Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. by F. Anstey (books to get back into reading TXT) 📗

"I BECAME ONCE MORE THE SILENT TOMB."

And I, with spontaneous gallantry, retorted that she was justified in such parsimony, since her daughter's eyes supplied such fairy illumination, and upon her cheeks was a bloom brighter than many geraniums. But this compliment she unhappily mistook as an insinuation that her complexion was of meretricious composition, and seeing that I had put my foot into a cul-de-sac, I became once more the silent tomb, and exhaled sighs at intervals.

Presently she declared once more that she saw, from the dullness of my expression, that I was longing for the luxurious magnificence of my Indian palace.

Now my domestic abode, though a respectable spacious sort of residence, and containing my father, mother, married brothers, &c., together with a few antique unmarried aunts, is not at all of a palatial architecture; but it is a bad bird that blackens his own nest, and so I merely answered that I was now so saturated with Western civilisation, that I had lost all taste for Oriental splendours.

Next she inquired whether I did not miss the tiger-shooting and pig-sticking; and I replied (with veraciousness, since I am not the au fait in such sports) that I could not deny a liability to miss both tigers and pigs, and, indeed, all animals that were feræ naturæ, and she condemned the hazardousness of these jungle sports, and wished me to promise that I would abstain from them on my return to India.

To this I replied that before I agreed to such a self-denying ordinance, I desired to be more convinced of the sincerity of her interest in the preservation of my humble existence.

Miss Jessimina asked what had she done that I should be in dubitation as to her bona fides?

Then I did meekly remind her of her flirtatious preferences for the young beef-witted London chaps, and her incertitude and disdainful capriciousness towards myself, who was not a beetlehead or an obtuse, but a cultivated native gentleman with high-class university degree, and an oratorical flow of language which was infallibly to land me upon the pinnacle of some tip-top judicial preferment in the Calcutta High Court of Justice.

She made the excuse that she was compelled by financial reasons to be pleasant to the male boarders, and that I could not expect any marked favouritism so long as I kept my tongue concealed inside my damask cheek like a worm in bud.

Upon which, transported by uncontrollable emotion, I ventured to embrace her, assuring her that she was the cynosure of my neighbouring eyes, and supplied the vacuum and long-felt want of my soul, and while occupied in imprinting a chaste salute upon her rosebud lips—who'd have thought it! her severe matronly parent popped in through the curtains and, surveying me with a cold and basilican eye, did demand my intentions.

Nor can I tell what I should have responded, seeing that I had acted from momentary impulsiveness and feminine encouragement, had not Miss Jessimina, with ready-made female wit, answered for me that it was all right, and that we were the engaged couple.

But her mother expressed an ardent desire to hear my vivâ voce corroboration of this statement, informing me that she was but a poor weak widow-woman, but that, if it should appear that I was merely the giddy trifler of her daughter's young, artless affections, it would be her dolesome duty to summon instantaneously every male able-bodied inmate of her establishment, and request them to inflict deserved corporal chastisement upon my person!

So, although still of a twitter with amazement at Miss Jessimina's announcement, I considered it the better part of valour to corroborate it with promptitude, rather than incur the shocking punches and kicks of numerous athletic young commercials; and, upon hearing the piece of good news, Mrs Mankletow exploded into lachrymation, saying that she was divested of narrow-minded racial colour prejudices, and had from the first regarded me as a beloved son.

Then, blessing me, and calling me her Boy, she clasped me against her bosom, where, owing to the exuberant redundancy of her ornamental jetwork, my nose and chin received severe laceration and disfigurement, which I endured courageously, without a whimper.

When I have grown more accustomed to being the lucky dog, I shall commence cockahooping, and become merry as a grig. At the present moment I am only capable of wonderment at the unpremeditated rapidity with which such solemn concerns as betrothals are knocked off in this country.

But if, as Macbeth says, such jobs are to be done at all, then it is well they were done quickly.

Drawbacks and advantages of being engaged. Some Meditations in a Music-hall, together with notes of certain things that Mr Jabberjee failed to understand.

My preceding article announced the important intelligence of my betrothal, in which I was then too much the neophyte to express any very opinionated judgment as to the pros or cons of my approaching benediction as a Benedick (if I may be allowed a somewhat humorous pun).

L'appétit vient en mangeant, and I am blessing my stars more fervidly every day for the lucky windfall which has bolted upon me from the blue.

All the select boarders were speedily informed of my engagement, and the males though profuse in their congratulations, did manifest their green-eyed monster by sundry veiled chucklings and rib-pokings, while the ladies—especially Miss Spink—are become less pressing in their attentions, and address me as "Prince" with increased frequency, and in a tone of tittering acidulation.

This, however, is attributable to natural disappointment; for it was notorious that all of them, even the least prepossessing, were on the tiptoe of languishing expectancy that I should cast my handkerchief in one of their directions. But the feminine nature is not capable of sustaining the good-fortune of another member of their sex with good-humoured complacency!

On the other hand, I enjoy many privileges and bonuses. I am permitted to enter Mrs Mankletow's private parlour ad libitum, and there converse with my beloved, calling her "Jessie," and even embrace her in moderation. I may also embrace her Mother, and address her as "Mamma," which affords me raptures of a less tumultuous kind.

Moreover now, when I conduct my inamorata to an entertainment, it is no longer de rigueur for any third party to impersonate a gooseberry!

The mention of entertainments reminds me that, a few evenings ago, I escorted her to a music-hall, wherein, although I had previously believed myself a past master in the shibboleth of London Cockneyisms and technical terminology, I heard and saw much which was au bout de mon Latin, and the head impossible to be made out of the tail.

E.g., there were two young lady-performers alleged by the programme to be "Serios and Bone Soloists," whereas they were the reverse of lugubrious; nor were their physiognomies fleshless or osseous; but, on the contrary, so shapely and well-favoured that Jessie did remonstrate with me upon the perseverance with which I gazed at them.

And I could not at all find anyone to explain to me the difference between a "Comedian" and a "Comic"; or a "Comedian and Patterer" and an "Eccentric Comedian"; or a "Society Belle" and a "Burlesque Artiste"; or, again, "A Sketch Artiste" and a "Speciality Dancer." For to me they seemed precisely similar. There were "four Charming Lyric Sisters," who performed a dance in long expansive skirts, and in conclusion did all turn heels-over-head in simultaneity; but this, it seems, was—contrary to my own expectancy—not to dance a speciality. Speaking for my humble part, I am respectfully of opinion that lovely woman loses in queenly dignity by the abrupt execution of a somersault; however, the feat did indubitably excite vociferous applause from the spectators.

Further there appeared a couple of Duettists in ordinary evening habiliments, who sang in unison with egregious melodiousness. One was plump as a partridge; the other thin as a weasel; and they related how they were both the adorers of a certain lovely damsel called "Sally," who was the darling of their co-operative hearts, and resided in their Alley. And of all the days in the week they loved Sunday, because then they were dressed in all their best, and went for a walk with Sally.

I should have thought that it was not humanly feasible for Sally to continue such periodical promenades without exhibiting some preferential kind of choice, either for the partridge or the weasel, and that such a triangular courtship and triple alliance would infallibly terminate in the apple of discord, but Jessie did assure me that it was quite usual and the correct cheese for a girl to have more than one beau upon her string.