The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 by Harry Furniss (best ereader for comics TXT) 📗
- Author: Harry Furniss
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We had coffee on the balcony, served out of china which had on it his monogram, and silver spoons with his crest. I did not[Pg 253] pocket the spoons, nor the powder-puff of Madame, and other relics lying about; the rooms remained as they were left, even to gowns in the wardrobe. The delightful garden, cut out of the rocks, had run wild. The grapes hung in clusters, the flowers were one mass of colour, the paths were covered with grass. Below stood the summer-house where Madame drank her tea. In one corner on a wall was a small target with revolver bullet marks all over it, the result of the General's practice, when possibly he used the same revolver which he turned upon himself at the tomb of Madame de Bonnemain, in the cemetery at Ixelles, Brussels.
It would be impossible for me in a short chapter to deal with all the interesting dinners and other entertainments I have attended; but I must confess that I was immensely flattered by a lunch given to me in Washington by the Rev. Dr. Wesley R. Davis, the well-known Albany preacher, who had retired from the pulpit and become an official of the Postal Department in Washington.
The novelty of this lunch was the idea of the chairman to sandwich each course with a story. We began with some very fine and large Lynhaven oysters. We English, with one exception, have no appreciation of the size of these huge American oysters. That one exception was Thackeray. And I may safely say that I never sat down to a meal in America and expressed my surprise at the size of the oysters (which I purposely did) but that someone told me what Thackeray said of them. On this occasion I was told the story by none other than General Horace Porter, one of[Pg 254] the best if not the greatest of all raconteurs in the United States. Here it is:
"You know what Thackeray said when he first saw one of our oysters,—that he felt in eating it he was swallowing a new-born baby."
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After the green turtle Mr. Willard, the well-known actor, was called upon, and related a brace of capital theatrical stories.
After Carolina shad and pommes Parisienne I was called to my legs. Now there is nothing so depressing as telling stories or making speeches at two o'clock in the afternoon. General Porter remarked that he could never tell a story till after eleven o'clock at night. He managed, however, to tell several of his best on this occasion. As the gallant General will tell them again, and I trust many times, I shall not publish them here. Mine are not worth repeating. As I said, I felt at the moment something like a well-known literary celebrity distinguished for his capital Scotch tales and his conversational brevity. He[Pg 255] was invited to meet the late James Payn, who had expressed such a strong desire to make his acquaintance that he agreed to dine at the Reform Club (which he had not done for a considerable time), and this was only arranged by their giving him the same waiter and allowing him to sit at the same table he was in the habit of having at lunch every day. The others were Sir Wemyss Reid and Sir John Robinson, of the Daily News. The four enjoyed a capital dinner. Payn, Sir Wemyss and Sir John were at their best, but the guest never made a remark. However, towards the end of the dinner, he put his knife and fork down, looked round, and said, "This is the very first time in my life I have sat down with three editors." This was all his conversation.
I was referring to the fact that brevity is the soul of wit, and that the Scotch author's remark about the three editors expressed my fear in addressing so many members of the Government as were present.
Then came the pheasant, and before we had quite relished the excellence of the celery salad that favourite American comedian, W. H. Crane, mixed a salad of stories which were highly relished. I shall pass over his theatrical stories and select two which followed, and which are so typical of American humour, that I give them in full.
A poor man on tramp in the country one fine July day staggered in an exhausted state into the garden of a rich old lady, and falling on his hands and knees on the grass plot at the feet of the lady, pulled himself along biting at the grass like a half-starved animal.
"My good man," the lady said, "why do you eat the grass in that way? Are you really so hungry?"
"Madam," cried the man, looking up, "I am starving!"
"Poor man, poor man!" remarked the lady, with a look of pity. "My eyes fill with tears—my heart bleeds for you. Go round to the kitchen door, go round to the kitchen door, the grass is longer there!"
The other referred to the darkie railway hand who had by degrees worked into a position at the depot (pronounced day-po, de-pot or de-poo), where he strutted about in a costume[Pg 256] embellished with gold lace. An English tourist (oh, those poor fools—English tourists!) was standing by the rails as an express train flew past at ninety miles an hour—s-c-h-w-r-r-r-r! and in a second was lost to sight.
"Ah!" remarked the English tourist to the gentleman of colour. "The—ah, train—ah, didn't—ah, stop—ah, here—ah!"
"No sir, nebber eben hesitated!"
On May the 17th, 1888, I gave a dinner at the Garrick Club to my fellow-workers on Punch, and others,—a merry meeting of twenty-four. Mr. F. C. Burnand was at the other end of the table, and as the soufflé glacé aux fleurs d'oranges heralded the near approach of the end of the dinner I noticed a mischievous look in Burnand's eyes, and it struck me he intended to make a speech! As there was no "object" in my giving the dinner except a purely social one,—in fact to reciprocate the hospitality of some present whom I could not ask to my house in consequence of my wife's long illness,—I naturally felt extremely anxious when I saw that Mr. Burnand intended introducing speeches. I had sent a message to him that I wished for none. My evening would be spoilt by speeches, and even the witticisms of Burnand could not save it—yet he was incorrigible. I must pay him back! A happy thought struck me as he was speaking. I sent for note-paper. I, unobserved, tore it into strips and slipped the pieces into my breast-pocket. When I rose I acted being extremely nervous, assured my friends that I had implored the "Vice" not to introduce speeches, and with (true) feeling implored them not to credit the "chicken and champagne" the "Vice" had more than hinted at, and of course said I was unaccustomed to speaking, etc. I then fumbled about my pockets, and nervously produced my "notes," carefully laying[Pg 257] them out in a long column in front of me. My guests looked with pity upon me, and their dismay was evident when I began as follows: "I was born—I was born—in 1854. I—I——" (break down). Note No. 2. "I came to London—I came to London——"
"Hear, hear," murmured the sufferers.
Another collapse,—I sought other "notes." "Art—art—Greek art——"
"Hear, hear, ha, ha!" (They were beginning to guy me!)
"Punch——" (another painful pause). "Gentlemen, Punch——"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that!"
"Yes," I said, "but, gentlemen, before that toast is honoured I beg to propose to you a toast. The toast, always the premier toast in every gathering composed of English gentlemen." The joke was then mine. In the most perfunctory and glib manner I gave the Royal Toast. After it was duly honoured I gave the second Loyal Toast, "The House of Lords," "The Houses of Parliament," "The Army, Navy and Reserve Forces,"—each time calling upon some one or two to respond. The reply for "The Navy," I recollect, fell to Sir Spencer Wells, who was originally in the Navy. (The Army had a legitimate representative.) We had Law, Art, Letters, Music, the Medical Profession, Commerce, the Colonies, America (responded to by E. A. Abbey)—in fact we had no fewer than twenty-four toasts; twenty-four or more replies. But this was only the first round! I was determined to keep the speeches going and not to let Burnand say another word. So I passed him over, and ignoring his appeals from the chair, I got through—or very nearly through—another score of speeches, reinforced by Toole and others coming in after the theatres, until the closure was moved and the meeting adjourned.
Burnand and I rode to Mill Hill and back the next morning, and he had to admit I had utterly routed him. The victory was mine!
To keep up the flow of oratory in the second series of speeches I had to call upon my guests to speak to a different toast from[Pg 258] the one they replied to earlier. This added to the fun. But the best-regulated humour, such as Burnand's introductory speech, often gives a false impression. For instance, I actually managed to get Charles Keene on to his legs,—I think I am right in saying the only occasion on which he ever spoke. I coupled his name with "Open Spaces" (Sir Robert Hunter, the champion of "open spaces," had responded the first time). It struck me that I was paying Keene a compliment when I referred to his marvellous talent in depicting commons and fields and vast spaces in his unequalled drawings of landscapes.
"Umph! Furniss, I see, chaffs me about leaving so much white in my work—not filled up with little figures like his."
And I do not think he ever understood I intended to compliment him.
Towards the end I received a memorandum in pencil on a soiled piece of paper:
And he walked in—dear old Toole in an old coat.
I have given many another sociable dinner, but none with greater success than this at which I turned Burnand's accidentally unhappy speech into a Happy Thought.
When I was offered the chairmanship of the dinner of the London Thirteen Club, it was with a light heart that I accepted. I was under the impression that the dinner was to be a private kind of affair—a small knot of men endowed with common sense meeting to express their contempt for ignorant and[Pg 259] harmful superstition. I had already had the honour of being elected an honorary member of the Club, but somehow or other I had never attended any of its gatherings, nor had I met with one of its members.
When the time came, it was with a heavy heart that I fulfilled my promise. This Thirteen Club idea, which hails from America, had in the meantime been "boomed," as our cousins across the Herring Pond would put it, into an affair of great magnitude. It was taken up by the Press, and paragraphs, leaderettes and leaders appeared in nearly every journal all over the country. This is the style of paragraph I received through a Press cutting agency from numberless papers:—
[Pg 260]
"Mr. W. H. Blanch, who has been elected President of the London Thirteen Club for the year 1894, is the promoter of an organised protest against the popular superstition which led to the formation of the Thirteen Club four years ago. In his new position as President, Mr. Blanch has evidently resolved upon a more vigorous and aggressive campaign than that which has hitherto characterised the operations of the Club, for the New Year's dinner which is announced to take place on Saturday, the 13th of January, promises to be something altogether unique as a social gathering. Mr. Harry Furniss, one of the hon. members of the Club, will preside at this dinner, which is announced to take place at the Holborn Restaurant, and in room No. 13. The members and
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