Mr. Punch's Book of Sport<br />The Humour of Cricket, Football, Tennis, Polo, Croquet, Hockey, Racin by J. A. Hammerton and Linley Sambourne (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📗
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[Pg 104]
THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID
She. "Would you mind putting my lawn tennis shoes in your pockets, Mr. Green?"
He. "I'm afraid my pockets are hardly big enough, Miss Gladys; but I shall be delighted to carry them for you!"
[Pg 105]
Excited Young Lady. "Father, directly this set is over get introduced to the little man by the fireplace, and make him come to our party on Tuesday. Her Father. "Certainly, my dear, if you wish it. But—er—he's rather a scrubby little person, isn't he?" Excited Young Lady. "Father, do you know who he is? They tell me he is the amateur champion of Peckham! I don't suppose he'll play; but if you can get him just to look in, that will be something!"
[Pg 106]
A Nice Quiet Game for the Home.
This is only a little game of "Ping-pong" in progress, and some of the balls are missing!
[Pg 107]
PING-PONG IN THE STONE AGE
[Pg 108]
The first time Captain F. tried to play that pony he picked up so cheaply, he found it true to the description given of it by the late owner, who guaranteed it not in the least afraid of the stick.
[Pg 109]
A Long Shot. (Before the commencement of the polo match.)
Young Lady (making her first acquaintance with the game). "Oh, I wish you would begin. I'm so anxious to see the sweet ponie kick the ball about!"
[Pg 110]
OUR LOCAL POLO MATCH
Excited Drummer. "Vat! He iss your only ball? Ach, donner und blitzen! he haf proke insides my only drum! You pay ze drum, you haf ze ball!"
[Pg 111]
"If you have any raw ponies, always play them in big matches; it gets them accustomed to the crowd, and the band, and things."
[Pg 112]
At Hurlingham.
Captain Smith (who is showing his cousins polo for the first time). "Well, what do you think of it?" Millicent. "Oh, we think it is a ripping game. It must be such awfully good practice for croquet!"
[Pg 113]
THE POSSIBILITIES OF CROQUET
The above represents the game of "All against All," as played by Brown, Miss Jones, and the Major.
[Pg 114]
EJACULATIONSOn being asked to play Croquet, A.D. 1894.
["It is impossible to visit any part of the country without realising the fact that the long-discredited game of Croquet is fast coming into vogue again.... This is partly owing to the abolition of 'tight croqueting.'"—Pall Mall Gazette.]
Eh? What? Why? How?
Are we back in the Sixties again?
I am rubbing my eyes—is it then, or now?
I'm a Rip Van Winkle, it's plain!
Hoop, Ball, Stick, Cage?
Eh, fetch them all out once more?
Why, look, they're begrimed and cracked with age,
And their playing days are o'er!
Well—yes—here goes
For a primitive chaste delight!
Let us soberly, solemnly beat our foes,
For Croquet's no longer "tight"!
[Pg 115]
CHARLES KEENESQUE CROQUET PERIOD. 1866
[Pg 116]
An Objectionable Old Man.
Young Ladies. "Going to make a flower-bed here, Smithers? Why, it'll quite spoil our croquet ground!" Gardener. "Well, that's yer Pa's orders, Miss! He'll hev' it laid out for 'orticultur', not for 'usbandry'".
[Pg 117]
Sweet Delusion.
Chorus of Young Ladies (speaking technically). "No spooning, Mr. Lovel! No spooning allowed here!" Miss Tabitha (with the long curls). "Those naughty, n-n-naughty girls! I suppose they allude to you and me, Mr. Lovel. But, lor'! never mind them!—I don't."
[Pg 118]
So Ready!
Snooks (coming out conversationally). "I think that every woman who is not out-and-out plain considers herself a beauty." Miss Rinkle. "Does that include me?" Snooks. "Oh, of course not!"
[Pg 119]
THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION
Eligible Bachelor. "Shall I follow you up, Annie; or leave myself for Lizzie?"
[Pg 120]
[According to Country Life, Croquet, which was revived last summer, is likely to increase in popularity this year. A splendid opportunity to revive the pastime and the costumes of the early sixties at the same time.]
[Pg 121]
THE WOOING[The sporting instinct is now so keen among girls that a man who gallantly moderates his hitting in mixed hockey is merely regarded as an incapable slacker by his fair opponents.]
When first I played hockey with Kitty,
I was right off my usual game,
For she looked so bewitchingly pretty
When straight for the circle she came;
As a rule I'm not backward, or chary,
Of hitting and harassing too,
But who can be rough with a fairy—
Not I—so I let her go through.
She scored, and we couldn't get equal;
The others all thought me a fool,
And Kitty herself, in the sequel,
Grew most unexpectedly cool.
They gave us a licking, as stated,
I was sick at the sight of the ball,
She thought me a lot over-rated,
And wondered they played me at all.
But she frankly approved Percy Waters,
Who uses his stick like a flail,
And always impartially slaughters
Both sexes, the strong and the frail;
A mutual friendliness followed,
I watched its career with dismay—
Next match-day my feelings I swallowed.
And hit in my orthodox way.
I caught her a crunch on the knuckle,
A clip on the knee and the cheek,
She said, with a rapturous chuckle,
"I see—you weren't trying last week."
Such conduct its cruelty loses
When it brings consolation to both,
For after she'd counted her bruises
That evening we plighted our troth.
[Pg 122]
An Alarming Threat.
Miss Dora (debating her stroke). "I have a great mind to knock you into the bushes Mr. Pipps!"
[Mr. Pipps (who is a complete novice at the game) contemplates instant flight. He was just on the point of proposing, too.
[Pg 123]
LADIES AT HOCKEY
(From an old Print.)
I saw an aged, aged man
One morning near the Row,
Who sat, dejected and forlorn,
Till it was time to go.
It made me quite depressed and bad
To see a man so wholly sad—
I went and told him so.
I asked him why he sat and stared
At all the passers-by,
And why on ladies young and fair
He turned his watery eye.
He looked at me without a word,
And then—it really was absurd—
The man began to cry.
But when his rugged sobs were stayed—
It made my heart rejoice—
He said that of the young and fair
He sought to make a choice.
He was an artist, it appeared—
I might have guessed it by his beard,
Or by his gurgling voice.
His aim in life was to procure
A model fit to paint
As "Beauty on a Pedestal,"
Or "Figure of a Saint."
But every woman seemed to be
As crooked as a willow tree—
His metaphors were quaint.
"And have you not observed," he asked,
"That all the girls you meet
Have either 'Hockey elbows' or
Ungainly 'Cycling feet'?
Their backs are bent, their faces red,
From 'Cricket stoop,' or 'Football head.'"
[Pg 126]He spoke to me with heat.
"But have you never found," I said,
"Some girl without a fault?
Are all the women in the world
Misshapen, lame or halt?"
He gazed at me with eyes aglow,
And, though the tears had ceased to flow,
His beard was fringed with salt.
"There was a day, I mind it well,
A lady passed me by
In whose physique my searching glance
No blemish could descry.
I followed her at headlong pace,
But when I saw her, face to face,
She had the 'Billiard eye'!"
[Pg 124]
Di got me to play hockey. Never again!
[Pg 125]
"Our great hockey match was in full swing, when a horrid cow, from the adjoining meadow, strolled on the ground. Play was by general consent postponed."
MIXED HOCKEYYou came down the field like a shaft from a bow
The vision remains with me yet.
I hastened to check you: the sequel you know:
Alas! we unluckily met.
You rushed at the ball, whirled your stick like a flail,
And you hit with the vigour of two:
A knight in his armour had surely turned pale,
If he had played hockey with you.
They gathered me up, and they took me to bed:
They called for a doctor and lint:
With ice in a bag they enveloped my head;
[Pg 128]My arm they enclosed in a splint.
My ankles are swelled to a terrible size;
My shins are a wonderful blue;
I have lain here a cripple, unable to rise,
Since the day I played hockey with you.
Yet still, in the cloud hanging o'er me so black,
A silvery lining I spy:
A man who's unhappily laid on his back
Can yet have a solace. May I?
An angel is woman in moments of pain,
Sang Scott: clever poet, he knew:
It may, I perceive, be distinctly a gain
To have fallen at hockey with you.
For if you'll but nurse me (Come quickly, come now),
If you'll but administer balm,
And press at my bidding my feverish brow
With a cool but affectionate palm;
If you'll sit by my side, it is possible, quite,
That I may be induced to review
With a feeling more nearly akin to delight
That day I played hockey with you.
[Pg 127]
Major Bunker (who has been persuaded to join in a game of hockey for the first time, absent-mindedly preparing to drive). "Fore."
[Pg 129]
OUR LADIES' HOCKEY CLUB
Miss Hopper cannot understand how it is she is always put "in goal." But really the explanation is so simple. There's no room for a ball to get past her.
[Pg 130]
Extract from Mabel's Correspondence.
"We had a scratch game with the 'Black and Blue' club yesterday, but had an awful job to get any men. Enid's
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