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_Title:_ Sage Stuffing for Green Goslings
_Date of first publication:_ 1872
_Author:_ Hon. Hugh Rowley (1833-1908)
_Illustrator:_
_Date first posted:_ May 6, 2022
_Date last updated:_ May 6, 2022
Faded Page eBook #20220515

This eBook was produced by: Marcia Brooks, Pat McCoy & the online
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Archive/American Libraries.





                          [Cover Illustration]




[Illustration: STUFFING]




                            _SAGE STUFFING_
                                  FOR
                           _GREEN GOSLINGS;_
                                  OR,
              SAWS FOR THE GOOSE AND SAWS FOR THE GANDER.
                                 BY THE
                           HON. HUGH ROWLEY,
               AUTHOR OF “PUNIANA,” “GAMOSAGAMMON,” ETC.
[Illustration]
        WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
                  _ENGRAVED BY THE BROTHERS DALZIEL._
                                LONDON:
                      _GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,_
                         THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
                     _NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET._
                                 1872.




[Illustration: · DALZIEL BROTHERS · ENGRAVERS & PRINTERS ·  Camden
Press]




                               DEDICATED

                            _TO MY MOTHER._




                   SAGE STUFFING FOR GREEN GOSLINGS;
                                  OR,
              SAWS FOR THE GOOSE AND SAWS FOR THE GANDER.




                   SAGE STUFFING FOR GREEN GOSLINGS.


Say, O green gusling goslings, do you feel disposed to come and be
crammed with our sage stuffing? Say, O _im_proper ganders, will you have
our propaganda? Say, O ducks, delicious little ducks, can you duckline
our seasoning? Say, O ye pretty small-footed donkeys, _won’t_ you digest
our pointed thistles? Let us, O blockheads, cut you to the quick (if
you’ve got one) with the double-toothed saws of knowingness: O green
blades, permit us to _mot_ you. Say, O bores, shall our pearls be cast
before you to no purpose? Say, O swaggering stoopid big babes and
cigar-sucklings, shall our bells jingle their Proverbial Foolosophy for
you in vain? No, we rather imagine not. We know that the words of wisdom
nowadays are generally looked upon as a nuisance, a feahful bawah!
Plato’s sayings you call platotudes; Scissaro makes you want . . “to cut
it;” Pausanias can’t make any ass pause! Bruyère puts you into a mental
_brouillard_, and you think he isn’t half as much the cheese as
_gruyère_; you like Lamb in any other form but Charles; you leave your
Locke unopened; you don’t care to save your Bacon; Tupper isn’t
tuppermost in your thoughts; unint-Horace-ting to you is Ho_race_,
unless at Asscott or Donkeystir; you can’t bear moral songs, much less
Suffer-gless—poor old Sophocles, _and, agilis viridisque, senectus_,
Paddy Green! If any one recommend you to Goethe entire animal with the
most Schillerbrated Germans, or Shakespeare, you only answer, “_Mon
cher, Shakespeare déjà d’ennui_;” you like meandering more than
Menandering; you probably know Laura, but your ignorance of Petrarch is
depLaurable; you think more of your whiskers than your wits—more of
inScipioent moustachios than Scipio; more of your boots than your
brains—you won’t have a Bunyan if you can help it; though Young, your
“Night Thoughts” are really . . . . well . . . . not worth much: you
affect venal Jews more than Juvenal; quite _Bulwerser_ Lord Lytton by
skipping every word but the story in his books; pass Vi(r)gils and fasts
. . . . over; sacrifice Xenophon to a scene of fun; and consume the
midnight oil on the sole condition that it be intimately blended with
vinegar, mustard, lobsters, &c., &c., &c., et cetera.

Why is this, O _gobe-mouches_? Why, O why is it thus? Is it because
everything the axiomatic swells, ancient and modern, say is too heavily
put; because all their proverbs are solemn ’uns; because they don’t
amuse you; because they are too dry for your palate; because they’re a
pack of old duffers, eh? Of course! Therefore we are going to sage-stuff
you more lightly, more crummyly, more “Burlo-dramaticcally,” and more
easily for you to take in; but, as we know we too might lead you to the
undiluted water and not make you drink, we are going to try the effect
of putting a little spirit in this same water, a little spice in it, a
knob or two of sugar, a slice of lemon or so, and something else
besides, of an everfizzing character, to make it sparkle, and tempt you
to imbibe it, O Gander, with gooseto. Besides laying our own
eggsperience before you, we shall also _omeletauxfinesherbesify_ the
eggsperience of others, and when our sage-stuffing “rebukes” you, we
hope its effect will be to make some of you pull up the green blinds of
unwisdom which so many of you will keep carefully drawn down, as if
. . . common sense lay dead within you!

We shall watch to see if you improve: we know you, O Goslings, as we
meet you every day in the Row, at the club, at the play; we sit next you
on the same coaches, dine at the same houses, drink sherry with you at
Poole’s, stop at the same places, sail in the same yots, stalk the same
dears, hunt the same game, flirt with the same women; for the spirit of
Fun is—everywhere,

                 “A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes,
                   An’ faith he’ll prent it;”

but _don’t_, please do _not_ be angry; for remember—it’s only written
in

[Illustration: FUN]




[Illustration]

READER, dear Reader, we are about to commence pessimisticising and
sage-stuffing you; we are about to give you a sharp sauce, which is
equally sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander—of our own
manufacture; you may perhaps—it is not impossible—now and then find us
using the ingredients of others as our own; but remember, if you should,
that we only so use them as our _hone_ to sharpen our dull edge or blunt
point upon them, not that we should have the very faintest scruple in
using anybody else’s jokes, ideas, etc., if cribbing and plagiarism were
in our line, inasmuch as no end of people use ours; but as it isn’t, we
don’t, except, as we say, as a hone. If you are already sage (you may
be, _que scais-je?_) you can, and most probably _will_, quote our
sagejestsions to your less wise friends and acquaintance. . . . as your
own; but if you are not, as we are about with our Proverbial Foolosophy
to out-Tupper Tupper, it will be your own fault if you find us like the
unhappy man whose writings, alas! were said to be eternal, as . . . he
wrote to no end! Having thus told you what we are going to do, we are
now going to do it: permit us to offer you our




                              SPOONFUL I.


Burns says:

                “O wad some power the giftie gie us
                 To see oursels as ithers see us!”

He makes a mistake, for you ought, dear boy, to be exceedingly thankful,
for the sake of your own peace of mind, that it is impossible; and
impossible it _is_, as . . you’d have to get _behind your own back_ to
do it!

Know thyself, says the sage. Quite so. Ha! ha! by all means know
thyself, but—tell it not in Bath, publish it not in the streets of
Brighton—don’t, pray don’t, let anybody else know—what _you_ know.

The difference between “a good man” and “a good feller” is simply
e_nor_mous. The difference between “a good woman” and a good-_looking_
one, is even more stupendous.

“The D—v—l,” they say, “is not so black as he is painted.” Dear
reader, you may feel quite certain that he is _exactly_ the colour—_you
like best_!

You like young ladies: of course you do! we should utterly despise you
if you did _not_, for what _can_ be more entrancing? nevertheless, you
take our advice, and, if you would get on—don’t neglect the more
olderly ones.

A beautiful woman with no feeling, no soul, is like—a silk stocking
with no—no—no—ankle in it.

Definition of a woman who paints: ahem!— —The Lady of the _Lake_!

                 When lovely woman stoops to folly,
                 She does it cos she thinks it’s jolly.

Oh stoopid stoopid stooping stoopid females!!

Gentle Reader, pardon our exceedingly mild sarcasm, but we have ventured
to draw you a black-Amour here, going the way most “amours” _do_ go:
Gentle Reader, he is going to— —“break down”!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL II.


Just, only just frozen, yet on you go— —skating! Just, only just
introduced, yet on you go— —flirting! In the first case, before you
know where you are, you are . . . . “let in:” in the second case, before
you know where you are . . . . you—can’t get out of it! In the first
case the water is cold; but in the second, hang it, it’s—“hot water”
you get into! Why not wait, dear boy, till your affections—like the
more solid bank, on which it would be so much wiser to remain—are
. . . . _ripa_!

Reader, there has been more “coming-down heavily”—both on the ice and
in the world—in connection with “the figure” called “Cupid’s bow” than
perhaps with any other!

Remember this, in skating _and_ in worldly matters, the great thing
is—having a good balance, and being able to keep it—on the ice, and
. . . . the Bank! Cutting threes, double threes, eights, noughts, and so
on, on the one, isn’t half such good fun as drawing them on the other.

Just act in the world as you would on rotten ice— —avoid that which is
dangerous! Don’t say it’s difficult to discover its rottenness, its
. . . . superficiality. Bah! you know all about it as well as any one;
it don’t hide itself under a bushel, or even a bush: the real secret is,
you don’t want to see it, because . . . . it’s nice!

_Apropos_ of skating, &c., remember this: Pleasure is selfish: that
which is joy to you means cold, hunger, firelessness, starvation, death
even to others: if you like skating whilst others are frozen; if you
like swimming whilst hundreds of shipwrecked wretches may possibly be
battling with death in the _same_ sea, don’t—as the wit says—subscribe
to Exeter Hall Missionaries, for not half the people go to the d—l that
ought to, nor let your charity _begin_ at home and _stop_ there,
but—much more to the purpose—be charitable at X-mas time, and send a
fiver now and then to the Life Boat Institution.

The King of Prussia has been called the “Will of Providence”! To get rid
of him the French have now to pay . . . . the Bill of _im_-providence!

The last thing the King of Prussia said at Versailles was certainly the
best thing he said whilst he was there; he said, in his own _German
vay_—Je m’en vais!

France, poor France, for you has commenced . . . . the Rain of Tears!!!

French cooking is wholesome enough, but an _entrée à la Prusse_ will
always make the Gaul to rise.

A contented mind is a continual feast: yes, perhaps; but, there _are_
men—gastrophilistic parties, whose god is their tum-tum, whose Paradise
is Eden an’ drinkin’—who read it, that a continual feast is the best
way of getting a contented mind.

The cook who curries your lobsters, chickens, &c., &c., &c., to
perfection, can hardly fail also to curry . . . . your favour.

P_a_unch à la R_e_main: A man who sticks to the table! A man who has a
_paunchant_ for eating!

P.S.—Don’t call a man who “_sticks_ to the table”
gluttonous,—glutinous is the word!

Whine from the wood: A creaking door!

An un-flattering Port-trait: A red nose!

A Mayor’s nest: Guildhall!

Yes, there is no doubt about it; a short cut to the heart, is frequently
through the stomach!

Reader, Beloved Reader, we hear people spoken of as “sponges,” “awful
sponges,” “tremendous sponges”! Ha! ha! it isn’t _water_ THEY absorb
though: anything _but_ it!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL III.


Ingenuous youth! have you a young lady “in your eye”? if so . . . mind
it!

Do as you would be done by! This is entirely Smithkinson’s creed,
for—(his married life is _not_ happy)—he protests he shall only be
_too_ delighted to run away with Mrs. Somebody, provided he can only
_guarantee_ Mr. Somebody’s running away with Mrs. Smithkinson! . . . .
Ruffian.

An intellegshowall (if not an intellectual) treat;— —The Ballet!

Mrs. Eyebury Barnes has, we are informed, “taken up her cross”;—
—Nonsense! we don’t believe it, unless . . . . it is a good big diamond
one.

Mrs. Skippingtone Smyijthe-Smyijthe (widow) has, we are told, “put off
the old man”!— —yes; quite so; but simply because all the young ones
had first put _her_ off.

How many a time has love dimmed the eye of Beauty, and—and—ah—sad
retribution—how many a time has the mouth of Beauty . . . . dim’d Love.

“Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit;” no one can tell who he sits next
to in an omnibus; clever poet!

The most dangerous, tho’ most entrancing form of Rouge et Noir;—
—Ladies’ lips and boots!

We hear of people who have pet dogs “that do everything but speak;” by
the living jingo, it’s lucky for them, for both of them, dogs and
owners, they don’t do _that_.

When about to make a phool of yourself, ask yourself this question—“Is
she _worth_ going to the—the—Bad _for_?” We should like to have an
even hundred on our ability to guess your answer, eh?

Caning a boy for whistling on the Sabbath is perhaps the best, yes,
perhaps the _very_ best way to make him cordially detest that weekly
event for ever afterwards: it is quite as sure a way as taking him three
times to church every Sunday of his holidays.

How many a “swellish party” we see in the Row and St. James’s Street! “A
stranger, unacknowledg’d, unapprov’d,” is like the wind of Heaven; he
comes you know not whence, and he goes you know not whither!

Money in this world can do nearly everything for you; it can make your
home a mundane £-s-ium, &c., &c., &c., but it can _not_ . . . . make you
a gentleman.

There’s many a cloven hoof wears patent leather.

We are very much afraid, could Mephistopheles only walk about London,
A.D. 1871, offering a good many of us elderly parties the same bargain
he offered Dr. Faustus, that there would incontinently be a very
sensible _in_-crease in the number of youthful Burlington Arcadians, and
a corresponding _de_-crease in the number of padded, bewigged
old-gentlemanly bores, one is now accustomed to see about town!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL IV.


Yes, yes, of course, you, O Cornet and Sub-lieutenant Lord Doffleswell,
may get up your rocking animal’s “spirit” with your “sp_u_rto genteel”
if you think it looks well, and if you are weak enough to imagine people
don’t know how it’s done, but the less-accustomed-to horses reader and
rider who would become the centaur of admiring observation, had better
most carefully remember (unless he wish to be sent . . . aw . . .
flying) that he must first be able gracefully—and by Bellerophon
securely—to show—_on_, before he risks . . . . showing _off_!

When the poet said,

               “The proper study of mankind is man,”

he was in error; _that_ is the study of womankind: the _proper_ study of
mankind is—ladies!

The female heart is like iron, softest when warmest; we should then
attack it whilst it’s . . . . ma_l_eable!

“When other hearts and other lips their tales of love shall,” etc.,
etc., etc., if you are a lady go and tell your husband _immediately_! if
you are a gentleman, do NOT tell your wife.

Handsome is as handsome does; if you _are_ a gentleman—be gentle!
nothing is more admired by other men and—N.B., _and_—by women,
than—gentlemanliness!

Let the only thing low about you be . . . your voice!

Only do _half_ as well as—you would be done _by_, and _what_ an
agreeable fellow you will be.

We hear people spoken of as being “no better than they ought to be”!
This is very sad, considering the _height_ of the 1871 standard of
goodness!

Habit and custom become, like use, a sort of second nature; the habit or
custom of _not_ using pockethandkerchiefs sufficiently often to very
young children is most highly to be reprehended; as is also the habit or
custom older children have, of chewing and sucking toothpicks,—noisily
chewing and sucking them—to show, we can only presume, they _have_ had
some dinner! Ah, goslings, your hundred stoopid little tricks! do stop
’em before they become a habit; _don’t_ chew toothpicks, and, oh, please
do _not_ rattle a lot of loose sovereigns, etc., in your trowsers
pockets; you’ve no idea how you bore people, whose teeth are _not_
defective, but whose supply of sovereigns, perhaps . . . . is!

Do you know what the “Cinque Cento” is? Do you? Not you: well, we’ll
tell you; it is the love of Mammon, simply the unutterably snobbish
worship of money; let us call it . . . . _£ s. d._-eism: if that’s not
the Chink we’re chained to, every _man_ Jack of us, and _woman_ too, we
can’t very well say what else is!

Of two evils choose the lesser; of two fools . . . . the richer.

Many a man who passes through life simply as “an agreeable diner-out”
might have done wonders if he had only been poor_er_! Competence and
toomanyironsinthefireishness squash talent. How hod it is, yet many a
fellow who is contented to be considered only “a brick,” at the bottom
of the ladder, might, we trow well, with his cements talents, have
im-mortar-lized himself if he had been _un_able to— —“come down with
the dust;” if he had only been “hard up.”

The difference between being a Rochefoucauld and— —a _riche fou_
call’d is—immense: rich fools would do well to try and lessen it;
however, of two evils choose the lesser. Better be a rich fool than a
poor one, any day.

O reader, youthful, roving, racing, riding, hippomaniacal reader, O
remember this.

The medi-evil bold baronial swell’s “Fastness” . . . . preserved him:
the 1871 swell’s fastness does pre-cisely . . . . the other thing!

The medievil bold baronial swell’s fastness enabled him to rob and
plunder with impunity; the 1871 swell’s fastness simply enables people
to rob and plunder . . . . him!

The medievil b. b. swell’s fastness was fortified; the 1871 swell’s
fastness is . . . . forty-per-cent-ified!

The medievil bold baronial swell in his fastness used to keep captives
waiting for ransom; the 1871 swell in his fastness thinks far more of
keeping _himself_ captive-ating and handsome!

The medievil bold baronial swell in his fastness used “the bill” and
drew the bow; but the 1871 swell in _his_ fastness uses _up_ the beau by
. . . . drawing the bill!

And, the medievil bold baronial swell had in his fastness . . . .
d_u_njons; but the 1871 swell has in his fastness only . . . . _duns_,
without any jons, no ch_o_nce whatever . . . . of paying them!!

Oh! be advised, ye swells, in your 1871 Fastness! denarcotize yourselves
from the mental De-Quinceyfications of its vapid but intoxicating
pleasures ere it become—for _you_—a ruin and tumble about your ears;
let not its ivy, its parasites, _cling_ to you, and thrive on your
decay!

Oh, be warned in time, ye 1871 swells in your modern Castle of
Indolence! take its moat . . . . out of your eye! beware of its awful
cells! pay less attention to the fit of its drawbridges! think of the
expense of its keep! and—raze it, don’t _race_ it . . . . to the
ground!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL V.


Here you are; pictorial advice to meddling people who always like to try
and find out a woman’s H, how old she is . . . . Letter H alone! Here
you are; the much wanted letter H for the Greek alphabet—for which,
by-the-bye, the “curry-comb-o-ontes akaioi” ought to thank us—a lovely
Grecian bent one! Here you are; the letter H Lord Byron, or whoever
wrote the celebrated conundrum, meant, when he said (it’s too long to
quote the whole of it)

       Without it the ensign and middy should roam,
       But law-suits for him who expels it from home!
       It presides o’er man’s happiness, honour, and health,
       Is the prop of his house, and . . . . the end of his wealth.

You tell us it’s not an H-ural position; but, _que foolez vous_, is that
_our_ fault? No, it’s yours, dear Sir and Madam: you insist upon
admiring it, and nothing evidently will make you— —drop it!

“The Golden Age;” A.D. 1871! . . . . N.B.—Hair-dye!

Whenever by any chance we go through the Burlington Arcade, which is
seldom, as our bootmaker lives in it (we don’t care to be Buhl-ied, tho’
we Bernau malice), whenever we do go through it, we are sure, quite
certain to meet that _p’tit crevé_ Toddlekins (Toddlekins’ house
by-the-bye where _Mrs._ Toddlekins lives is a trifle _beyond_ Windsor),
and at last we rather twit him with his Arcadian rambling, say “sly
dog,” and the usual amount of feeble, _feeble_ twaddle one always
employs when wishing to flatter a man by making him think himself a gay
Lothario, an 1871 Zampa; but Toddlekins is equal to the occasion: he
_spurns_, he _scorns_ the implied accusations of Dongiovarneyism, and
assures us, quite seriously (Ha! ha!), _quite_ seriously, that his
doctor (it’s too ridiculous) that his medical adviser, his physician,
has _ordered_—N.B., please observe—“_ordered_”—his Burlington Arcade
promenade, that being such a nice . . . . DRY place.

The other day Smyijthe, when he started his new mail phaeton, completely
overran the constable!! We are happy to say the constable was not at all
injured.

P.S.—Smyijthe _was_.

Somebody once asked “what is a guinea?” Do _you_ know the real value of
a pound? If not, just try and _earn_ a few; you’ll soon find out!

We all know the upshot—or down-shot rather—of sitting between two
stools; but how about sitting between two fools? isn’t the im-idiot
neighbourhood of an ass as bad? Eh? Rather.

Familiarity, dearest Mrs. Jarmingal, breeds . . . . all sorts of things,
but among the most to be dreaded of her children are satiety,
indifference, and contempt! We are perfectly aware that some people
consider it “the thing” to crimp the hair, to put it in curl-papers, and
otherwise prepare for making themselves look beautiful on the morrow;
but, _belle dame_—we put it you as mildly as possible—what, now _what_
does your _sposo_ think of it? how does _he_ like the private over-night
arrangements—your night cap-pillar-y preparations—which you make for
the sake of obtaining “Society’s” valuable (?) admiration next day? does
_he_ consider the game worth the pair of candles you invariably use over
it? Remember, dear Mrs. Jarmingal, he fell _in_ love with you . . . .
when you were “got up” (number one in the programme), and he may—it is
not impossible—fall out again if you are never more so—for _him_! Is
it fair—to say nothing of untidy slippers, curl-papers, curling-tongs,
sticky glycerine paste, &c., &c., &c., _et_ cetera, is it fair to run
the chance of putting his eye out with hair-pins (a misfortune which
frequently hairpins to husbands of crimpy-haired ladies) and to
otherwise—besides this state of frightful porcupineism—(number two)
render _un_-captivating all the beauty he married to be his, and his
only, for ever? Is it fair? No, certainly not. Familiarity, sweetest
lady, breeds indifference, indifference breeds don’t-care-ishness,
don’t-care-ishness slights, slights annoyance, annoyance anger, anger
quarrels, quarrels rows, and Rows, many Rows, infallibly breeds
wretchedness, most utter wretchedness and . . . . Penzance! Be good
enough, dear Mrs. Jarmingal, to Beware! Mrs. J., you will oblige us, you
will oblige us very much indeed, by . . . . Bewaring!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL VI.


Willingly we subscribe to the theory that if there were no bores in the
world pleasure would lose half its enjoyableness. A wet day, for
instance, is a bore we abhor; but, without rain, we know we should have
no hunting, no peas, no cover for our birds, no soft water for our tub:
Duns are a bore, but if we were not dunned by tradesmen, where would be
the gratification of being able to pay our bills? The bore _may_ have
his mission, _may_ even be of use, if you like, in Society, but the fact
of knowing this don’t make us love bores any the more, and, confound
’em! what a lot one meets every day!

We are _hardly_ ass-enough to try and be a second Hercules, and attempt
to strangle the Hydra of Boredom; he’s too like the other party, who
every time he touched his mother earth was more alive and kicking than
ever; he’s not to _be_ strangled, but we _may_—we presume—talk about
him, and mention a few of his weaknesses, in order that _you_ may
rechognize your own pigculiarities and act accordingly.

Let us—more in sorrow than in anger—begin with the “sound
advice”-giving bore: look at the four Reverend Spanish Ecclesiastics
delineated above; three of the holy men, you will perhaps be kind enough
to observe, are utterly unsettled in their minds, upset, quite
miserable, and perspiring from every pore, because, simply because, the
fourth holy man has thought it his duty to give them his “candid
opinion, and a bit of his mind.”

We all know _that_ sort of bore.

Then there’s the JOB-ly comforting bore: let us imagine small-pox, or
cholera, or elephantiasis, or lumbago (small-pox _he_ prefers) to be
very prevalent, then he’s in his element. He finds out that you have
either _not_, or that you just _have_, been vaccinated; in the first
case he informs you that 1897 people expired only yesterday, and advises
your _immediate_ vaccination; in the second case he tells you that
vaccination is often attended with far more serious consequences than
anything else in the world, that it renders you always more liable to
softening of the brain, and hardening of the vesicles of the cutaneous
malacopterygious and sub-interior tissues of the mucous membrane, and so
on, on, on. Then there’s the practical joking, or “bear-fighting” bore,
who is sure to tell you when he meets you in the park that it _was_ your
house, or at any rate the one next door to it, which, he heard, was in
flames when he passed the end of your street just now. Then there’s the
engaged-couple bore you meet—and have to stay with—in a country house;
aren’t _they_ a bore? aren’t they even an ubiquitous bore? If you go
into the billiard-room to knock the balls about, there they are with the
_present_ state of _their_ game . . . two love or . . . . love six! if
you go into the library for a book, there they are again; if you go to
cut a rose for your coat at dinner, there they are in the gardens: there
they _are_, in the drawing-rooms, morning-rooms, dining-room,
breakfast-room, green-houses, hothouses, _every_where; and always there
just when _you_ want to be there, too and you _daren’t_ interrupt ’em,
or everybody would yell at you.

_They_ are a _great_ bore.

Then there’s the _malàpropos_ bore, who when he meets you walking with
your olderly, and, alas, unfortunately very jealous wife, pokes you in
the ribs, calls you “sly dog,” and says, “I’ll tell your wife, you
ruffian you.” “This IS my wife,” you indignantly answer (you introduce
’em—Mrs. Portarlington Smith, Mr. Potius Aper). “Oh, I really beg your
pardon,” he _apologizes_, “but I certainly thought that very lovely
fair-haired girl I saw you alone in a private box with at the theatre,”
&c., &c., &c.

[Illustration]

Pleasant, isn’t it?

Then there’s the bore who is just thinking of bringing out a “little
volume of poems,” and would, oh, _so_ like _your_ opinion of a few
stanzas or so. O that my _friend_ would only be good enough . . . . NOT
to write a book, Job might also have said. Then there’s the bore who is
perpetually bragging of his shooting, knowing perfectly well that he
never shot anything in his life but a £30 dog or—a—a—beater.

You’ve the bore too who mixes your ’20 port with water, and who chews
for ten minutes, preparatory to chucking ’em away, your best 1/6 cigars;
you’ve the pedantic bore, who objects to any other sort of antic; you’ve
the absent bore, who is certainly always in the wrong—for not
being—absent; you’ve the bore who has always (according to his own
account) a Duchess—or at any rate a Countess—dying for him; you’ve the
chemically conjuring bore, who nearly blows the house up, and does £19
of damage before you can say Fred Robinson! then there’s the old china
and marqueterie cabinet bargaining bore, who will _insist_ on taking you
into filthy slummy purlieus to look at sham mediæval rubbish, and who
tells you the price of everything he possesses, even to his socks and
pocket-handkerchiefs; also the incorrectly musical humming bore; the old
Joe Miller-tary story-telling bore; the bore who don’t “mince matters”
with anybody, and the bore who _does_—with _every_body; the betting
bore with his horse voice and ossy-fied heart; the sponge bore, who,
by-the-bye, is invariably—dry, who _never_ has any small change to pay
his share of a cab or what not, and who has invariably _just_ emptied
his cigar-case; the argumentative interrupting and contradictory bore;
the bore who insists upon your dining with him, and who then gives you
foul food, not half as good as you would have got at home; the spirit
medium believer bore (this species, as the spirits he delights in are
_not_ real, we call the myth-elated bore); the spiteful, black-tongued,
tale-bearing bore; the near-sighted bore who cuts you dead; the deaf
bore, who unfortunately _won’t_ cut you at all; the melancholy bore, the
frisky bore, the borrowing bore, the pugnacious bore, the sleepy bore,
the next-door neigh-bore, the important bore, and the invalid bore.

The invalid bore _is_ a bore!

The bilious man with an indifferent liver is seldom amusing at the best
of times, for when he’s a weak _jecur_, he’s generally a weak joker: as
with bad coffee the horrid chicory’s sure to predominate, so with the
bilious man his horrid _jecur_ is sure to be his first thought; but when
he makes you his confidant about his pains, pills, pangs, poultices and
plaisters, Bohoo! isn’t _he_ a bore? Does he expect to _please_ you by
an account of all his sufferings? does he expect to _gratify_ you? or is
it upon the dog-in-the-manger principle, as he’s no appetite himself he
wishes to take away yours? The invalid bore should go to bed, and stop
there . . . . at any rate till he gets better.

Then there’s the bore who always _jejune_ly asks for “a little sherry,”
or “some bread if you please,” or what not—and lets you see his mind is
intent on getting it, and _it_ only—just while you are telling him your
best and least known story. Is _he_ a bore? Rather!

Upon our word, _amico_, we are almost inclined to think that the _wild_
bore of the woods is better fun than the _mild_ bore of the cities: one
_you_ can hunt, t’other hunts you; one _you_ can pot, t’others spot you;
one’s head _is_ valuable with a lemon in his mouth, t’other’s is not at
_all_ valuable, with or without a lemon in his mouth; out of one you may
get ham, t’other gets ham, and—confound him—eggs too, out of you; one
chews roots, t’other chews his che-roots, that is, chooses _your_
cheroots; one eats trees, acorns, &c., t’other prefers to gnaw away at
your ma_hog_any; one whets his tusks upon anything suitable—for
instance, green oaks—t’other only wets his tusks with your best Pomerey
and Gre_e_n_o_!!

Reader, we are told that by “feeding our enemy we heap coals of fire
upon his head;” it _may_ be so, but we regret very much, very much
indeed, that we _must_ say we have never yet come across any one member
of the _genus_ bore who made the very faintest pretence of acting as if
he considered it _was_ so, or who, in the very _least_ degree, objected
to such a . . . . coald coallation!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL VII.


The very highest stations in this life are attended with a certain
amount of danger and anxiety to those who fill them: the troubles of
“the great” are known only _to_ the great, and . . . and . . . .
attendant soot-alights.

True greatness does _not_ consist in being a big man; _this_ is a
mistake most _big_ men appear to labour under. Beauty of proportion does
not consist in being very small; _this_ is a mistake most _small_ men
appear to labour under.

_In Vino Veritas!_ Bah! not _in vino_-s it. _In vino_ impertinent,
imbesilly stupidity more likely.

We hear people perpetually saying, “Ah poor so and so, he died like an
angel.” What’s the use of “dying like an angel” after living as long as
possible like a beast.

             A needless remark “give the d—l his Jew,”
             He _takes_ him, dear boy, and his Christian too!

The amount of “cheek” some people have, will indubitably prevent their
ever being put—“out of countenance.”

Modesty can be carried too far. The lady who wore spectacles to hide her
n—k—d eyes was a silly creechar. Plain; bet you a fiver she was plain;
dayvlish plain!

Every dog has his or her day.

There is no doubt about it, _the_ most beautiful, _the_ most charming
ALICE in the wide world—when her figure is sufficiently
ample—is. . . . . “Alice D”; sweet, sweet “_£ s. d._”!

A fool and his money, and his cigars, and his breakfasts, and his
“private affairs,” and his conversation, and his _toute la boutique_ are
soon parted, if N very B, _if_ he is a _good_-natured fool; the
bad-natured fool simply parts with that which he knows no one will take
. . . . . . . his advice.

What a much happier gosling you would be, and oh how much happier your
friends will be, if you would only keep your _bills_ down _half_ as
carefully as you do your . . . . wristbands!

Be strong athletic stoopids if you like, certainly, by all means; but,
please _do_ be natural; don’t try and _look_ so strong: please look
comfortable. We don’t allude to real rowing men, &c., but to their
imit-eightoars!

Reader, gentle reader, have you ever yet come across the man _or_ the
woman, who (according to their own account) has not once been — — most
PASH-onately adored?

[Illustration]

We constantly hear, associated and toasted, “The three W’s,” “Wine,
Weeds, and Women!” it is a very common toast; yet dear Peruser how
exceedingly different _are_ these three, if you will only think it out:
The two former . . . _improve_ by age: the—ah—the latter . . . .
don’t!

Yes, clever boy, you are quite right; the Old Masters _are_ preferable
to the Old Missuses.

We should almost be inclined to imagine that some of the very charming
young married women who so often act as chaperones, were more in want of
guardians for themselves than the spinsters of a certain, a very certain
age, they frequently act for: however, if these pets of ball room, &c.,
Cerberuses don’t mind it, and “Society” says, “it’s all right,” what is
it to us; only we _should_ say that a pooty chaperon_er_ was fatal to
the chaperon_ed_, for she is far less _dangerous_ to throw sops to than
the poor souls she guards.

With the Cerberus of fable, they chucked him—a cake: with our Cerberus
you’d like to—to—chuck her . . . . under the chin!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL VIII.


Reader, there is nothing like accustoming your children early to the
influence of great, very great, men! Miss Nomer, the nursemaiden here,
when she puts on her smart perkvisits, and then the P_a_rk visits,
evidently thinks so, at any rate. How sold the household troops would be
if it were _not_ so!

            “Without the smile from partial beauty won,
            Oh! what were man? A world without a sun!”

. . . . and heir!

“On the 28th instant, the wife of the Rev. Septimius Godolphin Jones,
M.A., of a son, stillborn.” P.S.—N.B.—The Rev. Mrs. Septimius
Godolphin Jones, (M.A.-ma) has, however, several other small sons who do
their very best to make up for this mishap, by living—as _noisily_ as
possible!

In France, _ce n’est que le_ (snake colour, indeed) _ce n’est que le
premier pas qui coûte_, in our _pays_, in England, _il n’y a que_ poor
Pa pays.

Did any one ever hear a very short man _acknowledge_ he would like to be
as tall as a household troop, six feet three or so? Did any one ever
live in a very seedy lodging, the landlady of which had not once . . .
kep’ ’er carridge? Unfortunately lady! (_land_-lady). P.S.—But — — we
_do_ hope she will be so very kind as to wash her hands before making
our pastry, as this “nature-printed” impression was in replica on
everything she touched this morning:

[Illustration]

To think that Poverty, hated Poverty, keeps us under such a dooced dirty
thumb as this; it’s _too_ disagreeable!

“A penny saved is a penny gained”! Upon this principle the way to win at
pool and whist is (N.B.—This, dear boy, _is_ a certainty) . . . Don’t
play; but if you must play, do it for shillings: take away the £, and
then perhaps you may find p_l_ay—pay.

Familiarity—with your servant especially—breeds contempt, and yet, if
you never speak nicely to him, it breeds discouragement and discontent;
have, therefore, O captain, a _juste milieu_ between the Scylla of
treating him as an equal and the Charybdis of treating him like a dog,
and then _perhaps_ he will _not_ go to Creeemorne in your best great
coat; and then perhaps he will _not_—to pay you out—put _boiling_
water some morning in your—douche take him—shower-bath in place of
cold!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL IX.


Sunday outers! Sunday trippers! _Petit monde endimanché!_ Sunday
three-and-six-penny—Brighton-and-backers: Sunday excursionists! Sunday
sandwiches! there is one most excellent maxim which—as the junketting
season is now coming on—you will do well to study in both its meanings;
it is, “Always keep your right foot forward”! The sage, when he said
this, meant, “persevere,” “do your best,” “lose no time,” and such-like
flatitudes; when we repeat his words we use them altogether in another
sense! Oh! Mr. Tompkings, Messrs. Chepe and Gnarsties’, the “eminent”
haberdashers, trusted and elegant assistant, O Mr. Tompkings, when, sir,
you so gracefully escort two (invariably two) of the young ladies from
the Millinery Department, who are kind enough to keep company with you
on your Sunday trips, would you, oh, would you keyindly, MOST
curly-hatted one, _would_ you confer the favour on us of keeping your
right foot forward, only _provided_ the before-alluded-to two young
damsels from the M department keep _their_ right foot forward too—at
the same time as yours: in plain language, why the dooce don’t you keep
step? And you too, O more distant tho’ not less elegantly oiled and
curled and overpoweringly scented Italian warehouseman (grocer),
cavaleary servanty to Susan and Matilda Martha, why the Mephistopheles
do _you_ not never keep step neither?

O dashing haberdasher, O light-hearted linendraper, O tasty Tompkings,
and O gracefully greasy grocer, please, _please_ keep step: to say
nothing of the look of the thing (N.B., you’ll never be taken for
“officers” if you _don’t_ keep it) we feel convinced it would be so much
more comfortable to do so: just try it and see!

Brown—a rather un-tubbed man, in an office somewhere, you know,
clerk—says he is perpetually being “hauled over the coals” by his chief
(_he looks as if he were_), but that he intends to “wash his hands” of
the whole concern (_good thing anything makes him wash ’em at all_), as
he is “clean knocked over” by it! (_knocked over_, Brown, _possibly, but
not clean, certainly not_ clean!)

                 Where scent is in abundance found,
                 All’s not sweet and all’s not sound!

Wonderful compass Smith’s voice has: on Sundays on the boat, he begins A
flat, and goes right up to Kew! Marvellous, isn’t it? but what’s more
extraordinary still, he keeps it up all the way there! Possibly _you_
could do it; if it’s not ex-sostenuto much, try.

“Vernal showers?” says ’Arry, who has come out in his Sunday ’at;
“vernal showers be blowed! _in_-vernal showers I calls ’em!”

P.S.—’Arry deserves to cadjer bad cold.

We beg pardon for asking it, but _is_ it necessary for counter-jumpers
to use counter-feet? We are thus inquisitive, because they so often
_do_.

Appropriate flower for _some_ men’s coats: not a daffadowndilly, but a
d_u_ffer down (_Picca_)-dilly!

Cleanliness may be godliness, yet _how_ many men are there not, who
think a great deal more of having a-blue-tie on than . . . . of . . . .
ablution!!

They say a man’s style of dress gives a clue to his character. What
precious bad characters some of you fellers are then to be sure.
Augustus, any one can recognize _you_ in your lion’s skin, and your
Asstrachan skin, and your seal skin; it don’t require one to be very
_in_-telligent to tell a gent in-stanter, for that which you look upon
as “nobby,” other people only look upon as—snobby: don’t be a phool,
and pretend to be what you are not, for . . . . _you do it so badly_!!
Miss Mary hanne ’igs of ’igate dear, borrerd plooms is hojus! Look at
these ostriches without their lost riches, their feathers; well, they
don’t look half as bad _without_ them as you do . . . . _with_ ’em!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL X.


Peep-Bo! Certainly; by all means, PEEP-BO! in early youth, or _with_
early youth, is quite charming! great fun, immense excitement; but don’t
have to play peep-bo later on with the parties who—send out those
beastly _dun_-coloured documents; with the people who use those
disgusting dark blue “wove” envelopes and letter-paper; don’t have to
play it with duns, creditors, harpies, who’ll be—each one—only too
harpy to be, however well you may talk, creditor jump down your throat
if you attempt to put ’em off. _They_’ll say “Bo” to you, O goose, in a
jiffey, if you give them but half a chance: not peep-bo, but—limbo! Do
not _do_ it.

We are told “to take care of the pennies, and that the pounds will then
take care of themselves;” we don’t believe a word of it; you take care
of the sovereigns—and _fivers_, dear boy—and hang the coppers.

Buying “jewellery” and . . . paying for it, are two _utterly_ different
matters.

The burnt child _may_ dread the fire, but it don’t prevent his keeping
on burning his fingers.

We are constantly hearing the remark that “So and So has . . . . got it
in him!” Do for goodness’ sake, So and So, if you _have_ “got it in
you,” _do_, DO let’s have it out!

We call the Spaniard—indolent! he calls an Englishman—Ing-lazy; the
difference between the two is sometimes this: with the indolent
Spaniard, ask him to do anything, no matter what, everything is . . . .
“_Manana_,” to-morrow! With the indolent Inglazy spendthrift everything
is . . . . buy an’ buy!! With the Spaniard how sad this is, perhaps said
_by_ an ecclesiastic . . . when he ought to pray; with the spendthrift
how sad this is, perhaps said when—_for_—a necklace he _has_ tick
. . . and he ought to pay!

Walk in the path of Virtue! N.B.—Provided . . . . it’s your own.

The housemaid who—ah—_rises_ in the social sphere—from the use of a
broom in Belgraveyah, to the use of a brougham in Brompton—simply drops
one more H: she has dropt many in her time, but this _last_ one puts a
straw-coloured chignon on the camel’s back: hitherto cleaning out
heart_h_s has daily been her first occupation; now her entire daily
ditto is doing ditto to . . . . hearts!

The wicked man who is rich is not by any manner of means a wicked man;
Oh dear, no, _he’s_ . . . “a naughty man!”

Here’s something for little Smirk, M.P., to dodge up to bring into his
next speech; it may pass for original, for his own—among _strangers_.

Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, “the Wooden Walls of Old England” are quite put
in the shade just now by the . . . . . ah . . . . . Ram-parts of our
Iron-clads (laughter and brayvo); may they, however (Hear, hear, and
cheers), may they prove _hard_ships to our foes! (Brayvo, hooray) may
they (Hear, hear, ’ear, ’ear) may they (’ooray for Smirk, angcore) may
they (’ear, ’ear) in their sea-ram-ic quality (immense cheering—from
_two_ men, who alone see the joke) which we Englishmen have spent
a—a—Minton (same two men cheer again), never prove brittle (No, no,
and great applause from all parts of the house)—no, never prove
brittle, but—ah—but—Breaking!!!!

Smirk, M.P., think of this.

We hear people spoken of as “not having a second idea.” Pshaw! that’s
nothing; we know a _lot_ of people who haven’t even a first one.

The part of the Park men like to bask in—_alone_: The Lady’s smile.

Dining with “the Blues,” and having the blues at dinner, is not in the
least the same thing.

The difference between having a swell face and a swell’_d_ face is very
unpleasant, is very distressing, is _most_ disagreeable.

You may learn something from the very greatest fool . . . . what NOT to
do!

Many a man who is put up for “a club” gets it:

[Illustration]

Ahem! three black balls! and rely upon it that—to make it quite
perfect—some _mauvaise langue_, some kind _friend_, will most certainly
be found only too ready, and _willing_, to supply the little black tail
afterwards.

Reader, gentle reader, never act against a conviction, never: if you
feel that you are about to commit a _sottise_—in plain language, about
to make a thundering ass of yourself—refrain! and let no amount of
bamboozlement make you leave off refraining. Look at Bridges Loader,
below: he acted—against a conviction; observe the result. Disagreeable,
eh? Very much so, indeed, and this is how it happened.

You know the way amateur theatrical dresses, sent down to country
houses, invariably arrive incomplete: Charles II. gets no wig,
and—unless some lady will take compassion on him, and kindly lend him
one of her evening headdresses, a curled one—has to appear cropped like
a convict or a cornet; or Claude gets no white tights, and has to adore
his Pauline in his own black velvet knickerbockers; well, it was
something like this happened to Bridges Loader with his dress as “The
Assassin of Henry of Navarre:” and — — he will navarre forget it. He
got no sword; but, as he had to run a sword slap through poor Henery, a
sword was indispensable: he got, as you can perceive, his legs all
right, ones warranted not to come down or turn round—unlike poor
Robinson’s when he did Henry VIII., whose calf, which was _not_ kept up
tight by the “_Honi soit que mal y pense_” business, came down with a
run before he had been two minutes before his audience—but good stiff
ones, awkward to sit down or even bend the knee in, but good serviceable
stalwart limbs; he got these all right, and his big copper chain with
the emeralds and rubies, &c., worth £2,000,000 a-piece in it, and his
&c., but _no_ weapons; nevertheless it was a beastly shame of Clinker,
man in the Tenth, persuading him _against_ his conviction into wearing,
not _only_ his—Clinker’s—reg’mental sword, but, hang it all, his
sabretasche as well, which, don’t you know, even when you are used to
it, and wear it _the proper side_, is the most swinging, banging,
twisting, boring thing out; however, here you see Bridges Loader, Esq.,
at the moment of his taking the oath to assassinate the Huguenot
monarch!

You will, no doubt, agree with us in considering that—all through
Clinker’s fault—the imposing effect of the foul assassin’s adjuration
was much, very much, impaired!

Bridges Loader thought it was, at any rate!

No: let nothing ever tempt you to act against a conviction.

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL XI.


Youth! charming, real blush-rose-bloom tinted youth, season of being
believed and of believing, season of being beloved and of beloving,
season of being blushed _at_, which is delicious; season of being
blushed — — _for_, which is less agreeable; youth, jejuney mooney and
spooney, it would perhaps be as well for you to bear in mind that
Woman’s Love—Love N.B., not gammon, Love, “that faith whose martyrs are
the broken heart”—is — — — perishable goods; sweet, _whilst_ sweet,
ah! what can be _more_ sweet, for can _anything_ be _more_ ecstatic,
more deliriously delicious, than looking, deeply deeply looking, into
the eyes of her you love, than inhaling the soft breath of her who loves
you, in fact, _can_ language say _how_ sweet Love is? but, like that
flower in your coat, let it only once begin to fade, let it only once
begin to droop, do what you will, you’ll never bring it back to its
pristine freshness, no power can ever again make it what it _was_. We
are so apt not to realize it when we are well off, the just washed dog
rolls in the mud to dry himself, the just got-up, oiled, curled, and
figged out child _mouchers_ himself on his cambric frock, the happy
youth just come into £10,000 a year takes to racing, the lucky
stock-jobber or city swell isn’t content to try and rough it on “a
undred thousand pound,” but speculates, and the man with a doting wife
doesn’t one bit appreciate the glorious prize he has won but—seeks for
more! Alas, we never know when we ought to be content, but look to this,
if anybody loves you, REALLY loves you—and there is no mistaking the
real thing, if you are so blessed as to possess it, for the
counterfeit—prize that love, oh prize it, see that it is not _your_
fault if it fade, see that it is through no idiocy of yours if it cool,
see that you have not your stupid self to thank if it dwindle and
disappear, for when “your voice _has_ lost its power,” when “your smile
_has_ lost its charm,” you’ll never regret it but once, but that once, O
dear boy, will be—for ever!

Love is like sunshine: as the latter softens your bear’s-grease, yet
hardens the varnish on your boots, so does Love affect different
natures, so does love make that which was crusty, crummy, and that which
_was_ soft, ad_amant_.

Love is like moonshine, absurdly like moonshine, as it whitens and
brightens, and otherwise heightens and lightens the object it strikes on
only, leaving everyone else the shadier by comparison.

Love is like champagne: intoxicatingly charming whilst the fiz and
sparkle last, but given to get flat after a time; not only that, but
like champagne when over-iced, it loses its flavour from coldness.

Love is a magnifying glass, which does not _give_ enchantment, only lenz
it, to those _in it_.

No one, no, no one is ever deaf to the voice of Love: we have all of us
an _ear_ in our h_ear_t that catches its faintest whisper.

What, oh what, are widows but—w_{h}eed-ling creatures!

Wonderful it is, isn’t it, how different, how extraordinarily different,
different things look in different lights: for instance, all the doctors
are unanimous in saying that they _think_ Mrs. Attekynnes-Attekynnes
wants “keeping _up_;” Attekynnes-Attekynnes, on the contrary, says he
_knows_ she wants keeping _down_!

Then again, look at the Burlesques as seen from your point of view and
from your wife’s, and yet, you know, _she_ likes putting on her tightest
and newest and pootiest boots on the windyest days, and then _you_ can’t
for the life of you get to see ’em in the same light others do; but
pshaw! we might if we had space, or time to think it out (will some day)
give you a _thousand_ examples, but let one more suffice; our sketch at
the end of this chapter, look at _it_; do, there’s a good feller; well,
you no doubt suppose it’s meant to represent one of those humbugging
little legless tumblers, which you see seedy Italian parties selling in
the street, you think it’s simply an Ottoman with a feather in his cap,
and a very badly drawn one too, now don’t you? but just oblige us by
turning him upside down will you, and then look at it  *  *  *  *  *  *
 *  *  *  * eh? How about it now? ah, things are deceptive, arn’t they?
You see now that it is _not_ an ottoman, but a lovely woman sitting on
one; the pride of the Sir Walter Raleigh oh! (pshaw!—Sirraleigho, we
mean) the joy, the light of the Harem! the Peri of Pera! a gal at a
Galatta window,

                  Shown sitting by the Bosphorus,
                  With eyes as bright as phosphorus,

anything, in fact, but a legless tumbler!

Dear boy, in this mundane sphere it is very frequently dangerous, and
nearly always disappointing to — — judge solely by appearances, for
seeing is _not always_ believing: _we_ have let you down very easily;
you thought you had only a legless tumbler, and you find you have—a
lovely lady, but be careful, O be careful, or you may some day reverse,
horribly reverse the order of things, and, thinking you have got the
lovely lady, find alas you _have_ only got— — —the legless stumbler!!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XII.


Everybody, from the “monstrum eruditionis” to the merest abecedarian,
knows that the deaf adder won’t listen to the voice of the charmer,
however indeafaddergabble the charmer may be in trying to make himself
charming; or at any rate, heard; therefore, O deaf adders, we give you a
picture full of double meanings instead of boring ourself, and you too,
with writing many words; but though our _croquis à double entente_ is
meant to represent a rustic E, we do hope it may not prove a rusty key
to you, but _altro_, that it may open the door of a cell in your brain
big enough to take in our meaning.

We are asked this question: If riches be a possession to be desired in
this life, what is _richer_ than wisdom? Don’t try and give an anser
goose; don’t say “pork chops” or “stewed eels,” or guess like that; it
isn’t a riddle, it’s a maxim: we are asked, we say, what is richer than
wisdom? but, as the rich heathens and shethens, the deaf adders of
Society, don’t agree, or try to appear to look as if they wished to act
as if they didn’t agree to this, and certainly go on as if they didn’t
want their children to agree to it, _hinc illæ_—silly, because
useless—_lackrhymæ_, lack-rhyme-æ, which however don’t lack reason.

Paternal, maternal, elder sorornal, and big-brotherly Reader, every sort
of branch is most easily bent and trained—N.B.—Especially the “Olive
branch”—when young! An old dog learns no new tricks—unless he’s “a sad
dog:” you want to teach him anything you must take him _in statu
puppy-lari_, whilst he’s a puppy: so ’tis with your olive branches: then
is the time to see that erotics and erratics sap not away the rising sap
of sapience in the olive branch’s brain; then is the time to see that
the olive b.’s mind is not undermin’d with — — trash; then is the time
to see that the olive b.’s “food for thought” is not only toothsome, but
digestible and—nourishing! You don’t give babies in arms beefsteak
pudding with horse-radish sauce and stewed mushrooms “removed” by
Norfolk dumplings, with Clos Vougeot or gin-sling, in place of
“Liebfraumilch,” to wash ’em all down, not you; why, then, let young
girls—who don’t see the precipice you allow them to hang over—have,
even before they are “out,” all the spiciest, most _decousue_
literature, that is to be got for money as their mental pa_p_ulum?

[Illustration]

Ah! if we were not such a lazy d—l (beg pardon, we mean such a
Lazydæmon), if we were not such a Lacedæmon in being so sparing of our
words, what a lot we could say on this most pregnant theme!

O goosey pater! O mater ditto! when you read the writings of Genius (if
you ever _do_?), when you see the paintings of Genius (more probable, as
it’s fash’nable to go to the place where they _can_ at any rate be
looked at), when you hear the music of ditto (also probable, thanks to
the Monday Pops, &c., being in vogue), and stumble unwittingly over all
the innumerable _glorious_ works of innumerable _glorious_ dittos,
doesn’t it make you who have never done anything in your lives but read
novels with preposterous heroes and harrowin’ heroines, _and_ . . . .
your best to look pretty, doesn’t it make you—feel rather _small_,
rather _bored_, just perhaps a trifle sorry _you_ have wasted your
opportunities so much? Doesn’t it at any rate determine you to try and
train up your olive branches in such a manner that they may turn out a
little, just a little, more useful than yourselves, your purely
ornamental selves?

O patres familiasses! O wives of same! spare not your rods, and spoil
not your olive b.’s! _ne putes_ Papa _te tunc amare filium tuum, quando
ei non das_ some birches; for remember this, _the_ great thing is—to
_be_ a good Toby tickler, and _not_ to be tobytickler about how often
you do it! O by all means, if you insist upon it, be most pharmacopious
with the stimulating pil: hydrarg: and with the fullest bodied blackest
doses! O spare not the oily oil of castor, “drawn,” if it so please you,
in the “coldest” possible manner, but, don’t, oh do _not_, neglect in
your medically affectionate anxiety for a healthy corpus, the absolute
necessity of the epicene olive b.s’ mind being made healthy also. O
permit not the olive b.’s to waste _quite_ all their time in flying,
flitting and flirting, butterfly—flutterby—like, from leaf to leaf
. . . . of a novel, from flower to flower . . . . of honied monied love
talk! O grudge not the pecuniary outlay which a strong-lunged,
strong-armed, strong-minded AB—BA, Able Bodied Birchelor of Arts, for
your male olive b.’s will entail; and if you would duenna good with your
female o. b.’s, have so undeniably ugly a governess, of such very mature
years, that no one can by any earthly possibility flirt with her, who
will therefore perhaps kindly spend her time in seeking to make her
charges admirable, NOT . . . . herself admired.

Lastly, and above all, O ye sweet-scented and still blooming May-trees,
O ye fruitful but dilettanti Patres of youth, remember, O please Papa
and Mama dear remember _this_, that as years glide on you will get the
very _reverse_ of thanks from the olive b.’s for your neglect of their
mental manurage, as ’tis only when your o. b.’s have grown into trees
that they learn to appreciate, from seeing it in others, the value of
that which they have failed—from your faults alone—to acquire during
juvenility; for, believe us, they soon are _made_ to find out that the
sharpest and most useful _edge_ in this world is . . . . Knowledge. They
soon are _made_ to find out that of all the rotten branches, in all
creation, the rottenest, the very rottenest is . . . . an igno_ramus_!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XIII.


[Illustration]

Are you a fluffy gander? Have you beards, and moustarchios and wishkers,
and so on? Or, are you a plucked, smoothfaced, young, cavalry-looking
gosling? Well, in either case, what is your opinion of the other case?
Look at these two _boobies in arms_, with no more sense than two
_babies_ in arms, Colonel Stables here condescendingly walking with one
of his cornets, well, they respectively say to themselves, “What do
women care for smoothfaced boys?” and, “Bet you a fivar, gals don’t care
for old duffers like the colonel.” Ha! ha! gooses, you ’re both wrong;
why? because there is no such deceiver as —— conceit: though, what you
say to yourselves, only makes us surer than ever, that one of the
greatest, the very greatest, and most comfortable blessings Providence
can possibly bestow is . . . giving you a thoroughly good opinion of
yourself!

“The thief sees in every bush an officer”! Miss Araminta Fitzlowgown
says, “She only wishes SHE could!”

P.S.—N. very B.—Are you “a military man”? if so, this is the sort of
woman for you to marry, for her motto is—an officer’s good as a feast!

There is now, we much fear, an end of the Napoleonic dynasty; we regret
it sincerely, for Napoleon III. was not only an emperor, but—a
gentleman, and England’s friend; we should, O _so_ vastly, have
preferred to have seen the end of another dy-nasty instead! need we say
we allude to Auricomania; to the Auricommon, golden-haired dye nasty,
dye very nasty?

Lots of French maids about England now: _bonnes_ with no bonnets; you
know. We should never be surprised to hear them sing to our lovely
Peleecemen “_Robert_ (_i.e._, BOBBY) _toi que j’aime_!” Dare say they
do; never mind; let ’em.

You complain, O virtuous goose, of the shocking wickedness of Paris, eh?
But why is she so wicked, our fair Lutetia; why? Because—simply
because—the world and his wife, you and we and everybody, go there.

Poor France! Poor Frenchmen! Your Marseillaise has turned out but a
sorry goose-step, a _oie_ march in the wrong direction after all! To
think that the Parisians should have had to eat . . . . donkey; to think
that they should not only have sung “_aux armes, citoyens_,” but have
had to sing “_aux ânes, citoyens_,” as well; to think that their “_jour
de l’an_” should have been a _“jour de l’âne,” and_, at six francs a
pound! Poor _baudets_, poor bodies, we pity you both, the eaten, and the
eaters.

The eye of the master fattens the horse:
perhaps—hippo-phagistically—with a view to eating him, eh? “curried”
perhaps.

P.S.—N.B.—This is where eating donkey has the pull over eating horse
. . . . you can’t have a nightmare.

Ah! curry may be warming, but there’s a much nicer form of curry than
that, which is more warming still: Terpsi-curry: for you may talk of

                       Getting hot as chutney
                       Rowing down at Putney,

but, give us dancing, with a nice girl who’s a well set-up figure,
straight as a Terpshickory wand, and a good performer, for warming one
thoroughly; all over.

Quotation to make on seeing wild fowl at dinner: “T’is now the _widgeon_
hour of night.”

P.S.—N.B.—If it’s _not_ a widgeon, but a chicken or a turkey, and you
still make this quotation, you must make believe you thought it _was_ a
widgeon; _you_ understand.

He who touches pitch (and toss, for sovereigns, on wet afternoons, at
the club, &c.,) will _not_ be defiled, but _cleaned_ . . . . out!

“Raising the neighbourhood,” odd to say, is easier, far easier
than—raising the wind!

Having “a bit of a breeze” with your wife, is _not_ calculated to cool
either of you!

We hear a great deal about the “the sac-rament of marriage; “Pshaw! it
isn’t the sack-raiment of marriage people go in for; it’s the silk
raiment, the purple and fine cambric and
double-milled—extra—superfine—Saxony—lined—through-out-with-silk-and-velvet-collar-and-cuffs-raiment
they want! Hy-men (and women) don’t care a snuff of his torch for a
plain gold hoop, unless it has a good big diamond one to be its keeper.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XIV.


1-derful, quite wonderful it is how peculiarly appropriate the present
manner of abbreviating the word “number” is! People write number one
thus, “No I,” and by Jingo they are quite right; for they begin—very
early in life—to think of number one, and soon get to think of—No I
else!

We hear a great deal about “The seat of War”! Ha, ha, _you_ needn’t go
far to look for “the seat of _oie_” for—it’s your arm-chair!

“The Fool’s Pairodice:” two sixes! (6¼ at the very out-side.)

Rottenborough—the very stoopidest of men—informs us “he is going to
Brighten:” we are really delighted to hear it, and _how_ glad his wife
will be!

Many people go to four and five balls every night of the season: a party
of the name of Legion, however, says the interest is much more certain
to be kept up if you only go to — — three.

When borrowing money of a friend or acquaintance, borrow the exact sum
you value his friendship at, for, as the fact of doing it at all will
finish the business, you may just as well go in for as much as you can
get before . . you cut him.

The man who comes into a fortune will soon let you know what he has
always wanted to be, — — a brick or a brute. If he has ever been hard
up himself—as _he can_ appreciate impecuniosity—it would do him no
harm to think of those _still_ in his . . . . _seedy-vant_ condition!

Running after happiness is exactly like chevying your blown-off hat:
just when you think you have caught it . . . . whiz! . . . . away it
goes again, and when you _do_ get it, you find it . . . earthy . . .
muddy.

Life is just like a game of pool—we’re all against each other, all try
to get safe, all look for the pocket, all think of number one, and so
long as we’re not sold ourselves we don’t mind who is. In pool we are
rather glad to put a man _in_; in life we don’t much care if we put him
out. In pool we do our best to cut a man _in_ tho’ it kill him; in life
we do our very best to — — cut him _out_ tho’ it break his heart!

It’s a good thing, it’s a capital thing, being “on your own hook,”
always provided, dear boy, that your hook is not “straightened” by
“circumstances!”

If you are a rake,—save your hay!

Let other people make a fool of you if they _can_, and you like it, but
don’t, _don’t_, — — save them the trouble; don’t make a fool of
_yourself_! and for this very ample reason, if for no other, that you
only so very much delight your ill wishers if you—_do_! for pray
remember this whilst “going the pace,” O anserine assinine specim_a_n,
that ’tis of the wild oats which _you_ sow, other people—make “a
harvest”!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL XV.


Undoubtedly Miss Blooming May makes a very tremenjuous mistake when she
permits herself to be talked into connubializing old Sir Frozedup
December. Miss May’s dismays when she discovers all his decemberling and
shams will be too painful. Even “Bonnie Dundee” in his _bonnet de nuit_
didn’t, we dare swear, look half so nice as in his killing kilt,
therefore only imagine Sir Frozedup _en deshabille_! No, no; let _him_
take old Miss Tabitha Ann Gorer, and leave Miss May to his juniors, for
though “eighteen-seventy-one A.D.” is very agreeable, 18 and 71 a-gree
in no other manner!

Here’s a new name for “lovers’ quarrels:” Chérie and bitters!

Marriage: Miss-ing your freedom!

        “Believe _me_, if all those endearing young charms,
         Which _he_ gazed on so fondly to-day,
         _Were_ to change by to-morrow, and” &c., &c., &c.

. . . . he’d marry somebody else, he would, indeed, and nobody would be
even civil to you!

Remember this: it takes _two_ people to quarrel, and that bad-tempered
people punish no one so much as themselves, for—N.B., N. _very_ B, in
fact N as B as you possibly can N,—“kicking up a shindy” generally but
injures the kicker’s own shins.

Literal translation of “Divorce _a mensâ et thoro_:” Relief from being
immensely and thoro’ly board!

The great thing in married life, if _you_ want to be happy, is to
believe, steadily believe, yourself to be _all_ a woman can by any
possibility desire, and _not_ to allow yourself under any circumstances
whatever to be talked out of going _on_ believing it.

De la Thompson-Thompson and his wife, the Lady Louisa de la
Thompson-Thompson, act in private theatricals: De la T.-T. gets the part
of a fast swell, his wife that of a pert chambermaid: in his _rôle_ of
“roaring blade” he has more than once, in fact, very often, to kiss the
pert chambermaid: _this_ comes natural enough to De la T.-T. — — _if_
it wasn’t his wife.

Lady Louisa de la Thompson-Thompson’s lady’s maid is an impudent hussey,
and very much in her way; Lady Louisa’s going to send her about her
business: quite right: especially as she was not only in her way, but —
— in her husband’s.

A boned lark is a good thing for breakfast, isn’t it? Yes, of course,
but perhaps the nicest form of boned lark is—a stolen kiss.

We are told that the daughters of the Midianites, etc., many hundred
years ago, were not quite all that could have been desired! well, some
of our Midnight, etc., daughters didn’t daughter be allowed to go on as
they do. But, there can be no doubt about it, so long as Society only
taps a man on the arm with its fan, and calls him “Naughty creechar,”
whilst it kicks a woman _as hard as possible_, and dances on her when
down, for the very _same fault_, that fault will be.

When a man is weak, and a woman is weak, the two weeks together must be
_on’fortni’t_, though _she_ gets the worst of it, as we cannot imagine a
weak woman possibly getting a greater punishment than coming to see (as
she inevitably will) her _inamorato_ wish she had _not_ been weak.

Reader, Respectable Reader, we deplore it quite as much as you do, BUT
— — _how_ many church-going apparently pious people are there not, who
entirely disapprove of doing in public—under the mistletoe, let us term
it—that which they do _not_ disapprove of doing — — under the rose!

[Illustration: SOCIETY]




                             SPOONFUL XVI.


[Illustration]

It don’t do to “look back” at anything extra nice, nor at anything extra
nasty: one is nearly as sad as the other—dreaming of HER, as she was
when she first offered you an undivided heart, some forty years ago,
perhaps in the reign of Gorgeous the Fourth, don’t pay: the waking, to
find her, like yourself, obese, is so beastly.

In youth our joy has _bounds_; in age our joy knows no bounds: in youth
our joy knows no bounds; in age it knows _lots_ of bounds;— —it’s very
much bounded indeed.

In infancy we cut our teeth; in age, alack! alack!— —our teeth cut us!

It is bad going to law, worse still having law come to you: life is too
short for botheration, envy, hatred, malice, _esclandre_, Divorce
Courts, etc., etc.: whilst we are wildly making the journey
to—Penzance, we are getting old, and when we have got that—no more
larx.

“Let us live to-day, for to-morrow we dye”—(our whiskers, moustaches,
eyebrows, &c., and living isn’t half such fun as it was!)

When a man falls into the severe and yellow leaf, when he gets into the
fifties or so, he pats himself on the back, congratulates and flatters
himself—because he begins to think more of himsylph than of sylph-like
forms—that he is leaving off his peccadillos! Alas, insensate one! his
love of flânering flaunting flirting and other Piccadillyuliarities are
leaving _him_ off.

If you are young, remember, you are getting old; if you _are_ old, never
_forget_ you too were once . . . . young!

Age, alas! does damage!

Much ado about nothing: A man with hardly hair enough left to make a
finger-ring, certainly not a watch-chain, going about the country with
his travelling-bag full of big ivory hair-brushes! Dear bald one, “out
of nothing, nothing comes;” why waste a lot of money on Bear’s grease
and only make your bare poll look unbearably slippery and greasy, when
by simply following the lots of examples we daily meet you might save
your money, yourself disappointment, and get _far_ more thought of: why
not, as they do, . . . . _give_ yourself ’airs?

A hint to old parties who try to dress themselves to look as if they
were their own grandchild: No matter what you _wear_, you’re not it now!

’Tis not until all his “teeth” are gone, that “the rake” acknowledges
his “progress” is of no avail.

How is it all the “night” cases get taken before Mr. “Nox”? and all the
assault cases too; poor Mr. Knocks.

“_Nemo repente fuit turpissimus_” does not mean, though it would be very
true, that no one was ever very wicked without having to repent it some
day; no, it means that our vices are like our grey hairs: at first they
come one at a time, but, after a little, by twos, threes, seventies,
twenty-nine trillions and so on, until, unless you shave your head or
blow it off—getting rid of ’em is impossible.

Many a man has died of— — —a stupid doctor.

Old Puffer Blowhard has married again. “She’s a little duck, Sir,” he
says, “quite young, Sir, quite young!” He deplored his dear departed
first most truly (for twenty years _before_ she went) and—rewived:
well, tho’ the experiment is dangerous, he ought to be happy; his wife
is young, pretty, graceful, and evidently fits her position as number ２
very well indeed!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XVII.


The Latin for tree is—“_arbor_”: wonder what the Latin for family tree
is? _a_ bore perhaps, for that certainly is the plain English of it,
when people expect you to sit under the chilling shade of theirs—or
rather put you up it—whilst they narrate its rummyfications! We agree
with the wag who said, “That the man who has nothing to boast of but his
swell ancestors is like the potato plant, as the only good belonging to
him is underground;” and we, moreover, remark that we never yet came
across the man whose Williamtheconquerfication was much good to him, or
who could write himself a cheque on his pedigree, though we do think
_that_ ought not to prevent his managing to keep a small one—on his
tongue when branching off to this most U-passé theme.

Mr. Darwin, in his new book on the origin of man, says, “We are
descended from some animal, probably arboreal in its habits:” quite
right, Sir Darwin, and what is more, we stick to our original arboreal
habits nowadays, and continue to get “up a tree” as often as possible!

Remember this, O dear dawdling dilettante dandy duffer, that, in going
over a crossing, it is better _to run over yourself_ than to _be_ run
over be an omnibus, possibly full of vulgar hot and heavy people!

Brown says, it isn’t the ladies that run any danger walking home alone,
— — it’s the gentlemen!

As you never know whom your “after-dinner” stories may offend,—if you
_must_ tell them—let their only relation to the chimney be — — that
they are told _sootto vochy_.

It is very, very sad, but, the chief consideration of many people whilst
listening to the sermon is simply . . . . “Wonder if he’s nearly done?”

A book is the sort of friend to have; it has not only occasionally dogs’
ears, but has always a dog’s fidelity to its owner, for, as some one has
said, you can take him up or put him down, or shut him up, or even _cut_
him, just as you think fit, without his feeling it. What a pity it is
_women_ don’t care for books, that is, books that teach ’em anything,
for alas! as a rule they think far more of HIS story than of history,
far more of ribbon than Gibbon, far more of a bookay than of a book ably
written, more of what they can get for . . . . _une livre sterling_ than
of what they can get _from_ . . . . _un_ stirling _livre_, and far, far,
_far_ more of a page in . . . . buttons than in . . . . struction!

Ah, what a pity it is, but how frequently are not young ladies’ heads
only like a filbert shell — — either _full_ of “the delightful
colonel,” or — — empty!

_Some_ beauty—we take the liberty of observing—is a great deal more
than — — skin _deep_!

Who says high heels are immoral? Ignoramass: ladies wear such high heels
with precisely the same object that they go to church (in new bonnets);
they wish to—to save their soles!

Where “people expect to go to” when defunct, appears to be quite a
secondary consideration; _The_ difficulty is “where to go to” _before_
that unhappy event.

There is nothing in this world _more_ certain than disappointment:
expect a sell and you probably won’t be sold . . . . in getting it; so,
though your great great grandmother _is_ always saying “she will leave
you well off,” though saying this is her _wont_, don’t think _too_ much
of her . . . . _WILL_, for believe us, O extravagant gosling, it is SO
much wiser, better, and _safer_, to—_Leave Yourself Something_ than to
be making _toujours_ too sure of being left something—by somebody
else!!

O rapid Goose, forget not the fable of the race between the combatose
tortoise and the fast hare; think of the _peignes_ the hair has felt
ever since, pains which that which is tortus alone can give, pains which
the “broken” heir alone can fully realize! and O learn from this sad
fabulous narrative how sure slow respectability is “to comb it over you”
in the long run, how certain it is . . . . . that Virchew will be
trihumfunt in the hend!

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XVIII.


[Illustration: THE PALE OF SOCIETY]

It’s all very well talking about “the pale of Society,” and so on, but
pretty much the same little game, Beggar my Neighbour, goes on both
sides of it. The _ci-devant_ agricultural labourer, Private Spade, _fait
son cœur_ to Miss Heart, the prosperous milk-person, simply with an eye
to her pocket, precisely as old Arlington Boodles goes in for the
“Widow’s Lozenge,” when it’s a diamond one.

It’s all very well saying “call a spade a spade and have done with it,”
but _that_ won’t do in Society; Booh! not at all; why, hang it, if we
were not all, all, ALL the most utter hypocrites, the world would be
simply unbearable. Fancy if one _did_ live in a “Palace of Truth” the
atrocities one would be constantly hearing; the wind would then soon
become very ill tempered to the shorn lamb, and no mistake. Imagine
telling people your real opinion of them, and, St. Jingo! only imagine
getting their real opinion of you; _what_ a lot of knocking down we
should all have to go in for; _what_ a lot of black eyes and sanguineous
noses there’d be in Society’s drawing-rooms; and the eye-painters (we
don’t mean bella-donnafying ladies, but men whose business it is to
paint out a black eye) what a trade they would drive! Fancy saying to
some Hyde Park Gardens Crœsus: “Well you utter cad, you don’t look half
washed, you’re the utterest idiot I ever met, and you haven’t one single
spark of good breeding or agreeableness about you, BUT—you’ve got a
jolly lot of money, and with _it_ have bought Society’s
only-to-_be_-bought smile, therefore I smile too, and you’ve got a
dooced good tap of claret, or something curious in sherry, and smoke
first-rate baccies, and have also bought a most charming girl for a
wife, and your house is in other ways well furnished, so I’m going to be
civil to you, and mean to make use of you, and get all I can out of
you!”

Fancy this, or telling women about their pinchings-in, and paddings-out,
and of their (most patent to the nearest-sighted men) blacks and whites
and reds on their faces!

Only imagine it!

But yet, don’t you know, it’s what _would_ be said, and uncommonly often
too, if Truth only did come out of her well, and the fine old crusted
Conventionalisms of Society went into it in her place!

No, no, don’t, on any account, let us call a spade a spade, let’s all
call him a club, a gentleman, and try and make him suppose we think him
one: much more comfortable for us, and very much more comfortable for
the creature from whom we want to get _un-œuf_, the fowl—not to say
fool, or goose even—“stuck up” atop of his golden eggs.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XIX.


Honesty _is_ the best policy after all, and Miss Fatemma
Trayloorde—who’d be priceless in Constantinople tho’ she isn’t of much
account in England—don’t mind frankly acknowledging that her version of
“Love me, love my dog,” simply means “if you will only be good enough to
love _me_, hang the quadroopid, you may do what you like with _him_.”

Reader, this is an opportunity which may not occur again. We invite you
to lose no time in seizing it: make her yours for ever, and, rely upon
it, you will never regret it; never mind her having the Grecian bend
. . . . _turned the wrong way_, that don’t interfere with her heart’s
being in the right place, as she, to quote what some wag has said, is in
a far happier frame of mind than Diogenes, simply being “on the look out
for a man,” a husband, and not intending—provided he have a nice
moustache—to be too particular in her inquiries as to his antecedents,
to see if he be an honest one or _not_.

A great many people we meet are much favoured; exceedingly favoured;
really very much favoured indeed—ahem!—_ill_-favoured!

Blindness would not be such an infliction to some women, as to others,
who—make greater use of their eyes!

_The_ height of im-probability: a _man_ cook asking a policeman to
supper!!!

The proverb says, “Providence sends us boiled pheasant with celery
sauce,” or _côtelettes d’agneau aux concombres_ or _points d’asperge_,
or suet pudding, or potatoes _à la_ nature (or any other favourite
dish), and that Mephisto sends cooks to spoil ’em! quite so; cooks are
stewpid, and do occasionally make unseasonable hashes of things, and
their minds are always going to pot, and their want of “_savoir faire_”
is immense; but that’s not what we were going to say: we simply want to
give you a new reading of the old proverb, if you will kindly for
potatoes read policeman: thus . . Providence sends us Policemen, and the
D . . . . Evil One sends cooks to spoil ’em!

If too many cooks _do_ spoil the broth, only imagine the _clearness_ of
Brigham Young’s clear soup! the mind refuses to grapple with any such
fearful vision; it puts one in a perspiration thinking of it.

_Apropos_ of perspirations, Jones of Ark is the very hottest man you
ever met in your life: bet you anything you like he is; why, he
sometimes absolutely—SMOKES!!! Oh yes, it’s true; we have ourself
_seen_ him positively smoking, although, Nota Bene, _although_ . . . .
sitting up—to his chin ’n’ water!!

We always used to be quite happy with a glass of dry Curaçoa or a
thimble-full of Maraschino after our ice pudding, but fashions alter,
and people have taken to giving one “Chartreuse” and its twin
beastiality “Trappestine,” so—as we dare say you like to be in the
fashion—we may as well give you a receipt for making these invigorating
preparations: save you ten bob a bottle at the least. Beat up the yolks
of forty-eight eggs until they . . . . pshaw! that’s another
prescription; this is it: Take one pint of the commonest whisky you can
purchase, half a three-and-six-penny bottle—you know, the little straw
ones—of Eau de Cologne (needn’t be genuine), a teaspoonful of ess
bouquet, and—after putting in the above ingredients—fill up an
imperial quart bottle with methylated spirits of wine; shake up well,
and add sugar to suit the palate, and then take half a tumbler-full of
it after a roll-up jam pudding made with treacle, and see what visions
of bliss you will get that night when you have “sought your pillow”!
talk about hatchis; Pshaw! hatchis can’t hold a candle to it.

Try it and see: its delishus!

[Illustration: 102 TONS]




                              SPOONFUL XX.


Reader, we have already told you that we consider it lucky, peculiarly
lucky, for their own sakes, _and_ their owners’, that pet dogs have no
comprehensible _voce di petto_, can not talk, and that they can _not_
make a _lap_sus linguæ in any other than their present method: we repeat
it; we _are_ glad that it is so; that your “Old Dog Tray” is a dumb
waiter, and not a tale-bearer in two senses, or goodness only knows in
what colours poor Tray might not poor-Tray you to your wife when you got
home; or goodness only knows what fearful suspicions he might not
indogtraynate into her gentle bosom if he were not tongue-tied! We
rejoice that your pointers can _not_ point you, that your hounds can
not, indiscreetly, give tongue, that your toy terriers can _not_ turn
out terrier-bull toys, and that you may pooh pooh poodles _et_ setter-ra
in security, without having either to get them stolen on purpose, or to
carry a whacking warning whip to make _them cave canem_, beware of the
cane, instead of yourself. BUT, Beloved Reader, but only imagine if
there _were_ not only “Sermons in Stones,” but _mouchard_-ness in lath
and plaster, only imagine if Walls had _tongues_ as well as the ears
they are said to possess, only imagine it for one instant, what, _what_,
WHAT a lot of business would have to be conducted in the open country!!!

You have, most probably, already heard the two first of the four
following lines, though, possibly, _not_ the two last ones, but, as we
think it perhaps as well that you should, we here transcribe them for
you:

              “’E vot prigs vot isn’t ’isn’n,
               Ven he’s cotched ’ll go to pris’n,
               If _not_ cotched he thinks all’s well,
               ’E quite forgets he goes to . . . to . . .”

the next paragraph, if you will be so very good.

“_Honi soit qui mal y pense!!_” We quote this _bon mot_to as many
_soi-disant_ good people tell us they object _in toto_ to seeing the
ordinary title of “the Evil One” in print! We can only say, O may their
lives ever be such that they may never see him in any worse form!

                  He who listens through the wall
                  Of himself hears precious small;

or, in plain English, listeners never hear any good of themselves. Quite
so; and they don’t often hear much good of anybody else either,
unless—N.B., unless—“anybody else” happens to be present.

We may as well here observe that if your “Little pitchers” _have_ “great
ears!” it would perhaps be as well for you to break ’em at once — — —
— — — — — — of the habit of using them.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXI.


We don’t one bit believe in the ancient fable of Perseus and Andromeda,
not one bit, that is, not in the Andromeda part of it, but in every form
of Purse-use we put our faith most greedily and thoroughly,
for—_àpropos_ of sea-monsters, &c.—we unhesitatingly affirm that life
is like a lobster, naturally dark and black, and only _couleur de_
rosy-red when one is rich enough to — — put the pot on!

And yet, O treasured Reader, the man who thinks of nothing _but_ money,
and loves Plutus _plutôt_ than he fears Pluto, whose idea of anything
_dear_ is applied only to the money market, whose way of spelling
_cher_—if he ever heard that foreign word—is S.H.A.R.E., who is
ascetic in every passion but the passion for assets, who don’t think
anything you possess equals that which is “mine,” who cares for no races
but—The Ledger and The Guineas, and infinitely prefers good “paper” to
Good-wood, whose favourite scents are _per_ cents. and £:ess:bouquet,
whose favourite dish is—somebody else’s _tête de veau_ if _à la
financière_, whose favourite play is “Money,” who can swallow the
heaviest _dot_ without having any indigestion, who thinks more of
property than propriety, more of manors than manners, more of a merely
mercantile good buy than the friendliest how d’ye do, more of
Roths-child than his own perhaps, may possibly “enjoy” every luxury the
world can give, but we doubt particularly, most particularly, if he ever
thoroughly enjoys—the greatest blessing man _can_ enjoy . . . himself!

In speculating, a great many men go in so utterly, so recklessly, so
overheadandearsedly, for the “£” that the necessity of taking care of
the “_s._” gets quite forgotten, and that is probably why, so very
frequently, speculating becomes simply — — — peculating.

We are informed that Miss de Testable, a lady remarkable not so much for
her _embonpoint_ as her _en_ bone point, “gives herself great airs and
graces.” Ah! when we were presented to her the other evening we saw the
_airs_—and between ourselves, the traces — — of the hare’s foot—but
we utterly failed in perceiving a single one of the graces; nevertheless
the worship of Mammon (and she came into a jolly lot of it the other day
when old De Testable died) makes young Kensyngtone Gardenne of the
Fusileers throw himself rapturously into that now almost obsolete
position before her, its priestess (which we regret to say no other
worship has made him take since the days he used to try and shirk chapel
at Eton), and then . . . gammon her; for, like “experienced Nestor in
persuasion skilled,” who, you may possibly remember, “words sweet as
honey from his lips distilled,” he is good at talking, and what is more,
she believes him!! poooar stoopid weak old woman, she believes him! She
believes he adores _her_, and not . . . her money.

Well, well, after all there is _some_ consolation in being a pauper;
then, at any rate, when one _is_ loved, one gets loved for one’s self,
and not for one’s pelf; then one gets adored for one’s _propria
persona_, and not because, simply because, one _is_ . . . a purse-owner.

Bah! Reader, we _must_ be permitted to observe enthusiastically—Bah! We
talk about steam power, and wind power, and water power, and fire power,
the power of Love, and a power of other things, but, of all, ALL the
motive powers, what power is there which would have got Kensyngtone
Gardenne on to his knee before this hideous deaf old idiot except . . .
the power of MONEY?

O dear us! _Auri sacra_ whatsitsname, _quid non mortalia pectora_ drive
to.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXII.


Innocent youth, we do not wish to terrify you, but when, hazardously,
you are about “to shake your elbow,” remember Mephisto, the original
Diceheaver, is at it to help it shake! Beware! let nothing in-Deuce you
to meddle with this box, or the _oldest_ “Nick” may turn up some _dé_ to
your preju-dice! Never forget “The Deuce” is really inside it, only
waiting die-abolically for you to rattle him up, to spring out upon you
and do for you.

Ah! dear boy, if every dice-box but bore on its rim the motto “_Honi
soit qui mal y pense_”—not to be pronounced nor understood as having
anything whatever to do with French, but as a simple line of English—it
would, as regards the enemy of mankind, be but too true, for indeed and
in-deed—“_On his walk he may leap hence_”!

Mind your P’s and Q’s, says the sage, and we heartily echo the sage’s
saw, but of the two we recommend you to mind the q’s, _they_ may bring a
man to grief: true we should have no _P_yramids nor _P_ool without p’s,
but it’s handling the q is the dangerous part of _them_! as . . . . P’s
shell out; Q’s make _you_ do it!!

There is no position in which a man’s wife can place herself so utterly
unflattering to _her_, as in that of a-q-sir! as then she’s a
tail-bearer.

We beg most respectfully to suggest that if you have just got fitted
with a new set of—of—of masticators, you could not employ a more
_àpropos_ interjection than — — by Chew-better and Chew-now! It sounds
much more _fauci_-ble than by Jawge! or even than—by gum! P.S.—Don’t
chew forget this.

If the dentist, by-the-bye, in his advice gratis should ever say to you
“Hold your jaw!” reply to him immediately—“You hold jaws!”

When going up in a balloon, as you never know where you may have to get
_out_ again, . . . . . put on a parachute-ing boots.

_Pensée fugitive_ at the Zoo on being assured of the wonderful muscular
power of some of the ferocious specimens:—If the wild animals only
_are_ half as strong as they . . as the . . . . as their . . . . natural
bouquet, HOW strong they must be!

_Apropos_ of seeing the beasts fed, here’s a receipt for making a good
devil. “_Bonis_ nocet, quisquis _peper_cerit malis!” _Bonis_ means
bones, and _pepercerit_ is a misprint for—pepper it sir. Of course.

Good thing a devilled bone, eh? well, the bone of contention has
generally a pretty good lot of pickings on it, and it makes a capital
devil: people couldn’t make much more row over it when they’re picking
it, if it was—a trom-bone.

We constantly hear fellows say, “That’s hard lines,” or “This is hard
lines,” or “t’other’s hard lines,” but if you want to know what IS hard
lines . . . . be _ruled_ over!

Never despair, Gosling, never at random say _nil desperandum_: if you
_should_ lose all your money, you may be quite certain that an _immense_
number of dear friends, if they don’t leave you a legacy at their
deaths, will at any rate leave you a loan whilst they live!

Many a man is lucky enough to find “castles in the air,” _Chateaux en
Espagne_, act as his Spanishea for all the ills of life; to find Hope
with her anchor buoy him up and anchorage him in all his undertakings;
but tho’ we grant you she is charming in poetry, music, and painting,
tho’ we admit her to be solid in statuary, what, oh, what a humbugging
_ignis fatuus_ is Hope in reality!

Ah, youth, may you who pass so many of your hours in Hope’s fairy
palaces dreaming, may _you_ never have to _realize_ WHY “castles in the
air” _are_ “_Chateaux en Espagne_,” for ’tis because . . . . they’re
An-delusion!

[Illustration: FAITH    HOPE    THE TIMES]




                            SPOONFUL XXIII.


[Illustration]

         “When charming youth its perfect blooms maintains,
            Thoughtless of age, and ignorant of pains,”

how exceedingly nice, how very peculiarly nice, it looks, especially
when . . . . female!

All young things are nice: chickens, rabbits, lambs, leverets, pigs,
peas, potatoes; but sweet, youthful young ladies—ah! Reader, sweet
youthful young ladies, are they not nicest of all?

Don’t, please do _not_ do the Job-ly comforter, and remind us that
Beauty is only skin deep; it may be so, it may be only skin deep, but
that is deep enough for it to be most delicious, is it not? therefore,
_bel homme_, what a nuisance it is to think that all that which is now
_so_ fresh, _so_ frank, and _so_ fifteenish, or _so_ sunny, _so_
smiling, and _so_ sixteenly, may one day become so fat and fierce and
fifty-fiveish, or so skinny snarling sixty-sixish; it’s _too, too_ sad!

To think that those girlish eyes now shining in their skyey blueness,
with innocence and milk of human kindness overflowing them, may one day
overflow with . . ah . . rheum . . . . for improvement! To think that
those now brightly glancing hazel eyes may some day _not_ glance
brightly, but only—hazel-eye, very hazily indeed. To think that those
soul enthralling orbs, black as midnight Erebusian, which now flash
Cleopatra’s like (we sincerely trust no one will be so _brutal_ as to
tell us Cleopatra had blue eyes) and make of every man an Antony, a
fool, a slave, a cypher, may one day become so changed that, to speak
metaphorically, they will only flash — — in their pans, harmlessly,
unincandescently, over any amount of powder (viol_e_t not viole_n_t
powder), causing no danger to the bystanders, no effect, no report—save
one perhaps from the tongue of scandal: it’s too detestable, too
diabolical to think of!

             “O mirth and innocence! O milk and water!
              Ye happy mixtures of more happy days,”

How soon do you not begin . . . . to turn sour? Before you have time to
value your youth, your invaluable short, short, golden, halcyon,
day—hour! minute!!—of youth, it . . . . it . . . . is GONE!!!

[Illustration]

Pause, adolescent Reader, you who already, so to speak, feel the
profoundest disgust for the innocencies of youth, and long to fight in
the battle of life, to be in its smoke, its flashy puffs, its sham
reality and real shams, its noise, turmoil, and insincerity, oh! pause.
And you, youthful Readeress, you who are about to rule and direct the
destiny of real mankind, and twist it round your fingers as easily and
entirely as but a year or so ago you did the movements of your toy
man—oh, pause too, and look at this:

                          YOUR YOUTH IS GONE!

Think it out! do you _realize_ what it means? it means — — it’s
Irrevocable! it means, that before you know where you are, your youth
is—_a thing, a vision, a remembrance only of the PAST_! an atom _sunk_
to the bottom of the unfathomable sea of eternity; sunk, perhaps without
leaving behind it one bubble, one solitary bright-hued memory, to help
you to look upon your loss with less regret!

O—(put, if you please, printer, one of your _largest_ O’s)—O
Primavera, Spring-time, Hobbledehoyhood, Hoidenism, Tomboydom of Life,
how little, how particularly little are you appreciated! O “tender bloom
of heart” how, _how_, HOW soon are you not . . . . smudged off!

We talk about Wasting Money; there are twenty thousand maxims against
wasting money! Money! Bah, what’s wasting money to wasting youth? What’s
Jewvenality to Juvenility? What’s the power of enjoying wealths to the
power of enjoying healths? can Ops coming to us ever make up for our
hops leaving us? ask yourself, can he?

We grant you that money is agreeable, very agreeable: that it is grand,
glorious, superb; we even grant you that it is indispensable; we _all_
feel _that_ every day, every hour of the day, and every minute of the
hour; but can it buy the blooming cheek, the joyous laugh, the timid
blush, the sincere hand-pressure; the elastic and _not_-to-be-crushed
heart, the goupthreestairsatatimeedness of youth? No: can it _purchase_,
however much of it you may have, the blessings which Lovely Youth gives
us for — — nothing, and which blessings—Yahoos that we are—_because_
they cost us nothing—we _value_ not, nor care one bit to—_save_!

O! (may we trouble you once more, Mister Printer, if you will be so
good, for another melancholy-sized O) O what a world this would be, what
a nice, agreeable little planet, if we could only all _stop_ young,
fresh, sincere, trusting, tender; why can’t we? _what_ a bore it is! yet
we never think thus until—like the Old Parr-ty with the pills—we are
getting into the serious and very yellow leaf! we only pick up wrinkles
_with_ wrinkles! we never believe—no, nothing can make us believe
it—that we are fools until—we are old enough to take one retrospective
glance at our past, which one glance, however, suffices, amply suffices,
to prove the dismal, the lugubrious fact.

If we were to tell you, O Reader, that you most probably _have_ hitherto
entirely wasted, _are_ entirely wasting, and mean to go _on_ entirely
wasting—your life, and that therefore, though you _consider_ yourself A
1, you _prove_ yourself A double S, you would certainly pitch this book
into the fire, and very likely write and pitch into its author; quite
so; but, question your own past life about your wisdom or goosedom,
about your sageness or assininity, about opportunities you have thrown
away, chances you have lost, _sottises_ you have committed, D-T-isms you
have but narrowly escaped, and any amount of _et ceteras_, and you will
find that _mutato nomine_, dear boy, D.T.—very probably—_fabula
narratur_!

       “Ah world unknown! how charming is thy view,
        Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new!
        Ah world experienced! what of _thee_ is told?
        How few thy pleasures, and those few . . . how old!”

Of course, we don’t expect you to believe in _that_ Crabbe’s clause; but
wait a few years, O Champagney Charles, and see if too much “Roederer”
and “Ruinart” don’t lead perhaps along the . . . . Road to Ruination!
wait and see if too much re-creation does not lead to . . . . .
wreck-creation! wait and acknowledge, O _jeune ass doré_, that ’tis in
going “the pace” you are most likely to make—an irretrievable _faux
pas_!

Boys in their boisterous buoyancy only want to reach the age of . . . .
ah . . . . of _in_-discretion, to be men, and all the young ladies at
the Misses Whooknose’s establishment but wanting time to pass “more
swiftly than the swallows wing,” think of nothing but leaving school
and—alas, _not_ of the three R’s, Reading, Riting, and Rithmertick—but
of the three M’s . . . . Millinery, Marriage, and Maternity. There they
are: turn back a page or two and look at them; have we made them lovely?
are they darlings? well, yes, perhaps they _have_ a trifle
of—of—of—purchased “ornamental hair” in one or two instances among
“the more advanced pupils,” and yet each Miss pines for one tress more
. . . . the tress which will turn her from a miss into a mistress! She
pines to be miss-taken, and she very likely — — — _will be_!

O “pliant wax” of youth, permit not such imbeseal impressions to be made
on you! O inane, thoughtless, pretty but vapid Juvenility, O Loonatic
Loveliness, well indeed may it be said “all flesh is grass,” for are you
not verdant! O silly stoopid delishus but noodle-ey youngness, what a
vast facility and talent you show for following in the footsteps of
. . . . Jenny-ass, in preference to following the footsteps of . . . .
Genius!

O Reader, Reader, how like, alas! is the folly age of youth to the
foli-age of spring, for — — are they not _both_ . . . . . . . .
GREEN!!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXIV.


[Illustration]

“Life is a journey towards Death,” says some very cheery old sage! Aha!
do it pooty fast and comfortably though, some of us human racers along
life’s _Via_, life’s flower-strewn V.R. eh? do the V.R. in a Victoria!
Ah Victoria Victoria, victoria victoribus, but for the victis—fe-ar,
and V-R-ful Væ!

[P.S.—The reader will kindly notice that each of our four horses has
been carefully made an historical—Italian operatic—character; each one
of them is . . . Anna Bolena! in fact, there could not be four annabols
more lena!]

Agreeable form—in a Victoria for instance—of “_in medio tutissimus
ibis_:” Sitting bodkin!

We would remind everybody, but especially those who agree with the
Frenchman in considering that a horse is an animal that “bites you with
one of his ends, kicks you with the other, and pitches you off with his
middle,” that — — Harnesty is the best policy!

You know what “Captain” de Courcy Norfolk Howard de Tabley Smith calls
himself, don’t you? he calls himself a “betting man:” _we_ call him a —
— well cher _ami_, we won’t be severe as he’s a friend of yours.

A man may be a tremendous swell at Boolong, and not of much account in
London! from which indisputable fact we come to the touching conclusion,
that it is much better to stop at Boolong with your appreciative
boolongings, than to _Boulogne_-ly and neglected by yourself in London!

Thinking you speak French, and doing it, are two most utterly different
things: look here, for instance, at what happened to Mrs. Ampstead
Clapham in Paris. “Pardon, Madame, mais on n’entre pas ici avec un
chien,” says Law at the door of the Louvre. “Ser nay par ooon sheang
Moosoo sayt ooon pity pooopy,” says Mrs. Ampstead Clapham. “Non, Madame,
ce n’est pas une poupée du tout, c’est parfaitement un chien,” says Law.
“Pardong, Merseer, Pooopy, not a cheang,” says Mrs. A. C. “Chien,
Madame, pas poupée,” says Law! And yet you know Mrs. Ampstead Clapham
thought herself a very “elegant” French scholar indeed!

However, it don’t do to talk French or German or Italian, or play the
piano, &c., “like a bird,” flu-ently, _too_ well, or some kind soul is
sure to give out that you were—educated for a courier or a governess!

They tell us it’s a short sea passage from B’lown to Folkestone: “_deux
heures_” they say: ah; it was four when Smith came over: _deux heures_
on board, and douceur to the steward, that made it four; besides it was
exceedingly rough, there were mountains labouring, _not_ for mice, but
for another _pur_-pose, and he was oh! so very, _very_ unwell! Oh yes,
it certainly _was—quatre heures_ for Smith!

[P.S.—Poor Smith—he said it seemed like six!]

Life is like a sail on the ocean; we mostly start in pleasant weather,
whilst the fancies of youth, like Sunshine, make every worthless drop of
spray look like a diamond, but we’re nevertheless pretty generally sick
at heart and thoroughly damped before we’ve done with it; our life-long
game of pitch and toss, and “the world” feels our individual griefs no
more than does the sea the sorrow it causes when engulphing a freight of
hearts, hopes, happiness, and humanity! _et sic_ of everybody; as in our
sail we are sold, so are we in life; there we are, up one minute down
the next; some of us get a fine time of it, others most certainly don’t,
but instead, get a turmoil on the waters, and have friends trying to
throw what they term oil on the waters, which invariably makes matters
827 times worse than they were before. Some of us get “faventes auræ,”
no “breezes,” but agreeable ones, others get blown up by the wind which
_is_ ill, as it blows no one any good . . . . the equi-nuptial gales!
Some of us are occasionally favoured both by Posidon and Possessions,
but Neptune, like Fortune, is capricious and _amer_, and, alas alas, as
by getting too much of the one we are driven on the breakers, so by
getting too _little_ of the other are we not . . . . broke? You _may_
possibly, in your voyage through Life, manage to steer clear of
Charybdis, and _not_ get absolutely wrecked on that other Scylla-brated
mantrap, but how few of us are there who have not to go through some
“straits” at one time or another, which end by stranding us, if not at
Messina, at any rate — — — in a mess!

Goslings, it _is_ Sad but _is_ So.

It is not only in France the tongue is called _langue_; not at all;
plenty of people have very _langue_, exceedingly lorng tongues in
London: but this is a theme we will not lingua over.

Permit us to tell you what is your duty to your neighbour, as we feel
perfectly convinced, from your manner of going on, that you don’t know
it. It is— —to—to—mind your own business.

You complain of the English way of spelling words ending in “ough” do
you? And you also object to tongues not being spelt as pronounced,
tungs: Ha! ha! quite so; but don’t you know _why_ tongues are spelt more
like tongs than tungs, eh? Why . . . it’s to give you a hint to hold
yours.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXV.


[Illustration]

Oh _dear_, no, you are quite mistaken, you are completely in error, this
is not meant for Smith learning to do the trapeze; certainly it is not:
neither is it a picture of a shell bursting in the late Paris business
“from a drawing by our special artist taken on the spot;” shell bursting
indeed! not a bit of it: no, it is simply a family group showing how
Tompkingson has just advertised his better half, his wife, that he
purposes going down to Greenwich to-morrow with “a few friends.” It
would appear, judging from the missileaneous assortment of missiles
thrown at and after him, that his said better half, his _dulce lenimen_,
objects to his so doing.

From the above most interesting domestic incident we may draw this
beautiful moral, that it is always better and kinder, if possible, to
spare our wives a pang, and that therefore, in order to do so, when we
_do_ go where we please, we certainly shouldn’t talk about it—at any
rate not until after we’ve _been_!

Rochefoucauld says, “If you get in a passion and over-blackguard your
servant for not painting your boots properly, he doesn’t so much mind it
when you accuse him of theft, smoking your biggest cigars, &c., &c.,
&c.” This is a maxim married ladies would do well to take to heart: if
they “make it too warm” for their husbands for _thinking_ of going
anywhere, what have they left to do and say — — after he’s _been_ and
_gone_ and done it?

A man _can_ be too “large hearted”: oh dear, yes: when he finds room in
it, not only for his wife, but for somebody else!

Morn at eve: Cree-morne!

You are mistaken; it is _not_ only at Baden, etc., you see _Rouge_ an’
_noir_; you can see it in London, _Rouge_ an’ _oies_; Paint, and the
little geese who use it!

Yes, indeed; Alas! Alas! Alas! no one knows _how_ we regret it, but it
is So! we have no longer any doubt about it; — — — a Miss IS as good
as _émail_!!!

Whenever a “party,” whom you know to be—a nobody, swaggers and brags
too much of his this, his that, and his t’other, and then offers to put
you up to a good thing or two in the way of investing your money — —
avoid him! for remember this, that nobody in this world ever does
anything for nothing, and that a man may live a flash villa-in and _be_
one himself, or may live _in_ a square, yet not act _on_ it, or in a
mansion yet do many un-mansionable things, or in a Row and get you into
one, or in a terrace and soon give you a good cause to quote “jam satis
terrace” with a vengeance; for, you may rely upon it, many “a party” who
is dressed by Poole would be none the worse for another sort
of—dressing by—a _horse-pond_!

We have positively known men who “hadn’t a leg left to stand upon” walk
beyoutifully at Boulogne-sur-Mer. Odd, eh? However, the Boulogne-sur-Mer
air we have always heard was very invigorating to the legs: it must be.

Sweet youth, if you are a scamp and begin to think you are _not_ a
scamp, it is a very bad sign. There is nothing much more stupid than
thinking yourself good enough and to spare: believe us, the first step
towards improvement is—acknowledging there is room for it.

The portrait below is taken from nature. The voracious animal it
represents, which will eat anything, from diamond rings to marble-topped
washhandstands, is in the possession of the author. It is a very fine
specimen. Its plumage is a mixture of white, dirty slate-colour, and
dun. It is a great nuisance. It is not at all a _rara avis_. The
Zoological and Charitable Societies of London refuse to purchase it. Its
owner is heartily tired of it.

He calls it “an unfavourable _anser_, or the _real_ tailor bird,” which
you know is a sort of a goose who don’t—_feather his nest_,
but—but—_sews it up_!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXVI.


Pretty Miss Dolly Varden is so nice, really so like a Watteau, that we
hardly know watteau say to express our admiration for her: her eyes
shine like the shimmer of sunbeams on a summer sea, her lips make one
think that should she ever eat cherries ’twould be cannibalistic:
Innocence and charming girlhood, so to speak, envelope her; but, silly
little woman, she has allowed herself to be persuaded into following the
present idioticly outrageous fashion, and has boxed up her feet in
tight—oh, so very tight—high-heeled shoes. Ah, goodness! on a hot
summer’s day, those unyielding shoes, oh, what delight! Why do it, O
_jolie_ Dolly V.? Why squeeze up your charming tooties, why ruin them,
encourage bunions and suffer through high heels perhaps one of the
direst agonies known to more-tall? Why do it? Oh, why, why do it, until
you have, alas! to exclaim in the very identical words of Hamlet . . . .

              “O my poor feet ache so’ll my ankle!!!!”

Even as they prefer worrying their old aunty’s footman to troubling
their old Dante’s page; even as they prefer sitting at Gwendoline’s or
Gertrude’s feet to Gamaliel’s; even as they think more of whip-thongs
than diphthongs; even as they think more of a red _homard_, than of
Homer read, so do goslings think more of ankles than uncles!

Boobies! do they not _prove_ themselves “_têtes de veau_,”
bul-lock-heads, thus to re-veal their de-veau-tion to — — Neat feet.

Procrastination is the thief of time! it is: the only sort of delay
which is at all good for anything is a roun-delay! P.S.—We never hear
this word roundelay without thinking of a garter: don’t you see? a
roundelay and—around, a leg! _Honi soit que female y pense!_ don’t be
in such a precious hurry to find fault; we mean Henry the Eighth’s.

In crossing a muddy road on a dark night try and do it opposite a lamp,
that its light may enable you to avoid puddles, &c., &c., &c.; so in
Life’s road, if you would make it a Via happier, let good nature be your
lamp; for there is nothing, positively nothing, which acts so perfectly
as _ægis_ against all the bores of life as good humour; humour say what
you like, but there isn’t.

Joneson swims quite wonderfully, and floats like a cork: _he_ accounts
for it by saying he has such a very large and such a very light heart:
well, he may be right, but we should have attributed it, _not_ so much
to the vastness and lightness of his heart, as to the complete emptiness
of . . . . his head.

Flowers of Speech: “_Sesquipe_-dahlia _verba_!”

Do you know what the effect of dining with a screw is? Why . . . .
getting bored!

People are constantly saying “we can’t do two things at once:” wish they
couldn’t, then they wouldn’t talk with their mouths full.

Man’s last meal: Biting the dust!

All the world may be a stage, but there is one act in all our lives no
one can re-hearse . . . our leaving it.

You may chaff the poor scribbler about his dining at a pothouse, but do
not the swellest authors equally get _their_ dinner — — from the
public!

The attributes of the “Jack” are—biting and snappishness: as you go
through the world you will find it is not unusual for mankind to assume
the Jack’s fishy attributes . . . . _when in office_.

To every one in the world, except perhaps cardinals, to every other
living soul we emphatically say — — avoid hat-red! for . . . . it is a
loa-thing.

And yet, O Reader, how many a friendship gets snipped almost in the bud
through worldly considerations, and how often do those who to the end of
Life’s journey might have venerated and respected each other,
get—through some trifling adverse circumstance—to feel such a friendsy
of hate, such a mutual detestation, that they absolutely, yes,
_absolutely_, come to _dread_ being ever again . . . thrown together.

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXVII.


We never pass a butcher’s shop, nor hear a bullock’s voice, without
thinking of amateur vocalists. The bullock’s voice may be
contralto—that is _low_—and the other’s soprano perhaps, or anything
else, but that makes no earthly difference, as they both so
invariably—after once being _herd_—end in . . . . being cut up!

Many a woman gets loved for her voice, for her ability to follow the
charming example of Titiens, Patti and Caux, for her “tonic sol fa”
accomplishments: that is the reason, we must presume, why girls sing so
much more than they play: they don’t want a—play-tonic sol-fa, but a
sort of a burning sol-fa to make each of them a _la si a-do-rée_!

When a young lady proposes music, answer, “_S’il vous_ play.”

If _two_ young ladies sing, say, after it’s over, that you feel like a
flower refreshed with the dew-wet!

P.S.—Never talk about getting up a treeo, or people won’t be able to
think quatuor driving at.

If you want anybody to admire your daughter’s singing, or your wife’s
piano-teasing, or your son’s wit, don’t boast _too_ much about it all
_beforehand_; for it’s easier, very much easier, to disappoint people
than to please them.

Never treat your olive branches as you would your geranium cuttings;
never . . . . “strike them in heat!”

Love _is_ blind, there’s no doubt about it, for what hideosity finds
mates! yes, he must be very blind, and that is why couples, we presume,
like to make—spectacles of themselves for his sake.

It is unnecessary to tell us Justice is blind, she just is, or she would
see how juiced few of us get any of her company. However, don’t think we
mean to say Fie at Justice, not at all, we only say _Fiat Justitia_!

The healthiest form of “B. and S.”: Brighton and South Coast!

A _bôna fide_ spirit trap: Gin!

A beery month: Fe-brewery!

A tipsy man is like a smoking lamp: he should be—turned out.

Doctors, “The Faculty,” may tell you, by-the-bye, that all those heavy
“nails,” brandies and sodas, and sherries and bitters, and gins and
seltzers, and curaçoas and lemonades(!), &c., &c., &c., which you insist
upon imbibing at all hours of the day, are killing you by inches! Don’t
you believe the Faculty: they are _not_ killing you by inches: no,
certainly not; not at all; they’re not killing you by inches, but by
yards, poles, furlongs, miles—fast as possible! O dear Gosling, let the
worm eat us when Charon takes us and, _Mors_ the pity, Sticks to us; but
_before_ that unhappy event, beware, O beware of the _other_ worm, which
gnaws our vitals while yet we live . . . . the fatal “_p’tit ver!_”

[Illustration: CHARON]

“As you make your bed so you must lie upon it!” Nonsense! get up like a
man, and put the feather-bed atop of the mattress.

P.S.—Wish they’d feather the birds properly they make the feather beds
of; believe they sometimes put in the bird, claws, beak, an’ all, and
NOT the feathers: dooced uncomfortable, ain’t they? All lumps and
prickles: can’t make up our mind which is the worst, the lumps or the
prickles, or the prickles or the lumps; sometimes think the lumps are,
until we get on the prickles, then we think the prickles are, until we
again get on the lumps, and so on . . . on . . . . on . . . . on through
the nightlightless and dreary hours of darkness, until, worn out in mind
and body, slumber sinks our weary senses in semi-forgetfulness, alas!
but to make us dream magnifiedly of more and bigger and sharper lumps
and prickles than ever: both brutal.

_Apropos_ of making beds, &c., we are reminded to suggest that if
chambermaidens in hotels would only take a little of our common sense
they should be heartily welcome; but, hang ’em, it’s our Ess Bouquet and
Jockey Club they prefer, and they _won’t_ leave our Ealing-Ealing in its
proper station, and they also won’t leave our _eau de Cologne_ alone,
but insist upon separating the “odour” from the “Cologne” by cribbing
half of it, and then adding _eau de_ London to fill up the bottle. Too
bad.

Meet a tipsy friend, and ask him to name an animal draughtsman on wood
whom he thinks wonderfully clever, and we bet you—if he knows the make
of any other sort of beast _besides_ himself, if he knows anything of
drawing _not_ as applied to corks—that his answer will name the artist,
and be your opinion of his drunken _self . . . il s’est grisé_!

A composer: Arditi!

A dis-composer: Ah! . . . “D.T.!”

“There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” as the old gentleman
with chronic “D.T.” found to his cost!—he spoiled three waistcoats a
day for seventeen years, until he hit upon the plan of putting his table
napkin or pocket-handkerchief over the back of his neck, and through its
help hauling up his right hand—the one with the glass in it—with his
other one! It’s old, the story; but if _you_’ve got the jumps, it may be
useful to you to know it.

If it were not for the fear of—of—being caught doing naughties, _what_
a Pandemonium this civilised Christian world would be. O! if what is now
“Naughty but Nice” were only . . . . . Religion, _what_ a religious
really joyous lot all you fellers would become, and Jingo! the new
churches that would have to be built!!! and wouldn’t the subscriptions
just flow, gush, rush in!!!! eh? _rather._ And yet after all, don’t you
know, people do pray; pray a great deal; an immense deal; are _tojours
prêts to_ pray, but . . . . it’s on one another!

If men would never drink except when thirsty, screwyness and limpness,
tightness and much consequent looseness would be next to unknown; and
not only that, but they would avoid making most confounded fools of
themselves into the bargain; for we feel no hesitation in saying that
nothing D.T.riorates a man in every way like drink, and that the man who
_is_ tipsy is not _ipse_!

Vanity is a sort of drunkenness, for the looking-glass intoxicates some
people quite as disagreeably as the wine-glass does others.

Yes, Respectable Reader, you are perfectly right, there _is_ ONE more
disgusting thing in the world than a tipsy man: yes, one, but _only_ one
. . . . it is . . . . a tipsy woman.

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXVIII.


Little can they who start on “parties of pleasure” calculate how said
“parties of pleasure” _may_ terminate, and of _all_ “parties of
pleasure” this remark applies to matrimony more, perhaps, than to any
other. Union, you fondly imagine, is strength! it isn’t; if you haven’t
got—we are speaking hymeneally—if you haven’t got a precious lot of
precious money! on the contrary, it’s anything but strength, it’s simply
the greatest weakness you can indulge in. We know very well that “_Ubi
mel ibi apes_”! which, being translated properly, _bel homme_, means —
— _Ubi_ where—_mel_ there is a sweet creechar—_ibi_ there—_apes_
monkeys are sure to be after her! We grant you _this_ is but natural, we
acknowledge it is only human nature to think “union is strength.” _But_,
O dear boy, whilst advising you very strongly, unless you are _dooced
badly_ off, not to unionize for money, we advise you more strongly, O we
advise you _much_ more strongly, unless you are dooced WELL off, not to
unionize for — — HONEY!

Jeunesse which is _not dorée_, don’t — — marry for love. Jeunesse
which is not d, do not do it! Jeunesse which is not _dorée, sans_ £, you
are better off _sans elle_! Female ditto, _sans louis d’or_, you are
better off _sans lui_ you ad-ore! J which is not d, without a tocher
don’t touch ’er! F ditto, without a _dot_, don’t! For remember this, O
single sparks—_and_ sparkesses—who are inclined to puff yourselves
into a state of ardour, that poor, impecunious, out-at-elbows Love is
precisely like a house on fire—it ought to be put out, extinguished,
have cold water thrown on it, see what wet—very wet—blankets can do
for it, end in smoke before its flames, after having gained too great an
ascendancy to be _put_ out, _go_ out, die out, smoulder out, of
themselves, leaving nothing that’s t_e_nder, only that which is t_i_nder
behind them.

You may possibly, O spooney Solomon, argue, as a great, many spooney
Solomons _do_ argue, that “riches don’t make happiness:” ah; possibly
not; we don’t know: we never tried ’em; but, notwithstanding your
assertion, we nevertheless cordially recommend you (remember we are
speaking from a connubialistic point of view) to patiently wait for the
Gilded Purgatory, the ’eldorado, you abuse, in preference to rushing
after a cheap wedding and life in a 30_s._ a week lodging, that poor
man’s oasis, where your sherry wine immediately becomes made-dearer,
half of it being invariably “partaken of” by your land_lady_; where they
_will_ blacken your varnished boots; when your friends _won’t_ visit
you; where “the cat,” from what you are given to understand, has a
weakness for silk socks and cambric pocket handkerchiefs, and where
coals—bad ones—are nine guineas a ton, that is, 6_d._ a scuttle—a
small one—and kitchen fire—where your plain (uncommonly) dinners are
invariably spoiled—is extra!

Riches, as you say, may not bring happiness, but the gilded ones, my
friend, get all the honey, _you_ get all the work and the whacks; the
gilded ones get all the honey, you get only the stings of the bees, —
— and the cells; the pecunious ones get all the honey, you get only
the—jars! they get all the roses, you only get the thorn in your side,
not a Thorne of the Vau-deville sort, but a deville of a thorn without
any (_tête de_) Veau, to which we are all so de-veau-ted. Riches may
_not_ make happiness, but we ask you now, do Poverties make it? Your
present position may not be _all_ you _could_ desire, but might it not
easily be worse?

[Illustration]

To “wear a golden sorrow” may _not_ be quite all you could wish, but
_is_ wearing a pewter one any better?

The tup’ny-ha’pe’ny 200-a-year style of hymeneal altar _is_ pitched
into, and ever has _been_ pitched into enough, goodness knows! and yet
the poor male marryer, before he nuptializes an equally poor female
marryer, _insists_ upon steadily overlooking _all_ everybody has ever
said upon the subject; insists upon NOT remembering _the_ one most
important fact in the whole history of this sublunary spear, viz., that
though he may look upon his inamorata as an angel, and call her one, she
most indubitably will require feeding, and that therefore beef and beer,
and when very Amphitryonically disposed, puddings—Yorkshire and
otherwise—to say nothing of _soles à la Normande_, or _au gratin_,
Cliquot, curlpaper cutlets, &c., &c., &c., are absolutely
in-dis-pen-sa-ble to prevent his turtle doveing becoming a mere
mock-turtle-ery in no time.

It’s no use your arguing that you _don’t_ want cucumbers all the year
round with your fish, strawberries at half a crown a piece, grapes at
two guineas a pound, and salmon and lamb at five bob an ounce; it’s no
good your persuading yourself you can contentedly “do it cheap;” you
can’t; all that is cheap is beastly; besides, if _you_ can, your wife
probably _won’t_; though _you_ may be contented to stand vile
lodging-house cooking and impertinent sauce . . . . . _à la landlady_,
the woman you marry will most certainly prefer French cooking and sauce
. . . _à la maître d’hôtel_!

But _that’s_ not it; it’s the fact of the whole business being simply
detestable; it’s the fact of your being pooh-pooh’d by a lot of monied
vulgarians—“carriage people”!!!—and sat upon and snubbed by everybody;
it’s the fact that we are all envious; it’s the fact that we all detest
being only tantalized with the sight of others’ comforts; and it’s the
confounded fact that the demon impecuniosity—in about eight cases out
of every ten—brings untidiness in a wife, and _then_, by St. Jingo, you
get the curlpapers with_out_ the cutlets, and in place of _anguilles à
la Toulouse_, &c., ankles _à la_ too loose, and slippery down-at-eel
boots in no time!

Reader, in place of a famous sole with sauce _tartare_, you’ll possibly
_catch_ one, not a famous sole, a Tartar, who’ll want to _be_ a _femme
sole_, and _then_ it’s tar tar to all sorts of jolliness!

O dear impecunious but hymeneally-inclined Gosling, _don’t_ believe all
their goody goody twaddle about “Love in a cottage;” _don’t_ believe
that money doesn’t bring happiness; _don’t_ believe that gold is dross;
_don’t_ believe that _£. s. d._-ism is wicked; don’t believe this, that,
and t’other, but—us, when we assure you, confidently assure you, that,
if you, a possibly corpulent Cupid, would—_en homme solide_—fan
up—and _keep_ up—the flame on the altar of Love, there is nothing on
earth so useful, so extraordinarily useful, for doing it with as . . . .
a good full purse.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXIX.


[Illustration: CHEQUE MATED]

Hymen’s link, when supported on bankers’ books and bullion bags, cheques
and consols, riches, roses, and so on; when there are no duns, no
bothers, no anxieties no complications, no unbuoyed sunken businesses,
rocks, torpedoes, quicksandifications, maelstroms, shoals, &c., is all
plain sailing enough: the charm of returning home to the loving arms of
Beauty when the loving arms of Beauty have nice bracelets on ’em; when
the fingers of Beauty which twine your hair round ’em (if you’ve got
any, and like having it twined round fingers—we don’t) glitter with
gem-cracks; when Beauty is nicely got up, in pooty shoes, pooty
peignoires, flowers and freshness, &c., &c., &c.; when Beauty in fact
has lots of money and nothing to do, the charm of all this must be
immense, no charm we imagine can well be much immenser: Beauty will
then, if inclined, have time to be amused at your amusements; never make
a “piece of work” unless it be to knit you unwearably gorgeous Berlin
wool machines in impracticable colours; make you braces for which you’ll
give embraces back; and when you’ve been out shooting probably be
pleased and proud—as we have delineated her above—to . . . . count
your game!

Ah! all this, though perhaps not very intellectual or useful, must be
very delishus at any rate; but look at the other side of the hymeneal
medal; if your Hymenish link is _not_ supported as above, if instead of
having the fingers of Beauty in rings twining your ringlets, the fingers
of Beauty have to be always darning the children’s clothes; if the
loving arms of Beauty, instead of being used as bracelet expositors,
have to become acquainted with the wash-tub; if Beauty, instead of
having _nothing_ to do, has to do an immense deal; if there _are_ duns,
bothers, complications, etc., etc., etc., _cum multis aliis quæ
nunc_—as the Latin grammar says—_perscribere_ would be a bore; if in
fact you’ve no money, look at it _then_; when the honeymoon’s monthly
new-broomy roses have fallen, and their greenness has gone, and you find
your link simply supported on thorny stalks, where are you then? O where
_are_ you?

Idiots congratulate themselves—whether they can afford marriage or
not—on being accepted by their poundless shillingless and penniless
loves, and exclaim, “Oh Rapchar; I may kneel hymeneally!” Boobies! they
forget that that which is enough—very likely barely enough—for _one_
is of no earthly use for TWO! They forget that that which is of no
earthly use for _two_ may possibly—and very probably will—have to be
enough for 4, 6, 10, 15, or even =20!= They forget that they can _not_
count their olive branches before they are at-hatched to the parient
stem, and that olive branches on a small income are incomebranches of
the worst sort, as they can _not_ be lopped off! They forget that the
ringing of one _finger may_ lead to the—wringing of four hands! They
forget that in Poverty the hymeneal haltar ties them hands and feet, and
what they will have to sacrifice on this same altar to keep it going
even moderately straight, and to . . . . “yet brokenly live on!” They
forget that by getting spliced, and so made fast, they may be utterly
un-done! They forget that it invariably turns out for the female
marryer—this poor hymenial business—all of the “menial” with nothing
of the “hy” about it whatever, unless she consider it, as we feel
confident she eventually will, _all_ her hy! They forget that if, even
when people _are_ well off,

         “Life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim,”
         Love’s enchanted couple find it just the sim!

[Illustration]

They forget if the wife should perversely dislike becoming a sort of
servant-of-all-work, that their chance of a domestic _donna_ and bliss,
is not half as great as their chance of domestic _donner_ and _blitzen_!
They forget their Missis may become their Ne-missis! They forget that
marriage, not only in one case, as the Greek has it, but in all cases,
is a gam_m_on which, un-like bacon, whether it can be cured or not,
_must_ be endured! They forget that though courtship makes all things
_couleur de rose_, matrimony frequently makes the very same things
_couleur de_ rows! They forget that no man can tell whether he really
_does_ love a woman until he’s been married to her for at least two
years. They forget that an _ar_-dent, AR-dent, wish for the Sacrament of
Marriage not in-frequently turns to a still more ARDENT wish to give
each other the sack with-_out_ the raiment! They forget that the very
worst cases that ever appeared before Sir Dresswell Dress-swell or Lord
Penzance _had_—we must presume—HAD—to _begin_ with—a honey moon!
And, worst of all, the Boobies, the honeyluna-tics, they forget that
Marriage is such a tremendous goer, a Derby winner, a “Gamos” with such
staying power, that being once started, nothing can by any possibility
stop him but — — death, or the long dirty and expensive journey to
. . . . . the Wilds of Penzance!

Ah, dear boy, how fashions alter! Society doesn’t put peas in its shoes
now-a-days, it puts ’em in its mouth; scallop-shells are kept for
oysters, not for pilgrimising in; hair shirts are obsolete, and have all
been made into chignons and patent friction businesses for opening the
pores of the skin _comfortably_; people don’t fast, only go so; don’t
wear chains unless, at the least, 18 caraters; and, though they _do_
flageolet their neighbours, certainly _don’t_ flagellate themselves nor
let anybody else do it if they are aware of it, no thankee; and as for
sackcloth and ashes, where do you ever see _them_ except over a
coalheaver’s head on a wet day? No, no; the Penance we do _now_ is spelt
with a z after the Pen, as . . . we marry . . . on nothing a year!

Ah, Reader, had many an improvident—hymeneally-minded Gosling but less
hope to begin with, he’d not be hope-less — — to end with. And if,
Reader, instead of going to the altar of Hymen, a lot of people would
only have strength of mind enough to go to — — to — — Majorca, it
would save Majorcawardness to all parties afterwards.

[Illustration: LAW]




                             SPOONFUL XXX.


Latest Sporting Intelligence.

A telegram from our Special Commissioner informs us that all the
probable starters for “the great race” are on the spot; and that the
field will be an unusually big one. Midnight betting still points to
Count Toutlemonde’s French-bred mare “Bottines” as first favourite; she
is said to have something wrong with her heels, but her backers seem
pretty confident. The Earl of Thompson’s “Butler” is spoken of as being
a regular screw, and as having certainly something queer with one of his
hocks, nevertheless, any money you put on him is taken freely. Mr.
Rutter Ridjit’s “Burlesque” is said to look too cart-horsey and leggy,
and anything but very fit; a “walk over” is what would suit her; as it
is, she’ll probably—break down. “Small Waist” is well spoken off; her
staying power is hinted at as being immense. Mr. F. O. Clerk’s “The
Toady” may be safely backed to get a place. Lord de Jones’s “The Outlaw”
has been made the subject of keen inquiry, as some of the knowing ones
pretend to think that if he gets a good start he’ll never be caught. Mr.
Day’s colt “Décolletée” has put her shoulder out. “Miss Lightsome” has
been scratched for all her engagements. “Lazarus” has been tremendously
kicked by his stable companion “Dives,” and is quite _horse de combat_.
“The Vixen” cast a plate on arriving at her quarters; there was not much
damage done; she’s sure to come to the scratch. Mr. Senex’s “Dowager” is
out of the betting. Viscount Smith’s “Crinoline” looks in a miserable
condition, fearfully tucked up, ribs coming through her skin,
over-trained. Prince Piccadeeli will be represented by “Grecian Bend:”
she is rather too hollow-backed and over-knee’d an animal to suit us,
but is freely supported at a good figure.

As regards the match between Mr. Foralltime’s “Shakespeare” (aged), and
Mr. British Youth’s “The Ballet,” Shakespeare was nowhere, the mare,
although looking as stale as possible, won in the very commonest o’
canters. We, however, believe the whole thing was a put up affair, as
“Shakespeare” was too heavily weighted, whilst “The Ballet” carried next
to nothing; we feel confident that if the old hoss had been properly
handled and asked the question at the right moment, it would have been
quite as hollow a thing the other way.

A pot o’ money changed hands over this event. The legs got it.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXXI.


[Illustration: CHAMPAGNE]

We beg leave to defy you, however thoroughly conversant with the French
language you may be, to find a more perfect Parisian idiom for—real
pleasure than . . . cham-pagne!

Oh, yes, quite so: we know as well as you do that the French for rapture
is not champagne, but _Verve_, but then, don’t you know _Veuve_ is the
very best form of champagne? and so we still defy you!

_Oui Moosoo_ is bad French: “Ay Mousseux” is very good!

One of the most agreeable cliques in all Society is—Cliquot!

We don’t so much mind his “silence” and his want of sparkle when our
friend is — — “Mumm!”

Love is like “Sill_er_y:” _with_ HER, all fiz and sparkle; without _’er_
. . . . Silly!

Whenever you dine at Greenwich or Richmond, etc., and at the next table
the lady and gentleman mix their liquors freely, and drink champagne
cup, moselle cup, sherry wine, claret, port, curoçoa, brandy, coffee,
etc., etc., et cetera, and talk and laugh away like anything, do _not_
make their acquaintance; but if they have the coffee-room dinner, a pint
of sherry, and no conversation, you may take them to your boosom in
confidence—if you want to, and they permit it: they are highly
respectable.

Never tell a Government clerk he has . . . . nothing to do; or you wound
him thereby in a Whitehall part!

P.S.—Good name for a Home Office or Treasury feller: “Whitehall Spark.”

It is not so bad being only a little “loose,” it’s the being frequently
“tight” that is so objectionable.

If you make a _very_ favourable impression on your first visit anywhere
. . . . don’t call again.

If you ever _should_ have the misfortune to “let the cat out of the
bag,” never, NEVER try and stuff her back again; it’s _such_ a mistake,
you only make, inevitably make, matters forty times worse.

You are kind enough to say that you consider Saws Ubject, Esq., a fool
for doing this that or t’other: you are wrong, entirely wrong: if Saws
Ubject _likes_ it, he would be a fool _not_ to do it. Just mind your own
business, for of all the nasty fruits which grow on the Tree of Evil,
perhaps one of _the_ nastiest is the meddler! But if people will only
sensibly follow our advice, he can be easily squashed: our advice is
. . . . whenever you see people about “to have a finger in your pie” —
— make it hot for ’em!

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXXII.


Lady-birds, sea-girls, and so on, are tremendously in their element at
the sea-side:

Women go there to get married, if single;

Women, when married, go there to get—shingle!

They are very pretty. They look very nice: their dresses all cut each
other out; they are exceedingly brilliant; they are most harlequinesque;
_But_ . . . they _are dear_ creatures, for—oh! that “relish of
realities,” that “passion for external show,” for—

              Oh! the vast expanse of heaving waters!
              Oh! the vast expense of having daughters

— — and wives—who insist upon going there—how many a husband has
laid a burd-en on himself to enable his lady-bird to do it, until he has
wished—not himself—but them—father!

“_Impressions de voyage_:” Footprints in the sands!

To readers of Bradshaw: Keep your _tempus_!

P.S.—Don’t say this joke is contimetable; it is not at all
contemptable, not in the least.

The most disgraceful fool in Europe: The Paris _foule_!

Freedom, we believe, did Kosciusko the honour to shriek when Kosciusko
fell! quite so; and she did pre-cisely the same thing, only she did it
perhaps a trifle louder, when Smith fell . . . . . . . . . in love with
old Mrs. Grumbleby Creeses money, and—married it.

“Laus Deo Semper!” yes, indeed; but we notice that most people not only
write it, this noble phrase, but prefer also to worship it . . . .
abbreviated: exceedingly abbreviated and transposed; with them it is
_not_ Laus Deo Semper, nor L. D. S., but . . . _£ s._ _d._!!

By the time you see this, in all probability the Tichborne case will be
over, settled, a thing of the past, nevertheless the Solicitor-General
will be still as hard at work as ever, as he has unceasingly been from
the days of . . . Adam. Need we say we allude to THE Solicitor-General
— — — LOVE!

Should you be surprised to learn that the voluptuous animal below is a
new found land dog? Should you be surprised to learn that he is a Wagger
Wagger dog? And should you be surprised to learn that, upon the
well-known principle of the retina of the eye retaining a bit of burnt
stick in it for more than eversolong, the Wagger Wagger’s tail is true
to nature?

[Illustration]

You would? Ah, we thought you would; nevertheless out of all your
friends (and if you have any money you have friends) not _one_ of them
is as sincere, as uninterestedly sincere, as your Wagga Wagga, for HE
wouldn’t wag _his_ tail at you unless he loved you.

It would of course be simply imbesilly to expect your _relations_ to wag
their tails at you, and overlook, and assist to hide, any fault you may
possibly commit; but remember this: the friends who _do_ wag their tails
at you, and who secretly—would have helped to conceal the knife with
which you had just committed an _undiscovered_ murder, or who would have
applauded, as a very clever performance, your running away with your
best friend’s wife, and have rather congratulated you as a gay Lothario
for doing it, will also unhesitatingly be among the first to cut you
dead, if—you are _found out_ not paying your bootmaker or your
laundress!

No, no, dear boy; if you insist upon doing things you oughtn’t to do,
which by-the-bye, though it’s not the very slightest use, we recommend
you not to do; if you insist upon doing things “under the rose,” choose
a cabbage rose, a large one, for the rose in use at the present era is
not one quarter big enough, which is a mistake: for you may safely rely
upon it that of _all_ the sins which Society commits, against “the laws”
_of_ Society, the most unpardonable, the most utterly and hopelessly
unpardonable, is — — being found out!

O Pious Peruser, _is_ not this true? but though we _may_ abuse our
friends, how, _how_, HOW few of us are there, if we _were_ to . . . . .
“make a clean breast of it,” but would be found . . . . all dickey!!

[Illustration: THE FASHION!! 5^{D}3/4 DEFIES DETECTION]




                            SPOONFUL XXXIII.


The knee plush ultra of folly is—a lady marrying her footman. Folly
rather more plus ultra than that is—a gentleman marrying his cook,
because she’s a _pretty_ good cook, and folly rather morer pluser
ultraer even than the last is—his marrying her if she’s a plain cook!
This is all we say on this theme: we refrain from telling the man who
enjoys conjugating “Amo amas amavey, O such a pretty slavey, a-Mary, to
love” and so on what our candid opinion of him is; we have, in fact, too
much _Pollytesse_ to say what is custo-Mary on this appalling subject;
we will simply observe and show in our initial how astonishingly
charming a nice young _lady_ looks when putting her shoulder to the
wheel . . . . and ham tart: Bless her! may she be the girl of _all_
periods!—get your wife, or your sister, who, let us hope, can dress a
cutlet as well as herself—to do it, and judge for yourself if anything
can look more deallegtable than that “dresser;” and then go and call on
some feller who has married his cook, and see how very nasty she looks
when making _not_ a pie, but . . . . a lady! Not _only_ that, but we
feel convinced that if there is one man in the whole world who would
NOT—N.B., NOT—get his wife to make him a pudding, grill him a bone, or
cook anything for him but his goose perhaps, that man is he who . . . .
has married his cook!

Advice to pretty young ladies about their spoons: There is safety in
numbers. Many admirers and you rule the lot; _one_, and he—rules you.

However, young ladies who _have_ many _beaux_ to their string—that is,
strings to their bow—should make “a knot” in one of them, or the whole
lot _may_——slip through their fingers.

Let nothing tempt you to marry, knowingly, a jealous woman; let neither
boots, beauty, money, shoulders, nor connections, tempt you to do it;
but if, having un-knowingly married her, you begin to see her jealousy
for _you_ dying out . . . . it is a bad sign.

“Melting moments?” says old Crusty, “melting moments?—Bah! melting into
tears!” “Orange blossoms? Nonsense! Cupid clothes all his female victims
the same: he gives them _worry antique_.”

Milk-sops out of the whey. Ladies don’t like spooneys and boobies: the
female duck—unfortunately for _herself_—prefers a sad drake.

I. O. Hughes’s wife says that quite the worst of all I. O. Hughes’s
“short comings” are . . . . his long goings!

Let the Germans say “du” to their loves, but don’t you “du” it with
yours, unless there’s a lot of “_thou_”s surely forthcoming.

People tell us to “feather our nest!” How can we feather our nest, if
we’re not worth a _penna_?

The safest branch to feather your nest on is one which grows out of a
good strong bank. Try the London Joint Stock: it is ever blooming.

The happy mean: Old gent who did _not_ have the plate held out to him in
church last Sunday.

Infancy and old age are the same to a T: one waddles, t’other . . . .
_t_-waddles!

Reader, we are told that “Love is blind;” we agree with this: he is
blind—very blind; _especially_ when——it is his interest to be so; for
it is very sad, but if an old boy can only come down heavily on a bank,
the Cupidinous woman don’t one bit mind his inability to run lightly on
a lawn—as what does she care for his age, his dot-age, provided the
_dot_ be all right—provided he will kindly for her . . . do _dot_ and
_go_ one! If he’s a peer, what does she care for his appearance!
However, we think, as a rule, she marries her man too _young_; for if we
were a woman—ecstatic thought!—and a filthy lucre’d husband-hunter, or
wanted some lord or baronet simply for his name, we wouldn’t look at a
man under eighty or ninety—hundred-and-twenty if possible, older the
better . . . . don’t you see? . . . less long to wait!

[Illustration: ANY OLD GOLD OR SILVER TAKEN IN EXCHANGE]




                            SPOONFUL XXXIV.


Of course, dear boy, you’ve heard the saying, that “a fool at forty is a
fool indeed;” you know this; and probably will agree with us in thinking
that, if he ever should reach any old age at all, it will most certainly
be—a green one; eh? Well, look at old De Jones for instance: that’s his
case, his very sad and stchewpid case.

Sir Walter Scott says

                “Some feelings are to mortals given,
                 With _less_ of earth in them than heaven.”

It may possibly _be_ so, but _not_ with old De Jones; not with De Jones,
Esq.; we rather fear he’s _more_ of earth, etc., in his ridiculous old
composition than most doters!

Of course it’s exceedingly wrong, our showing him to you in the sanctity
of his chamber; but there he is nevertheless, and dreaming, dreaming of
his ador_a_tion — — The Ballet!

Mind you, he’s not “a patron of the Drarmer;” oh, _dear_ no; as for
going to see anything really _fine_, Shakespeare, or anything in _that_
way, pshaw! he’d as soon think of going out for a morning walk in his
evening trousers! As for Music, he ignores her unless as assister to her
Terpsicory-pheeing sisters! as for Handel, Pooh! he prefers sandals; as
for Mendelssohn, Mozart, etc., Bah! does _he_ want to sup full of
horrortorios? not he! He’s a balletolater, simply a balletolater! He’d
have every dance, as performed by the young persons who dress _en_
coryfee, _encore_ if he—could! he applauds—till he splits his gloves,
_and_ his neighbours’ ears; what does he care? he would do anything to
_coryphée_-vour with the _coryphées_!

Each of the young women—many of them weighing, we should say, certainly
thirteen or fourteen stones—becomes, in his idea, light as gossummer
air: each fat female might in his hallucinationated thought have been
born on Quinquagossamer Sunday: he ignores the celebrated theory of the
_three_ graces, the graceful, the _un_graceful, and the _dis_graceful,
and believes only in the graceful, and each lady, when she puts on her
muslins, leaves her individuality, and steps forth before his ravished
eyes la fine fleur de la haute cocoa-tree: Polly and Sookey—wives
possibly of the stage carpenters or scene-shifters, and mothers perhaps
of a good, big, dirty (or possibly otherwise) family—remain behind with
their _ordinary_ apparel in the dressing-room—where, by-the-bye, they
occasionally slap each other—and it might be the Lady Mary and the Lady
Susan for all De Jones thinks to the contrary, who come to prance and
plunge about before him.

Alas! alas! alas! (we can’t put too many alasses, highhose, etc., for De
J). Alas! poooar old Idiot! poor old Driveller! Had the late lamented
Mrs. De Jones (whose portrait—only kit-cat, as our space is limited—we
promise to give you next spoonful) had she been still spared to us, had
she not been cut off, _how_ different all this would have been.

Reader, Mrs. de Jones would have taught him not to make—an old newdle
of himself. She would have taught him—_mirabilissime dictu_—to go
through the world—without feet. She would have taught him that what we
pity in youth, we despise when a man gets old enough to know better,
that grey hairs merit respect only when they are respectable, but that
nothing can be more dis-respectable than the wighead senile sinner; and
that there is certainly _no_ man in the world so thoroughly deserving of
_chaff_, as he who is . . . _bad-in-age_.

And, Reader, she would most certainly—and with justice—have served
him, her grey _man_, as the early Italians served their _grey-men_,
their miserable down-trodden _gramen_, she would — — have pulled him
up in his Greeness!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XXXV.


Promises, we know very well, are usually like pie-crust, only “made to
be broken”—but we keep ours. We promised you, a page or two back, the
kit-cat portrait of poor Mrs. De Jones, who, you may remember we told
you, had been—cut off. Well, here she is: look at her! She must have
been a _very_ fine woman. Our pictorial initial perhaps is not quite in
the pet-of-the-ballet style of the last spoonful; but we consider that,
taken as a whole—as a representation of what the French call _tooty la
bootick_—it makes a very beautiful drawing nevertheless.

Mrs. Sophonisba de Robings _was_—at 19—only nineteen inches round the
waist, but very silly; Miss Gwendoline de Robings is 19, and only
nineteen inches round the waist, and very silly; Mrs. Sophonisba de
Robings is _now_ nineteen inches, at the very least, round the—ah—top
of her Balmorals, and just a trifle cleverer. Well, well, who knows?
perhaps one of these days Miss Gwendoline de Robings may lose _her_
silliness, and have as fine an understanding as her mother. If you, who
are about to espouse her, wish it, so do we—ardently.

Joneskins and Atkings are two jealous men. Joneskins is married; Atkings
isn’t. The difference between the two is this: Atkings sings his wine
songs, love songs, and other _chansongs_ in peace to his friends; whilst
Joneskins is obliged to keep his ridiculous _soup-songs_ to himself!

From this most highly interesting narrative we may draw the conclusion
that some men are born bachelors, and have no business to marry and go
in for the sweets of Hymen; for as honey to the man with defective teeth
produces toothache, so does marriage to the man who isn’t fitted for it
produce _heartburn_.

Mule extraordinary! Now on private view!! Admission on presentation of
address card. Smithkinson, after one of the most extraordinary musical
performances on record—harping on one young lady for three weeks—has
now done another. He spent two hours under Miss Blanke Dash’s window the
other wet night, playing his concertina; accordionly, he thereby proved
himself a great ass, and now he’s a little hoarse! Poor fellow! hitherto
he had confined himself to sowing only wild oats, but he has positively
finished now.—He has sewn himself . . . . up!

Here’s a new name for crinoline: The dress circle!

Here’s a new name for the Ballet: The undress circle!!

Here’s a new name for the stalls: The eye-land of ankle-see!!!

Not _quite_ all the world’s a stage, though all the men and women may be
players. Had Shakespeare lived now-a-days, he would, we feel sure, have
agreed with us in pronouncing _Society_ only — — only — — _Private_
Theatricals!

Avoid weeping and gnashing of teeth at all times, but more especially if
you paint, and your teeth are—are—very perfect (and expensive)!

P.S.—Why don’t people who wear false teeth, have them sometimes made a
_little_ less regular—upon the principle of the sensible grey wigs we
often see and admire?

A word to the liar’s friend: Don’t believe him, but leave him be!

Owe a man a grudge if you choose: _owe_ it as long as you please, but;
. . . . grudge paying it.

A truckling cad, who uses so much courtesy that it enables you the cur
to see, is simply like the lamp over a billiard-table; he is used to be
over pool-light.

The hypocrite’s mind is for all the world just like behind the scenes at
the play: it looks so nice and fresh and pretty and simple and smooth to
the spectators; whilst _behind_, it is — — only preparations for
acting.

P.S.—When will talking and shouting at the opera and theatre be put a
stop to? Why are people allowed to go there only to _see_ the music and
_hear_—each other?

Wait a minute: here’s a P.P.S. We remark that “operatic fathers” are
invariably bass voiced—deeply, profoundly base. How is this? as whilst
lovers—that is, before marriage—they are equally invariably tenors! We
_can_ understand disappointed suitors being baritones—that’s natural
enough; but _not_ why the O.F. should become base. Can any one explain
it? Does marriage spoil their notes and take _away_ their tenners, that
they become thus gruff?—does an occasional _real_-set-to so scare them,
that they lose their false-set-to, or what is it? We _can’t_ make it
out: it’s very odd indeed.

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXXVI.


[Illustration]

There’s a good deal of cackling going on amongst a certain class of
goose about “Doing away with the House of Lords!” Bah! Radicalous
nonsense! Who’s to do it? May all who try — — Peerage in the attempt!
for — — “_Finis coronat opus_” is _not_ . . . . a coronet the finest
work of man!

How many of us would rather get a barren poohpoohy lardydardy nod from a
lord, than the heartfelt laud of a real well-wisher?

The flattering sickeningophantic enemies of a rich man who snubs a
_real_, though perhaps plain-spoken friend, must feel like the mice when
they see so many kittens drowned — — dooced glad of it.

Are _you_ a real live lord, or only one of nature’s noblemen? If the
former—if you are really a peer—don’t go to Brighton, because _there_
ladies are always looking forward with the greatest pleasure to . . . .
a band on the pier, and you don’t want to be abandoned—at least, we
trust you don’t.

His Serene Highness the Grand Duke of Brighton Old Stein, or any other
heavy swell, is not only a magnate—he is a magnet as well . . . . he
attracts the observation of the vulgar.

If “looking _down_” on people prevented our looking people _up_, how
many an agreeable house would be closed against us!

People give you the cold shoulder because we can only presume they want
to—pick a bone with you!

There is hardly ever such a thing in the world as a real accident! An
accident is generally only another name for carelessness. We don’t
recommend the stoopid Paygunism of giving 100 guineas for a
breechloader, any more than we recommend the vile Vandalism of shooting
as many tame pheasants as you can in one day with it; but it _isn’t_ an
accident if you give £5 for a Brussels gun, and it bursts in your hand.
Again, you knew there was a stair-rod loose, yet down you come two steps
at a time, and get a cropper. Do you call that an accident? No, serves
you right. Never mind: Howlaway’s ointment: two table spoonfuls in a
wine-glass of water at bed-time; and, if you wake in the night, repeat
the dose!

If you would do a thing well . . . . do what you like.

“The commonest of canters:” Al fresco clericals!

You may buy a horse for a big figure which isn’t worth a poney! Don’t.

The smell of a stable is not very agreeable, and yet a sniff of the
“white horses” is very healthy. Have some: take a few.

P.S.—N. tremendously B. It is a mistake to call the waves “white
horses.” They’re all _mers_!

The pressure of the wind on the 33rd ult. was 29 lb. 18 oz. to the
square inch (see morning papers), but poor fat old Smith _alone_ knows
what its pressure was on him! P.S.—He’s been suffering agony,
lumbago-ny, ever since; but then, don’t you know, he’s no very great
shakes at the best of times—or rather he _is_.

The cordiality (!) with which some flabby-handed people grasp your hand
is also . . . . no very great shakes.

_Apropos_ of shaking hands, fancy what’s-his-name, Briareus, and the
other hundred-handed feller shaking hands: what fun they must have been!

Tact is a modern Gyges also with a hundred hands, two of the most
serviceable of which you will invariably find to be—humility and
deference.

P.S.—Our servant, we feel convinced, reads our Lemprière, because this
morning, when we told him to look sharp about something, we heard him
mutteringly mumbling to himself, “’E hexpex heverybody to be a Hargus
with a ’undred ’ands to do heverything in a jiffey!”

P.P.S.—Hate people who mutteringly mumble to themselves. If they’ve got
anything to say which they want you to hear, let ’em say it out; if not,
hold their tungs.

P.P.P.S.—They won’t.

Theatrical Burlesque Managerial motto: “_Libertas in legibus_.”

P.S.—It wouldn’t be bad dog Latin for a big opera hat—would
it?—libertas in _le gibus_.

We hear people complain of German bands, brass bands, boy bands, etc.;
but of all bands, what band can be so thoroughly discordant a band, or
so perfectly harmonious a band, as a — — husband!

When making two great ewes of our eyes—far too great use of them—and
trying too much to do our best to look killing with the g_l’amour_ of
love, we are sometimes only too apt to look — — sheepish!

And yet, O Readah,—you yourself _must_ have experienced it—how
often—oh, _how_ often—do not the eyes save the tongue the trouble of
speaking!

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXXVII.


When girl cuts girl, _then_ comes the tug of war!

But we _should_ like to know this: how is it that Miss Lightly
Vittefille can, with impunity, can—and still know Duchesses—do fifty
things in the flirting flouncing, flaunting, philandering way, any one
of which, if done by Miss Proper Person, would bring upon her devoted
chignon the shrieks, shrugs, winks, whispers, obloquy, back-bitings,
slanders, upturned noses, yells and execrations of all Society!

Virtue is very often but another name for necessity. You, for instance,
who pass nearly all your time in writing, drawing, painting, pianoing,
etc., and get such kudos for doing it, you like larx as well as anybody,
eh? if you only had time; but you _must_ be virtuous or—you go without
your dinner.

Some one—French feller—says, “Nobody ever believes Virtue to _be_
Virtue unless she appears as a bore.” “_Ennuy-cuse_,” Sir Frenchman, is
your word, but we’re _not_ on wi’ you, sir, because—fortunately—it
isn’t true: ’twould indeed be hard lines if there were nothing for us
between the _demi_ and the _dummy—monde_.

To the pure all things are pure. Well, we don’t know; it depends a good
deal on the sort of _puer_! but there is one thing we are _quite_ sure
of, which is . . . . that to the im-pure nothing is ever impure enough.

Yes, bread _is_ the staff of life, but _how_ different are the sorts of
bread we have to put up with. Some of us get but broken crusts, whilst
others have . . . . rent rolls.

A toast: May we never have to drink our own healths . . . . in physic!

Another toast: May the lover who’s a spoon never find he’s not got sugar
enough, may the grouts never come to the surface, and may he never find
. . . . a stranger in his cup.

Love is to man what the sun is to the sun-dial; he is simply nothing
without it.

“They manage these things much better in France!” We talk of “Love,”
simply love; they say _£’amour_; _there_ you rarely find _£’amour_
without his needful £, the article he revels in.

Here’s a new name for ladies’ cigarettes: Duck-weeds.

It is very sad, but how many a little duck is — — a great goose.

If you ad-mire and follow an _ignis fatuus_ over marshy places and get
“let in,” morass you!

No man is so likely to be _done_ as he who, considering himself “all
there,” is but only “half sharp.” The razor which won’t shave us _may_
be sharper than one’s pocket-knife, yet it’s no use at all. However, any
one who is done twice with the same trick deserves his fate.

People should be careful how they pay compliments. Atkins, for instance,
says, “Tomkins has more in his head than meets the eye!” Tomkins was
_awfully_ savage, and denied it.

“Soaring above our nature does no good; we must return to our own
. . . . flesh and blood!” Quite so, or it’s the two-stool business to a
certainty: the—ah—the—ahem—the what-you-may-call-it—the parasite,
who leaves the unwashed mendicant in the hopes of pasturing on the clean
man, simply gets caught and — — annihilated for his pains.

Talking of parasites naturally brings us to the needle of the compass,
for _it_ is true to the pole; so, as he deserves encouragement, any sort
of truth now-a-days being quite a treat, here’s a lot of polls for him
to be true to, and have his choice of:—harem scarum idea, isn’t it?
Poor old needle, S.E.W.N. up whichever way he turns, he’ll have a young
lady ready to meet him, and join him in the matrimonial N.E.W.S.

[Illustration]




                           SPOONFUL XXXVIII.


[Illustration]

“Conscience,” we are told, “makes cowards of us all.” No doubt, but
every one who has little or much Shakesperience, must agree with us when
we state it as our belief that there’s many a man a cur who never _had_
a conscience. Look at the anonymous letter-writer for instance: what do
you think of him? _Do_ you think _he_ ever had a conscience, and isn’t
he a cur? We ask you now, _isn’t he_?

“Showing the white feather” is detestable enough at all times, but the
miserables who dip it in their ink, and use it as we describe—and they
are equally Gillotty when using a steel pen—to stab others behind their
backs, are they not the veriest dastards modern civilization can boast
of?

The thief who prigs your watch, or your cigar-case, or your handkerchief
(it’s the watch they handkerchiefly after), though a blackguard, takes
his chance like a man of being caught, and either well thrashed or
hauled up for it; but the snake in the grass, the pitiful sneaking hound
who steals your friend’s love, your wife’s comfort, your employer’s
confidence, and who only dares do it _because_ he . . . . . runs _no_
danger—what is he? The cur only ventures to try to perhaps _ruin_ you
with a stroke of his white feather, because he can do it with impunity,
without even the slightest risk of discovery!—because he is safe.

Really, Printer, what is the use of your having notes of admiration and
all sorts of other printing gimcrackeries, and yet having nothing,
positively nothing, to express disgust? It’s ridiculous; make something;
make it big, and put it in here; make something that there can be no
mistake about—something that will signify detestation, loathing, and
contempt, and while you are about it, put in _two_ of them. Stop a
minute, Printer; we’ve caught sight of our own face in a mirror,
thinking of this anonymous pen-viper, and an exact delineation of its
expression saves you the trouble of making what we asked, and finishes
this spoonful without our having to insult any other member of the
community by even speaking of him on the same page as—the anonymous
letter-writer.

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XXXIX.


[Illustration]

Did you ever read or hear the story of how a party of the name of Actæon
caught the dipping dripping Diana in her al fresco bath, of the terrific
fate which befell him in consequence of his peeping-Tomness, of how
fearfully he must have regretted going to see wimmin swimmin’, and have
hated every damp place even ever afterwards? Did you ever hear this
fable?—because we see a good deal of feminine al fresco tubbing and
Actæonising going on every morning at the sea-side, and you ought to
remember the first instance on record of a man’s . . . . going to the
dogs through doing it—except, by-the-bye, we had almost forgotten
it—there is a difference: _then_ it took a goddess to change
what’s-his-name into a stag, for catching her in some stagnant or
running water; but, now-a-days, there is not the very slightest occasion
for her or any other supernatural female swell to arrive _ex machinâ_ to
turn a man, who systematically makes it his morning’s pastime to obsurf
her bathing in the billows, into a beast, for . . . he so indubitably is
perfectly capable—as he proves—of making one of himself.

Reader—it is very odd, but some men’s entire time appears to be passed
betwixt—“Delicacies” and indelicacies!

_Apropos_ of Actæon and stags, let us beg you to kindly remember that
your servi are simply servants, and can only go a quarter of an hour’s
walk in fifteen minutes; they are not _c_ervi—though we grant you they
_are_ dear—to do the distance in five.

When we are at the sea-side, or on board somebody’s ship, we are
constantly hearing sailors talk of “a nice dancing breeze.” At Ryde or
Brighton, we presume _this_ is the breeze that makes the sea to be—a
pier-a-wetting.

P.S.—Odd, ain’t it? but at this season of the year at Brighton,
Ramsgate and Margate, &c., the wind is pretty generally Jew-ess’t!

Distance lends enchantment to the view!—_lends_, you will observe, the
enchantment which proximity takes away again, for as the pearl grey blue
of the distant hills is gone when we get there, so, but _too_
frequently, vanishes the snow-whiteness of that cotton stocking we
admired so much . . . . from the other side of Regent Street.

We know a lady with golden hair—so, perhaps, do you. We know a
lady—bless her!—with silver hair; and so, perhaps (if you are lucky),
do you; but yesterday, _mirabile dictu_, we had the pleasure of being
introduced to a lady with real _Platina_ hair!!—most wonderful thing
you ever saw in your life: real, you know, not bought—growing,
positively growing. It must be very rare.

Idleness was the mother of Boredom: the active-minded man is like a
bright fresh clear running stream, not necessarily a “babbling” one; the
idle, mildewy-brained party, _au contraire_, is like a stagnant old
pond, of no use, no earthly use but for feeding ducks . . . . (at
Greenwich or Richmond), and the ducks are quite right to try and
. . . . . clean him out.

Remember this—the most accidental introduction may rule the destiny of
a life, and that it isn’t what melodramatists call “villains of the
deepest dye” you need mind so much—every gosling can see through them:
it’s villainesses of the _lightest_ dye who do the mischief!

No, we never liked crinoline: nevertheless, we _do_ think it _might_—on
occasions—be an improvement. At any rate, it would render the female
form a trifle less like a statue wet than it invariably is now on
leaving the ocean, and we feel convinced would be most comfortable for
natatory purposes, to say nothing of to a certainty doing away with
Actæonising.

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL XL.


Our drawing represents what zoologists would call “a group of bears at
play;” they gambol in and out of the mouth of the cave, their home,
happy as the day is long, with no thought for the morrow, no prescience
that they will one day be put in pots with their portraits on the top,
preparatory to their being eventually rubbed on and into the heads of
bald humanity. Yes, it _is_ very unfortunate, most unfortunate, but now,
at this particular moment, they are gambolling _in_side the mouth of the
cave, and therefore perhaps, as the cave is rather dark, you cannot
distinctly see them; but we assure you they _are_ there nevertheless.
You don’t believe it; you think it’s all fudge; all gammon and spinach?
Ah, dear gosling, that’s _just_ your error: you _will_ judge by
appearances, and insist upon thinking because _you_ don’t see a thing
that there’s nothing to see; you imagine because _you_ don’t understand
it, it’s not worth understanding; you suppose because all a man knows is
not swaggered out, he knows nothing; because everything people have is
not on the surface, that there is nothing to put there; because a
fifty-gun frigate on the horizon looks only a white speck, you ignore
the millions of ropes, sails, men, guns, flags, bilge-water,
marlingspikes, lee scuppers, and goodness only knows what, all which
_are_ there _if_ you could see them. Oh, you booby! Oh, the mistake you
make: and even more so if you think because all appears in the whitened
_sepulcher_ line, fair outwardly, that it must be so in reality! When
you bit that apricot yesterday, did you bargain for the wopsy inside?
And that new-laid-looking egg at breakfast this morning, eh? what a lot
of chickenerie may be covered by a white and smooth exterior! So ’tis
with us all: we _won’t_ believe in the quiet unassuming man, but insist
upon making a confidant of the assuming one; we pooh pooh the sheep, and
make a friend of the wolf in the sheep’s get-up; ignore that which is,
and rush headlong to grief through believing in that which is not. Sweet
youth, remember this, “The knave” is never so dangerous as . . . . when
he’s “a trump!”

The Sharper’s Paradise: A well-furnished “flat!”

Who’s Griffiths? We hope you know, because we don’t; haven’t the most
remote idea; but people tell us he’s a “safe man:” however, whether _he_
is or is not, here _is_ one:

[Illustration]

Let us call him — — — the guardian of our goods; we _mean_ it for a
policeman on the _key vive_, but you may call it a padlock if you prefer
it, it won’t alter his name, it won’t prevent his being still useful to
your safety[** .]

P.S.—His portrait, especially his legs, was two keysily, was took very
easelly, very easily indeed, notwithstanding his feet were going for
wards all the time we were doing them.

P.P.S.—A French friend who sees this Peeler, says that his legs at any
rate, whatever his body may be, _are_ mortal clay.

P.P.P.S.—By-the-bye, _he_ spells clay _clefs_; but never mind.

_Apropos_ of taking portraits, &c., if any one of your sketching artist
friends should kindly offer to “knock you off something in a minute,”
see that it is neither a ladder nor a horse.

The male heart has been likened to a bad luck . . . . pshaw, padlock,
which opens only with a particular word: we are told to find that word
and enter at our pleasure; quite so: we’ve found it: the word
is—dinner. No? you mean to say it isn’t? Well, then, it’s money! Bet
you it’s money: get some one to leave you a couple of hundred thou., and
see whose heart will remain closed to you: not many; certainly not ours.

Fashionable brown has become for women’s gowns, especially the tint we
call in a cow “dun:” funny we should have mentioned a cow in alluding to
— — Buff _à la mode_.

New name for a lady’s bathing-costume: A sea-weed! Why not? It’s a
sea-gar-meant!

Rufflestone, who hates “the water,” went out in a boat yesterday, to
“oblige a lady!” On returning, he was much praised for his sea-row-ic
conduct!

All’s fair in love and war! P.S.—That is, if you are _much_ bigger and
stronger than the other feller.

Sad reflection on passing a young ladies’ school: As in joiner’s work a
board becomes a door, so in life does a boarder become ador’d, and so
again sometimes, alas, when she ceases to be ador’d does she once again
become bored.

Proper-minded mammas, who bring up their daughters in the way they
should go, and steadily keep before them the idea of the value of an
“establishment” and a _dolce far niente_ life, will, we feel quite
convinced, thank us sincerely for the valuable hint given below; and
toy-shop keepers, we are rather inclined to imagine, will _also_ find it
very remunerative indeed!

Here’s a hint for the “establishment” and the _Dol_l_ce_(;) _funny ain’t
he?_

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLI.


Rome!—grand old Rome! the Eternal City—and Greece, glorious
Greece—the birthplace of Phidias and Practiseitalittleless, or
Praxiteles, or whatever his name was, have from time immemorial been the
cradles, the schools of all that is superb in art, of all that is
graceful in form. Is it not so? and who dares say they are not so
_still_? for, lookee here—“the Roman fall;” “Romanus _some_!” The Roman
foll-y! _and_ the Greekly bent one—are they bewchus? They are indeed.

Miss Thomson likes dark moustaches, and yet Miss Thomson don’t quite
detest fair ones; and for that reason she is glad she didn’t live in
“Old Rome,” because _then_—upon the principle that “all flesh is
_grass_”—all gentlemen must have been “_grey-men_!”

A false quantity is a thing very much to be avoided! We are not speaking
chignonsensically: we don’t mean it for a plat-_étude_ about hair; but
seriously, we mean that the man who says “Boerdishyer,” or Omphāle, or
theaytur, or Mansŏlus, or Cree-morne, or Pegāsus, or florēat Etŏna, and
so on, is simply very wrong, and annoys our ear, but of all false
quantities a false quantity of—of—onions is the very worst, as it not
only annoys our ears, but our noses as well—one dare not, _on_ nose
_pas_, as the French put it, say _how_ much. It is a very painful thing
talking to anybody—or sitting even within three stalls of him or her at
the play—who has been drinking bad sherry, or who—who—keeps up his
spirits; but if possible the false quantity of on_i_ons is worse, as
it—it—gives rise to great on-ī-ons, very great annoyance indeed, to
non-lovers of that ought-to-be-forbidden f-root.

You pronounce the word “Gaelic,” “gay-lick,” eh? Well, you are wrong:
you ought to pronounce it “garlic,” for are not the Scotch
themselves—Call-ed-_o_-nions!

Why do people who are not Scotch, who have never been in Scotland, who
have no Scotch connections, and in fact nothing whatever to do with
Scotland, why do they _insist_ upon perpetually “being so kind” as to
“favour us” with songs all about “ganging awar Jammy,” and others of the
same sort? We don’t know any greater bore out than that confounded
“Jammy”—Jammy forsooth! Jammy’s a beast!

Pound-foolish-penny-wisdom: Giving six or seven, or even fifteen or £20
for a gorgeous letter-weighing machine for your writing-table, to save
you an occasional penny.

                After-thought, and no fore-thought,
                Many a man to grief has brought:

Yes, and if some women—and men—only knew how utterly hideous they look
when in a good passion, they would certainly think twice, and count
twenty, like Tatty-coram, _before—indulging_ themselves.

Ladies, wear French boots if you like; certingly, by all means, if you
prefer it, let your boots be _cuire_, but don’t—please don’t—let your
tempers be—queer too!

Do you know what you should be chary of letting your wife have too much
of over _you_? eh?—you don’t? Well, then, ass send an’ see!

Of course we are open to correction, but we _think_ we have sometimes
found that a moral man is not necessarily a pious man, and that a pious
man is not, invariably, a moral man.

There _ought_ to be as much rejoicing _over_ one real penny-tent, as
there is ever is _under_ a £50 marquee; but — — there isn’t.
Now-a-days we rejoice and kill the fatted calf to feed the ninety and
nine sinners: the Prodigal Son must look out for himself. P.S.—Alas
poor P. S.!

Indecision is the bane of many characters, and we never see it more
painfully exhibited than when a man can’t make up his mind which side of
the pavement to pass you upon. If ever two men (it’s _not_ so
disagreeable when a pretty girl does it), if ever two men look like two
fools, it is at this most inauspicious moment. Your only chance is to
walk straight at him.

Capital place for seeing yourselves—plate glass windows—eh,
Narcissuses? You look _so_ contentedly at ’em: don’t mind acknowledging
it; bless you! it does not follow that though you freely confess your
faults, you should quit them—oh, _de_ar no, not a bit: don’t be
frightened.

                                SYNONYMS.
             Unpleasant . . . . . . . Rather a baw.
             More unpleasant. . .     Doocid awkward.
             Most unpleasant. . .     Dayvlish disagreahble.

P.S.—Though gentlemen talk like this, it don’t follow that doing it
makes a gentleman. At any rate, don’t _you_ do it, as they’re usually
but empty-headed noodles who do.

Big baccies you goslings have taken to regale yerselves with lately.
Let’s see—are they £20 a hundred, or only 15? Why not have ’em bigger
and stronger and dearer still, eh? Would if we were you—why not?—of
course! Make your retainers useful. Have not only cab boys but cabana
boys, two pueri to every puro. They won’t object, not a bit—at least,
as _we_ never _yet_ came across a feller’s fellow who wasn’t delighted
to help his master smoke his biggest cigars, dare say you’ll find it the
same: hope so, at any rate, for your sake.

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLII.


Supposing you take it into your head to valse four times running with
that charming girl Miss de Twister Twister—who, by-the-bye, is good at
valsing—and people begin to look ahemified at you, and to ask you, “I
say, when’s it coming off?” or to say, “’gratcharlay char, ole f’lar,
when’s the happy day to be?” and so on, you know what to answer, don’t
you? You mean to tell us you _don’t_? Why, simply reply . . . . one good
turn deserves another!

Church bells: Parson’s daughters if pretty.

P.S.—But remember this, if you marry a _positive belle_: she’ll either
make you comparative or superlative to a certainty; we mean your belle
will either make you . . . . beller or bellest—beller with woe, or
blest with joy.

P.P.S.—However, we ought to remember that belles _are_ only meant for
ringing, and ought _not_, therefore, to be disappointed if they turn out
a trifle—hollow!

The depth of a man’s hatband, and of the black edge round his
note-paper, is _not_ a criterion of the depth of his grief.

_Pensée fugitive_: _How_ lucky “the mark of the beast” is not — —
visible!

New and respectable name for Burlington Arcadians: B.A.’s!

People are always saying, “Look sharp!” They’re idiots. _Don’t_ look
sharp: _be_ sharp _without_ looking it.

A green youth, whose only ability, perhaps, is incapability, who is very
“well-to-do,” is alas, but too often considered by his _friends_
only—good to be _done_. However, it _is_ cruel to be kind to him—much
kinder to be cruel if it makes him smart.

The military and the marine lobster should both be—bowled; for in
either case he is most esteemed and admired when he’s-a-lad—_bonâ
fide_, or only in a shell jacket!

When you go out and are not “made at home,” make yourself at home; — —
go home.

How very sad it is, but instead of getting es-steam, we frequently only
get into . . . . the hot water!

A roaring trade: The costermonger’s.

The bore’s art of punctuation is invariably learnt in other people’s
houses: he won’t learn to stop . . . . at home.

The original bore: The serpent, the snake in the grass, the _anguis in
herbâ_ who first brought Eve _anguis_h, in _her-bâ_-bies!

If you are about to be kicked out of any place, leave the room before
they begin! This sounds as if we were chaffing you—doesn’t it? but we
are not—not at all; we are quite as serious as we usually are. We mean
this: supposing either your inamorata, or your friend, or your tailor is
getting sick of you—get sick of them first; and then, don’t you see,
_you_ are _not_ humiliated, but . . . . they _are_! This is Christian,
we think, quite _en regle_, eh?

Self-denial is said to be a virtue. We deny it—we deny it emphatically:
for instance, saying “not at home,” when you’re at lunch, is a crammer!

Jones hates Robinson, and always takes every opportunity of running him
down, but the other day, at Christie’s sale of the Duke of Ditchwater’s
gimcracks, &c., we suppose he must have relented, as he took every
opportunity of . . . . ah . . . . running him up!

The early bird (? swallow) picks up the worm; it’s the late bird who
gets picked up himself.

Are you a racing man? Well, then, if you would avoid becoming quite
_horse de combat_—if you would not leave yourself only a miserable
life-long nightmare—and if you would not take _all_ the gelding off
your gingerbread,—don’t, when you _have_ found a mare’s nest, DON’T
. . . . lay ponies on it!!!

Motto for the tops of the bears-grease pots: Bear and for bare!

We have a sort of a vague impression of having been told, or of having
read or dreamt, that some adventurous M.P.—little Smirk perhaps—was
going to bring in a bill to make it fellowny for any widow to get
married in any town or village, the population of which was under
500,000, until all the presentable girls over twenty-five were provided
for therein! We don’t believe that bill will ever become law; for of all
females, the Fast Young Widow is perhaps the indiwidowal men admire with
most awidowty; therefore we take this opportunity of observing that for
their sakes as well as hers, we are glad Didoism, Sutteeism, &c., are
not _de rigeur_ in England: we are glad the F. Y. W. has not to immolate
herself on any funeral pyres, to turn herself into an Indian, that is, a
fire-indian, (you Hindostan what we mean), and thereby—put herself out.
But whilst thus assuring her of our gladness that such a burning shame
is not _our_ law, we do nevertheless rather wish she wouldn’t look
_quite_ so ready to light a Hymen’s torcher for somebody else!

Does the cap by any chance fit _you_, ma’am, _very_ becomingly? Well,
then, you have our free permission to . . . . wear it.

[Illustration: FOR SALE WITH IMMEDIATE POSSESSION THIS MOST DESIRABLE
PROPERTY]




                            SPOONFUL XLIII.


Faithful to her charge is pretty Miss Amy Cherry’s chaperoneous maiden
aunt—that is, as faithful as she is permitted to be, two being company,
three none—and rather than that her sweet niece should be debarred her
innocent amusements, she braves the elements; for you will observe that
she is walking in the wind—a high one. Heroic lady! her chignon,
fortunately securely fastened on by strong elastic ligaments, is blown
as far from her head as the stretching powers of the said ligaments
permit; and yet she minds it not: when the wind lulls, as it will almost
immediately, let us sincerely hope her brains may not be dashed out by
the sudden return of her ornamental head-dress to its proper position.
Well, she walks here, and has to brave this discomfort, this, we may
say, dangerous discomfort, simply because Miss A. C. likes flirting with
young Fitzcoupons; and, what is more, she may go _on_ walking there in
the wind: what do they care? She be blown! who thinks of the sacrifices,
bunions, boredoms, damp feet, late hours, &c., &c., &c., of the
chaperone, the poor, unamused, uncared-for, and yet indispensable
chaperone? And so ’tis with all the little lads and lasses of tender
rage: boys of eighteen or so think only of themselves, and are never so
happy as when flirting with the little lasses, and what fine specimens
of little asses they thereby make of themselves, eh? Ah! spare the rod
and spoil the child is a whacks him . . . . pshaw! maxim . . . . a most
anterosting maxim, one should very especially and sternly apply to the
youthful devotees of that idiot Cupid, for they want it. They want it
very much. Usher-by Booby, on the tree—(a good big birch)—top, might
be quoted and acted on with advantage long after they leave the nursery;
but if you find that sort of a _r_od is only as good as a wink to your
blind — — puppy, _we_ should, for a change, give him a good punch on
the head, for there _is_ no earthly doubt, as our cookeress would put
it, but that many a fine bird _has_ been spoiled — — simply for the
want of a basting.

De Vaudeville Tompkins is precisely the sort of person usually described
by novelists as “a man of imposing presence!” Ha, ha! you have only got
to talk to him for about five minutes to quite easily understand _why_
. . . he is an impostor.

A _dear_ friend: A sponge!

P.S.—You mustn’t throw him up; it’s actionable: but you may throw him
over. Do.

P.P.S.—Pity bores are so slow; wish they’d more “go.”

The cabman’s and umbrella-maker’s motto: Make hay whilst the sun _don’t_
shine! but the undertaker is better off than either of them, and makes
_his_ hay by the hundred acres whether it shines or not.

Never bet for gold: never do it for anything but shillings, introduce
the “_s_” system, and then a bet is be_s_t; but keep on with the £ and
you soon won’t have a shilling to accom-penny you.

What good-looking girls there are in some of the hair-dressers’ shops!
P.S.—We merely mention this fact because it so fully accounts for the
masculine _jeunesse doré_ of the present era going about with its hair
cut like a convict’s — — — — you see, they go very often to the
hair-cutters’.

Cogitating thus how frequently youthful folly requires “putting in the
corner” leads us on to making one observation on the science of minding
your q’s, whatever you do with your p’s, leads us in fact to — —
Billiards.

Yes, there can be _no_ doubt about it, Billiards _is_ a noble game! and
the amount of attention some men pay to it highly, most highly,
praiseworthy, as irrespective of its merits as an intellectual
employment for our youth in the very nicest sort of society, and its
gentle exercise in very pure air, rendering anti-billiards pills, &c.,
quite unnecessary, and restcueing us from all chance of taking gold,
does it not give such excellent and natural opportunities for showing
off? We do not allude to the showing off of your billiard skill, no, not
even if you are a second Bowles, and play with that professor’s
consummate ease and elegance, no, but . . . . _if_ you have satin backs
to your waistcoats, and your coats lined with silk, none of your
beggarly alpaca businesses with only silk sleeve-linings, but the whole
thing, how can you so unaffectedly display them as at billiards? The man
with the diamond ring too, what a paradise must be billiards to him!
What a bore the non-billiards player must find it always having to
scratch his nose with his diamond ring finger to show its water (the
ring’s, not his nose’s) to people; whereas at billiards nobody can, of
course, for one moment imagine it unnatural for him to _poser_ on his
cue with the diamond shining well to the fore, the satin waistcoat-back
resplendent in the rear, and the silk-lined garment _negligently_
chucked on to a sofa with the silk outwards—N.B., _with_ the silk
outwards! Silk socks trouble some men a great deal to show them
sufficiently, and seal-skin waistcoats, too, admit of much admiration,
and form a superb background for the bringing well out of the
festoonment of gold chains with many lockets; but the sport of billiards
is THE thing, and the man with the diamond ring on his left-hand little
finger, and a satin back to his waistcoat, and his coat lined slap
through with silk, he’s the man for billiards. Oh! _how_ we admire the
man with all these expensive luxuries, who has the good sense and
courage to let you plainly see he means to show ’em, and . . . . who
does it.

Look at Pilkington Brouwne: well, he’s going to have a game now. Oh!
_don’t_ you wish you were going too?

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLIV.


[Illustration]

Look around you, and tell us if we _have_ any chance of getting rid of
it: look around you and see if we complain without cause: look around
you, O Burlington Arcadians; “circumspice,” O oiled and curled modern
Assyrians; see for your scented selves, O deboshed-looking Pall Mall
Pale Males, O Aldershooters, and _then_ say if it is not with us—and
apparently as a fixture—in its worst form, in its direst shape . . .
“the foot and mouth disease” . . . . Pinched-up feet and painted lips!

Pad yourselves out and pinch yourselves in by all means if you like it,
dear sirs; pinch yourselves in and pad yourselves out by all means if
you think it improves you, dear madams; but don’t, oh, please, please do
_not_ . . . . puff yourselves up!

No, all is not gold that glitters: for instance, bracelets are
occasionally brasslets!

Here’s a new name for the Auricommon dyed hair: The light fantastic tow!

A man of many checks but _not_ one cross: Rothschild!!

Exchange is no robbery! isn’t it? ah! the felonious feller who said this
never changed an English ten-pound note in Jerusalem, or he would
purrobberbly have altered his opinion.

Mouths are uncommonly like teeth; most of them can be stopped . . . .
with gold.

In this world “patronage” is everything: it is precisely to man what the
sun is to the burning-glass; you’re no use without it.

What “coign of vantage” equals £1?

People may say “brevity is the soul of wit,” and it may be, but our
creed is that beef-tea not brevity has something to do with it: what
lamp, much less that of wisdom, will burn without oil, and what wit is
not sharpened by a clear soup, a mite of fish, a cutlet and a bird?
Booh! there’s no doubt about it, Beef-tea _is_ the soul of wit.

P.S.—Beef-tea, _etc._!

Don’t be too proud of your mental capacities—it’s not “_nous_” that is
cared for now-a-days; it’s _an_ ’ouse where you can give dinners; your
“_noos_” may be superb, but if you’ve no ’osses you’re nobody.

Kickton Wipptton suffers a good deal at dinner sometimes from—his wine
going down “the wrong way.” We can only imagine that a good many of his
disagreeable and mean speeches wishing to come _up_ that way disagree
with the generous fluid gowing down. It’s no joke to him, however; wish
it was—a choke. Pah! we hate him.

P.S.—Pah! is _not_ an affectionate term; not at all: when we say Pah!
to a man who is _not_ our father, it’s rather a sign we wish he _was_!

P.S.—Much farther.

Yes, we have always been given to understand that the world is round,
and we know that there _are_ some people who firmly believe it to be
flat; as for ourself, however, though our theory may be original, having
travelled a great deal, we have come to the sad conclusion that it is
. . . . sharp at both ends!

Did you ever go up the Nile? We did, and found out this fact when we got
back again, that “the painted goose,” said to be peculiar to Egypt,
Nubia, and thereabouts, is _not_ peculiar to Egypt, Nubia, and
thereabouts; oh, de-ar, no, you can see her feeding on the banks of the
Thames at Greenwich, and Richm_a_nd, any day!

_Apropos_ of Egypt, travelling, and these lovely worshipped birds, we
may as well mention that a good rule to apply to your position in a
railway train is . . . . _in medio tutissimus—ibis_!

Talking of ibises, reminds us of camels, and to assure you that though
we cannot vouch for it as a fact that any one straw ever did break any
camel’s _back_, that thirty-nine dozens and a half of “straws” (6¼, five
buttons, you know, 7/9 a pair) very nearly broke a certain donkey’s
_bank_; _that_ we _can_ vouch for; we know _that_ to be a fact.

P.S.—By-the-bye; camels; did you ever get up to the top outside of one?
Awful bad riding, ain’t they? most tremendous case of “Packs an’ bellow”
their being loaded, isn’t it?

Our drawing below represents a gentleman—“living within his means!” but
as his “means” means absolutely nothing, we have put him in an empty
purse, in fact, gone “hammuck-er!” We should not have mentioned it at
all, only there was an argument in one of the sporting papers some time
ago as to whether the Jack Snipe does or does not sit on a rail, and we
thought that our drawing of another sort of long-billed feller might
serve to throw some light on the subject! What we mean is this, that
though the Jack Snipe may _not_ sit on a rail, the Jack-ass _does_ get
up a tree, and that—considering all things—we affirm to be infinitely
more wonderful. What do you think?

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLV.


Readeress, sweet and charming Readeress, the subject we are about _not_
to touch upon—the Fates forbid!—but to write about, is one which
requires the greatest finesse and delicatesse in the handling but as
you, _belle dame_, yourself _will_ overdo it, our subject, in such a
horr_e_d way, we trust we may be pardoned if, by any accident in
following your example, we, in _our_ way, should _also_ lay it on too
thick.

The—ah-article we approach thus timidly, with such awe and trembling,
is — — is — — Paint! Rouge!! Bloom of Whatshername!!! (Pig-me_a_nt)
Carmine! Enamel! “Bleu pour Veines,” and all the horrid collection of
detestable and unwholesome compounds sold under fifty different names,
for the purpose of making the female face — — RED! for the special
purpose of _proving_ . . . . a miss is NOT as good as — — _émail_!

When a woman who has once been beautiful, when she who might have sat as
a model for a painter’s angels, when she who has _been_ as nearly divine
perhaps as earthly nature permits woman to be, sees herself, day by day,
getting more and more and ever more _passée_, we can understand and
pardon her weakness in trying to replace on their stems once again the
fallen petals of her beauty, in trying to _re_bud the roses which the
for-ever-past spring-times of youth and summers of full bloomyness have
withered and decayed: when _she_ finds her eyelashes beginning to fall
out and her cheeks beginning to fall in, her teeth getting loose and her
breath tight, her waist getting thick, her hair thin, her face _fade_,
her figure fat, her eyes and ankles heavy, and the bloom which ought to
be on her cheeks turning to blue M’m which ought _not_ to be on her
lips—then we _can_ understand _her_ going in for “one touch of
un-nature,” for . . . . the hare’s foot _versus_ the—crow’s, for a
little of this, that, and t’other, to assist the wreck of her girlhood,
the _remnant_ of her beauty, to look as well as it can be made to, as
much like what it _was_, as possible. Yes, as we put five coats of
varnish on an old shoe to vainly try and hide its wrinkles, and as Dick
Swiveller inked his old hat to hide Time’s white ravages, we _can_
understand _this_; but we can _not_ understand young girls—fresh fair
dimpled blooming young girls—doing the same: we can _not_ understand
inking a new hat!

We know, alas! that the sort of uprightness so much in vogue just
now—in this “year of grace,” comes from the dressmaker—that grace of
figure is more important to a great many people’s swell-being than grace
of heart, and that being dis-graceful is not much—if at all—worse in
_some_ opinions than being un-graceful. We know that if it were but “the
fashion,” “the thing,” “_chic_,” and some heavy female swell—some
“_comme-il-faut_” party—painted her face pea-green, sky-blue,
lemon-yellow, or Chinese orange, that each Mary Ann or Susan, each
Louisa and Theresa, each Charlotte we meet, would probably paint hers
the same gashly hue, to be—_comme il faut_ and — — _comme_ elle
_fausse_. But why? _Cui bono?_—what’s it all for? It must be to please
themselves, for _men_ are for once unanimous in sneering at, laughing
at, chaffing at, in detesting, and in setting—no joke meant—their
faces against it, and would tell you, O self-paintresses, if they were
honest, and not intent on always humbugging you, that whenever they see
very much got-up faces, lips, eyes, hair, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
etc., they are thereby warned as plainly as if “Mantraps” were
illuminated in black letters on your foreheads, instead of ill-omen-ated
in red on your lips and cheeks; and, if conceit were _not_, as well as
Love, Fortune, and Justice, blind, you would see the proofs of what we
say, and acknowledge that whereas _femme sotte se cognoit à la cotte_,
it is the simple girl, though she may not _look_ like mischief, who—as
regards marriage—does the most.

[Illustration]

Readeress, paint is like taking flattery, sal volatile, and other
stimulants. You get accustomed to it, and think you can’t do without it.
You put on a little to begin with, then a little more, _then_ a little
more, THEN a little _more_—_e sempre crescendo_, as the music says—go
on, on, on until you arrive at _f.f.f._ and your face looks like a
Clown’s, or like the “lean and slippered paint alone,” without your
having the least idea that it is distinguishable, that it is rather too
loud. But, stop a minute, we beg pardon—perhaps we are wrong: we ought
to ask — — is it _meant_ to deceive? is it _meant_ to take us in, or
is it put on like the “1871 chignon,” without any wish whatever for
concealment of its shamness? Do you, O lovely lady paintress—do
you—can you, for one moment, in _this_ case, believe that — — _Use_
IS _second Nature_? _Are_ you weak enough to think men don’t _know_ you
are painted? Do you put “kohl” in your eyes with any hopes of throwing
dust in ours? Say, brilliant-eyed _bella donna_, is it all _meant_ to
look like nature?—because, if it is, it don’t: not a bit! it’s a
failure—literally a miserable little bottle, that is—a _fiasco_! Bring
a looking-glass out into the sun some day, and see the astounding
enlightenment you will get on the subject of—Use being second Nature.

Again, DO you think it improves you? Do you? O don’t think it does: O
_don’t_ think it improves you—it doesn’t. Pray don’t make what the
lower orders call “the bloomin’ error” of thinking Charmin’ is
spelt—Carmin’, that enamelling is enamouring, and that putting on
_blanc de_ this, _de_ that, and t’other which don’t naturally _blanc_ to
you, suits you? Why paint the lielie? Why try and do the butterfly more
butterfly than Nature has already done? Why use “eyebrow
pencils”—unindiarubberable, unendurable eyebrow pencils? Why do it all?
Why, O female goose, think it necessary to sally forth in your _oie_
paint? Is it because red is the complementary colour of green?—is there
not enough natural fire in your eyes without your putting kohl in
’em?—is not the natural glow of warmth in your cheek preferable to any
fire-lit — — — — powder? Do you do it because you dislike anything
“slow,” and the hare foot is—fast? Surely, there must be a happy mean
betwixt the _demi_ and the _dummy-monde_—between putting kohl in your
eyes and ashes on your head; between—pain and paint.

Oh, lave and leave it all off! Don’t be talked into buying it by those
who find your paint and _their_ pay in’t; burn it—make your rouge-pot,
your pitiful _pot aux folles_, a _pot au feu_, for it won’t wash in any
sense. Let us see Nature’s Tricolor in its sweet and kissable beauty:
the red which can _turn_ white, the white which can _turn_ red; and let
us not ask in v_e_in for the blue, but do _not_ let your Tricolor be a
trickler which wipes off when you—you—dance, runs fast when it should
stand firm, does its best to make the bright and blue ocean which floats
you so nicely into a Red Sea, cracks when you smile, and when you weep
makes you shed tears of—Red Paint!

Ah, dear Readeress, we are quite aware that by saying these few words,
we prove ourself a nincompoop, a very noodle; as the man of the world,
though he disdain to tell you a lie, knows it is much more dangerous as
a rule to tell people the—Truth; but, having told it you, don’t treat
that truth as you do your hair, _don’t_ — — make light of it—_don’t_
— — — keep it dark; for, believe us, that with men whose love _is_
love, and _worth_ having, there is no such _anteros_ as paint; for,
believe us, with men whose admiration is _worth_ gaining—Beauty
una_dorn_ed’s _adored_ the most!

Readeress, there _are_ people who consider that—“sham” is four-fifths
on the road to . . . . shame!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLVI.


Talk about the danger of getting under the influence of the Upas tree:
Pshaugh! what’s that to the danger of getting under the influence of the
Cocoa tree, the witching female coquetterie!!

Love is said to be blind! He is; and the _scales_ he has in his eyes are
but too often . . . . banker’s balances.

You know what the male B an’ S is, of course; soda we: it’s eau de wie.
But what’s the female T an’ S, eh? why, tea and scandal!

How many a lady takes upon herself the place of doctor: she gives us
. . . . cast o’ ’er _œil_.

Reader, are _you_ a drinksman and a smokist? Well, if so, remember
this—and we are not singular in our opinion—that though we don’t mind
your post-prandial pipes, we do thoroughly object to your boast brandyal
braggings.

New name for a deadly poison: Sunkeneye’d of pot-house-ium!—Beg pardon,
we mean cyanide of potassium: excuse our error; you see the train of
thought which led to it.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”! _how_ true this is! there are
positively some people we quite like when they’re a long way off.

                “_Poeta nascitur, non fit_,”
                 And so are . . . gentlemen and wit.

Odd, isn’t it?—how exceedingly like one _parvenu_ is to another
_parvenu_—how peculiarly the mushroom resembles the toadstool, eh?
There’s mushroom for improvement in both these fun-guys. We are,
however, funkgi they won’t believe us! Mushrooms, as some wag has put
it, are like a man in a balloon—everybody _they_ see they look down
upon, and imagine he looks “uncommon small:” they forget how very small
_they_ look to everybody else! Icarus-like, they think to soar above
every one, forgetting all about the unreality of their wings, and that
they are—themselves and their wings too—but cham-pignons after all.

It is so; and we may add, that though the estimation we are held in by
about seventeenth-eighteenths of “Society” consists not in the very
least by what we _are_, but solely by what we _have_, if you, a poor
_gentleman_, want to be _thoroughly_ sneered at, _thoroughly_—not
sham-pooh’d (Shoddy don’t do much in that line) but pooh-pooh’d,
thoroughly sat upon and treated like dirt, simply because you are
impecunious, you must have the operation performed by a _parvenu_, by
some _nouveau riche_ who’s invented a patent dust-bin and made a
fortune! However, Providence is kind, most kind, and to make up for it,
has given us this consolation: that we know Shoddy, Esq., would give
about seventy per cent. of his dust-bin booty to be us, and that if he
thinks us _hardly_ worth speaking to, we don’t think he’s worth speaking
to _at all_, and therefore when he meets us, if he will but be half as
sparing of his words—especially the H’y ones—as he is of his
sovereigns, we shall be—mutually, we have no doubt—gratified and
contented.

Whatever vices you have, avoid envy and selfishness; for the first
punishes _you_, and not in the very least . . . . the envied. And as for
selfishness . . . . . . Bah! Pooh! the _manger_ dog in the horse’s
_salle à mangy_, who couldn’t eat his meat himself, but yet carefully
prevented others from eating it, was not only a brute, but a stoopid
quadroopid into the barking: but perhaps, if possible, a more
disagreeable brute still than the selfish man is the sham generous man!
“You like those cigars?” he says. “Ah! I’ll send you a box of ’em.” And
so on. Does he? does he send you a box of ’em? Not a leaf. However, like
the scandalmonger, he gets known and loved accordingly, for believe us,
dear boy, egotism is — — all my I!

You are not perhaps aware that in small foreign hotels (and English
ones, too, for all we know to the contrary), on steamers, etc., etc.,
etc., they have but one sort of Rhine wine, but every possible sort of
_label_: for instance, _we_ order Steinwein, _you_ Johannisberg,
somebody else Liebfraumilch, and so on; the waiter gives us all the same
wine, having previously _labelled_ them to suit our wishes. Now, is not
this precisely what a toady does with his face? does not the beast weep
with you and laugh with us _at the very same thing_? Is not that the
one-wine-different-labels business, eh? Ah! hang it all! we _can’t_ help
it, but we never see a toady without wishing he was . . . . toe’d: we
don’t use this word in its German sense, goodness forbid, we only mean
we wish he was kicked. And yet what a lot of toadies we all are. You
now, for instance—we dare you to deny it—if the writer of these humble
papers were only a friend of the Prince of Wales, or some equally heavy
Hyperion, of course it wouldn’t make any difference in your opinion of
his powers? you wouldn’t immediately feel a sort of a kind of a craving
to know him, now would you? you don’t think you would incontinently ask
him to dinner, now do you? and then, of course quite casually, mention
that that feller, “don’t you know, that friend of the Prince of Wales
(or Wales is perhaps your way of putting it) who writes those etc.,
etc., etc.,’s going to dine with me to-morrar,” eh? You don’t think you
would? you don’t think you would _then_ find more in him than you
thought for? No? you wouldn’t? You mean to say that you would _not_?
Then bless you, O Reader, you at least _are_ a man after our own heart!
for YOU are NOT . . . . a Toady!

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XLVII.


[Illustration: THE SACRIFICE]

             The moon-rays thickly silver o’er
                 The ruin old and grey,
             Whilst lighter star-beams float upon
                 The ripples in the bay:

             The pebbly beach gives back again
                 The kisses of the waves,
             Which, curling, form a white moustache
                 Around the mouth of caves!

             They ripple on, they ripple on,
                 On, on, for aye, for ever,
             They cover cherished mem’ries o’er,
                 And living loves they sever!

             Each star perhaps shines o’er the spot
                 Where monsters horrid keep,
             With dead men’s skulls for drinking-cups,
                 Their revels in the deep!

             Ye ghouls! ye demons! give me drink
                 From out those ghastly cups,
             I’ve . . . . got a female dawg at home,
                 I’ll chuck yer all her pups!

Quite so: no doubt you think this very fine, witty, touching, and so on;
but should you not be able, O Mævius, to do anything _better_ than this,
_don’t_ — — write any more poems; for remember the dictum of the sage,
“that though every poet _may_ be a fool, it is NOT every fool who is a
poet!”

We have been told that there are certain embers which never die out till
towards the end of a year, and that they are November and December; but
there is yet another ember, which, alas, but too frequently _does_ die
out _before_ the end of a year: it is . . . . rem-ember.

A man may _Not_ marry his gran’mother!! Who, let us ask, in tones of
undisguised indignation, WHO was the miserable sinner who wanted to do
so? Who was he that gave occasion for this tremendous prayer-book law?
Where is he? His gran’mother!! The ruffian!!!

Treasured Reader, we hear a great deal about “the height of fashion;”
but what is the height of fashion, eh? Why . . . . heels!!

[Illustration: ALLEGORY]

We knew a man once who got so bored that he bought a lot of those
counterpanes, you know, common counterpanes, nasty heavy things with no
warmth in them, that have little hard cotton pills sticking up all over
them: well, this feller bought seven or eight of them and went to bed
and stopped there until he had pulled all the little knobs off every
single counterpane! Why? Because he said he had nothing else to do and
this was a little change for him! “Nothing to do!!” Do _you_ by any
chance ever say _you_ have “nothing to do”? How about your roving
rambling revelling dashing driving drivelling snivelling grinding
shrieking sneaking speaking crying talking walking swimming shooting
sailing sleeping snoring basking meandering toadying playing dipping
plunging grubbing reading writing drawing lawing moaning mourning moving
mooning spooning jogging trotting betting raging worrying stewing
flurrying slandering standing lying buttering flirting flaunting
lounging longing loving envying dressing cutting snubbing shopping
smoking eating praying, eh? Oh, de-ar fellow, _il diavolo_ tempts
everybody, but the lazy man tempts _il diavolo_. Why not avoid this lazy
_faire_, this lazy _aller_ style? “A dead and unpleasant fish can swim
with the stream, but it takes a live one to swim against it,” and you
never know when it may not be necessary for you to _look_ alive at any
rate. “No one e’er found a happy life by chance, or _yawned_ it into
being with a wish;” and it is our deliberate opinion that no man need
_ever_ suffer from _ennui_ whose motto is . . . Ennui go!

“Nothing to do!” Bah! Time is like a wedding ring, or a fried whiting
with his tail in his mouth—we can’t see the end of him, though we all
have plenty of warnings to show us how he slips away. Don’t, O _cæci_, O
dillydallytory duffers, despise these warnings because they are small.
We are not all as lucky as Belshazzar, but our warnings ought to be none
the less patent to us on that account. Look at the little busy bee
below—how he improves each shining hour; whilst you stand idly by and
simply — — do the “humming,” instead of remembering that Time is _the_
party to make much of, for we shall never see him again as he was
yesterday, and may not see him at all — — to-morrow; and every
tomb-in-its in its tomb is two minits less time left us to make up our
mind to do it.

O baby seconds! O little minutes! O bright hours of day! O grey _horæ_
hours of night, how do we not waste you! O Time, how are you not — —
murdered! but vengeance is thine own, and when the day comes for one of
those little fleeting seconds to be worth an empire, shall we have it
spared us? No, not one.

Ah, indeed and indeed, well may they say, “_tempus fugit_,” and indeed
and indeed, well may we add . . . . few-get _tempus_!

[Illustration]




                            SPOONFUL XLVIII.


There are a number of things which always strike us when we dine out:
for instance, we never sit next a sweet woman, whether her hair be like
the raven’s or the canary’s wing, without thinking of that old old joke
of “Sweets to the Sweet;” we never sit next a sour one without thinking
of tarts to the tart; we never sit next a pretty, well-shaped,
_trembling_ one without thinking of — — _blancmanges aux anges_, and
we are _never_ helped on with our great coat by Jeames de la Pluche
without mentally ejaculating . . . . _Douceurs_ to the Dooce!

The Bill we all receive with pleasure: The Bill of Fare!

Very nice, isn’t it? walking home after dining out, on a bright starlit
evening, for ’tis then, on a fine night, we can best realize the
infinenight.

How easily man is upset by trifles! a new shoe for instance can make us
anewshoeally wretched, or a fly in one’s eye is very _mouche_ in the
way.

Telling a “_mauvaise langue_” not to abuse his neighbour is waste of
breath, but telling him he’s libel to be prosecuted if he does, may have
more effect.

Reader, the scandalmonger is just like the ermine: he—has always a
black tale ready for anybody!

There is nothing a doctor requires so much and yet so thoroughly and
entirely could do without as . . . . the gratis patients!

A _tour de Nail_: Scratching.

Receipt for doing a heart: Stuff it!

P.S.—Is a very light heart ever—a hollow one? We are afraid so.

Dear boy, how many a man who _before_ marriage was looked upon as an
_angelus_, turns out _after_wards _not_ to be . . . . _an’ jealous_!!

A disappointed _sutor_: Ha, ha! an unpaid bootmaker.

—Dear goslings, it is quite as safe to play with the very edgeiest
tools, the use of which you are completely unacquainted with, as to talk
about things you don’t understand, you must _certainly_—come to grief;
for as by means of the smallest keyhole we can see slap into the next
room, so through one ignorant remark may you allow people to perceive
your utter and complete ignorance.

[Illustration]

People say that a very loquacious man is generally an ass; it may be so,
but _Corpo di_ Whatshisname! haven’t we just known reserved fools too,
eh? rather: and of _all_ fools what fool _can_ equal the solemn fool,
eh? No one.

Saying “Haw haw!” and so on, is what the Germans call—having _ein
nasal_ pronunciation: they don’t mean speaking through your nose, but
. . . . like a donkey.

Wonder why Messrs. Peace and Loving advertise their decoctions as
obtainable throughout “the Queendom”? ah! suppose it is that they being
so accustomed to strong salts, wish also to show their knowledge of the
Salic law!

No amount of familiarity seems to breed contempt between the _bon
vivant_ and his _plat_.

Nothing greases the wheels of time like . . . . sweet _t_oil! Have some.

Dear boy, it is no joke—_making_ jokes.

We constantly hear people say, “I’d give the world for this, that, or
t’other!” Give the world for it! yes, we notice people are always most
ready to give away—what don’t belong to them.

Gratitude is not only a chimera, but a chimera _obscura_!

The last _canard_: When a man says, “Mon cher, je suis _mallard_,” look
out for quacks!

How many a widow, like a duellist, has . . . . killed her man!

Ladies, excess of trimming _don’t_ make you trim.

P.S.—How is it, _why_ is it, as a general rule, that girls with
_pim_ples on their shoulders wear their gowns lower than girls with
_dim_ples on their shoulders? We want to know.

Funny idea struck us the other night at the play: how lucky it is the
musicians choose different instruments; suppose they’d all studied the
drum, for instance, eh? or supposing they’d all been bassoons, or
triangles, or even floots: be a bore, wouldn’t it?

Got bunions? mean to say you have? what big, bad ones? poor old chap!
we’re awfully sorry: never mind: hide ’em: conceal ’em: . . . .
=rosettes on your boots=!!! why not? eh? why shouldn’t _you_
do it as much as your wife, eh? of course: look very well: try it:
velvet: we think we’d have ’em velvet: looks so very rich: put ’em on
next Sunday, and live to bless us for the suggestion!

[Illustration]




                             SPOONFUL XLIX.


How like is the farthing doll we shy four shillings’ worth of sticks at
at the races—_without_ knocking it down—to experience! We can, if we
like, get it for next to nothing from others, yet we prefer to give our
youth and money to get it for ourselves. Yes, and notwithstanding
experience is the most costly article in the world, what, _what_ an
immense deal of it one has to purchase before having even a _very_
little bit of it to show for your money!

When trying to listen to faint though lovely strains of distant music
(most probably only thus lovely because thus distant), is there not sure
to come rattling past a cab, or yelling past a costermonger, or
something row-y, just at the very moment? They don’t mean it: they don’t
do it to annoy you: they don’t know you—you “wish them farther.” So
’tis with taking offence in seriouser matters. The great thing is not to
_steal_ offence—that is, before you take it, make sure it is
_meant_—to be _given_; for remember, there’s nothing ill-said till it’s
ill-taken; but, if ever anybody should positively offend you—kick you,
for instance—you may be sure it _is_ meant, and being kicked, stern
necessity obliges you to—hit him again! _Then_, for goodness sake! do
nothing by halves: let him see you are no near-fight at near fighting,
but hit him as _hard as possible_—as ’Arry says, “Let ’im ’ave it!” and
we can confidently recommend a spot to aim at, which, on more than one
occasion, we have found very superior to between the eyes or the bridge
of the nose: it is—just under the chin. If you fetch your offender one
there, he will not kick you again for at least a quarter of an
hour—which will give you time to take a hansom, get to the club, wash
your hands, cut into a rubber or take a ball at pool, and forget the
whole beastly business.

Don’t forget this—but to impress upon your memory the highly important
fact how necessary it is, O goslings, to avoid getting _into_ a row,
unless you are quite capable of getting _out_ of it again, we have made
you the following conundrum: try and remember it.

If you cannot my first, shun, as you would Myfistawfulis, my second, or
you will probably be laid, where my whole dines . . . . in the road:
. . . . SPAR-ROW!

A _coup de vent_, a good _blow_ in front, is much more agreeable than a
kick in the opposite direction.

A drawn battle: One feller’s “sketching it” from another.

The man who is “utterly without fear” runs an exceedingly good chance of
some day getting his head broken.

There are two sorts of fighting: fighting, and fighting shy; but he who
fights and runs away, isn’t half such a coward as he who doesn’t run
away—simply because he declines fighting at all; and yet, we maintain
it, after all is said and done, it must require a _great_ deal of
courage to be a thorough cur.

People talk about “shaking the dust from off their feet” when they leave
the house of a man who has insulted them. Pshaw! what’s the use of
shaking the dust off your feet! Do you think the insulter cares?—not a
bit: not one atom! Much better go and call upon him and _not_—carefully
_not_—shake the dust off, before you put your feet up on his velvet
sofas. That would be much more to the purpose.

When hitting a man on the nose, see that you don’t — — cut your own
knuckles.

Every man’s house is his castle. Pooh! fancy a castle at Putney! We
don’t putney faith in this aphorism.

We frequently hear it said, “Booh! Tomkins can’t hold a candle to
Smithkins.” You ask Tomkins whether he could or not, and see if he don’t
look as if he’d like to burn his house down.

Thinking that a woman’s tongue is, like the bee, often laden with
sweets, but that, beelike, it can sting, reminds us to ask you to sit in
your garden any summer’s day, and observe that as fast as one bee leaves
a flower another comes to it, and apparently finds every reason to be
satisfied with his possession: so ’tis with men and women: ladies
apparently possess—equally with flowers—the power of making honey—or,
at any rate, what passes as honey—for any amount of bees. She whom Bee
Tomkins has come to detest, to positively and absolutely fear ever even
meeting, Bee Smith finds honey itself, until he in his turn gives place
to Bee Brown, etc., and so on. It’s rum—very rum; but it’s true. Watch
for yourself, and you must indeed be honey-dew-cated in the art of love
if you don’t see the truth of our observation.

Remember this, ye amorous goslings: you may be _twenty_ times married,
but . . . . you can only have _one_ mother.

The Persians—we think it was the Persians, it may have been the Medes,
but we take the Persians for choice—were very particular, if we
remember aright, in teaching their children how to ride, shoot with the
bow, and — — speak the truth! Yes; and isn’t it extraordinary how we
moderns follow in the Persian footsteps — — that is, as regards the
riding; as for the other two precepts, the bow-shooting and
truth-telling, we combine _them_, to a great extent, in one, for are we
not always at our Talks-of-a-light Society, and in doing it do we not
shoot with bows whose extreme _length_ would have rather astonished
Cambyses or any other stalwart Persian that ever breathed? We are. We
do. And yet, don’t you know, the man who tells one such quite
preposterous bungers _must_ be either a fool himself or, worse, far
worse . . . . take _you_ for one—to think you will believe him, to
think you are green enough to put any belief in his outanouters, which
are quite as transparent in their falseness as the crackers of our
friend Mr. Merriman, on the next page, when he says, “Me, Mr.
Peleeceman? me take the fish, sir? me steal the sarsengers? me crib the
guce, sir? I ain’t see’d ’ere a one on ’em, sir, since the day after
to-morrer!”

However, we don’t want tomorrer-lies, to preach. It has always been so
from the days of our common mother, _belle_ Eve, and we don’t belle Eve
it will ever alter.

What nonsense it is for the roundhand copy-books to tell us, “Never
listen to the man who speaks an untruth.” What waste of ink! Why, if one
did _not_, you might almost as well go to bed for life! However, there’s
a maxim or two we should be flattered to impress on the chronic liar’s
memory. They are very simple, and quite as useful as the one about the
necessity of his having a good memory, if possible more so, and their
moral is certainly better. They are:

Be most careful, when shooting with the long bow, that you don’t shoot
. . . . _over_ the mark: don’t judge the veracity of others by your own,
and never _give_ the lie: bear in mind the fact that the worst person in
the world you can deceive is . . . . yourself: never draw your long bow
when, by so doing, you can _injure_ any other person: and, oh! if you
would prosper, remember _this_—though, unfortunately, you _may_ be
unable to prevent yourself occasionally telling people a lie—that it is
absolutely imperative on you, O dear liar, to sedulously avoid—always
avoid—entirely avoid . . . . _ever_ telling people THE TRUTH!!!

[Illustration]




                              SPOONFUL L.


Dear boy, if you have right on your side . . . stick to it. What is it
makes the boldly burglarious bad bandit of Bermondsey quail before the
eye of A 1, a possibly skinny, weak, ill-conditioned and -shod
policeman? what is it? Why, that A 1 has right on his side! Why, that A
1’s beat is equally the Beautiful Path of Virtue! We grant you that at
this precise moment of time the boldly burglarious bad b of Bermondsey
is _not_ quailing; no, he is not: we grant you that the peeler held
tightly, disagreeably tightly, by the garroted artery, is getting a
precious deal the worst of it: we grant you that it _does_ occasionally
happen that it is so—that the eye of the law gets punched and
variegated in its natural black or blueness, that the arm of the law
gets twisted and even screwed, that the limbs of the law—the lower
ones—have frequently beastly bad boots to keep them in limb-o; that the
tumtum of the law has to ignaw the pangs of hunger, and that in fact the
law’s whole body gets fatigued and tired, weary much so; but this does
not do away with our maxim, this does not prove that though Virtue gets
“sent to the wall” now and again, there should be _no_ Virtue; for do
you think that in the long run Virtue ever goes unrewarded?

[Illustration]

It never does: lookee there,—what do you call this?

Would the boldly burglarious bad bandit of Bermondsey ever get that?
Would the boldly b b b of B ever have such billin’ and cooin’, such
bilin’ and coo-ookin’ as THIS? Pshaw! _lar, maffische, pas de tout,
niets, yock, nein, niente del tutto_, not a bit of it!! for it is to
Male Virtue Triumphant alone such joys are known! Look at him. Oblige us
by looking at M. V. T. Regard, if you please, Male Virtue Triumphant. Is
’e ’appy? is ’e all there? is he off his beat beat-ified? is he in a
lonely suburb or no thoroughfare _now_, or simply suburb himself, quite
a-no-ther affair? does he look delighted, policed, overjoyed? does he
find too many cooks spoil the broth _he_ revels in? does he not know,
_well_ know, that ’tis the female cuckoo always turns the nests of other
birds to her own private uses, and does he never find a female cook who
does it for _him_?—to be sure! And would she step out of
her—her—floury paths to dough it for the b b b b of B? would her heart
beat behind her stiff _corset_ and coarse a-pron for _him_? would she
employ her witcherries, her black art, that is, her black currant art,
for anything but manly _vir_-chew? We have already stated, emphatically
stated, that she would _not_; that she would decline pudding even a
finger out to anything which sugar faith in its purity—that, in fact,
she would . . . . see him farther first. And it is, therefore, with this
beautiful and interesting moral before us that we say:

Walk, dear boy, O walk ever, in the Paths of Virtue: though they be
rough and lonely at times, they are more safe travelling than the
slippery paths of (V)ice, and the reward for so doing will assuredly
come, sooner or later, in some pleasant form or other, be it money,
love, or cooking, or in the charming self-contentment such behaviour
invariably brings; and believe us, O believe us, though your present
lines _be_ hard, they’ll quickly melt into those soft ones which
invariably fall in pleasant places, if you will _but_ only . . . . .
take the first turning to the Right, and—keep straight on!

[Illustration: A POT O’ MONEY]




                           SPOONFUL THE LAST.


Reader, our pennon waves farewell to you; our pen an’ ink flags; like
the humble but busy bee, we pull in our antennæ, because there antennæ
occasion to keep them out: Goslings, our cackle-easy scribendi is over;
our free and easy _friand-ises_ are finished; we have reached the end of
our journey and our paper; we are about to give you our last spoonful,
and we are about to write it — — — on your tongue!

Peruser, we are told that speech was given us to conceal our thoughts
(stuttering certainly was), but does it? or at any rate, does it conceal
them _agreeably_? No; and ’tis because the concealing our thoughts
agreeably is so very important an art, so necessary an accomplishment,
that we venture before leaving you to give you one or two theoretic
suggestions on the subject, and if you can only practise them you are
infinitely cleverer than we are.

One of the great secrets of being considered an agreeable talksman
consists not so much in being able to apparently agree with everybody,
as in being a good conversational wheel greaser: you don’t, we really
hope you don’t, imagine that nine people out of every ten want to hear
_you_ talk, do you? not a bit of it; they don’t; they want you to hear
_them_; therefore, when you see your man beginning to run down, grease
his wheels, wind him up, so to speak, with something sweet, and off he
goes again 927 to the dozen, and thinks _you_ a most charming person;
for remember—and this rule applies to every mortal condition—only make
a man contented with _himself_, and he’s sure to be contented with
_you_! this in fact is the keystone of the whole business.

Listen attentively to a clever man (he may say something you can repeat
_as your own_), but talk to the fool who _can’t_ talk as if you thought
him a very sharp feller who could talk if he liked, and so content
_him_.

Don’t get into the trick of capping other men’s stories: some fellers
would rather you bonneted them in the street than capped their tales.

[Illustration]

Do please give your grandmother credit for being able to get what there
is in an egg out of it as well as you can; but if you must teach her how
to do it . . . . see that the eggs are fresh.

Never try to sustain or even listen to two conversations at once, it is
conducive to lunacy: if you take old Lady Flabby down to dinner and Miss
Firm sits on the other side of you, be contented to converse with Lady
F., and don’t try and listen as you do it, to what Captain Bond Streeter
is amusing Miss Firm with: it’s no good, we’ve tried it, you only get to
feel imbecilly and — — — to look it.

Never laugh at your own jokes, but if you _must_ laugh at them, pray
wait till others set you the example.

If you can make a respectable _mot_ don’t cast your pearl before
swine—for the most perfect joke in the world falls flat on the
unappreciative ear: — — — keep it for better men.

Never _repeat_ a scandal which won’t bear _re_-repeating as coming from
_you_ as its _author_; never tell the man sitting next you that so an’
so is a fool for doing so an’ so; the man you say it to _most_ likely
does the same.

Never tell people your secrets: people who _would_ keep them, _don’t_
want to know them; it is only those who _don’t_ keep them who are greedy
for them.

Don’t, when you fail to see a point or a pun, sit sniggering feebly and
slightly gasping to try and imitate laughing enjoyment; much better to
boldly ask what it means, for no man in the world yet who did _not_ see
a joke ever _could_ look in the very least as if he did.

Remember—that too much flattery tho’ well meant may be—for its
recipient . . . . over—whelment!

Lavater your man before making him your confidant, _if_ you would — —
Lavaterwards!

If you think a youth will take your advice, be his Mentor; if he won’t,
leave him alone; you only waste your own time, and you’re not mentor be
his tor-mentor.

Adapt your talk to your audience and draw _them_ out, for as there is
gold in the earth, a pearl in the oyster, and music in a corny-à-piston,
so is there, if _you_ are skilful, fun to be got out of the greatest ass
in London.

Never tell people “You don’t look very well to-day!” No one, no, no one,
not even the hypocondriacest hypocondriac likes it: he enjoys telling
_you_ he is very ill, but don’t like you to tell _him_ so.

Never _volunteer_ your opinion on any subject whatever.

[Illustration]

Don’t ride your hobby roughshod over people; don’t talk shop,
soldiering, sailoring, shooting, balmorals, ballet, burlesques, &c., to
people of opposite tastes: _you_ may be intensely fond of horses and
racing, for instance, but don’t forget there _may_ possibly be one or
even two people in the world who take _less_ interest in the pedigree
and past performances of every screw you insist upon talking about by
the hour together than you do; and if they don’t let you see they are
bored to death with your horse talk, they prove themselves far better
bred than you are in boring them.

You should always stop talking when you’ve no more to say: we know it is
exceedingly difficult, but you should; besides, you would become
original, as nobody does it.

Pray _don’t_ tell people long-winded, pointless stories whilst they are
eating their dinner. If they are well-bred people, they listen to you,
and naturally wish you at Jericho for interrupting them; if they are
not, they don’t pay any attention to you—so what’s the good of doing
it?

Never start a conversation about “Religion.” Faith is only represented
with a cross owing to the intense crossness this subject has for
hundreds of years provoked.

Dress and Babies are safe conversational topics with ladies.

Don’t make distitches with a blunt needle; we mean, don’t try either in
manner or sense to be sharp too bluntly, for even though your needle may
_not_ have—much point, people don’t like being prodded with it.

Remember that “_naïve_” is sometimes spelt with a K, and that now and
then _naïveté_ is sharp, that _knifeté_ may be cutting.

Never, never, _never_ buttonhole a man, nor bonnet-string a lady. If you
are wanted, you will be remained with; if _not_—though you may be able
to out-Nestor Nestor in talking—you’ll be wished at the very juice: the
buttonholed or bonnet-stringed one — — may be expecting to meet _some
one else_.

Being too Satyrical is bad: being too Fauning is worse.

Never “take a man up sharp,” not even when by so doing you can “put him
down thoroughly.”

Never forget that one of the most unpleasant chasms for your friends to
have to plumb the depths of, is . . . . sarcasm!

Remember, soft words _do_ butter parsnips, and avoid, as you would
Mephisto, “Argument.” “The man convinced against his will is precisely
and most entirely—in fact, rather more—of the same opinion still;” and
not only that, but suppose you beat him in arguing, he detests it, and
if he beats _you_, he thinks you an ass. What do you gain either way?

Bear in mind the _fact_ that, as people prefer talking of _themselves_
and their belongings to _any other earthly thing_, you must—if you can
stand it (we can’t) and wish them to think you agreeable—encourage them
to tell you all about their dogs, cats, cows, connections, horses,
houses, aches, pains, children, chilblains, teeth, &c., &c., &c., but
must never allude to yourself, as it’s egotistical—it’s piling up the
_ego_ny: people don’t like it, and it’s considered very bad form indeed.

And lastly and above all, O sweet youth, let us implore you as a friend,
if _you_ would be happy and make _others_ so, never, never, never,
never, _never_, NEVER forget _this_—for ’tis the nutshell in which lies
the whole secret of everything agreeable in our mutual intercourse in
life—never forget that, in “Society,” the great thing, THE great thing,
is not so much the saying what you _ought_ to say, as . . . . the _not_
saying what you ought NOT to say!

[Illustration]
                  ___________________________________
              DALZIEL BROTHERS, CAMDEN PRESS, LONDON, N.W.




[Illustration]
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                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES

    Misspelled words and printer errors have not been corrected.

    Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
    errors occur.

    Book cover is placed in the public domain.

[The end of _Sage Stuffing for Green Goslings_ by Hon. Hugh Rowley]