F. Anstey

“ My gracious hostess was to tender profuse apologies for its homeliness, on the plea that it is refreshing at times to lay aside ceremonial magnificence and unbend in rural simplicity, though it is not humanly possible to unbend oneself upon the thorny bosoms of chairs and couches severely upholstered with the prickling hairs of an extinct horse.
Still, as I assured Miss Wee-Wee, she is the happy owner of a magical knack to transform, by her sheer apparition, the humblest hovel into the first-class family residence with every modern improvement. ”

“ XI Mr Jabberjee finds himself in a position of extreme delicacy.
It is an indubitable fact that the discovery of steam is the most marvellous invention of the century. For had it been predicted beforehand that innumerable millions of human beings would be transported with security at a headlong speed for hundreds of miles along a ferruginous track, the most temporary deviation from which would produce the inevitable cataclysm and no end of a smash, the working majority would have expressed their candid opinion of such rhodomontade by cocking the contemptuous snook of incredulity. ”

“ A poor tongue-tied devil of a chap whom I regard with pity!
Witherington, Q.C., is addressing the jury. He is not a tongue-tied, but he speaks in a colloquial, commonplace sort of fashion which does not shed a very brilliant lustre upon boasted British advocacy.
Though of an unromantic obesity, it appears from the excessive eulogies he lavishes upon Jessimina that he is already the tangled fly in the web of her feminine enchantments. What a pity that such a prominent barrister should be so unskilled in seeing through such a millstone as the female heart! ”

“ When I first received intimation from the supernal and spanking hand of Hon'ble Mr Punch, that he smiled with fatherly benignity at my humble request that he should offer myself as a regular poorly-paid contributor, I blessed my stars and was as if to jump over the moon for jubilation and sprightfulness. ”

“ I did shake my head sorrowfully, and reply that I greatly feared that Jessimina's devotion to this unlucky self was too severe to be diverted, or even checked, like a cow that is infuriated or non compos mentis, by the mere relinquishment of such tinsel and gewgaw wraps as a title or worldly belongings, having frequently (and that, too, prior to our engagement) protested her preference for very dark-complexioned individuals, and her vehement curiosity to behold India. ”

“ Need I explain I am alluding to the nowaday passion for propelling oneself at a severe speed by dint of unstable and most precarious machinery? It is now the exception which breaks the rule to take the air in the streets without being startled by the unseemly spectacles of go-ahead citizens straddled upon such revolutionary contrivances, threading their way with breakneck velocity under the very noses of omnibus and other horses, and ringing the shrill welkin of a tintinnabulating gong! ”

“ Hon'ble Miss Chairwoman, Madams, Misses, and Hon'ble Mister Opener, the humble individual now palpitating on his limbs before you is a denizen from a land whose benighted, ignorant inhabitants are accustomed to treat the females of their species as small fry and fiddle faddle. Yes, Madams and Misses, in India the woman is forbidden to eat except in the severest solitude, and after her lord and master has surfeited his pangs of hunger ”

“ When last met, you suffered from the impecuniosity of a churched mouse. Have you made your fortune, Tomkins?
Mr Tomkins. I am too easy a goer, and there are too many rogues in the world, that I should ever make my own fortune, Johnson! Happily for me, an opulent and ancient avuncular relative has lately departed to reside with the morning stars, and left me wealth outside the dream of an avaricious!
Mr Johnson (enviously) . God bless my soul! Some folks have the good luck. (To me, whispering.) A poor ninny-hammer sort of chap, he will soon throw it away on drakes and ducks! ”

“ For the most superficial observer, and with the half of a naked optic, could easily discern the immeasurable superiority of Miss Wee-Wee to Jessimina in all the refinements and delicacies of a real English lady, and although, up to present date, the timidity of girlishness has restrained Miss Allbutt-Innett from reciprocating my increasing spooniness, her parents and brother are of an overwhelming cordiality, and repeatedly mention their ardent hope that I may become their guest up in the hills some time this autumn. ”

“ Don't see the young woman, or she will get round you with half a jiffy. Write to her that you are not worthy of a rap, and no more a Prince than I am!"
Hearing his last words, I started, and did, like the ghost of Hamlet, Senior, "jump at this dead hour," being convinced that young Howard had found out (perhaps from Hon'ble Cummerbund) that my title was a bogus, and anticipating that, if he divulged the skeleton of my bare cupboard to his highly genteel parents, I should infallibly experience the crushing mortification of a chuck out. ”

“ If the jury think me a gay sort of Hindoo deceiver, who has heartlessly trifled with the affections of a simple, unsuspecting English girl, that will lead them to award substantial damages. If, on the other hand, they consider myself an inexperienced Oriental ninnyhammer of a fellow, who has been entrapped into an engagement by an ambitious, artful young woman—why, that may incline them to inflict a merely nominal penalty. ”

“ And so I arrived at the pretty Pass by dint of flourishing my trumpet. But, heigho! some fly or other is the indispensable adjunct of every pot of ointment, and while I was still jumping for joy at having passed the steep barrier of such a Rubicon, there came a letter from Miss Jessimina which constrained me to cachinnate upon the wrong side of nose!
It appeared that, pursuant of my request, she had been to call upon Hon'ble Sir Chetwynd, who had duly informed her that I was not the genuine Rajah or any kind of real Prince, nor yet a Crœsus with unlimited cash. ”

“ When you have given your own evidence and called any witnesses you may wish to call, you will have an opportunity of addressing the jury, and exhibiting the eloquence on which you apparently place so much reliance. ”

“ How is she possibly to endure a domestic existence exposed to the slings and arrows of a perpetual gorilla warfare from various native aunts and sisters-in-law, or how is she to reconcile her dainty and fastidious stomach, after the luscious and appetising fare of a Bayswater boarding-house, to simple, unostentatious, and frequently repulsive Indian eatables? ”

“ In consequence, though I am beating the floor with my head as I write, and moistening the carpet with the copiousness of my lachrymations, I must bid you the final and irrevocable adieu and au revoir, since I am unwilling to act as a selfish. Think of me as "a prince out of thy star," to quote the reference of Shakspeare's character, Polonius, to Hamlet, under precisely similar circumstances. You will please forget me instanter, and accept this as my last solemn so-long, which I utter on the threshold of preparation for the stern and dreaded ordeal of Bar Exam. ”

“ From an ingrained love of teasing, and also the natural desire to stimulate her appreciation of my superior fertility in small talk and l'art de plaire, I do often slyly contrive to inflict his sole society upon her—to the huge entertainment of her father and mother, who carry on the joke by assisting my manœuvrings; but, although it affords me a flattering gratification to be plaintively upbraided by Miss Wee-Wee for my cruel desertion, I am resolved not to persist in such heartless pranks beyond her natural endurance. ”

“ Nor am I in love with a future state in which there is so much dancing up and down lofty flights of stairs with terpsichorean energy, and manœuvring in companies and circles with members of the softer sex. As a philosophical conception of disembodied existence, it is undeniably deficient in repose, though perhaps good enough for ordinary fighting chaps!
I spent a rapturous and ripping evening, however, greatly owing to the condescension of Miss Wee-Wee, who exhibited such entertainment at my comments that I left under the confident persuasion that I was infallibly to be the favoured swain. ”

“ Notwithstanding this, when I summon up my courage to address her, she receives my laborious politeness with a cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of a dark complexion. ”

“ For if the art were indeed so difficult as you pretend, how should it be acquired by so many timid and delicate feminines and mere nurselings? This machine of yours is nothing but an obsolete hors de combat with which it is not humanly possible to work the oracle! ”

“ For, since my arrival at this hamlet of Kilpaitrick, N.B., I have not once beheld any species of savage hill-man; moreover, the adult inhabitants are clothed with irreproachable decency, and, if the juveniles run about with denuded feet and heads, where is the shocking scandal?
Mr Allbutt-Innett, sen., did me the honour to appear in person upon the Kilpaitrick platform, and welcome me with outspread arms to his temporary hearth and home, but I shall have the candour of confessing my disappointment with the size and appearance of the same. ”

“ Speak, Tomkins!
Mr T. Assuredly not; but so, too, would this gentleman. (To me, as Mr Johnson sneered a doubt.) Here, you, Sir, take this portemonnaie out into the street for five minutes or so, I trust to your honour to return it intact. (After I had emerged triumphantly from this severe ordeal of my bonâ fide.) Aha, Johnson! am I the judge of men or not?
Mr J. (still seeking, as I could see, to undermine me in his friend's favour) . Pish! Who would steal a paltry £50 and lose £1000? ”

“ This for a while I endured submissively from native timidity and retirement, until my bosom boiled over at the sense of "Civis Romanus sum," and, descending to the barrier, I harangued the wicket-keeper with great length and fervid eloquence, informing him that I was graduate of high-class Native University after passing most tedious and difficult exams with fugitive colours and that it was injurious and deleterious to my "mens sana in corpore sano" to remain on legs for some hours beholding what I practically found to be invisible. ”

“ Now, Sir, is it the fact that you ever actually consulted the gentleman who enjoys the distinction of being astrologer to your family upon your marriage with the plaintiff? Be careful what you say.... And did he ever forbid you to contract such an alliance?... Then was there a word of truth in all that?... I thought as much. Let me read you another letter. (He reads.) Here, you see, you make quite another excuse. You are already married, and can only offer the plaintiff the position of a rival wife, or "sateen," as you call it. Have you ever contracted an infant marriage in India?... ”

“ As Poet Burns remarks with great truthfulness, "Rank is but a penny stamp and a Man is a Man and all that." Nevertheless, for the present, I am resolved to remain mum as a mouse.
Since I am now in their pockets for a perpetuity, I was privileged on a recent evening to escort the Allbutt-Innett ladies to the Empire of India Exhibition, upon which I shall now pronounce the opinion of an expert, though space forbids me to describe its multitudinous marvels, save with the brevity of a soul of wit. ”

“ Let out!! Fighting dogs are here!!!"
And they met my appeal with unmannerly jeerings, until the controller of the train, seeing that I was firm in upholding my dignity of British subject, and claiming my just rights, unfastened the door and permitted me to escape; but, while I was yet in search of a compartment where no canine elements were in the manger, the train was once more in motion, and I, being no daredevil to take such leap into the dark, was a second time left behind, and a loser of two trains. ”

“ In Hereford Road I occupy garishly genteel first-floor front and back apartments at rupees fifteen per week and the Lady of the Land has entreated me to kindly excuse the waiting-maid for jumping with diffidence whenever I pop upon her unpremeditatedly on the stairs, being a nervous girl and unaccustomed to dark-complexioned gentlemen—though her own countenance, from superabundance of blacking and smuts, being of a far superior nigritude, it is I myself who should be more justified in jumping. ”

“ Jab will spout and won't keep to the point; but, all the same, I fancy, somehow, he's getting round the Jury. He's such a jolly innocent kind of old ass, and they like him because he's no end of sport. The plaintiff's a devilish fine girl, and gave her evidence uncommonly well; but, unless Witherington turns up again, I believe old Jab will romp in a winner, after all! I haven't taken down anything else, except his wind-up, when of course he managed to get in a speech.
Jab. Believe me, gentlemen of the jury, this is simply the barefaced attempt to bleed and mulct a poor impecunious Indian. ”