up his mind to play the unmitigated hero
to the last, than the presence of her whose absence had given him such
supernatural fortitude thawed all the artificial ice of his stoicism,
and made the hero melt into the man.
Yes! the dark-eyed young partner of his bosom and four-poster—she whom
he believed had left him for ever for the Marchese di Castellinaria, had
come to console him in his affliction! and Goffoni, though he could have
been a Regulus without his Carlotta, felt, when he saw her, all his
magnanimity ooze out of his eyes.
"Oh! Bartolo! Bartolo!" sobbed the Signora, "if I hadn't seen it in all
the papers I should never have dreamt of finding you here. You can't
tell what I've suffered on your account!"
"Oh! Carlotta! Carlotta!" groaned Goffoni: "and what have _I_ not
suffered on _your_ account? But for _you_, alas! I should not have been
here."
"For me-e!" hysterically exclaimed Carlotta. "Oh! don't say so! How
could _I_ possibly have anything to do with it?"
"Didn't you tell me," inquired the woe-begone Signor, "that you'd leave
me—_for ever_? You did! You know you did!"
"Yes! but I'd done so a hundred times before," retorted Mrs. Goffoni;
"and I thought you knew women better than to believe such things."
"Nor should I have been such a booby as to do so," remarked Mr. G., "if
you hadn't written me that horrid letter."
"Letter!" cried Carlotta. "Oh! I see it all now! I do! That letter was
intended for the Marchese di Castellinaria, and you—you—wretched—stupid
man—you thought it was meant for yourself."
"Intended for that cursed Marchese!" shouted Signor Goffoni. "Then why
the deuce did you leave the house, and tell the maid to give it to me?"
"Oh! I thought it would make you so happy and comfortable!" exclaimed
his miserable little wife. "I thought it would please you so on your
return home to find how I'd answered the fellow's impertinent note."
"Then! oh dear! oh dear!" replied Goffoni; "why _couldn't_ you have
shown it to me yourself?"
"Why, because you were so cruel, and so put out about that note in the
morning, that I didn't like to see you again until I had made you
acquainted with what I had done. So I left the copy for you to read,
while I went out to post the original."
Goffoni now saw through the mistake as clearly as his better half; and
again he railed at the limited extent of his intellectual faculties,
applying to himself the same complimentary terms as he had previously
used. And then he kissed his Carlotta, and called her his own blessed
angel of a wife, and himself her own cursed fool of a husband; and gave
vent to his feelings—which were now a kind of a piebald of grief and
joy—in a manner that makes a bankrupt of description, and forces history
to take the benefit of the insolvent act. For he plainly perceived that,
without any real cause, he had taken poison and a highway robbery upon
himself; and that he would be forced to separate from his Carlotta at a
time when he had no desire to leave her, and by a species of divorce for
which he had now lost all relish.
The sorry Signor then recited to his wondering little wife the tale
which we have before told the reader (only not quite so cleverly as
ourselves); and on showing her the cloak that he had received from the
stranger, his distress of mind was in no way relieved by hearing his
Carlotta—who could swear to the clasp and collar—peremptorily pronounce
it to be the property of the very Marchese from whom he dated all his
troubles. So that he now saw, in addition to his miseries, not only that
he had saved the life of him who was the primary cause of all his
jealousy, but that he was about to die outright for the crimes of the
very man whose peccadilloes had nearly put an end to his existence by
poison before.
Yes! facetious reader, it was even so! The Signora's gallant Marchese
was none other than the Signor's ungallant stranger, a gentleman better
known in the romance of highway robbery as VIRTUOSO, the brigand! and
who, in the glowing language of one of the many instructive novels, of
which he afterwards became the hero, "was no vulgar Freebooter." No! his
was a spirit too proud to beg, too chivalrous to work, and too generous
to trade. If he took from the rich he freely gave to the poor; and if,
in the pursuance of his romantic vocation, he was compelled, in
self-defence, to sacrifice the life of some obstinate victim, he ever
after endeavoured to remove the stain of the blood from his soul by the
scouring drops of contrition. Nor was his love of the poor greater than
his love of—WOMAN! To her his lustrous eye and soft guitar-like voice,
coupled with the perils of his adventurous life, had ever a magical
charm. He was not merely the Freebooter of Lucre, but—the Brigand of the
Heart! And if his passion was of too fickle and roving a nature, at
least in extenuation it may be pleaded that he never parted from the
object of his love without first abstracting from her some article of
jewellery or plate, by which to treasure up her remembrance.
However, to return to poor Goffoni. The day of his trial at length
arrived. On being placed in the dock it seemed to him as if he were
standing on the doorstep of Eternity; for reflection and everybody had
conspired to assure him of the utter hopelessness of his case. And when,
to his infinite horror, he heard the drover, without the least
hesitation, swear that he, the Signor, was the man who had taken his
purse, Goffoni felt as though his shoulders had already served his head
with notice to quit. The judge, however, finding that the case turned on
a point of disputed identity, ordered the prisoner to put on the hat
which had been dropped on the road. Goffoni did so, and was suffused
with a cold perspiration on finding that it fitted him to a hair. He was
then directed to endorse his body with the cloak, which, alas! also
suited the poor devil as though it had been made to measure. The drover
looked at him for a second, and then swore with even greater certainty
than before that he was the identical person who had robbed him. Goffoni
now saw that the sands of his last moments were fast running through the
egg-boiler of his existence, when—as the gentlemen of the Italian press
afterwards expressed it—"a stranger, dressed in the first style of
fashion, rose from the body of the court, and requested to be permitted
to put on the articles in which the prisoner had just appeared." Having
obtained the sanction of the judge, he attired himself in the cloak and
hat, and demanded of the drover, on his oath, whether he, the stranger,
was not the party who had taken his purse? The drover eyed the stranger
from top to toe, and then, after a little deliberation, swore even still
more emphatically that he was. Whereupon the stranger pointed out to the
judge that since the drover had sworn with equal certainty to two
different parties as the culprit, it was clear that he might be mistaken
in both.
A word to the wise is sufficient. So, reader, if your skull be not as
thick as a bombshell, it is hardly necessary for us to tell you that
Goffoni was acquitted—that it was Virtuoso, the brigand, who procured
his acquittal; and that the Moral of all this is (for we must be "moral
to the last"), never take the good or bad action of another to yourself,
nor be shabby or silly enough to—"SAY YOU DID IT."
[Illustration:
ELEGANT EXTRACTS FROM THE LAST NEW BURLESQUE.
]
[Illustration:
Billingsgate in the ascendant.
]
[Illustration:
Burlesque standing on its merits.
]
A BATTLE WITH BILLINGSGATE.
SUGGESTED BY THAT OF BLENHEIM.
It was the Christmas Holidays,
And seated in the Pit,
A Father saw the new Burlesque,
That was so full of wit.
And by him sat—in Slang unskill'd—
His pretty little girl, Clotilde.
She heard some "ladies" on the Stage
Say they would "cut their sticks!"
And one in male attire declare
That she'd "go it like bricks."
She ask'd her Father what were "bricks?"
And what they meant by "cut their sticks?"
The Father heard the audience laugh,
As at some witty stroke;
And the old man he scratch'd his head,
For he couldn't see the joke.
"I don't know what they mean," said he,
"But sure 'tis some facetiæ."
And then she heard one, nearly nude,
Say something else about
"Has your fond mother sold her mangle?
And does she know you're out?"
And when the people laughed, cried she,
"Oh, Pa! there's more facetiæ!"
And then the little maiden said,
"Now, tell me why, Papa,
That lady ask'd him if the mangle
Was sold by his Mamma?"
"I can't tell why, my dear," said he,
"Though, of course, 'tis some facetiæ."
But when she saw the lady's fingers
Unto her nose applied,
"Why, 'tis a very vulgar thing!"
The little maiden cried.
"The papers all, my child, agree,
'Tis brimful of facetiæ!
"And everybody says the Piece
With brilliant wit is fill'd;"
"And what is wit, my dear Papa?"
Quoth innocent Clotilde.
"Why, that I cannot say," quoth he,
"But wit is _not_—vulgarity."
[Illustration:
THE STAG, THE BULL, AND THE BEAR.
(A Railway Fable.)
]
THE STAG, THE BULL, AND THE BEAR.
A RAILWAY FABLE.
A Stag there was—as I've heard tell,
Who in an attic us'd to dwell,
Or rather—to use a fitter phrase—
Who in an attic us'd to graze;
And being blest, like many I know,
With little Conscience, and less Rhino,
Took to that frailest of all frail ways,
And wrote for shares in all the Railways;
Applied, without the least compunction,
For Seventy five in each new "Junction,"
And gen'rally—the more's the pity—
Got thirty shares from each Committee,
Whereof though it for sale was _not_ meant,
He sold the Letter of Allotment.
But this he did, forsooth, because it
Said something rude about Deposit.
Now he'd applied, and—what was better—
This Stag had just receiv'd a letter,
Allotting him some shares, then far
Above the Railway Zero—"par."
"How kind of them," says he, "to gi'e me 'em,
Since they're at such a whacking premium!
'Tis to my soul 'a flatt'ring unction,'
Oh! Good ST. JAMES' and ST. GILES' JUNCTION."
And then the Stag went cap'ring down,
Like many another "buck on town,"
To where "the common herd" resort,
The stony field hight Capel Court,
And where the half-starved _hinds_ are seen,
Trying _to nibble all the "Green."_
But soon to this fam'd cervine quarter
There came a Bull intent on slaughter,
And finding that the Stag I tell of
Had got some shares which were thought well of,
The Bull began to run them down,
And swore they weren't worth half-a-crown;
He call'd it all the worst of names,
This Junction of St. Giles and James;
And thus—these Bulls have so much art with 'em—
At last he got the Stag to part with 'em.
For 'tis with these same Bulls on 'Change
As 'tis with those that meadows range;
To both alike this rule applies,
_What they run after's sure to rise_.
Then, wand'ring from his gloomy lair,
In Copthall Court, there came a Bear;
One of that curs'd unfriendly race
Who crush whatever they embrace;
Whose grip is such, whate'er they maul
_Is generally sure to fall_.
And, when he heard the Stag declare
He'd parted with his ev'ry share,
He vow'd the Bull had sorely treated him,
Nay—more he'd say—the Bull had cheated him.
It was the noblest of all schemes,
This Junction of St. Giles and _Jeames_!
However, as he hated knavery,
To do him an especial favour, he
Would let the Stag have thirty more,
At what he sold the others for;
The Stag of gratitude discourséd,
And took 'em on the terms aforesaid.
Now all this kindness of the Bear
Was nothing but a "_ruse-de-guerre_;"
For no one knew so well as Bruin
To hold the Shares was perfect ruin;
The whole affair was but a swindle,
And down to discount soon would dwindle.
And, truth to say, the Bear was right,
The Panic came, like Lillywhite,
That terror of the Lords, and bowl'd out
Ev'ry man Jack who hadn't sold out;
So that there was on "settling day,"
The Devil and the Bear to pay.
"But," says the Stag, "that cunning buffer,
The Bull, will be the chap to suffer;
So in a cab to him I'll dash up,
And get my taurine friend to cash up."
But when he gets to Mr. Taurus's,
Pasted upon the outer door, he sees
A card with these words written over,
"GONE TO BOULOGNE _viâ_ DOVER."
Now as the Bull had run away,
Unable for the shares to pay,
'Twas clear, as he'd no cash to spare,
The Stag then couldn't pay the Bear;
So when the Bear went for his due,
The Stag had gone to Boulogne too.
And, since the Stag had cut and run,
'Twas plain the Bear could pay no one;
So those to whom he money ow'd,
When they sought out the brute's abode,
Found that the Bear, or him they call so,
Had cut and run to Boulogne also.