Stories of Comedy
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Various >> Stories of Comedy
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"'Arrah! but where's the beefstake?' says he.
"'Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork,' says I.
"'Be gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. 'You're a clever
fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.
"'O, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.
"'Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.
"'Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant' (for we were
nearin' the land all the time), 'and sure I can ax them for to lind me
the loan of a gridiron,' says I.
"'O, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in airnest now,'
says he, 'you gommoch,' says he, 'sure I told you before that's
France,--and sure they're all furriners there,' says the captain.
"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a furriner myself
as any o' thim?'
"'What do you mane?' says he.
"'I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you, that I'm as good a furriner myself
as any o' thim.'
"'Make me sinsible,' says he.
"'By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,' says
I,--and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I would pay him off
for his bit o' consait about the Garmant Oceant.
"'Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you, and tell me what it is
you mane, at all at all.'
"'_Parly voo frongsay_,' says I.
"'O, your humble sarvant,' says he; 'why, by gor, you're a scholar,
Paddy.'
"'Throth, you may say that,' says I.
"'Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin' like.
"'You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you joke or
no.'
"'O, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain; 'and do you tell me, Paddy,'
says he, 'that you spake Frinch?'
"'_Parly voo frongsay_,' says I.
"'By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs
the divil,--I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,' says he,--'pull away,
boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we won't get a good bellyful
before long.'
"So, with that, it wos no sooner said nor done,--they pulled away, and
got close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a
little creek, and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white
sthrand,--an illegant place for ladies to bathe in the summer; and out I
got,--and it's stiff enough in the limbs I was, afther bein' cramped up
in the boat, and perished with the cowld and hunger, but I conthrived to
scramble on, one way or t' other, tow'rds a little bit iv a wood that
was close to the shore, and the smoke curlin' out iv it, quite timptin'
like.
"'By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I, 'there's a house
there,'--and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men, women, and
childher, ating their dinner round a table, quite convanient. And so I
wint up to the door, and I thought I'd be very civil to them, as I heerd
the French was always mighty p'lite intirely,--and I thought I'd show
them I knew what good manners was.
"So I took aff my hat, and, making a low bow, says I, 'God save all
here,' says I.
"Well, to be sure, they all stapt eating at wanst, and began to stare at
me, and faith they almost looked me out of countenance,--and I thought
to myself, it was not good manners at all, more betoken from furriners
which they call so mighty p'lite; but I never minded that, in regard o'
wantin' the gridiron; and so says I, 'I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for
the liberty I take, but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of
eating,' says I, 'that I made bowld to throuble yez, and if you could
lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be entirely obleeged to
ye.'
"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before,--and with that,
says I (knowing what was in their minds), 'Indeed it's thrue for you,'
says I, 'I'm tatthered to pieces, and God knows I look quare
enough,--but it's by raison of the storm,' says I, 'which dhruv us
ashore here below, and we're all starvin',' says I.
"So then they began to look at each other again; and myself, seeing at
once dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor
beggar coming to crave charity,--with that, says I, 'O, not at all,'
says I, 'by no manes,--we have plenty of mate ourselves there below, and
we'll dhress it,' says I, 'if you would be plased to lind us the loan of
a gridiron,' says I, makin' a low bow.
"Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever,
and faith I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that it
was not France at all at all; and so says I, 'I beg pardon, sir,' says
I, to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver,--'maybe
I'm under a mistake,' says I, 'but I thought I was in France, sir:
aren't you furriners?' says I,--'_Parly voo frongsay_?"
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if you
plase?'
"O, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had seven heads; and,
faith, myself began to feel flushed like and onaisy,--and so, says I,
makin' a bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a liberty I take, sir,' says
I, 'but it's only in the regard of bein' cast away; and if you plase,
sir,' says I, '_parly voo frongsay_?'
"'We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron!' says I, 'and you'll
obleege me.'
"Well, sir, the ould chap began to munseer me; but the devil a bit of a
gridiron he'd gi' me; and so I began to think they wor all neygars, for
all their fine manners; and throth my blood begun to rise, and says I,
'By my sowl, if it was you was in distriss,' says I, 'and if it was to
ould Ireland you kem, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you, if you
axed it, but something to put an it, too, and the drop o' dhrink into
the bargain, and _cead mile failte_.'
"Well, the word _cead mile failte_ seemed to sthreck his heart, and the
ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I'd give him another offer,
and make him sensible at last: and so says I, wanst more, quite slow,
that he might understand,--'_Parly--voo--frongsay_, munseer.'
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad scram to you.'
"Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould chap begins
bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other about a long tongs.[D]
[D] Some mystification of Paddy's touching the French _n'entends_.
"'Phoo!--the divil swape yourself and your tongs,' says I, 'I don't want
a tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison,' says I,--'_Parly
voo frongsay_?'
"'We, munseer.'
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld your prate.'
"Well, what would you think, but he shook his old noddle as much as to
say he wouldn't; and so, says I, 'Bad cess to the likes o' that I ever
seen,--throth if you wor in my counthry it's not that away they'd use
you. The curse o' the crows an you, you owld sinner,' says I, 'the divil
a longer I'll darken your door.'
"So he seen I was vexed, and I thought, as I was turnin' away, I seen
him begin to relint, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I,
turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give one chance more,--you ould thief,--are
you a Chrishthan at all? are you a furriner!' says I, 'that all the
world calls so p'lite? Bad luck to you, do you understand your own
language?--_Parly voo frongsay_?' says I.
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then, thunder an' turf,' says I, 'will you lind me the loan of a
gridiron?'
"Well, sir, the devil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me,--and so, with
that, the 'curse o' the hungry an you, you ould negarly villain,' says
I; 'the back o' my hand and the sowl o' my foot to you, that you may
want a gridiron yourself yit,' says I; and with that I left them there,
sir, and kem away,--and, in throth, it's often sense that I thought that
it was remarkable."
THE BOX TUNNEL.
BY CHARLES READE.
The 10.15 train glided from Paddington, May 7, 1847. In the left
compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers; of
these, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white,
delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed
to change color, and a good-sized delicious mouth, with teeth as white
as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth; her own
sex could and would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an
unpretending grayish dress buttoned to the throat with lozenge-shaped
buttons, and a Scottish shawl that agreeably evaded color. She was like
a duck, so tight her plain feathers fitted her, and there she sat,
smooth, snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand, and a _soupcon_ of
her wrist just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbor was what I
call a good style of man,--the more to his credit, since he belonged to
a corporation that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of
young men. He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a
mustache, but not a very repulsive one; not one of those subnasal
pigtails on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short,
thick, and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco
smoke to the color of juice, his clothes did not stick to nor hang to
him; he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog for, his
vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in
his face, jostling mine and other people's who have none,--in a word, he
was what one oftener hears of than meets,--a young gentleman. He was
conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow-officer;
they were talking about what it is far better not to--women. Our friend
clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a
furtive glance at his fair _vis-a-vis_ and lowered his voice. She seemed
completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two
soldiers came down to a whisper (the truth must be told), the one who
got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three,
that he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality would not
kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. "Done, done!" Now I am
sorry a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself, even in a
whisper, to such a speculation; "but nobody is wise at all hours," not
even when the clock is striking five and twenty; and you are to consider
his profession, his good looks, and the temptation--ten to three.
After Slough the party was reduced to three; at Twylford one lady
dropped her handkerchief; Captain Dolignan fell on it like a lamb; two
or three words were interchanged on this occasion. At Reading the
Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that day, he
bought a Times and Punch; the latter full of steel-pen thrusts and
woodcuts. Valor and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflamed humbug or
other punctured by Punch. Now laughing together thaws our human ice;
long before Swindon it was a talking match--at Swindon who so devoted as
Captain Dolignan?--he handed them out--he souped them--he
tough-chickened them--he brandied and cochinealed one, and he brandied
and burnt-sugared the other; on their return to the carriage, one lady
passed into the inner compartment to inspect a certain gentleman's seat
on that side of the line.
Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the deserter,
the average one would have stayed with us till all was blue, ourselves
included; not more surely does our slice of bread and butter, when it
escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight face downward on
the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis, dragoon,--so Venus
remained in _tete-a-tete_ with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown
female of his species; how handsome, how _empresse_, how expressive he
becomes; such was Dolignan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice, he
got handsome and handsomer; and you have seen a cat conscious of
approaching cream,--such was Miss Haythorn; she became demurer and
demurer; presently our captain looked out of the window and laughed;
this elicited an inquiring look from Miss Haythorn.
"We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel."
"Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?" said the lady.
"Invariably."
"What for?"
"Why, hem! it is a gentleman's joke."
Captain Dolignan then recounted to Miss Haythorn the following:--
"A lady and her husband sat together going through the Box
Tunnel,--there was one gentleman opposite; it was pitch dark: after the
tunnel the lady said, 'George, how absurd of you to salute me going
through the tunnel.' 'I did no such thing.' 'You didn't?' 'No! why?'
'Because somehow I thought you did!'"
Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavored to lead his companion to
laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.
_Miss Haythorn._ Ah!
_Dolignan._ What is the matter?
_Miss Haythorn._ I am frightened.
_Dolignan_ (moving to her side). Pray do not be alarmed; I am near you.
_Miss Haythorn._ You are near me,--very near me, indeed, Captain
Dolignan.
_Dolignan._ You know my name?
_Miss Haythorn._ I heard you mention it. I wish we were out of this dark
place.
_Dolignan._ I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring you, my
dear lady.
_Miss Haythorn._ Nonsense!
_Dolignan._ Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the next
pretty creature you meet, or you will understand what this means.)
_Miss Haythorn._ Ee! Ee!
_Friend._ What is the matter?
_Miss Haythorn._ Open the door! Open the door!
There was a sound of hurried whispers, the door was shut and the blind
pulled down with hostile sharpness.
If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a dialogue
as above, I answer with all the insolence I can command at present. "Hit
boys as big as yourself"; bigger, perhaps, such as Sophocles, Euripides,
and Aristophanes; they began it, and I learned it of them, sore against
my will.
Miss Haythorn's scream lost most of its effect because the engine
whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment; and fictitious grief
makes itself heard when real cannot.
Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself
whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is
supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.
With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door; his late
friends attempted to escape on the other side,--impossible! they must
pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited
somewhere at his feet a look of gentle, blushing reproach; the other,
whom he had not insulted, darted red-hot daggers at him from her eyes;
and so they parted.
It was, perhaps, fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be a
friend to Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at by the
youngsters, for the Major was too apt to look coldly upon billiard-balls
and cigars; he had seen cannon-balls and linstocks. He had also, to tell
the truth, swallowed a good bit of the mess-room poker, which made it as
impossible for Major Hoskyns to descend to an ungentlemanlike word or
action as to brush his own trousers below the knee.
Captain Dolignan told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents; but
Major Hoskyns heard him coldly, and as coldly answered that he had known
a man to lose his life for the same thing.
"That is nothing," continued the Major, "but unfortunately he deserved
to lose it."
At this, blood mounted to the younger man's temples; and his senior
added, "I mean to say he was thirty-five; you, I presume, are
twenty-one!"
"Twenty-five."
"That is much the same thing; will you be advised by me?"
"If you will advise me."
"Speak to no one of this, and send White the L3, that he may think you
have lost the bet."
"That is hard, when I won it."
"Do it, for all that, sir."
Let the disbelievers in human perfectibility know that this dragoon
capable of a blush did this virtuous action, albeit with violent
reluctance; and this was his first damper. A week after these events he
was at a ball. He was in that state of factitious discontent which
belongs to us amiable English. He was looking in vain for a lady, equal
in personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George Dolignan as
a man, when suddenly there glided past him a most delightful vision! a
lady whose beauty and symmetry took him by the eyes,--another look: "It
can't be! Yes, it is!" Miss Haythorn! (not that he knew her name!) but
what an apotheosis!
The duck had become a peahen--radiant, dazzling, she looked twice as
beautiful and almost twice as large as before. He lost sight of her. He
found her again. She was so lovely she made him ill--and he, alone, must
not dance with her, speak to her. If he had been content to begin her
acquaintance the usual way, it might have ended in kissing: it must end
in nothing. As she danced, sparks of beauty fell from her on all around,
but him--she did not see him; it was clear she never would see him--one
gentleman was particularly assiduous; she smiled on his assiduity; he
was ugly, but she smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success,
his ill taste, his ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found
himself injured; "who was this man? and what right had he to go on so?
He never kissed her, I suppose," said Dolle. Dolignan could not prove
it, but he felt that somehow the rights of property were invaded. He
went home and dreamed of Miss Haythorn, and hated all the ugly
successful. He spent a fortnight trying to find out who his beauty
was,--he never could encounter her again. At last he heard of her in
this way: A lawyer's clerk paid him a little visit and commenced a
little action against him in the name of Miss Haythorn, for insulting
her in a railway train.
The young gentleman was shocked; endeavored to soften the lawyer's
clerk; that machine did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of the
term. The lady's name, however, was at last revealed by this untoward
incident; from her name to her address was but a short step; and the
same day our crestfallen hero lay in wait at her door, and many a
succeeding day, without effect. But one fine afternoon she issued forth
quite naturally, as if she did it every day, and walked briskly on the
parade. Dolignan did the same, met and passed her many times on the
parade, and searched for pity in her eyes, but found neither look nor
recognition, nor any other sentiment; for all this she walked and
walked, till all the other promenaders were tired and gone,--then her
culprit summoned resolution, and, taking off his hat, with a voice for
the first time tremulous, besought permission to address her. She
stopped, blushed, and neither acknowledged nor disowned his
acquaintance. He blushed, stammered out how ashamed he was, how he
deserved to be punished, how he was punished, how little she knew how
unhappy he was, and concluded by begging her not to let all the world
know the disgrace of a man who was already mortified enough by the loss
of her acquaintance. She asked an explanation; he told her of the action
that had been commenced in her name; she gently shrugged her shoulders
and said, "How stupid they are!" Emboldened by this, he begged to know
whether or not a life of distant unpretending devotion would, after a
lapse of years, erase the memory of his madness--his crime!
"She did not know!"
"She must now bid him adieu, as she had some preparations to make for a
ball in the Crescent, where everybody was to be." They parted, and
Dolignan determined to be at the ball, where everybody was to be. He was
there, and after some time he obtained an introduction to Miss Haythorn,
and he danced with her. Her manner was gracious. With the wonderful tact
of her sex, she seemed to have commenced the acquaintance that evening.
That night, for the first time, Dolignan was in love. I will spare the
reader all a lover's arts, by which he succeeded in dining where she
dined, in dancing where she danced, in overtaking her by accident when
she rode. His devotion followed her to church, where the dragoon was
rewarded by learning there is a world where they neither polk nor
smoke,--the two capital abominations of this one.
He made an acquaintance with her uncle, who liked him, and he saw at
last with joy that her eye loved to dwell upon him, when she thought he
did not observe her. It was three months after the Box Tunnel that
Captain Dolignan called one day upon Captain Haythorn, R. N., whom he
had met twice in his life, and slightly propitiated by violently
listening to a cutting-out expedition; he called, and in the usual way
asked permission to pay his addresses to his daughter. The worthy
Captain straightway began doing quarter-deck, when suddenly he was
summoned from the apartment by a mysterious message. On his return he
announced with a total change of voice, that "It was all right, and his
visitor might run alongside as soon as he chose." My reader has divined
the truth; this nautical commander, terrible to the foe, was in
complete and happy subjugation to his daughter, our heroine.
As he was taking leave, Dolignan saw his divinity glide into the
drawing-room. He followed her, observed a sweet consciousness deepen
into confusion,--she tried to laugh, and cried instead, and then she
smiled again; when he kissed her hand at the door it was "George" and
"Marian" instead of "Captain" this and "Miss" the other.
A reasonable time after this (for my tale is merciful and skips
formalities and torturing delays), these two were very happy; they were
once more upon the railroad, going to enjoy their honeymoon all by
themselves. Marian Dolignan was dressed just as before,--duck-like and
delicious; all bright except her clothes; but George sat beside her this
time instead of opposite; and she drank him in gently from her long
eyelashes.
"Marian," said George, "married people should tell each other all. Will
you ever forgive me if I own to you; no--"
"Yes! yes!"
"Well, then, you remember the Box Tunnel." (This was the first allusion
he had ventured to it.) "I am ashamed to say I had L3 to L10 with White
I would kiss one of you two ladies," and George, pathetic externally,
chuckled within.
"I know that, George; I overheard you," was the demure reply.
"Oh! you overheard me! impossible."
"And did you not hear me whisper to my companion? I made a bet with
her."
"You made a bet! how singular! What was it?"
"Only a pair of gloves, George."
"Yes, I know; but what about it?"
"That if you did you should be my husband, dearest."
"Oh! but stay; then you could not have been so very angry with me, love.
Why, dearest, then you brought that action against me?"
Mrs. Dolignan looked down.
"I was afraid you were forgetting me! George, you will never forgive
me?"
"Sweet angel! why, here is the Box Tunnel!"
Now, reader,--fie! no! no such thing! you can't expect to be indulged in
this way every time we come to a dark place. Besides, it is not the
thing. Consider, two sensible married people. No such phenomenon, I
assure you, took place. No scream in hopeless rivalry of the
engine--this time!
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|Transcriber's Notes: |
| |
|Inconsistencies in spelling have been retained as they appear |
|in the original. |
| |
|Page 14 was'nt changed to wasn't |
| 44 double quotation added after ... the wood |
| 72 double quotation added after ... hand it over. |
| 209 single quotation added after ... Captain jewel, |
| 214 "started" changed to "stared" |
| 216 double quotation changed to single quotation after |
| ... frongsay? |
| 223 repeated "in" in "him in in the name" removed |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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