Chairman—"Sons of Allah, the meeting is now up."
]
A meeting is adjourned very primitively. The chairman lifts his leg, and
the whole meeting suddenly takes to its heels and springs into the air,
like so many thousand frogs, and the next minute there is not one left.
Their dances are very lively. They generally take place in the open air,
or else if they danced in a room, they would be knocking their heads
every minute against the ceiling. To see them all take the same leap
simultaneously, and _balancezing_ some fifty feet above the earth, is
something so extraordinary, that it almost lifts you off your feet. No
less extraordinary are their ballets. They are more like fire-works than
any other exhibition; and you hear the loud exclamations of "O—o—h"
escape from the crowd, when a _première danseuse_ takes a higher flight
than usual. Their _grand pas_ are always watched through long
telescopes, which are let out at the doors for six piastres a night.
A Bedouin duel will sometimes last for days, for it is always the object
of the person who is to be shot to get out of the fire of his adversary,
and thus they will go on jumping after one another over the whole
kingdom for a week together.
Nurses toss their babies up in the air, and if they are slow in coming
down, they jump up after them and fetch them.
I have heard of a game of _écarté_ being played, _à vol d'aigle_, some
15,000 feet above the level of the sea. The great dodge is to prevent
your partner jumping up behind you to look over your cards.
Bedouin Royalty does not wear a crown, but a pair of spring-heeled
jack-boots, and it is high treason for any one but the Sheik to put his
foot into it.
The Bedouin Arabs are a cheerful people—their active life leads them to
be hilarious. They are early risers, and are generally up with the lark.
They are a volatile, but happy race; and it is very rarely you hear of a
Bedouin Arab having corns. He will take up a bill, too, quicker than any
man.
[Illustration:
A BEDOUIN BAILIFF.
]
* * * * *
ENGLAND'S STREAM OF CHARITY.—We are told by the advertisement that "The
Asylum for Distressed Sewers is always open." This asylum must surely be
the Thames?
MOCKERY.—"I have learnt this profound truth," says Alderman Johnson,
"from eating turtle, that it shows a most depraved taste to mock
anything for its greenness."
PUBLIC COMMUNISM.—The only kind of Communism that is likely to go down
in England is HALF-AND-HALF.
A DREADFUL CASE OF POISONING,
OR,
ANOTHER OF MY HUSBAND'S STUPID JOKES, WHICH HE THINKS ARE
SO CLEVER.
[Illustration:
Didn't know which way to turn.
]
[Illustration: Oh] MY dear sir, if ever there was a miserable woman in
this world, it is the poor creature who now takes up her pen to tell you
how wretched she is. I have not slept a wink all night. I must tell you
my husband is _dreadfully suspicious_, and so am I—and the best of women
at times; but still I never could have suspected he would have suspected
me in the abominable suspicious manner he has lately done. Will you
believe it, sir, he declared last night that he could plainly see I
wanted to "_pisen him_." The fact is, we had for supper some mushrooms
and a lovely pie just warmed up with a little steak in it, for I thought
I would give him a treat—and nicer mushrooms, or a tenderer steak, I
think I never tasted in all my life—when what does my fine gentleman do
but turn up his fine nose! Only first I must tell you that he ate a very
'arty supper, and had his whisky toddy all nice and comfortable—for I
must have mixed him six glasses if I mixed him one—and smoked his pipe,
though I have told him over and over again I would not allow any such
filthy practices in my house, especially the parlour. But kindness is
thrown away upon some men; for what does my Mr. Smellfungus do, but he
turns round upon me, and because he feels a big pain in his side,
accuses me on the spot of wishing to "_pisen him_." Those were his very
words. Oh! that I should have lived to have heard them; but it is not
the first time by ever so many that the suspicious creature has dared to
turn round upon me in this bumptious manner. The first time he degraded
himself in my eyes with these low suspicions was when he had been eating
pies at Twickenham, and we were returning home in the steamer, when all
of a sudden he called the whole cabin to witness that he was sure "_I
had pisened him_." Oh, dear! I was so struck that I No, that I didn't;
but I told him, once for all, if ever he dared to bring such a heavy
charge against me I would make him pay for it dearly, that I would, even
if it cost me my life. Here the _monster_ laughed, and dropt the poison,
but he brought it up again soon afterwards; for I recollect it was on a
Friday, and we had a most lovely giblet pie for dinner, though not a
morsel as big as a pin's head could I touch, for I was busy all the
while picking bones with my wretch of a husband, and I really thought I
should have choked, I was in such a way with him. He had no sooner
emptied the dish than he threw the "_pisen_" again in my face; and he
did it also another time when we had a quince pie—and a nice delicious
squince, in my eyes, is worth a Jew's eye any day; but my dainty lord
and master could see nothing but _pisen_ at the bottom of it, and
complained of cholera and pins and needles in his inside, and I don't
know what else. So this morning I packed up my bandbox, and asked him
boldly what he had got in his head lately? and that his low base
suspicions had completely poisoned my existence, and that I would jump
into the Thames as _sure as I was born_ sooner than be suspected any
longer. When my brazen _monster_, who is known for not
[Illustration:
STICKING AT TRIFLES,
]
draws his chair close up to mine, and laughs in my face, which made me
so boil over that, in the heat of the moment, I threw the teapot at him,
and then the slop-basin, and after that the milk-jug. I did not spare
the crockery, or the brute either, for I was not going to be accused for
nothing, I can tell you; but the more cups I broke, the more saucily he
laughed, till the big drops ran down his fat face, and he asked me, with
a nasty grin I didn't half like, "Whether I thought he belonged to a
_burial_ society for nothing?"
Oh! sir, the truth flashed all at once across my two eyes, for I knew my
husband had been reading these horrible newspapers lately, and I felt
instinctively they had poisoned his mind, so I ran out of the house
without my bonnet, and—will you believe it?—my hair still in
curl-papers, and got into a cab, vowing I would never put my foot in it
again until he had gone down upon his bended knees and confessed I was a
poor injured wrongly-suspected woman. I would sooner be a widow at once
than be thrown about in such a way. Oh! sir, I ask you if it is not
infamous, after being married to a man these fifteen years and more, to
be suspected of giving him his gruel with a spoonful of arsenic, and of
wishing to hurry him out of this world on a nasty toadstool instead of a
fine mush-room? But, sir, it's these infamous papers. I wish they were
all burnt of a heap, for I can plainly trace every bit of my pretty
Smellfungus's suspicions to those atrocious "POISONINGS IN ESSEX," which
have lately given the public such a turn. Since they have been
published, every husband suspects that his darling wife wishes to kill
him in order to receive the filthy bonus for burying him. I cannot tell
you how many poor suffering wives are separated at the present moment
from their brutes of husbands because they have had this abominable
poison flung in their teeth every day for the last two months. The poor
_innocent injured dears_ of men dare not now for their lives take a
single meal in their houses, for fear it should be their last! It's
quarrelling with their own bread and butter, to say the very least of
it.
I remain, sir, at my hotel (the "Two Magpies"), till my cruel
good-for-nothing lord and master chooses to come and fetch me.
Yours, _in despair_, crying my eyes out,
AN INNOCENT, LOVING, BUT SHAMEFULLY
SUSPECTED WIFE, AND MOTHER OF
SIX LOVELY CHILDREN.
P.S.—Oh! sir, my husband has just been here, and tells me it was only
meant as a joke—a pretty joke, indeed!—and that, as Hamlet says, he was
only "_pisening_ in jest," for how could he help suspecting, when I gave
him nothing but pies—beafsteak pies, eel pies, giblet pies, quince, and
mince, and all sorts of pies—but that I regularly wanted to _pisen_ him!
D'ye see—_pies_ and _pise_ning? I never heard such a joke! How men can
make such donkeys of themselves I don't know! But I couldn't well be
angry with the silly fellow, for he has brought me _such_ a beautiful
shawl; and I need not tell you, sir, that in matrimony a lovely Cashmere
hides a multitude of faults.
[Illustration:
ONE WHO HAS A FINGER IN EVERYBODY'S PIE.
]
* * * * *