F. C. Burnand

“ Never mind, I shan't meet anybody to care about so early. Eight o'clock, I declare I haven't a moment to lose. Fate has placed me with the most punctual, particular, and peremptory of hatters, and I must fulfil my destiny. ”

“ Jenkyns Soames sits on my right, and will talk arithmetic and science to me.
The Medfords and the Frimmelys make another joke-party as it were, and I cannot understand what's going on.
Happy Thought.—Look as if I did. Smile, nod, say “I know.” Milburd asks, almost rudely, “Do you? What is it?” As I don't, I merely smile again, and say “Yes” to Jenkyns Soames, who is giving me his reasons for supposing, by calculation, that vegetables have had a pre-adamite existence, and that even a turnip may have a glorious future before it, when man has disappeared from the face of the earth. ”

“ It occurs to me that I will join Miss Medford in the morning-room. There are some days when one finds it very difficult to immediately follow thoughts with action. On such occasions time doesn't fly, but slides noiselessly down an inclined plane, and one is in a state of perpetual surprise. ”

“ Why, the gentleman who has got the attics is hardly ever without a pipe in his mouth—and there he sits for hours, and puffs away into the fire-place. Cox. Ah, then you mean to say that this gentleman's smoke, instead of emulating the example of all other sorts of smoke, and going up the chimney, thinks proper to affect a singularity by taking the contrary direction. ”

“ We know what we are, but we never know what we shall be. I am not quite clear at present, by the way, what I am, let alone what I shall be. If anybody three months ago had said to me, “Box, my boy, you are a grandee of Spain” . . . I should have said that he was a . . . in point of fact I shouldn't have believed him. But still I am—that is, partially so—I'm gradually becoming one. At present I'm only half a grandee. Three months ago a friend, my legal adviser, a law stationer's senior clerk, near Chancery Lane, said to me, “Box, my boy, you've got Spanish blood in you.” ”

“ I took a vast amount of pains to get to Aix, and here I am. I had heard of some property in Venice, which belonged to the Coxes some hundreds of years ago, and so I thought I'd join pleasure with business, and take Aix and Penelope Anne on the road. And now here she is. If Box had only known it, he'd have been after her. He's a first-rate fellow, is Box, but abominably mercenary and mean. He'd think nothing of proposing to Penelope Anne merely for her money. And I think nothing of a man who could do such a thing. ”

“ Chilvern walks to the window.
“We were saying,” says the Professor, who evidently has a whole three-volume lecture ready for us, “that deaf people are happy. Now I controvert that opinion. To be deaf, is not a blessing.”
“Then,” says Milburd, “a person who is deaf, is not a blessed old man, or old woman, as the case may be.”
“You misapprehend me, my dear Milburd. What I would say about deafness, is this—” (exit Bella, quietly,) —“is this—that the loss of the sense of hearing——”
“Is seldom the loss of hearing sense,” interrupts Boodels, at the door. ”

“ Boodels says “Pooh!” If he doesn't understand a thing at once he dismisses it with “pooh.” As I ascend the wide oak staircase, with room enough for eight people abreast on every step, I reflect on the foolishness of a man saying “pooh,” hastily. How many great schemes might anyone nip in the bud by one “pooh.” What marvellous inventions, apparently ridiculous in their commencing idea, would be at once knocked on the head by a single “pooh.” The rising Artist has an infant design for some immense historical Fresco. He comes—I see him, as it were, coming to Boodels to confide in him. ”

“ On the whole, I'd rather meet a ghost, than a rat, or a blackbeetle, or a burglar.
The diminishing scale, of what I would rather not meet in a narrow staircase at night, is, the burglar, rat, blackbeetle, ghost. ”

“ Byrton and Milburd are gone to join the Signor for some sport. Medford offers to show us his trick with a shilling, and Milburd, being asked to sing, refuses. Boodels (who is melancholy, and in love) , asks Medford to play a tune, but Medford says he'd rather not, because nobody will attend to his trick with a shilling, whereupon Chilvern sits down to what he calls “try something” on the piano. What he does try is our temper. Gradually we leave the room and meet to smoke. ”

“ I indicate in dots the front door, and the drive.
“Precisely,” says Boodels, “and just as you're in the middle of a game of something, up comes a party to call; you can't say you're not at home, and the servants can't open the door while the ball, or whatever it is, is flying about.”
10 True . . . Then . . . bring it more forward. Or make a new plan.
“Then the bath-room's forgotten,” says Milburd. Add it in dots to tennis court.
Then over every room there'll be a bed-room and dressing-room. So that'll be a good house.
“What style?” asks Cazell. ”

“ Pay them a rent and a per-centage every year until the whole is paid off, when it becomes yours.”
“In fact,” I put it, bluffly, to him, “I can build a house 4without having any money; I mean, by getting the money from the Building Society?”
“Precisely. Any day.”
I hesitate. It really is—if Cazell is correct—much better than hiring a house . . . or taking lodgings. And what does Cazell think the cost will be?
“Well,” says he, “put it at £2,000, the outside.” I reflect that the inside, too, will be a considerable expense. “A good, strong house. Why, I knew a fellow build one for £1,500. ”

“ Boodels says, if anything, he should like it to be an observatory, or, on second thoughts, a large aquarium.
Cazell says at once, “If you want to see an aquarium you should go to Havre.”
Chilvern returns that there's a better one at Boulogne.
Milburd caps this by quoting the one at the Crystal Palace.
Cazell observes quickly that the place for curious marine specimens is Bakstorf in Central Russia.
“You've never been to Central Russia,” says Milburd, superciliously. Professing to have travelled considerably himself, he doesn't like the idea of anyone having done the same. ”

“ For some days Milburd, Mrs. Orby Frimmely, Cazell, Chilvern, and the Medfords have been working hard at a new piece.
The order of the evening is dinner for a few, then theatricals to amuse the many, then refreshments, then a dance, and finally supper.
The Signor is in great force. ”

“ Being possessed of small private means, he would probably have remained an amateur, seeing, not only without a particle of envy, but with a smile of positive encouragement, others far less able than himself, pass him on the road of art, and occupy pedestals which ought to have been his. ”

“ Cazell wants to know who is to be the host. Boodels proposes me.
I accept the position; but what am I exactly? that's what I must clearly understand.
Milburd explains—a sort of president of a Domestic Republic.
Very good. Then how about the ladies?
Chilvern says we must have a hostess. We all suppose, doubtfully, that we must. I ask, Won't that interfere with our arrangements?
Boodels replies, that “we can't have any arrangements without a hostess.” He says, after some consideration, that he has got a Grandmother who might be useful. ”

“ Boodels.
Milburd takes up the trumpet. “He says,” shouts Milburd, it being quite unnecessary to shout, “that he's a very clever fellow.”
“Ah,” says Mrs. Boodels. “Mr. Chilvern's always joking.”
“I never said anything of the sort,” says the injured Chilvern to her, defending himself through the ear-trumpet.
55 “Ah,” observes Mrs. Boodels, perfectly satisfied. “I was sure he never could have said that.” Then she considers for a few seconds. After this she remarks, “Cleverness, is not one of his strong points.” ”

“ Medford will do a galop, he says; and immediately before I have time to ask if Bella—if Miss Bella . . . he strikes into it and the dancers change their step, and are whirling round and round, then up and down. I can't stop them. As the opera books say, “Rage! Madness! Despair!”
I catch her eye.
She understands, I am sure.
She will . . .
If she does . . .
She stops, making some excuse to Milburd and looking at me. (Aha! Milburd! you think yourself such a lady killer, that a . . this to myself, thinkingly) . ”

“ The Professor tries again, another fizz, no spark.
Madame Regniati begs that the lights may be restored, and asks him to try something else.
Apologising for the lime-light (I see Milburd and Layder exchanging winks) . The Professor passes on to Oxygen.
He shows us a jar of Oxygen. Experiments with an incandescent piece of wood. (Applause.)
Another with phosphorus, and another with charcoal. (Great applause, and nothing having happened, we feel ourselves in comparative safety. Madame observes, that she doesn't like anybody playing with fire.) ”

“ Mrs. Boodels asleep. “Though I thought it was more when I commenced the equation.
“I will now,” he says, “write down a text.”
[Watches out . . . . a yawn from Cazell . . . . ladies restless.]
“To Give is a Wealthy Pleasure.
“And on this I make what I call ‘suggestions.’
66 “The poor man has it in his power to cause the Rich great pleasure.
“Let I stand for me.”
(“Impossible,” interrupts Milburd, sotto voce. Our Philosophic Lecturer takes no notice. He is rising with his subject) .
“Let us say ‘I is poor.’”
Miss Bella says, “Excuse me a moment,” and vanishes. Wish I could get out. ”

“ Chilvern is Miss Cherton's partner.
Milburd is Miss Bella's.
I don't dance. I debate with myself whether I can or not. I used to. In a waltz for instance, I know two steps out of 75three. The third is where I fail. Dances change so. My waltz is the Deux temps, for the simple reason that the Deux temps does also for the galop, that is, it does for my galop.
I flatter myself on my galop. Here, so to speak, I am at home. If Medford can only play a galop, and if Miss Bella will give up Milburd, or Milburd give her up, why je suis son homme. I am her man. ”

“ The next thing is to make up a party. Cazell tells us “what we ought to do.” “We ought,” he says, “to form ourselves into a committee, and ask so many people.”
We meet in the evening to choose our party. Rather difficult to propose personal friends, whom 38every one of us will like. We agree that we must be outspoken, and if we don't like a guest proposed, we must say so, and, as it were, blackball him.
Or her?—This remark leads to the question, Are there to be any ladies? Boodels says decidedly, Yes.
Chilvern, putting it artistically, says, “We want a bit of colour in a house like that.” ”

“ Boodles is deposed and retires, vice Madame Regniati promoted.
Madame Regniati arrives alone. “The Signor,” as his nephew Milburd always affectionately terms him, “has not come by the same train.”
“It is just like Mr. Regniati,” observes Madame, severely. “He said he'd leave me to look after the luggage. Mr. Regniati has no notion of even looking after himself. Probably he has lost himself. ”

“ Remember some story about this somewhere, when it turned out that there was a man concealed, who came out to murder people at night, living happily behind the picture in the day-time. Cheer myself up by thinking that if Milburd had seen this picture he'd have named it “The Meloncolic Man.”
Odd. I don't hear their voices. They can't be playing me any trick, and hiding. If there is a thing I detest, if there is one thing above another absolutely and positively wicked and reprehensible, it is hiding behind a door or a curtain . ”

“ A deaf person can always talk to herself, and obtain a hearing.
Miss Bella exclaims, “Oh, what shall we do if it rains?”
Whereupon Miss Medford observes that the gentlemen will amuse us.
[Miss Medford is an addition to our party. She was brought by Mrs. Orby Frimmely, and Mr. Frimmely subsequently 61came down with her brother Alfred Medford, a celebrated musical amateur, “of the nobility's concerts.” “A very interesting looking young man,” Mrs. Boodels observes aloud when he arrives, but she is a little afraid of him on finding that he can do a conjuring trick. He only has one.] ”

“ The ladies look at one another and smile. Mrs. Orby Frimmely exclaims, “Oh do,” and laughs.
Milburd says it's just the thing to while away a happy hour, and instances the Polytechnic as being his favourite place of amusement in London.
Mr. Soames replies to this that the Polytechnic and himself are different institutions.
“All right,” says Milburd; “go ahead!” Whereupon Milburd rushes into the library. Silence during his absence. It is broken by Medford asking Boodels if he's ever seen the trick with the shilling in the tumbler? Boodels replies that he has, but would like to see it again. ”

“ She never recollects it inhabited. We undo the huge shutters for ourselves, and bring down a cloud of dust and cobwebs.
The rays of light, bursting violently, as it were, into the darkness—become—after once passing the square panes, or where there are no panes, the framework—suddenly impure, and in need of a patent filter before they are fit for use.
Chilvern admires the proportions, and asks what we'll make, of this room?
A pause.
Happy Thought.—A Theatre. Nothing more evident; nothing easier.
I notice that both Boodels and Milburd catch at this idea. ”

“ On the contrary, it is Cosmopolitanly Philanthropical. If I am enabled to teach my doctrines for nothing, I shall, then, be slave to no man, no, not even to myself, as represented by my own necessities. ”

“ Jenkyns Soames is a scientific man.
“We mustn't be dull,” says Boodels, which I feel is covertly an objection to my friend.
41 Chilvern says that he thinks we ought to have an old man.
What for?
Well, . . . he hesitates, then says, politely, that with all young ones, won't Mrs. Boodels be rather dull?
THE “LEADING HEAVY.”
“But—soft! I must dissemble!”
(Happy Thought.—Old man for Mrs. Boodels, to talk to her through her ear-trumpet.)
Boodels says, “Oh, no! his grandmother's never dull.”
Milburd observes, that this choosing is like making up characters for a play. ”