The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 83

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 83

"Yours always true till death,

"THOMAS LAZENBY."

 

 

THE BIBLIOMANIAC.

 

"Here," said he, drawing from one of his pockets a very small dirty

black-letter book, "this is all I shall do to-day--my pursuit,

you know--eh--old books--rare books--I don't care what I give so

as I can secure them--this is a tract of 1486--seventeen pages

originally--five only wanting--two damaged--got it for seventy-two

pounds ten shillings--Caxton--only one other copy extant--that in the

British Museum."

 

"Seventy-two pounds for _that_!" said I.

 

"To be sure," replied Hull; "why, my dear sir, it is not worth _my_

while to come out of the city unless I spend seventy or eighty pounds

in the morning--I cannot afford the time for less."

 

"And what is it about?" said I, innocently.

 

"Why, I do _not_ happen to know _that_," said Hull; "it is an essay,

I believe, to prove that Edward the Fourth never had the toothache;

but it is, as you see, in Latin, and I don't read Latin."

 

"Then why buy it?" said I.

 

"Buy!" exclaimed he, looking at me through his glass with an

__EXPRESSION__ of astonishment--"I buy thousands of books!--pooh, pooh!

millions, my dear sir, in the course of a year, but I never think of

reading them--my dear friend, I have no time to read."

 

I confess I did not exactly comprehend the character of the

bibliomania, which appeared to engross my friend, nor the particular

gratification which the purchase of the unreadable works seemed to

afford him. But he only curled up his mouth, as much as to say that

I was a dunce, and that there was a sort of delight--felt in common

with magpies, I presume--of picking up objects and hiding them away

in dark holes and corners.--_Gilbert Gurney._

 

 

ABSENCE OF MIND.

 

Absence of mind may be defined to be a slowness of mind, in speaking

or in action. The absent man is one who, when he is reckoning up

a bill, and hath collected the particulars, will ask a by-stander

what the amount is. When he is engaged in a law-suit, and the day

of trial comes, he forgets it, and goes into the country. He goes

to the theatre to see the play, and is left behind, asleep upon the

benches. He takes any article, and puts it away securely; then he

begins to look for it, and is never able to find it. If a man comes

and tells him of the death of a friend, and asks him to the funeral,

he says, with a melancholy countenance, and tears in his eyes, "What

uncommon good luck!" When he receives money, he calls men to witness

the transaction; when he pays a debt, he does not. He quarrels with

his servant for not bringing him cucumbers in winter; and forces his

children to run and wrestle for their health, till they are ready

to die of fatigue. When in the country, he dresses his dinner of

herbs, he salts them until they are unfit to eat. And if anybody ask

him, "How many dead have been carried through the sacred gate, to be

buried?" he answers, "I wish to my heart you and I had half as many."

 

 

A DISTINGUISHED TRAVELLER.

 

Lady Cramly was, or rather had been during her husband's lifetime,

the authoress of a solitary work, upon the memory of which she still

lived and revelled. She had published two volumes of travels. In some

of the countries which she described she really _had_ been, but in

others certainly not; but wherever the scene was laid, Lady Cramly

and Seraphine were at the top of the tree. Princes were proud to

hand them to their carriage--crowned heads opened their palaces to

receive them--Lady Cramly received medals, orders, and decorations,

which never before had been conferred upon females. Seraphine--with

a pug nose, low forehead, and high shoulders--had been painted by

all the first artists, and modelled by all the first sculptors on the

Continent. The book of travels had gone through eleven editions--Mr.

Liberal, the eminent publisher, had made six thousand pounds by it,

and would have made more, only that he had foolishly insisted, out

of respect to the character of her particular friend the Pope, upon

expunging the authoress's account of her having waltzed with his

Holiness at a masquerade during the carnival, to which he went only

to have the pleasure of being her partner. Upon this circumstance,

and her having been made a Burgher (or rather Burgheress) at Bruges

(the only instance of the honour ever having been bestowed upon a

lady), she not unfrequently descanted, and so often had she told

the histories amongst others, that all who heard them, including

Seraphine herself, felt certain, that if nobody else believed them,

Lady Cramly did.

 

It was of Lady Cramly the wag said that her authority ought never

to be doubted, for she must always be _re-lied_ upon. Nevertheless,

her poetical prose was very amusing, and upon Waller's principle (we

presume) she was certainly an extremely eloquent and entertaining

companion.

 

 

DALY'S PRACTICAL JOKES[65]

 

Among the group was a man whose name was Daly--who, of all the people

accounted sane and permitted to range the world keeperless, I hold to

have been the most decidedly mad. His conversation was full of droll

conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior talent, and

the strongest evidence of general acquirements and accomplishments.

He appeared to be on terms of familiar intimacy with all the members

of our little community, and, by his observations and anecdotes,

equally well known to persons of much higher consideration; but his

description of himself to _me_, shortly after our introduction,

savoured so very strongly of insanity--peculiar in its character,

I admit--that I almost repented having, previously to hearing his

autobiography, consented to send on my horses to Teddington, in order

to accompany him to that village after the departure of the rest of

the party to London, in a boat in which he proposed to row himself

up to Hampton Court, where, it appeared, he had, a few days before,

fixed his temporary residence.

 

"I hope," said he, "that we shall be better acquainted. I daresay you

think me an odd fish--I know I _am_ one. My father, who is no more,

was a most respectable man in his way--a sugar-baker in St. Mary Axe.

I was destined to follow in his wake and succeed to the business;

however, I cut the treacle tubs at an early age--I saw no fun in

firkins, and could not manage conviviality in canvas sleeves. D'ye

ever read the _London Gazette_?"

 

"Sometimes," said I.

 

"In that interesting paper," said Daly, "I used to look twice a

week to see the price of Muscovados. One hapless Saturday I saw my

father's name along with the crush: the affair was done--settled;

dad went through the usual ceremony, and came out of Guildhall as

white as one of his own superfine lumps. Refreshed by his ruin, my

exemplary parent soon afterwards bought a house in Berkeley Square,

stood a contest for a county, and died rather richer than he started."

 

"And you, I suppose, his heir?" said I.

 

"He had not much to leave," replied my new friend. "He ran it rather

fine towards the close of his career. My two sisters got their

fortunes paid, but I came off with what we technically called the

scrapings--four hundred a year, sir, is the whole of my income; all

my personal property I carry under my hat. Timber I have none--save

my walking-stick; and as to land, except the mould in three geranium

pots, which stand in my sitting-room window, I haven't an inch.

Still, Mr. Gurney, although I have not a ducat in my purse,

 

'Yet I'm in love, and pleased with ruin.'"

 

"I envy your philosophy and spirits," said I.

 

"You are right," replied Daly; "fun is to me what ale was to

Boniface; I sleep upon fun--I drink for fun--I talk for fun--I live

for fun; hence my addiction to our dear funny friends of to-day. They

just suit me--they do nothing but laugh; they laugh _with_ one when

present, and _at_ one when absent--but to me that is the fun."

 

I immediately thought of the "funny" observations upon myself, which

I had overheard earlier in the day, pretty well assured that the

voice of my new laughter-loving acquaintance had not been the least

loud in the debate.

 

"I admit myself fond of practical joking," continued my friend. "I

don't mean in one's own particular circle--there it is dangerous;

people are not always in the same humour--what they think uncommonly

good fun one day, they will seriously resent as an insult the next.

There's no judging with certainty a man's temper of mind, and it is

not easy to ascertain how much melted butter a gentleman would like

to have poured into his coat-pocket without kicking; I avoid that

sort of thing, but on the great scale I confess my addiction. Coming

here yesterday evening, I stopped the chaise at the corner of Egham,

to turn the finger-post at the corner half round--sent all the people

bound for London to Chertsey, all the people destined for Egham to

Windsor, and all the people destined for Windsor to London--that's

_my_ way."

 

"Probably," said I, "but not theirs. And do you often indulge

yourself in these freaks?"

 

"Perpetually," replied Daly; "I've whipped off every knocker in

Sloane-street three nights running--a hundred and ninety-four,

exclusive of shops; and if ever the project of lighting London with

smoke should be brought to bear, I flatter myself you will hear

of my darkening the whole parish of Pancras, by grinding a gimblet

through a gas-pipe."

 

"These frolics must cost something," said I.

 

"Occasionally," said my friend; "but what of that? Every man has his

pursuits--I have mine."

 

"I should think," replied I, "if you perform such tricks often, your

pursuits must be innumerable."

 

"What!" exclaimed Daly; "pursuits after me, you mean? I'm obliged to

you for _that_--I see we shall be better acquainted--of that I am

now quite certain. One thing I _must_ tell you of myself, because,

although there is something equivocal in the outset of the adventure,

I set it all to rights afterwards, and will prove to you that in fact

all I did was done for fun--pure fun."

 

I foresaw an awkward discovery of some sort by the prefatory

deprecation of criticism; however, I listened to my slight acquaintance with complacency and confidence.