Burlesques Part 52

"'Scipio America.n.u.s' is a blockhead."

I read this out to the Count and Tagrag, and both of them wondered how the Editor of that tremendous Flare-up should get such information; and both agreed that the Baron, who still piqued himself absurdly on his play, would be vastly annoyed by seeing me preferred thus to himself. We read him the paragraph, and preciously angry he was. "Id is," he cried, "the tables" (or "de DABELS," as he called them),--"de horrid dabels; gom viz me to London, and dry a slate-table, and I vill beat you."

We all roared at this; and the end of the dispute was, that, just to satisfy the fellow, I agreed to play his Excellency at slate-tables, or any tables he chose.

"Gut," says he, "gut; I lif, you know, at Abednego's, in de Quadrant; his dabels is goot; ve vill blay dere, if you vill." And I said I would: and it was agreed that, one Sat.u.r.day night, when Jemmy was at the Opera, we should go to the Baron's rooms, and give him a chance.

We went, and the little Baron had as fine a supper as ever I saw: lots of Champang (and I didn't mind drinking it), and plenty of laughing and fun. Afterwards, down we went to billiards. "Is dish Misther c.o.xsh, de shelebrated player?" says Mr. Abednego, who was in the room, with one or two gentlemen of his own persuasion, and several foreign n.o.blemen, dirty, snuffy, and hairy, as them foreigners are. "Is dish Misther c.o.xsh? blesh my hart, it is a honor to see you; I have heard so much of your play."

"Come, come," says I, "sir"--for I'm pretty wide awake--"none of your gammon; you're not going to book ME."

"No, begar, dis fish you not catch," says Count Mace.

"Dat is gut!--haw! haw!" snorted the Baron. "Hook him! Lieber Himmel, you might dry and hook me as well. Haw! haw!"

Well, we went to play. "Five to four on c.o.xe," screams out the Count.--"Done and done," says another n.o.bleman. "Ponays," says the Count.--"Done," says the n.o.bleman. "I vill take your six crowns to four," says the Baron.--"Done," says I. And, in the twinkling of an eye, I beat him once making thirteen off the b.a.l.l.s without stopping.

We had some more wine after this; and if you could have seen the long faces of the other n.o.blemen, as they pulled out their pencils and wrote I.O.U.'s for the Count! "Va toujours, mon cher," says he to me, "you have von for me three hundred pounds."

"I'll blay you guineas dis time," says the Baron. "Zeven to four you must give me though." And so I did: and in ten minutes THAT game was won, and the Baron handed over his pounds. "Two hundred and sixty more, my dear, dear c.o.xe," says the Count: "you are mon ange gardien!" "Wot a flat Misther c.o.xsh is, not to back his luck," I h.o.a.rd Abednego whisper to one of the foreign n.o.blemen.

"I'll take your seven to four, in tens," said I to the Baron. "Give me three," says he, "and done." I gave him three, and lost the game by one.

"Dobbel, or quits," says he. "Go it," says I, up to my mettle: "Sam c.o.xe never says no;" and to it we went. I went in, and scored eighteen to his five. "Holy Moshes.h.!.+" says Abednego, "dat little c.o.xsh is a vonder!

who'll take odds?"

"I'll give twenty to one," says I, "in guineas."

"Ponays; yase, done," screams out the Count.

"BONIES, done," roars out the Baron: and, before I could speak, went in, and--would you believe it?--in two minutes he somehow made the game!

Oh, what a figure I cut when my dear Jemmy heard of this afterwards! In vain I swore it was guineas: the Count and the Baron swore to ponies; and when I refused, they both said their honor was concerned, and they must have my life, or their money. So when the Count showed me actually that, in spite of this bet (which had been too good to resist) won from me, he had been a very heavy loser by the night; and brought me the word of honor of Abednego, his Jewish friend, and the foreign n.o.blemen, that ponies had been betted;--why, I paid them one thousand pounds sterling of good and lawful money.--But I've not played for money since: no, no; catch me at THAT again if you can.

A NEW DROP-SCENE AT THE OPERA.

No lady is a lady without having a box at the Opera: so my Jemmy, who knew as much about music,--bless her!--as I do about Sanscrit, algebra, or any other foreign language, took a prime box on the second tier. It was what they called a double box; it really COULD hold two, that is, very comfortably; and we got it a great bargain--for five hundred a year! Here, Tuesdays and Sat.u.r.days, we used regularly to take our places, Jemmy and Jemimarann sitting in front; me, behind: but as my dear wife used to wear a large fantail gauze hat with ostrich feathers, birds-of-paradise, artificial flowers, and tags of muslin or satin, scattered all over it, I'm blest if she didn't fill the whole of the front of the box; and it was only by jumping and dodging, three or four times in the course of the night, that I could manage to get a sight of the actors. By kneeling down, and looking steady under my darling Jemmy's sleeve, I DID contrive, every now and then, to have a peep of Senior Lablash's boots, in the "Puritanny," and once actually saw Madame Greasi's crown and head-dress in "Annybalony."

What a place that Opera is, to be sure! and what enjoyments us aristocracy used to have! Just as you have swallowed down your three courses (three curses I used to call them;--for so, indeed, they are, causing a deal of heartburns, headaches, doctor's bills, pills, want of sleep, and such like)--just, I say, as you get down your three courses, which I defy any man to enjoy properly unless he has two hours of drink and quiet afterwards, up comes the carriage, in bursts my Jemmy, as fine as a d.u.c.h.ess, and scented like our shop. "Come, my dear," says she, "it's 'Normy' to--night" (or "Annybalony," or the "Nosey di Figaro,"

or the "Gazzylarder," as the case may be). "Mr. Foster strikes off punctually at eight, and you know it's the fas.h.i.+on to be always present at the very first bar of the aperture." And so off we are obliged to budge, to be miserable for five hours, and to have a headache for the next twelve, and all because it's the fas.h.i.+on!

After the aperture, as they call it, comes the opera, which, as I am given to understand, is the Italian for singing. Why they should sing in Italian, I can't conceive; or why they should do nothing BUT sing. Bless us! how I used to long for the wooden magpie in the "Gazzylarder" to fly up to the top of the church-steeple, with the silver spoons, and see the chaps with the pitchforks come in and carry off that wicked Don June.

Not that I don't admire Lablash, and Rubini, and his brother, Tomrubini: him who has that fine ba.s.s voice, I mean, and acts the Corporal in the first piece, and Don June in the second; but three hours is a LITTLE too much, for you can't sleep on those little rickety seats in the boxes.

The opera is bad enough; but what is that to the bally? You SHOULD have seen my Jemmy the first night when she stopped to see it; and when Madamsalls f.a.n.n.y and Theresa Hustler came forward, along with a gentleman, to dance, you should have seen how Jemmy stared, and our girl blushed, when Madamsall f.a.n.n.y, coming forward, stood on the tips of only five of her toes, and raising up the other five, and the foot belonging to them, almost to her shoulder, twirled round, and round, and round, like a teetotum, for a couple of minutes or more; and as she settled down, at last, on both feet, in a natural decent posture, you should have heard how the house roared with applause, the boxes clapping with all their might, and waving their handkerchiefs; the pit shouting, "Bravo!" Some people, who, I suppose, were rather angry at such an exhibition, threw bunches of flowers at her; and what do you think she did? Why, hang me, if she did not come forward, as though nothing had happened, gather up the things they had thrown at her, smile, press them to her heart, and begin whirling round again faster than ever. Talk about coolness, I never saw such in all MY born days.

"Nasty thing!" says Jemmy, starting up in a fury; "if women WILL act so, it serves them right to be treated so."

"Oh, yes! she acts beautifully," says our friend his Excellency, who along with Baron von Punter and Tagrag, used very seldom to miss coming to our box.

"She may act very beautifully, Munseer, but she don't dress so; and I am very glad they threw that orange-peel and all those things at her, and that the people waved to her to get off."

Here his Excellency, and the Baron and Tag, set up a roar of laughter.

"My dear Mrs. c.o.xe," says Tag, "those are the most famous dancers in the world; and we throw myrtle, geraniums, and lilies and roses at them, in token of our immense admiration!"

"Well, I never!" said my wife; and poor Jemimarann slunk behind the curtain, and looked as red as it almost. After the one had done the next begun; but when, all of a sudden, a somebody came skipping and bounding in, like an Indian-rubber ball, flinging itself up, at least six feet from the stage, and there shaking about its legs like mad, we were more astonished than ever!

"That's Anatole," says one of the gentlemen.

"Anna who?" says my wife; and she might well be mistaken: for this person had a hat and feathers, a bare neck and arms, great black ringlets, and a little calico frock, which came down to the knees.

"Anatole. You would not think he was sixty-three years old, he's as active as a man of twenty."

"HE!" shrieked out my wife; "what, is that there a man? For shame!

Munseer. Jemimarann, dear, get your cloak, and come along; and I'll thank you, my dear, to call our people, and let us go home."

You wouldn't think, after this, that my Jemmy, who had shown such a horror at the bally, as they call it, should ever grow accustomed to it; but she liked to hear her name shouted out in the crush-room, and so would stop till the end of everything; and, law bless you! in three weeks from that time, she could look at the ballet as she would at a dancing-dog in the streets, and would bring her double-barrelled opera-gla.s.s up to her eyes as coolly as if she had been a born d.u.c.h.ess.

As for me, I did at Rome as Rome does; and precious fun it used to be, sometimes.

My friend the Baron insisted one night on my going behind the scenes; where, being a subscriber, he said I had what they call my ONTRAY.

Behind, then, I went; and such a place you never saw nor heard of! Fancy lots of young and old gents of the fas.h.i.+on crowding round and staring at the actresses practising their steps. Fancy yellow snuffy foreigners, chattering always, and smelling fearfully of tobacco. Fancy scores of Jews, with hooked-noses and black muzzles, covered with rings, chains, sham diamonds, and gold waistcoats. Fancy old men dressed in old nightgowns, with knock-knees, and dirty flesh-colored cotton stockings, and dabs of brick-dust on their wrinkled old chops, and tow-wigs (such wigs!) for the bald ones, and great tin spears in their hands mayhap, or else shepherds' crooks, and fusty garlands of flowers made of red and green baize. Fancy troops of girls giggling, chattering, pus.h.i.+ng to and fro, amidst old black canvas, Gothic halls, thrones, pasteboard Cupids, dragons, and such like. Such dirt, darkness, crowd, confusion and gabble of all conceivable languages was never known!

If you COULD but have seen Munseer Anatole! Instead of looking twenty, he looked a thousand. The old man's wig was off, and a barber was giving it a touch with the tongs; Munseer was taking snuff himself, and a boy was standing by with a pint of beer from the public-house at the corner of Charles Street.

I met with a little accident during the three-quarters of an hour which they allow for the entertainment of us men of fas.h.i.+on on the stage, before the curtain draws up for the bally, while the ladies in the boxes are gaping, and the people in the pit are drumming with their feet and canes in the rudest manner possible, as though they couldn't wait.

Just at the moment before the little bell rings and the curtain flies up, and we scuffle off to the sides (for we always stay till the very last moment), I was in the middle of the stage, making myself very affable to the fair figgerantys which was spinning and twirling about me, and asking them if they wasn't cold, and such like politeness, in the most condescending way possible, when a bolt was suddenly withdrawn, and down I popped, through a trap in the stage, into the place below.

Luckily I was stopped by a piece of machinery, consisting of a heap of green blankets and a young lady coming up as Venus rising from the sea. If I had not fallen so soft, I don't know what might have been the consequence of the collusion. I never told Mrs. c.o.xe, for she can't bear to hear of my paying the least attention to the fair s.e.x.

STRIKING A BALANCE.

Next door to us, in Portland Place, lived the Right Honorable the Earl of Kilblazes, of Kilmacrasy Castle, County Kildare, and his mother the Dowager Countess. Lady Kilblazes had a daughter, Lady Juliana Matilda MacTurk, of the exact age of our dear Jemimarann; and a son, the Honorable Arthur Wellington Anglesea Blucher Bulow MacTurk, only ten months older than our boy Tug.

My darling Jemmy is a woman of spirit, and, as become her station, made every possible attempt to become acquainted with the Dowager Countess of Kilblazes, which her ladys.h.i.+p (because, forsooth, she was the daughter of the Minister, and Prince of Wales's great friend, the Earl of Portansherry) thought fit to reject. I don't wonder at my Jemmy growing so angry with her, and determining, in every way, to put her ladys.h.i.+p down. The Kilblazes' estate is not so large as the Tuggeridge property by two thousand a year at least; and so my wife, when our neighbors kept only two footmen, was quite authorized in having three; and she made it a point, as soon as ever the Kilblazes' carriage-and-pair came round, to have out her own carriage-and-four.

Well, our box was next to theirs at the Opera; only twice as big.

Whatever masters went to Lady Juliana, came to my Jemimarann; and what do you think Jemmy did? she got her celebrated governess, Madame de Flicflac, away from the Countess, by offering a double salary. It was quite a treasure, they said, to have Madame Flicflac: she had been (to support her father, the Count, when he emigrated) a FRENCH dancer at the ITALIAN Opera. French dancing, and Italian, therefore, we had at once, and in the best style: it is astonis.h.i.+ng how quick and well she used to speak--the French especially.

Master Arthur MacTurk was at the famous school of the Reverend Clement Coddler, along with a hundred and ten other young fas.h.i.+onables, from the age of three to fifteen; and to this establishment Jemmy sent our Tug, adding forty guineas to the hundred and twenty paid every year for the boarders. I think I found out the dear soul's reason; for, one day, speaking about the school to a mutual acquaintance of ours and the Kilblazes, she whispered to him that "she never would have thought of sending her darling boy at the rate which her next-door neighbors paid; THEIR lad, she was sure, must be starved: however, poor people, they did the best they could on their income!"

Coddler's, in fact, was the tip-top school near London: he had been tutor to the Duke of Buckminster, who had set him up in the school, and, as I tell you, all the peerage and respectable commoners came to it. You read in the bill, (the snopsis, I think, Coddler called it,) after the account of the charges for board, masters, extras, &c.--"Every young n.o.bleman (or gentleman) is expected to bring a knife, fork, spoon, and goblet of silver (to prevent breakage), which will not be returned; a dressing-gown and slippers; toilet-box, pomatum, curling-irons, &c. &c.

The pupil must on NO ACCOUNT be allowed to have more than ten guineas of pocket-money, unless his parents particularly desire it, or he be above fifteen years of age. WINE will be an extra charge; as are warm, vapor, and douche baths. CARRIAGE EXERCISE will be provided at the rate of fifteen guineas per quarter. It is EARNESTLY REQUESTED that no young n.o.bleman (or gentleman) be allowed to smoke. In a place devoted to THE CULTIVATION OF POLITE LITERATURE, such an ign.o.ble enjoyment were profane.

"CLEMENT CODDLER, M. A.,