A BAYARD FROM BENGAL

EXORTED HER, WITH AN ELOQUENCE THAT MOVED ALL PRESENT,
TO ABANDON HER FRIVOLITIES AND LEVITIES

A BAYARD FROM BENGAL

Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking
Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq., B.A., Cambridge,
by Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta
University, author of "Jottings and Tittlings," etc.,
etc., to which is appended the Parables and Proverbs
of Piljosh, freely translated from the Original
Styptic by Another Hand, with Introduction,
Notes and Appendix by the above Hurry Bungsho
Jabberjee, B.A.

THE WHOLE EDITED AND REVISED

BY

F. ANSTEY

AUTHOR OF "VICE VERSA," ETC. ETC.

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

LONDON

1902

Reprinted from "Punch"

[v]

CONTENTS

[vii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[ix]

PRELIMINARY

I have the honour humbly to inform my
readers that, after prolonged consumption
of midnight oil, I succeeded in completing this
imposing society novel, which is now, by the
indulgence of my friends and kind fathers, the
honble publishers, laid at their feet.

My inducement to this enterprise was the
spectacle of very inferior rubbish palmed off by
so-called popular novelists such as Honbles
Kipling, Joshua Barrie, Antony Weyman,
Stanley Hope, and the collaborative but
feminine authoresses of "The Red Thumb in
the Pottage," all of whom profess (very, very
incorrectly) to give accurate reliable descriptions
of Indian, English or Scotch episodes.

The pity of it, that a magnificent and gullible
British Public should be suckled like a babe on
such spoonmeat and small beer![x]

Would no one arise, inflamed by the pure
enthusiasm of his cacoethes scribendi, and write
a romance which shall secure the plerophory
of British, American, Anglo-Indian, Colonial,
and Continental readers by dint of its imaginary
power and slavish fidelity to Nature?

And since Echo answered that no one replied
to this invitation, I (like a fool, as some will
say) rushed in where angels were apprehensive
of being too bulky to be borne.

Being naturally acquainted with gentlemen
of my own nationality and education, and also,
of course, knowing London and suburban
society ab ovo usque ad mala (or, from the
new-laid egg to the stage when it is beginning
to go bad), I decided to take as my theme the
adventures of a typically splendid representative
of Young India on British soil, and I am in
earnest hopes to avoid the shocking solecisms
and exaggerations indulged in by ordinary
English novelists.

I have been compelled to take to penmanship
of this sort owing to pressure of res angusta[xi]
domi, the immoderate increase of hostages to
fortune, and proportionate falling off of emoluments
from my profession as Barrister-at-Law.

Therefore, I hope that all concerned will
smile favourably upon my new departure, and
will please kindly understand that, if my
English literary style has suffered any deterioration,
it is solely due to my being out of
practice, and such spots on the sun must be
excused as mere flies in ointment.

After forming my resolution of writing a
large novel, I confided it to my crony, Mr Ram
Ashootosh Lall, who warmly recommended
me to persevere in such a magnum opus. So
I became divinely inflated periodically every
evening from 8 to 12 P.M., disregarding all
entreaties from feminine relatives to stop and
indulge in a blow-out on ordinary eatables,
like Archimedes when Troy was captured,
who was so engrossed in writing prepositions
on the sand that he was totally unaware that
he was being barbarously slaughtered.[xii]

And at length my colossal effusion was
completed, and I had written myself out; after
which I had the indescribable joy and felicity
to read my composition to my mothers-in-law
and wives and their respective progenies and
offspring, whereupon, although they were not
acquainted with a word of English, they were
overcome by such severe admiration for my
fecundity and native eloquence that they
swooned with rapture.

I am not a superstitious, but I took the trouble
to consult a soothsayer, as to the probable
fortunes of my undertaking, and he at once
confidently predicted that my novel was to
render all readers dumb as fishes with sheer
amazement and prove a very fine feather in
my cap.

For all the above reasons, I am modestly
confident that it will be generally recognised
as a masterpiece, especially when it is remembered
that it is the work of a native Indian,
whose 'prentice hand is still a novice in wielding
the currente calamo of fiction.[xiii]

I cannot conclude without some allusion to
the drawings which are, I believe, to adorn
my work, but which I have not yet been
enabled to inspect, owing to the fact that,
having fish of more importance to fry at the
time, I commissioned a certain young English
friend (the same who furnished sundry poetic
headings for chapters) to engage a designer
for the pictorial department.

Needless to say, I intended that he was to
award the apple only to some Royal Academician
of distinguished talents—yet at the
eleventh hour, when too late to make other
arrangements, I am informed that the job has
been entrusted to a certain Birnadhur Pahtridhji,
whose name (though probably incorrectly
transcribed) certainly denotes a draughtsman
of native Indian origin!

Whether he is fully competent for such a
task I cannot at present say. But, unless he
is qualified, like myself, by actual residence
in Great Britain, I fear that he may not possess
sufficient familiarity with the customs and[xiv]
solecisms of English society to avoid at least
a few ludicrous and even lamentable mistakes.

To guard against such contingencies I shall
insert a note or comment opposite each picture
as it is submitted to me, pointing out in what
respects (if any) the artist has failed to represent
the author's intentions.

I sincerely hope that I may now and then
be able to pat the aforesaid Mr P. on the back
instead of acting as a Rhadamanthus to rap
his knuckles.[1]

A BAYARD FROM BENGAL

CHAPTER I

FROM CALCUTTA TO CAMBRIDGE OVERSEA ROUTE

THE waves of Neptune erected their
seething and angry crests to incredible
altitudes; overhead in fuliginous storm-clouds
the thunder rumbled its terrific bellows, and
from time to time the ghastly flare of lightning
illuminated the entire neighbourhood.
The tempest howled like a lost dog through
the cordage of the good ship Rohilkund
(Captain O. Williams), which lurched through
the vasty deep as though overtaken by the
drop too much.[2]

At one moment her poop was pointed towards
celestial regions; at another it aimed
itself at the recesses of Davey Jones's locker;
and such was the fury of the gale that only a
paucity of the ship's passengers remained perpendicular,
and Mr Chunder Bindabun Bhosh
was recumbent on his beam end, prostrated by
severe sickishness, and hourly expecting to
become initiated in the Great Secret.

Bitterly did he lament his hard lines in
venturing upon the Black Water, to be snipped
off in the flower of his adolescence, and never
again to behold the beloved visages of his
relations!

So heartrending were his tears and groans
that they moved all on board, and Honble
Mr Commissioner Copsey, who was returning
on leave, kindly came to inquire the cause of
such vociferous lachrymation.

"What is the matter, Baboo?" began the
Commissioner in paternal tones. "Why are
you kicking up the shindy of such a deuce's
own hullabaloo?"[3]

"Because, honble Sir," responded Mr
Bhosh, "I am in lively expectation that
waters will rush in and extinguish my vital
spark."

"Pooh!" said Mr Commissioner, genially.
"This is only the moiety of a gale, and there
is not the slightest danger."

Having received this assurance, Mr Bhosh's
natural courage revived, and, coming up on
deck, he braved the tempest with the cool
composure of a cucumber, admonishing all
his fellow-passengers that they were not to
give way to panic, seeing that Death was
the common lot of all, and, though everyone
must die once, it was an experience that
could not be repeated, with much philosophy of
a similar kind which astonished many who had
falsely supposed him to be a pusillanimous.

The remainder of the voyage was uneventful,
and, soon after setting his feet on
British territory, Mr Bhosh became an alumnus
and undergraduate of the Alma Mater
of Cambridge.[4]

I shall not attempt to relate at any great
length the history of his collegiate career,
because, being myself a graduate of Calcutta
University, I am not, of course, proficient in
the customs and etiquettes of any rival seminaries,
and should probably make one or
two trivial slips which would instantly be
pounced upon and held up for derision by
carping critics.

So I shall content myself with mentioning
a few leading facts and incidents. Mr
Bhosh very soon wormed himself into the
good graces of his fellow college boys, and
his principal friend and fidus Achates was a
young high-spirited aristocrat entitled Lord
Jack Jolly, the only son of an earl who
had lately been promoted to the dignity of a
baronetcy.

Lord Jolly and Mr Bhosh were soon as
inseparable as a Dæmon and Pythoness, and,
though no nabob to wallow in filthy lucre,
Mr Bhosh gave frequent entertainments to
his friends, who were hugely delighted by[5]
the elegance of his hospitality and the garrulity
of his conversation.

Unfortunately the fame of these Barmecide
feasts soon penetrated the ears of the College
gurus, and Mr Bhosh's Moolovee sent for him
and severely reprimanded him for neglecting
to study for his Littlego degree, and squandering
his immense abilities and talents on mere
guzzling.

Whereupon Mr Bhosh shed tears of contrition,
embracing the feet of his senile tutor,
and promising that, if only he was restored
to favour he would become more diligent in
future.

And honourably did he fulfil this nudum
pactum, for he became a most exemplary bookworm,
burning his midnight candle at both
ends in the endeavour to cram his mind with
belles lettres.

But he was assailed by a temptation which
I cannot forbear to chronicle. One evening
as he was poring over his learned tomes, who
should arrive but a deputation of prominent[6]
Cambridge boatmen and athletics, to entreat him
to accept a stroke oar of the University eight
in the forthcoming race with Oxford College!

This, as all aquatics will agree, was no small
compliment—particularly to one who was so
totally unversed in wielding the flashing oar.
But the authorities had beheld him propelling
a punt boat with marvellous dexterity by dint
of a paddle, and, taking the length of his foot
on that occasion, they had divined a Hercules
and ardently desired him as a confederate.

Mr Bhosh was profoundly moved: "College
misters and friends," he said, "I welcome this
invitation with a joyful and thankful heart, as
an honour—not to this poor self, but to Young
India. Nevertheless, I am compelled by Dira
Necessitas to return the polite negative. Gladly
I would help you to inflict crushing defeat
upon our presumptuous foe, but 'I see a hand
you cannot see that beckons me away; I
hear a voice you cannot hear that wheezes
"Not to-day!"' In other words, gentlemen,
I am now actively engaged in the Titanic[7]
struggle to floor Littlego. It is glorious to
obtain a victory over Oxonian rivals, but,
misters, there is an enemy it is still more
glorious to pulverize, and that enemy is—one's
self!"

The deputation then withdrew with falling
crests, though unable to refrain from admiring
the firmness and fortitude which a mere Native
student had nilled an invitation which to most
European youths would have proved an irresistible
attraction.

Nor did they cherish any resentment against
Mr Bhosh, even when, in the famous inter-collegiate
race of that year from Hammersmith to
Putney, Cambridge was ingloriously bumped,
and Oxford won in a common canter.[8]

CHAPTER II

HOW MR BHOSH DELIVERED A DAMSEL FROM A DEMENTED COW

MR Bhosh's diligence at his books
was rewarded by getting through his
Little-go with such éclat that he was admitted
to become a baccalaureate, and further presented
with the greatest distinction the Vice-Chancellor
could bestow upon him, viz., the
title of a Wooden Spoon!

But here I must not omit to narrate a
somewhat startling catastrophe in which Mr
Bhosh figured as the god out of machinery.
It was on an afternoon before he went up[9]
to pass his Little-go exam, and, since all
work and no play is apt to render any Jack
a dull, he was recreating himself by a solitary
promenade in some fields in the vicinity of
Cambridge, when suddenly his startled ears
were dumbfounded to perceive the blood-curdling
sound of loud female vociferations!

On looking up from his reverie, he was
horrified by the spectacle of a young and
beauteous maiden being vehemently pursued
by an irate cow, whose reasoning faculties
were too obviously, in the words of Ophelia,
"like sweet bells bangled," or, in other words,
non compos mentis, and having rats in her
upper story!

The young lady, possessing the start and
also the advantage of superior juvenility, had
the precedence of the cow by several yards,
and attained the umbrageous shelter of a tree
stem, behind which she tremulously awaited
the arrival of her blood-thirsty antagonist.

As he noted her jewel-like eyes, profuse
hair, and panting bosom, Mr Bhosh's triangle[10]
of flesh[A] was instantaneously ignited by love
at first sight (the intelligent reader will
please understand that the foregoing refers
to the maiden and not at all to the cow,
which was of no excessive pulchritude—but
I am not to be responsible for the ambiguities
of the English language).

There was not a moment to be squandered;
Mr Bhosh had just time to recommend her
earnestly to remain in statu quo, before setting
off to run ventre à terre in the direction
whence he had come. The distracted animal,
abandoning the female in distress, immediately
commenced to hue-and-cry after our hero,
who was compelled to cast behind him his
collegiate cap, like tub to a whale.

The savage cow ruthlessly impaled the cap
on one of its horns, and then resumed the
chase.

Mr Bhosh scampered for his full value,
but, with all his incredible activity, he had
the misery of feeling his alternate heels
[11]scorched by the fiery snorts of the maniacal
quadruped.

Then he stripped from his shoulders his
student's robe, relinquishing it to the tender
mercies of his ruthless persecutress while he
nimbly surmounted a gate. The cow only
delayed sufficiently to rend the garment into
innumerable fragments, after which it cleared
the gate with a single hop, and renewed the
chase after Mr Bhosh's stern, till he was
forced to discard his ivory-headed umbrella
to the animal's destroying fury.

This enabled him to gain the walls of the
town and reach the bazaar, where the whole
population was in consternation at witnessing
such a shuddering race for life, and made
themselves conspicuous by their absence in
back streets.

Mr Bhosh, however, ran on undauntedly,
until, perceiving that the delirious creature
was irrevocably bent on running him to
earth, he took the flying leap into the
shop of a cheese merchant, where he cleverly[12]
entrenched himself behind the receipt of
custom.

With the headlong impetuosity of a distraught
the cow followed, and charged the
barrier with such insensate fury that her
horns and appertaining head were inextricably
imbedded in a large tub of margarine
butter.

At this our hero, judging that the wings
of his formidable foe were at last clipped,
sallied boldly forth, and, summoning a police-officer,
gave the animal into custody as a
disturber of the peace.

By such coolness and savoir faire in a
distressing emergency he acquired great kudos
in the eyes of all his fellow-students, who
regarded him as the conquering hero.

Alas and alack! when he repaired to the
field to receive the thanks and praises of the
maiden he had so fortunately delivered, he
had the mortification to discover that she had
vanished, and left not a wreck behind her!
Nor with all his endeavours could he so much
[13]as learn her name, condition, or whereabouts,
but the remembrance of her manifold charms
rendered him moonstruck with the tender
passion, and notwithstanding his success in
flooring the most difficult exams, his bosom's
lord sat tightly on its throne, and was not to
jump until he should again (if ever) confront
his mysterious fascinator.

GAVE THE ANIMAL INTO CUSTODY AS A DISTURBER OF THE PEACE

Having emerged from the shell of his statu
pupillari under the fostering warmth of his
Alma Mater, Mr Bhosh next proceeded as a
full-fledged B.A. to the Metropolis, and became
a candidate for forensic honours at one of the
legal temples, lodging under the elegant roof
of a matron who regarded him as her beloved
son for Rs. 21 per week, and attending lectures
with such assiduity that he soon acquired a
nodding acquaintance with every branch of
jurisprudence.

And when he went up for Bar Exam., he
displayed his phenomenal proficiency to such
an extent that the Lord Chancellor begged
him to accept one of the best seats on the[14]
Judges' bench, an honour which, to the best
of this deponent's knowledge and belief, has
seldom before been offered to a raw tyro, and
never, certainly, to a young Indian student.
However, with rare modesty Mr Bhosh
declined the offer, not considering himself
sufficiently ripe as yet to lay down laws, and
also desirous of gathering roses while he
might, and mixing himself in first-class English
societies.

I am painfully aware that such incidents
as the above will seem very mediocre and
humdrum to most readers, but I shall request
them to remember that no hero can achieve
anything very striking while he is still a
hobbardehoy, and that I cannot—like some
popular novelists—insult their intelligences
by concocting cock-and-bull occurrences which
the smallest exercise of ordinary commonsense
must show to be totally incredible.

By and bye, when I come to deal with Mr
Bhosh's experiences in the upper tenth of
London society, with which I may claim to[15]
have rather a profound familiarity, I will boldly
undertake that there shall be no lack of
excitement.

Therefore, have a little patience, indulgent
Misters![16]

CHAPTER III

THE INVOLUNTARY FASCINATOR

MR Bhosh was very soon enabled to
make his debût as a pleader, for the
Mooktears sent him briefs as thick as an
Autumn leaf in Vallambrosa, and, having on
one occasion to prosecute a youth who had
embezzled an elderly matron, Mr Bhosh's
eloquence and pathos melted the jury into a
flood of tears which procured the triumphant
acquittal of the prisoner.

But the bow of Achilles (which, as Poet
Homer informs us, was his only vulnerable[17]
point) must be untied occasionally, and accordingly
Mr Bhosh occasionally figured as
the gay dog in upper-class societies, and
was not long in winning a reputation in smart
circles as a champion bounder.

For he did greet those he met with a
pleasant, obsequious affability and familiarity,
which easily endeared him to all hearts. In
his appearance he would—but for a somewhat
mediocre stature and tendency to a precocious
obesity—have strikingly resembled the well-known
statuary of the Apollo Bellevue, and
he was in consequence inordinately admired
by aristocratic feminines, who were enthralled
by the fluency of his small talk, and competed
desperately for the honour of his company at
their "Afternoon-At-Home-Teas."

It was at one of these exclusive festivities
that he first met the Duchess Dickinson,
and (as we shall see hereafter) that meeting
took place in an evil-ominous hour for our
hero. As it happened, the honourable highborn
hostess proposed a certain cardgame[18]
known as "Penny Napkin," and fate decreed
that Mr Bhosh should sit contiguous to the
Duchess's Grace, who by lucky speculations
was the winner of incalculable riches.

But, hoity toity! what were his dismay
and horror, when he detected that by her
legerdemain in double-dealing she habitually
contrived to assign herself five pictured cards
of leading importance!

How to act in such an unprecedented
dilemma? As a chivalrous, it was repugnant to
him to accuse a Duchess of sharping at cards,
and yet at the same time he could not stake
his fortune against such a foregone conclusion!

So he very tactfully contrived by engaging
the Duchess's attention to substitute his card-hand
for hers, and thus effect the exchange
which is no robbery, and she, finally observing
his finesse, and struck by the delicacy with
which he had so unostentatiously rebuked her
duplicity, earnestly desired his further acquaintance.

For a time Mr Bhosh, doubtless obeying[19]
one of those supernatural and presentimental
monitions which were undreamt of in the
Horatian philosophy, resisted all her advances—but
alas! the hour arrived in which he
became as Simpson with Delilah.

It was at the very summit of the Season,
during a brilliantly fashionable ball at the
Ladbroke Hall, Archer Street, Bayswater,
whither all the élites of tiptop London Society
had congregated.

Mr Bhosh was present, but standing apart,
overcome with bashfulness at the paucity of
upper feminine apparel and designing to take
his premature hook, when the beauteous
Duchess in passing surreptitiously flung over
him a dainty nosehandkerchief deliciously
perfumed with extract of cherry blossoms.

With native penetration into feminine coquetries
he interpreted this as an intimation
that she desired to dance with him, and,
though not proficient in such exercises, he
made one or two revolutions round the room
with her co-operation, after which they retired[20]
to an alcove and ate raspberry ices and drank
lemonade. Mr Bhosh's sparkling tittle-tattle
completely achieved the Duchess's conquest,
for he possessed that magical gift of the gab
which inspired the tender passion without any
connivance on his own part.

And, although the Duchess was no longer
the chicken, having attained her thirtieth lustre,
she was splendidly well preserved; with huge
flashing eyes like searchlights in a face resembling
the full moon; of tall stature and
proportionate plumpness; most young men
would have been puffed out by pride at
obtaining such a tiptop admirer.

Not so our hero, whose manly heart was
totally monopolised by the image of the fair
unknown whom he had rescued at Cambridge
from the savage clutches of a horned cow, and
although, after receiving from the Duchess a
musk-scented postal card, requesting his company
on a certain evening, he decided to keep
the appointed tryst, it was only against his
will and after heaving many sighs.[21]

On reaching the Duchess's palace, which
was situated in Pembridge Square, Bayswater,
he had the mortification to perceive that he
was by no means the only guest, since the
reception halls were thickly populated by
gilded worldlings. But the Duchess advanced
to greet him in a very kind, effusive manner,
and, intimating that it was impossible to converse
with comfort in such a crowd, she led
him to a small side-room, where she seated
him on a couch by her side and invited him to
discourse.

Mr Bhosh discoursed accordingly, paying
her several high-flown compliments by which
she appeared immoderately pleased, and discoursed
in her turn of instinctive sympathies,
until our hero was wriggling like an eel with
embarrassment at what she was to say next,
and at this point Duke Dickinson suddenly
entered and reminded his spouse in rather
abrupt fashion that she was neglecting her
remaining guests.

After the Duchess's departure, Mr Bhosh,[22]
with the feelings of an innate gentleman, felt
constrained to make his sincere apologies to
his ducal entertainer for having so engrossed
his better half, frankly explaining that she had
exhibited such a marked preference for his
society that he had been deprived of all
option in the matter, further assuring his
dukeship that he by no means reciprocated
the lady's sentiments, and delicately recommending
that he was to keep a rather more
lynxlike eye in future upon her proceedings.

To which the Duke, greatly agitated, replied
that he was unspeakably obliged for the caution,
and requested Mr Bhosh to depart at once and
remain an absentee for the future. Which our
friend cheerfully undertook to perform, and, in
taking leave of the Duchess, exhorted her, with
an eloquence that moved all present, to abandon
her frivolities and levities and adopt a deportment
more becoming to her matronly exterior.

The reader would naturally imagine that she
would have been grateful for so friendly and
well-meant a hint—but oh, dear! it was quite[23]
the reverse, for from a loving friend she was
transformed into a bitter and most unscrupulous
enemy, as we shall find in forthcoming chapters.

Truly it is not possible to fathom the perversities
of the feminine disposition![24]

CHAPTER IV

A KICK FROM A FRIENDLY FOOT

MR Bhosh's bosom-friend, the Lord
Jack Jolly, had kindly undertaken to
officiate as his Palinurus and steer him safely
from the Scylla to the Charybdis of the
London Season, and one day Lord Jolly
arrived at our hero's apartments as the bearer
of an invite from his honble parent the Baronet,
to partake of tiffin at their ancestral abode in
Chepstow Villas, which Bindabun gratefully
accepted.

Arrived at the Jollies' sumptuous interior, a
numerous retinue of pampered menials and
gilded flunkies divested Mr Bhosh of his hat[25]
and umbrella and ushered him into the hall of
audience.

"Bhosh, my dear old pal," said Lord Jack,
"I have news for you. I am engaged as a
Benedict, and am shortly to celebrate matrimony
with a young goodlooking female—the
Princess Petunia Jones."

"My lord," replied Mr Bhosh, "suffer me
to hang around your patrician neck the floral
garland of my humble congratulations."

"My dear Bhosh," responded the youthful
peer of the realm, "I regard you as more than
a brother, and am confident that when my
betrothed beholds your countenance, she will
conceive for you a similar lively affection. But
hush! here she comes to answer for herself....
Princess, permit me to present to you the
best and finest friend I possess, Mr Bindabun
Bhosh."

Mr Bhosh modestly lowered his optics as
he salaamed with inimitable grace, and it was
not until he had resumed his perpendicular that
he recognised in the Princess Jones the charming[26]
unknown whom he had last beheld engaged
in repelling the assault of a distracted cow!

Their eyes were no sooner crossed than he
knew that she regarded him as her deliverer,
and was consumed by the most ardent affection
for him. But Mr Bhosh repressed himself with
heroic magnanimity, for he reflected that she
was the affianced of his dearest friend and that
it was contrary to bon ton to poach another's
jam.

So he merely said; "How do you do? It
is a very fine day. I am delighted to make
your acquaintance," and turning on his heels
with a profound curtsey, he left her flabbergasted
with mortification.

But those only who have compressed their
souls in the shoe of self-sacrifice know how
devilishly it pinches, and Mr Bhosh's grief
was so acute that he rolled incessantly on his
couch while the radiant image of his divinity
danced tantalisingly before his bloodshot
vision.

Eventually he became calmer, and after[27]
plunging his fervid body into a foot-bath, he
showed himself once more in society, assuming
an air of meretricious waggishness to conceal
the worm that was busily cankering his
internals, and so successful was he that Lord
Jack was entirely deceived by his vis comica,
and invited him to spend the Autumn up the
country with his respectable parents.

Mr Bhosh accepted—but when he knew
that Princess Petunia was also to be one of the
amis de la maison, he was greatly concerned at
the prospect of infallibly reviving her love by
his propinquity, and thereby inflicting the cup
of calamity on his best friend. Willingly
would he have imparted the whole truth to his
Lordship and counselled him to postpone the
Princess's visit until he, himself, should have
departed—but, ah me! with all his virtue he
was not a Roman Palladium that he should
resist the delight of philandery with the
radiant queen of his soul. So he kept his
tongue in his cheek.

However, when they met in the ancient and[28]
rural castle he constrained himself, in conversing
with her, to enlarge enthusiastically upon the
excellences of Lord Jack. "What a good,
ripping, gentlemanly fellow he was, and how
certain to make a best quality husband!"
Princess Jones listened to these encomiums with
tender sighing, while her soft large orbs rested
on Mr Bhosh with ever-increasing admiration.

No one noticed how, after these elephantine
efforts at self-denial, he would silently slip
away and weep salt and bitter tears as he
weltered dolefully on a doormat; nor was it
perceived that the Princess herself was become
thin as a weasel with disappointed love.

Being the ardent sportsman, Mr Bhosh
sought to drown his sorrow with pleasures of
the chase.

He would sally forth alone, with no other
armament than a breechloading rifle, and
endeavour to slay the wild rabbits which
infested the Baronet's domains, and sometimes
he had the good fortune to slaughter one or
two. Or he would take a Rod and hooks and a
few worms, and angle for salmons; or else he
would stalk partridges, and once he even
assisted in a foxhunt, when he easily outstripped
all the dogs and singly confronted
Master Reynard, who had turned to bay
savagely at his nose. But Bindabun undauntedly
descended from his horse, and,
drawing his hunting dagger, so dismayed the
beast by his determined and ferocious aspect
that it turned its tail and fled into some other
part of the country, which earned him the
heartfelt thanks from his fellow Nimrods.

DISMAYED THE BEAST BY HIS DETERMINED AND FEROCIOUS ASPECT

Naturally, such feats of arms as these only
served to inflame the ardour of the Princess,
to whom it was a constant wonderment that
Mr Bhosh did never, even in the most roundabout
style, allude to the fact that he had
saved her life from perishing miserably on the
pointed horn of an enraged cow.

She could not understand that the Native
temperament is too sheepishly modest to flaunt
its deeds of heroism.

Those who are au fait in knowledge of the
world are aware that when there are combustibles
concealed in any domestic interior, there
is always a person sooner or later who will
contrive to blow them off; and here, too, the
Serpent of Mischief was waiting to step in with
cloven hoof and play the very deuce.

It so happened that the Duchess occupied
the adjacent bungalow to that of Baronet Jolly
and his lady, with whom she was hail-fellow-well-met,
and this perfidious female set herself
to ensnare the confidence of the young and
innocent Princess by discreetly lauding the
praises of Mr Bhosh.

"What an admirable Indian Crichton!
How many rabbits and salmons had he laid
low that week? Truly, she regarded him as
a favourite son, and marvelled that any youthful
feminine could prefer an ordinary peer like
Lord Jolly to a Native paragon who was not
only a university B.A., but had successfully
passed Bar Exam!" and so forth and so on.

The princess readily fell into this insidious
booby-trap, and confessed the violence of her
attachment, and how she had striven to acquaint
Mr Bhosh with her sentiments but was rendered
inarticulate by maidenly bashfulness.

"Can you not then slip a love-letter into his
hand?" inquired the Duchess.

"Cui bono?" responded the Princess, sadly.
"Seeing that he never approaches near enough
to me to receive such a missive, and I dare
not entrust it to one of my maidens!"

"Why not to Me?" said the Duchess. "He
will not refuse it coming from myself; moreover,
I have influence over him and will soften
his heart towards thee."

Accordingly the Princess indicted a rather
impassioned love-letter, in which she assured
Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret
passion and fully reciprocated it, also that she
was the total indifferent to Lord Jack, with
much other similar matters.

Having obtained possession of this litera
scripta, what does the unscrupulous Duchess
next but deliver it impromptu into the hands
of Lord Jack, who, after perusing it, was
overcome by uncontrollable wrath and instantaneously
summoned our hero to his presence.

Here was the pretty kettle of fish—but
I must reserve the sequel for the next
chapter.

[29]

CHAPTER V

THE DUEL TO THE DEATH

NO sooner had Mr Bhosh obeyed the
summons of Lord Jack, than the latter
not only violently reproached him for having
embezzled the heart of his chosen bride, but
inflicted upon him sundry severe kicks from
behind, barbarously threatening to encore the
proceeding unless Chunder instantaneously
agreed to meet him in a mortal combat.

Our hero, though grievously hurt, did not
abandon his presence of mind in his tight
fix. Seating himself upon a divan, so as to
obviate any repetition of such treatment, he[34]
thus addressed his former friend: "My dear
Jack, Plato observes that anger is an abbreviated
form of insanity. Do not let us fall
out about so mere a trifle, since one friend is
the equivalent of many females. Is it my
fault that feminines overwhelm me with unsought
affections? Let us both remember
that we are men of the world, and if you on
your side will overlook the fact that I have unwittingly
fascinated your fiancée, I, on mine,
am ready to forget my unmerciful kickings."

But Lord Jolly violently rejected such a
give-and-take compromise, and again declared
that if Mr Bhosh declined to fight he was to
receive further kicks. Upon this Chunder
demanded time for reflection; he was no
bellicose, but he reasoned thus with his soul:
"It is not certain that a bullet will hit—whereas,
it is impossible for a kick to miss
its mark."

So, weeping to find himself between a deep
sea and the devil of a kicking, he accepted
the challenge, feeling like Imperial Cæsar,[35]
when he found himself compelled to climb
up a rubicon after having burnt his boots!

Being naturally reluctant to kick his brimming
bucket of life while still a lusty juvenile,
Mr Bhosh was occupied in lamenting the injudiciousness
of Providence when he was most
unexpectedly relieved by the entrance of his
lady-love, the Princess Jones, who, having
heard that her letter had fallen into Lord
Jack's hands, and that a sanguinary encounter
would shortly transpire, had cast off every
rag of maidenly propriety, and sought a clandestine
interview.

She brought Bindabun the gratifying intelligence
that she was a persona grata with
his lordship's seconder, Mr Bodgers, who was
to load the deadly weapons, and who, at her
request, had promised to do so with cartridges
from which the bullets had previously been
bereft.

Such a piece of good news so enlivened
Mr Bhosh, that he immediately recovered his
usual serenity, and astounded all by his perfect[36]
nonchalance. It was arranged that the tragical
affair should come off in the back garden of
Baronet Jolly's castle, immediately after breakfast,
in the presence of a few select friends
and neighbours, among whom—needless to say—was
Princess Petunia, whose lamp-like optics
beamed encouragement to her Indian champion,
and the Duchess of Dickinson, who was
now the freehold tenement of those fiendish
Siamese twins—Malice and Jealousy. At
breakfast, Mr Bhosh partook freely of all
the dishes, and rallied his antagonist for
declining another fowl-egg, rather wittily suggesting
that he was becoming a chicken-hearted.
The company then adjourned to
the garden, and all who were non-combatants
took up positions as far outside the zone of
fire as possible.

Mr Bhosh was rejoiced to receive from
the above-mentioned Mr Bodgers a secret
intimation that it was the put-up job, and
little piece of allright, which emboldened
him to make the rather spirited proposal[37]
to his lordship, that they were to fire—not
at the distance of one hundred paces, as
originally suggested—but across the more
restricted space of a nosekerchief. This
dare-devilish proposal occasioned a universal
outcry of horror and admiration; Mr Bhosh's
seconder, a young poor-hearted chap, entreated
him to renounce his plan of campaign, while
Lord Jack and Mr Bodgers protested that
it was downright tomfolly.

Chunder, however, remained game to his
backbone. "If," he ironically said, "my
honble friend prefers to admit that he is inferior
in physical courage to a native Indian
who is commonly accredited with a funky
heart, let him apologise. Otherwise, as a
challenged, I am the Master of the Ceremonies.
I do not insist upon the exchange
of more than one shoot—but it is the sine
quâ non that such shoot is to take place
across a nosewipe."

Upon which his lordship became green as
grass with apprehensiveness, being unaware[38]
that the cartridges had been carefully sterilised,
but glueing his courage to the sticky point,
he said, "Be it so, you bloodthirsty little
beggar—and may your gore be on your own
knob!"

"It is always barely possible," retorted Mr
Bhosh, "that we may both miss the target!"
And he made a secret motion to Mr Bodgers
with his superior eyeshutter, intimating that
he was to remember to omit the bullets.

But lackadaisy! as Poet Burns sings, the
best-laid schemes both of men and in the
mouse department are liable to gang aft—and
so it was in the present instance, for
Duchess Dickinson intercepted Chunder Bindabun's
wink and, with the diabolical intuition
of a feminine, divined the presence of a rather
suspicious rat. Accordingly, on the diaphanous
pretext that Mr Bodgers was looking
faintish and callow, she insisted on applying
a very large smelling-jar to his nasal organ.

Whether the vessel was charged with salts
of superhuman potency, or some narcotic drug,[39]
I am not to inquire—but the result was that,
after a period of prolonged sternutation, Mr
Bodgers became impercipient on a bed of
geraniums.

Thereupon Chunder, perceiving that he had
lost his friend in court, magnanimously said:
"I cannot fight an antagonist who is unprovided
with a seconder, and will wait until
Mr Bodgers is recuperated." But the honourable
and diabolical duchess nipped this arrangement
in the bud. "It would be a pity,"
said she, "that Mr Bhosh's fiery ardour should
be cooled by delay. I am capable to load a
firearm, and will act as Lord Jolly's seconder."

Our hero took the objection that, as a feminine
was not legally qualified to act as seconder
in mortal combats, the duel would be rendered
null and void, and appealed to his own seconder
to confirm this obiter dictum.

Unluckily the latter was a poor beetlehead
who was in excessive fear of offending the
Duchess, and gave it as his opinion that sex
was no disqualification, and that the Duchess[40]
of Dickinson was fully competent to load the
lethal weapons, provided that she knew how.

Whereupon she, regarding Mr Bhosh with
the malignant simper of a fiend, did not only
deliberately fill each pistol-barrel with a bullet
from her own reticule bag, but also had the
additional diablerie to extract a miniature laced
mouchoir exquisitely perfumed with cherry-blossoms,
and to say, "Please fire across this.
I am confident that it will bring you good
luck."

And Mr Bhosh recognised with emotions
that baffle description the very counterpart
of the nose-handkerchief which she had flung
at him months previously at the aforesaid
fashionable Bayswater Ball! Now was our
poor miserable hero indeed up the tree of
embarrassment—and there I must leave him
till the next chapter.[41]

CHAPTER VI

LORD JOLLY IS SATISFIED

MANY a more hackneyed duellist than
our unfortunate friend Bhosh might
well have been frightened from his propriety
at the prospect of fighting with genuine bullets
across so undersized a nosekerchief as that
which the Duchess had furnished for the fray.

But Mr Bhosh preserved his head in perfect
coolness: "It is indisputably true," he said,
"that I proposed to shoot across a pocketkerchief—but
I am not an effeminate female
that I should employ such a lacelike and flimsy
concern as this! As a challenged, I claim my[42]
constitutional right under Magna Charta to
provide my own nosewipe."

And, as even my Lord Jack admitted that
this was legally correct, Mr Bhosh produced
a very large handsome nosekerchief in parti-coloured
silks.

This he tore into narrow strips, the ends of
which he tied together in such a manner that
the whole was elongated to an incredible length.
Then, tossing one extremity to his lordship,
and retaining the other in his own hand, he
said: "We will fight, if you please, across this—or
not at all!"

Which caused a working majority of the
company, and even Lord Jack Jolly himself,
to burst into enthusiastic plaudits of the ingenuity
and dexterity with which Mr Bhosh
had contrived to extricate himself from the
prongs of his Caudine fork.

The Duchess, however, was knitting her
brows into the baleful pattern of a scowl—for
she knew as well as Chunder Bindabun
himself that no human pistol was capable
[43]to achieve such a distance! The duel commenced.
His lordship and Mr Bhosh each
removed their upper clothings, bared their
arms, and, taking up a weapon, awaited the
momentous command to fire.

THE BULLET HAD PERFORATED A LARGE CIRCULAR ORIFICE IN HONBLE BODGER'S HAT

It was pronounced, and Lord Jolly's pistol
was the first to ring the ambient welkin with
its horrid bang. The deadly missile, whistling
as it went for want of thought, entered the
door of a neighbouring pigeon's house and
fluttered the dovecot confoundedly.

Mr Bhosh reserved his fire for the duration
of two or three harrowing seconds. Then he,
too, pulled off his trigger, and after the
explosion there was a loud cry of dismay.

The bullet had perforated a large circular
orifice in Honble Bodger's hat, who, by this
time, had returned to self-consciousness!

"I could not bring myself to snuff the candle
of your honble lordship's existence," said Mr
Bhosh, bowing, "but I wished to convince all
present that I am not incompetent to hit a
mark."[44]

And he proceeded to assure Mr Bodger that
he was to receive full compensation for any
moral and intellectual damage done to his said
hat.

As for his lordship, he was so overcome by
Mr Bhosh's unprecedented magnanimity that
he shed copious tears, and, warmly embracing
his former friend, entreated his forgiveness,
vowing that in future their affection should
never again be endangered by so paltry and
trivial a cause as the ficklety of a feminine.
Moreover, he bestowed upon Bindabun the
blushing hand of Princess Jones, and very
heartily wished him joy of her.

Now the Princess was the solitary brat of a
very wealthy merchant prince, Honble Sir
Monarch Jones, whose proud and palatial
storehouses were situated in the most fashionable
part of Camden Town.

Sir Jones, in spite of Lord Jack's resignation,
did not at first regard Mr Bhosh with the
paternal eye of approval, but rather advanced
the objection that the colour of his money was[45]
practically invisible. "My daughter," he said
haughtily, "is to have a lakh of rupees on her
nuptials. Have you a lakh of rupees?"

Bindabun was tempted to make the rather
facetious reply that he had, indeed, a lack of
rupees at the present moment.

Sir Monarch, however, like too many English
gentlemen, was totally incapable of comprehending
the simplest Indian jeu des mots, and
merely replied. "Unless you can show me
your lakh of rupees, you cannot become my
beloved son-in-law."

So, as Mr Bhosh was a confirmed impecunious,
he departed in severe despondency.
However, fortune favoured him, as always, for
he made the acquaintance of a certain Jewish-Scotch,
whose cognomen was Alexander
Wallace M^cAlpine, and who kindly undertook
to lend him a lakh of rupees for two days at
interest which was the mere bite of a flea.

Having thus acquired the root of all evil,
Bindabun took it in a four-wheeled cab and
triumphantly exhibited his hard cash to Sir[46]
Jones, who, being unaware that it was borrowed
plumage, readily consented that he should
marry his daughter. After which Mr Bhosh
honourably restored the lakh to the accommodating
Scotch minus the interest, which he
found it inconvenient to pay just then.

I am under great apprehensions that my
gentle readers, on reading thus far and no
further, will remark: "Oho! then we are
already at the finis, seeing that when a hero
and heroine are once booked for connubial
bliss, their further proceedings are of very
mediocre interest!"

Let me venture upon the respectful caution
that every cup possesses a proverbially slippery
lip, and that they are by no means to take it as
granted that Mr Bhosh is so soon married and
done for.

Remember that he still possesses a rather
formidable enemy in Duchess Dickinson, who
is irrevocably determined to insert a spike in
his wheel of fortune. For a woman is so
constituted that she can never forgive an[47]
individual who has once treated her advances
with contempt, no matter how good-humoured
such contempt may have been. No, misters,
if you offend a feminine you must look out for
her squalls.

Readers are humbly requested not to toss
this fine story aside under the impression that
they have exhausted the cream in its cocoanut.
There are many many incidents to come of
highly startling and sensational character.[48]

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNWIELDY GIFTHORSE

IN accordance with English usages, Mr
Bhosh, being now officially engaged to
the fair Princess Jones, did dance daily
attendance in her company, and, she being
passionately fond of equitation, he was compelled
himself to become the Centaur and
act as her cavalier servant on a nag which
was furnished throughout by a West End
livery jobber. Fortunately, he displayed such
marvellous dexterity and skill as an equestrian
that he did not once sustain a single reverse!

Truly, it was a glorious and noble sight to[49]
behold Bindabun clinging with imperturbable
calmness to the saddle of his steed, as it
ambled and gamboled in so spirited a manner
that all the fashionables made sure that he
was inevitably to slide over its tail quarters!
But invariably he returned, having suffered
no further inconvenience than the bereavement
of his tall hat, and the heart of Princess
Petunia was uplifted with pride when she
saw that her betrothed, in addition to being
a B.A. and barrister-at-law, was also such a
rough rider.

It is de rigueur in all civilised societies to
encourage matrimony by bestowing rewards
upon those who are about to come up to the
scratch of such holy estate, and consequently
splendid gifts of carriage, timepieces, tea-caddies,
slices of fish, jewels, blotter-cases,
biscuit-caskets, cigar-lights, and pin-cushions
were poured forth upon Mr Bhosh and his
partner, as if from the inexhaustibly bountiful
horn of a Pharmacopœia.

Last, but not least, one morning appeared[50]
a saice leading an unwieldy steed of the complexion
of a chestnut, and bearing an anonymously-signed
paper, stating that said horse
was a connubial gift to Mr Bhosh from a
perfervid admirer.

Our friend Bindabun was like to throw his
bonnet over the mills with excessive joy, and
could not be persuaded to rest until he had
made a trial trip on his gifted horse, while
the amiable Princess readily consented to
become his companion.

So, on a balmy and luscious afternoon in
Spring, when the mellifluous blackbirds,
sparrows, and other fowls of that ilk were
engaged in billing and cooing on the foliage
of innumerable trees and bushes, and the
blooming flowers were blowing proudly on
their polychromatic beds, Mr Bhosh made the
ascension of his gift-horse, and titupped by
the side of his betrothed into the Row, the
observed of all the observing masculine and
feminine smarties.

But, hoity-toity! he had not titupped very
[51]many yards when the unwieldy steed came
prematurely to a halt and adopted an unruly
deportment. Mr Bhosh inflicted corporal
punishment upon its loins with a golden-headed
whip, at which the rebellious beast
erected itself upon its hinder legs until it
was practically a biped.

THE CANTANKEROUS STEED EXECUTED A LEAP WITH ASTOUNDING AGILITY

Bindabun, although at the extremity of his
wits to preserve his saddle by his firm hold
on the bridle-rein, undauntedly aimed a swishing
blow at the head and front of the offending
animal, which instantaneously returned its
forelegs to terra firma, but elevated its latter
end to such a degree that our hero very
narrowly escaped sliding over its neck by
cleverly clutching the saddleback.

Next, the cantankerous steed executed a
leap with astounding agility, arching its back
like a bow, and propelling our poor friend
into the air like the arrow, though by providential
luck and management on his part
he descended safely into his seat after every
repetition of this dangerous manœuvre.[52]

All things, however, must come to an end
at some time, and the unwieldy quadruped at
last became weary of leaping and, securing
the complete control of his bit, did a bolt
from the blue.

Willy nilly was Mr Bhosh compelled to
accompany it upon its mad, unbridled career,
while all witnesses freely hazarded the conjecture
that his abduction would be rather
speedily terminated by his being left behind,
and I will presume to maintain that a less
practical horseman would long before have
become an ordinary pedestrian.

But Bindabun, although both stirrupholes
were untenanted, and he was compelled to
hold on to his steed's mane by his teeth and
nails, nevertheless remained triumphantly in
the ascendant.

On, on he rushed, making the entire circumference
of the Park in his wild, delirious
canter, and when the galloping horse once
more reappeared, and Mr Bhosh was perceived
to be still snug on his saddle, the[53]
spectators were unable to refrain from heartfelt
joy.

A second time the incorrigible courser
careered round the Park on his thundering
great hoofs, and still our heroic friend preserved
his equilibrium—but, heigh-ho! I
have to sorrowfully relate that, on his third
circuit, it was the different pair of shoes—for
the headstrong animal, abstaining from
motion in a rather too abrupt manner, propelled
Mr Bhosh over its head with excessive
velocity into the elegant interior of a victoria-carriage.

He alighted upon a great dame who had
maliciously been enjoying the spectacle of his
predicament, but who now was forced to
experience the crushing repartee of his tu
quoque, for such a forcible collision with his
person caused her not only two blackened
optics but irremediable damage to the leather
of her nose.

The pristine beauty of her features was
irrecoverably dismantled, while Mr Bhosh[54]—thanks
to his landing on such soft and yielding
material—remained intact and able to return
to his domicile in a fourwheeled cab.

Beloved reader, however sceptical thou
mayest be, thou wilt infallibly admire with
me the inscrutable workings of Nemesis, when
thou learnest that the aforesaid great lady
was no other than the Duchess of Dickinson,
and (what is still more wonderful) that it was
she who had insidiously presented him with
such a fearful gift of the Danaides as an
obstreperous and unwieldy steed!

Truly, as poet Shakespeare sagaciously
observes, there is a divinity that rough-hews
our ends, however we may endeavour to
preserve their shapeliness![55]

CHAPTER VIII

A RIGHTABOUT FACER FOR MR BHOSH

THOSE who are au faits in the tortoise
involutions of the feminine disposition
will hear without astonishment that Duchess
Dickinson—so far from being chastened and
softened by the circumstance that the curse
she had launched at Mr Bhosh's head had
returned, like an illominous raven, to roost
upon her own nose and irreparably destroy
its contour—was only the more bitterly
incensed against him.[56]

Instead of interring the hatchet that had
flown back, as if it were that fabulous volatile
the boomerang, she was in a greater stew than
ever, and resolved to leave no stone unturned
to trip him up. But what trick to play, seeing
that all the honours were in Mr Bhosh's hands?

She could not officiate as Marplot to discredit
him in the affections of his ladylove,
since the Princess was too severely enamoured
to give the loan of her ear to any sibillations
from a snake in grass.

How else, then, to hinder his match? At
this she was seized with an idea worthy of
Maccaroni himself. She paid a complimentary
visit to the Princess, arrayed in the sheepish
garb of a friend, and contrived to lure the
conversation on to the vexed question of
prying into futurity.

Surely, she artfully suggested, the Princess
at such a momentous epoch of her existence
had, of course, not neglected the sensible
precaution of consulting some competent
soothsayer respecting the most propitious day[57]
for her nuptials with the accomplished Mr
Bhosh?...

What, had she omitted to pop so important
a question? How incredibly harebrained!
Fortunately, there was yet time to do the
needful, and she herself would gladly volunteer
to accompany the Princess on such an
errand.

Princess Petunia fell a ready victim into the
jaws of this diabolical booby-trap and inquired
the address and name of the cleverest necromancer,
for it is matter of notoriety that
London ladies are quite as superstitious and
addicted to working the oracle as their native
Indian sisters.

The Duchess replied that the Astrologer-Royal
was a facile princeps at uttering a
prediction, and accordingly on the very next
day she and the Princess, after disguising
themselves, set forth on the summit of a
tramway 'bus to the Observatory Temple of
Greenwich, where, after first propitiating the
prophet by offerings, they were ushered into a[58]
darkened inner chamber. Although they were
strictly pseudo, he at once informed them of
their genuine cognomens, and also told them
much concerning their past of which they had
hitherto been ignorant.

And to the Princess he said, stroking the
long and silvery hairs of his beard, "My
daughter, I foresee many calamities which will
inevitably befall thee shouldest thou marry
before the day on which the bridegroom wins
a certain contest called the Derby with a horse
of his own."

The gentle Petunia departed melancholy as
a gib cat, since Mr Bhosh was not the happy
possessor of so much as a single racing-horse
of any description, and it was therefore not
feasible that he should become entitled to wear
the cordon bleu of the turf in his buttonhole on
his wedding day!

With many sighs and tears she imparted her
piece of news to the horror-stricken ears of our
hero, who earnestly assured her that it was
contrary to commonsense and bonos mores, to
[59]attach any importance to the mere ipse dixit of
so antiquated a charlatan as the Astrologer-Royal,
who was utterly incapable—except at
very long intervals—to bring about even such
a simple affair as an eclipse which was visible
from his own Observatory!

'MY DAUGHTER, I FORESEE MANY CALAMITIES WHICH WILL INEVITABLY BEFALL THEE'

However, the Princess, being a feminine,
was naturally more prone to puerile credulities,
and very solemnly declared that nothing would
induce her to kneel by Mr Bhosh's side at the
torch of Hymen until he should first have
distinguished himself as a Derby winner.

Whereat Mr Bhosh, perceiving that the date
of his nuptial ceremony was become a dies non
in a Grecian calendar, did wring his hands in
a bath of tears.

Alas! he was totally unaware that it was his
implacable enemy, the Duchess Dickinson, who
had thus upset his apple-cart of felicity—but so
it was, for by a clandestine bribe, she had
corrupted the Astrologer-Royal—a poor, weak,
very avaricious old chap—to trump out such a
disastrous prediction.[60]

Some heroes in this hard plight would have
thrown up the leek, but Mr Bhosh was stuffed
with sterner materials. He swore a very long
oath by all the gods that he had ceased to
believe in, that sooner or later, by crook or
hook, he would win the Derby race, though
entirely destitute of horseflesh and very ill
able to afford to purchase the most mediocre
quadruped.

Here some sporting readers will probably
object! Why could he not enlist his unwieldy
gifthorse among Derby candidates and so
hoist the Duchess on the pinnacle of her own
petard?

To which I reply: Too clever by halves,
Misters! Imprimis, the steed in question was
of far too ferocious a temperament (though
undeniably swift-footed) ever to become a
favourite with Derby judges; secondly, after
dismounting Mr Bhosh, it had again taken to
its heels and departed into the Unknown, nor
had Mr Bhosh troubled himself to ascertain its
private address.[61]

But fortune favours the brave. It happened
that Mr Bhosh was one day promenading down
the Bayswater Road when he was passed by a
white horse drawing a milk chariot with unparalleled
velocity, outstripping omnibuses,
waggons, and even butcher-carts in its wind-like
progress, which was unguided by any
restraining hand, for the milk-charioteer himself
was pursuing on foot.

His natural puissance in equine affairs
enabled Mr Bhosh to infer that the steed
which could cut such a record when handicapped
with a cumbrous dairy chariot would
exhibit even greater speed if in puris naturalibus,
and that it might even not improbably
carry off first prize in the Derby race.

So, as the milk-charioteer ran up, overblown
with anxiety, to learn the result of his horse's
escapade, Mr Bhosh stopped him to inquire
what he would take for such an animal.

The dairy-vendor, rather foolishly taking it
for granted that horse and cart were gone
concerns, thought he was making the good[62]
stroke of business in offering the lot for a
twenty-pound note.

"I have done with you!" cried Mr Bhosh
sharply, handing over the purchase-money,
which he very fortunately chanced to have
about him, and galloping off to inspect his
bargain, which was like buying a pig after
once poking it in the ribs.

In what condition he found it I must leave
you to learn, my dear readers, in an ensuing
chapter.[63]

CHAPTER IX

THE DARK HORSE

WE left Mr Bhosh in full pursuit of
the runaway horse and milk-chariot
which he had so spiritedly purchased while
still en route. After running a mile or two,
he was unspeakably rejoiced to find that the
equipage had automatically come to a standstill[64]
and was still in prime condition—with
the exception of the lacteal fluid, which had
made its escape from the pails.

Bindabun, however, was not disposed to
weep for long over spilt milk, and had the
excessive magnanimity to restore the chariot
and pails to the dairy merchant, who was
beside himself with gratitude.

Then, Mr Bhosh, with a joyful heart,
having detached his purchase from the shafts,
conducted it in triumph to his domicile. It
turned out to be a mare, white as snow and
of marvellous amiability; and, partly because
of her origin, and partly from her complexion,
he christened her by the appellation of
Milky Way.

Although perforce a complete ignoramus
in the art of educating a horse to win any
equine contest, Mr Bhosh's nude commonsense
told him that the first step was to
fatten his rather too filamentous pupil with
corn and similar seeds, and after a prolonged
course of beanfeasts he had the gratification[65]
to behold his mare filling out as plump as a
dumpling.

As he desired her to remain the dark
horse as long as possible, he concealed her
in a small toolshed at the end of the garden,
ministering to her wants with his own hands,
and conducting her for daily nocturnal constitutionals
several times round the central
grass-patch.

For some time he refrained from mounting—"fain
would he climb but that he feared to
fall," as Poet Bunyan once scratched with a
diamond on Queen Anne's window; but at
length, reflecting that if nothing ventures
nothing is certain to win, he purchased a
padded saddle with appendages, and surmounted
Milky Way, who, far from regarding
him as an interloper, appeared gratified
by his arrival, and did her utmost to make
him feel thoroughly at home.

The next step was, of course, to obtain
permission from the pundits who rule the
roast of the Jockey Club, that Milky Way[66]
might be allowed to compete in the approaching
Derby.

Now this was a more delicately ticklish
matter than might be supposed, owing to the
circumstance that the said pundits are such
warm men, and so well endowed with this
world's riches that they are practically non-corruptible.

Fortunately, Mr Bhosh, as a dabster in
English composition, was a pastmaster in
drawing a petition, and, sitting down, he
constructed the following:—

To Those Most Worshipful Bigheads In control of Jockeys Club.

Benign Personages!

This Petition humbly sheweth:

1. That your Petitioner is a native Indian Cambridge B.A., a
   Barrister-at-law, and a most loyal and devoted subject of Her
   Majesty the Queen-Empress.
   


2. That it is of excessive importance to him, for private[67]
   reasons, that he should win a Derby Race.


3. That such a famous victory would be eminently popular with all
   classes of Indian natives, and inordinately increase their affection
   for British rule.


4. That for some time past your Petitioner has been diligently
   training a quadruped which he fondly hopes may gain a victory.


5. That said quadruped is a member of the fair sex.


6. That she is a female horse of very docile disposition, but,
   being only recently extracted from shafts of dairy chariot, is a
   total neophyte in Derby racing.


7. That your lordships may direct that she is to be kindly
   permitted to try her luck in this world-famous competition.


8. That it would greatly encourage her to exhibit topmost speed if
   [68]she could be allowed to start running a few minutes previously to
   older stagers.


9. That if this is unfortunately contrary to regulations, then the
   Judge should receive secret instructions to look with a favourable
   eye upon the said female horse (whose name is Milky Way) and award
   her first prize, even if by any chance she may not prove quite so
   fast a runner as more professional hacks:
   

   And your Petitioner will ever pray on bended knees that so truly
   magnificent an institution as the Epsom Derby Course may never be
   suppressed on grounds of encouraging national vice of gambling and
   so forth. Signed, &c.

The wording of the above proved Mr
Bhosh's profound acquaintance with the human
heart, for it instantaneously attained the desired
end.

The Honble Stewards returned a very kind[69]
answer, readily consenting to receive Milky
Way as a candidate for Derby honours, but
regretting that it was ultra vires to concede
her a few minutes' start, and intimating that
she must start with a scratch in company with
all the other horses.

Bindabun was not in the least degree cast
down or depressed by this refusal of a start,
since he had not entertained any sanguine
hope that it would be granted, and had only
inserted it to make insurance doubly sure, for
he was every day more confident that Milky
Way was to win, even though obliged to step
off with the rank and file.[70]

CHAPTER X

TRUST HER NOT! SHE IS FOOLING THEE!

Now that our hero had obtained that
the name of Milky Way was to be
inscribed on the Golden Book of Derby candidates,
his next proceeding was to hire a
practical jockey to assume supreme command
of her.

And this was no simple matter, since practical
jockeys are usually hired many weeks
beforehand, and demand handsome wages for
taking their seats. But at last, after protracted
advertisements, Mr Bhosh had the
good fortune to pitch upon a perfect treasure,[71]
whose name was Cadwallader Perkin,
and who, for his riding in some race or other,
had been awarded a whole year's holiday by
the stewards who had observed the paramountcy
of his horsemanship.

No sooner had Perkin inspected Milky
Way than he was quite in love with his
stable companion, and assured his employer
that, with more regular out-of-door exercise,
she would be easily competent to win the
Derby on her head, whereupon Mr Bhosh
consented that she should be galloped after
dark round the inner circle of Regent's Park,
which is chiefly populated at such a time by
male and female bicyclists.

But in order to pay Perkins charges, and
also provide a silken jockey tunic and cap
of his own racing colours (which were cream
and sky-blue), Mr Bhosh was compelled to
borrow more money from Mr M^cAlpine, who,
as a Jewish Scotch, exacted the rather exorbitant
interest of sixty per centum.

It leaked out in some manner that Milky[72]
Way was a coming Derby favourite, and the
property of a Native young Indian sportsman,
whose entire fortunes depended on her
success, and soon immense multitudes congregated
in Regent's Park to witness her
trials of speed, and cheered enthusiastically
to behold the fiery sparks scintillating from
the stones as she circumvented the inner
circle in seven-leagued boots.

Mr Bhosh of course asseverated that she
was a very mediocre sort of mare, and that
he did not at all expect that she would prove
a winner, but connoisseurs nevertheless betted
long odds upon her success, and Bindabun
himself, though not a speculative, did put on
the pot himself upon the golden egg which
he was so anxiously hatching.

One evening amongst those who were
gathered to view the nocturnal exercises of
Milky Way there appeared a feminine spectator
of rather sinister aspect, in a thick veil
and a victoria-carriage.

It was no other than Duchess Dickinson,[73]
who had somehow learnt how courageously
Mr Bhosh was endeavouring to fulfil the
Astrologer-Royal's prediction, and who had
come to ascertain whether his mare was
indeed such a paragon of celerity as had
been represented.

The very first time that Milky Way cantered
past with the gait of a streak of lightning,
the Duchess realised with a sinking
heart that Mr Bhosh must indubitably succeed
at the Derby—unless he was prevented.

But how to achieve this? Her womanly
instinct told her that Cadwallader Perkin was
far too inexperienced to resist for long such
mature and ripened charms as hers—even
though the latter were unfortunately discounted
by the accidental nose-flattening.

So, lowering her veil till only her eyes were
visible above, she waited till he passed once
more, then flung him such a liquid and flashing
glance from her starry and now no longer
discoloured optics that the young jockey, who
was of an excessively susceptible disposition,[74]
all but fell off the saddle with emotion, like a
very juvenile bird under serpentine observation.

"He is mine!" said the unscrupulous Duchess
internally, laughing up her sleeve at such a
proof of her fascinations, "mine! mine!"

She had too much intelligence and mother-wit,
however, to take any steps until Mr Bhosh
should be safely out of the way—and how to
accomplish his removal?

As an acquaintance with the above-mentioned
usurer, M^cAlpine, she was aware that he had
advanced large loans to Mr Bhosh, and so she
laid her plans and bided her time.

There soon remained only one day before
that carnival of all sporting saturnalians, the
Epsom Derby day, and Bindabun formed the
prudent resolution to avoid any delays or
crushings by putting Milky Way into a railway
box, and despatching her to Epsom on the
previous afternoon, under the chaperonage of
Cadwallader Perkin, who was to engage suitable
lodgings for her in the vicinity of the
course.[75]

But just as Bindabun was approaching the
booking hole of Victoria terminus to take a
horse-ticket, lo and behold! he was rapped
on the shoulder by a couple of policemen, who
civilly inquired whether his name was not
Bhosh.

He replied that it was, and that he was the
lucky proprietor of a female horse who was
infallibly destined to win the Derby, and that
he was even now proceeding to purchase her
travelling ticket. But the policemen insisted
that he must first discharge the full amount
of his debt and costs to Mr M^cAlpine, who
had commenced a law-suit.

"It is highly inconvenient to pay now,"
replied our hero, "I will settle up after receiving
my Derby Stakes."

"We are infernally sorry," said the constables,
"but we have instructions to imprison
you until the amount is stumped up, and anything
you say now will be taken down and used
against you at your trial."

Mr Bhosh remained sotto voce; and as he[76]
was being led off with gyves upon his wrists,
like Aram the usher, whom should he behold
but the Duchess of Dickinson!

Like all truly first-class heroes, he was of a
generous, confiding nature, and his head was
not for a moment entered by the suspicion that
the Duchess could still cherish any ill feelings
towards him. "I am sincerely sorry," he said
with good-humoured gallantry, "to observe
that your ladyship's nose-leather is still in such
bad repair. I was riding a rather muscular
steed that afternoon, and could not thoroughly
control my movements."

She suavely responded that she was proud
to have been the means of breaking his
fall.

"Not only my fall—but your own nose!"
retorted Mr. Bhosh sympathetically. "A sad
pity! Fortunately, at your time of life such
disfigurements are of no consequence. I,
myself, am now in the pretty pickle."

And he explained how he had been arrested
for debt, at the very moment when he had an[77]
appointment to meet his mare and jockey and
see them safely off by the Epsom train.

"Do not trouble about that," said the
Duchess. "Hand me your purse, and I myself
will meet them and do the needful on your
behalf. I have interest with this Mr
M^cAlpine and will intercede that you are let
out immediately."

Mr Bhosh kissed her hand as he handed
over his said purse. "This is, indeed, a noble
return for my coldheartedness," he said, "and
I am even more sorry than before that I
should have involuntarily dilapidated so exquisite
a nose."

"Pray do not mention it," replied the
Duchess, with the baleful simper of a Sphynx,
and Mr Bhosh departed for his durance vile
with a mind totally free from misgivings.[78]

CHAPTER XI

STONE WALLS DO NOT MAKE A CAGE

AND now, O gentle and sympathetic
reader, behold our unfortunate hero
confined in the darkest bowels of the Old
Bailey Dungeon, for the mere crime of being
an impecunious!

Yes, misters, in spite of all your boasted love
of liberty and fresh air, imprisonment for debt
is still part of the law of the land! How long
will you deafen your ears to the pitiable cry of
the bankrupt as he pleads for the order of his[79]
discharge? Perhaps it has been reserved for
a native Indian novelist to jog the elbow of
so-called British jurisprudence, and call its
attention to such a shocking scandal.

Mr Bhosh found his prison most devilishly
dull. Some prisoners have been known to
beguile their captivity by making pets or
playmates out of most unpromising materials.
For instance, and exempli gratia, Mr Monty
Christo met an abbey in his dungeon, who
gave him a tip-top education; Mr Picciola
watered a flower; the Prisoner of Chillon
made chums of his chains; while Honble
Bruce, as is well-known, succeeded in taming
a spider to climb up a thread and fall down
seven times in succession.

But Mr Bhosh had no spider to amuse him,
and the only flowers growing in his dungeon
were toadstools, which do not require to be
watered, nor did there happen to be any abbey
confined in the Old Bailey at the time.

Nevertheless, he was preserved from despair
by his indomitable native chirpiness. For[80]
was not Milky Way a dead set for the Derby,
and when she came out at the top of the pole,
would he not be the gainer of sufficient untold
gold to pay all his debts, besides winning the
hand of Princess Petunia?

He was waited upon by the head gaoler's
daughter, a damsel of considerable pulchritude
by the name of Caroline, who at first regarded
him askance as a malefactor.

But, on learning from her parent that his
sole offence was insuperable pennilessness, her
tender heart was softened with pity to behold
such a young gentlemanly Indian captive
clanking in bilboes, and soon they became
thick as thieves.

Like all the inhabitants of Great Britain,
her thoughts were entirely engrossed with the
approaching Derby Race, and she very innocently
narrated how it was matter of common
knowledge that a notorious grandame, to wit
the fashionable Duchess of Dickinson, had
backed heavily that Milky Way was to fail
like the flash of a pan.[81]

Whereupon Mr Bhosh, recollecting that he
had actually entrusted his invaluable mare
with her concomitant jockey to the mercy of
this self-same Duchess, was harrowed with
sudden misgivings.

By shrewd cross-questions he soon eliminated
that Mr M^cAlpine was a pal of the
Duchess, which she had herself admitted at the
Victoria terminus, and thus by dint of penetrating
instinct, Mr Bhosh easily unravelled
the tangled labyrinth of a hideous conspiracy,
which caused him to beat his head vehemently
against the walls of his cell at the thought of
his utter impotentiality.

Like all feminines who were privileged to
make his acquaintance, Miss Caroline was
transfixed with passionate adoration for Bindabun,
whom she regarded as a gallant and
illused innocent, and resolved to assist him to
cut his lucky.

To this end she furnished him with a file
and a silken ladder of her own knitting—but
unfortunately Mr Bhosh, having never before[82]
undergone incarceration, was a total neophyte
in effecting his escape by such dangerous and
antiquated procedures, which he firmly declined
to employ, urging her to sneak the
paternal keybunch and let him out at daybreak
by some back entrance.

And, not to crack the wind of this poor
story while rendering it as short as possible,
she yielded to his entreaties and contrived to
restore him to the priceless boon of liberty the
next morning at about 5 A.M.

Oh, the unparalleled raptures of finding
himself once more free as a bird!

It was the dawn of the Derby Day, and Mr
Bhosh precipitated himself to his dwelling,
intending to array himself in all his best and
go down to Epsom, where he was in hopes of
encountering his horse. Heyday! What
was his chagrin to see his jockey, Cadwallader
Perkin, approach with streaming eyes, fling
himself at his master's feet and implore him to
be merciful!

"How comes it, Cadwallader," sternly inquired[83]
Mr Bhosh, "that you are not on the
heath of Epsom instead of wallowing like
this on my shoes?"

"I do not know," was the whimpered response.

"Then pray where is my Derby favourite,
Milky Way?" demanded Bindabun.

"I cannot tell," wailed out the lachrymose
juvenile. Then, after prolonged pressure, he
confessed that the Duchess had met him at
the station portals, and, on the plea that there
was abundance of spare time to book the mare,
easily persuaded him to accompany her to the
buffet of Refreshment-room.

There she plied him with a stimulant which
jockeys are proverbially unable to resist, viz.,
brandy-cherries, in such profusion that he
promptly became catalyptic in a corner.

When he returned to sobriety neither the
Duchess nor the mare was perceptible to his
naked eye, and he had been searching in vain
for them ever since.

It was the time not for words, but deeds,[84]
and Mr Bhosh did not indulge in futile
irascibility, but sat down and composed a
reply wire to the Clerk of Course, Epsom,
couched in these simple words: "Have you
seen my Derby mare?—Bhosh."

After the suspense of an hour the reply
came in the discouraging form of an abrupt
negative, upon which Mr Bhosh thus addressed
the abashed Perkin: "Even should I recapture
my mare in time, you have proved yourself unworthy
of riding her. Strip off your racing
coat and cap, and I will engage some more
reliable equestrian."

The lad handed over the toggery, which
Bindabun stuffed, being of very fine silken
tissue, into his coat pocket, after which he
hurried off to Victoria in great agitation to
make inquiries.

There the officials treated his modest requests
in very off-handed style, and he was
becoming all of a twitter with anxiety and
humiliation, when, mirabile dictu! all of a
sudden his ears were regaled by the well-known[85]
sound of a whinny, and he recognised
the beloved voice of Milky Way!

But whence did it proceed? He ran to and
fro in uncontrollable excitement, endeavouring
to locate the sound. There was no trace of a
horse in any of the waiting-rooms, but at
length he discovered that his mare had been
locked up in the Left-Luggage department, and,
summoning a porter, Mr Bhosh had at last the
indescribable felicity to embrace his kidnapped
Derby favourite Milky Way![86]

CHAPTER XII

A RACE AGAINST TIME

AH! with what perfervid affection did Mr
Bhosh caress the neck of his precious
horse! How carefully he searched her to
make sure that she had sustained no internal
poisonings or other dilapidations!

Thank goodness! He was unable to detect
any flaw within or without—the probability
being that the crafty Duchess did not dare to
commit such a breach of decorum as to poison
a Derby favourite, and thought to accomplish
her fell design by leaving the mare as lost
luggage and destroying the ticket-receipt.[87]

But old Time had already lifted the glass to
his lips, and the contents were rapidly running
down, so Mr Bhosh, approaching a railway
director, politely requested him to hook a
horse-box on to the next Epsom train.

What was his surprise to hear that this could
not be done until all Derby trains had first
absented themselves! With passionate volubility
he pleaded that, if such a law of Medes
and Persians was to be insisted on, Milky Way
would infallibly arrive at Epsom several hours
too late to compete in the Derby race, in which
she was already morally victorious—until at
length the official relented, and agreed to do
the job for valuable consideration in hard cash.

Lackadaisy! after excavating all his pockets,
our unhappy hero could only fork out wherewithal
enough for third-class single ticket for
himself, and he accordingly petitioned that his
mare might travel as baggage in the guard's van.

I am not to say whether the officials at this
leading terminus were all in the pay of the
Duchess, since I am naturally reluctant to[88]
advance so serious a charge against such
industrious and talented parties, but it is nem.
con. that Mr Bhosh's very reasonable request
was nilled in highly offensive cut-and-dried
fashion, and he was curtly recommended to
walk himself and his horse off the platform.

Que faire? How was it humanly possible
for any horse to win the Derby race without
putting in an appearance? And how was
Milky Way to put in her appearance if she
was not allowed access to any Epsom train?
A less wilful and persevering individual than
Mr Bhosh would have certainly succumbed
under so much red-tapery, but it only served
to arouse Bindabun's monkey.

"How far is the distance to Epsom?" he
inquired.

"Fourteen miles," he was answered.

"And what o'clock the Derby race?"

"About one P.M."

"And it is now just the middle of the day!"
exclaimed Bindabun. "Very well, since it
seems Milky Way is not to ride in the railway,
[89]she shall cover the distance on shank's mare,
for I will ride her to Epsom in propriâ
personâ!"

THE ROAD WAS CHOCKED FULL WITH EVERY DESCRIPTION OF CONVEYANCE

So courageous a determination elicited loud
cheers from the bystanders, who cordially
advised him to put his best legs foremost as he
mounted his mettlesome crack, and set off with
broken-necked speed for Epsom.

I must request my indulgent readers to
excuse this humble pen from depicting the
horrors of that wild and desperate ride. Suffice
it to say that the road was chocked full with
every description of conveyance, and that Mr
Bhosh was haunted by two terrible apprehensions,
viz., that he might meet with some
shocking upset, and that he should arrive the
day after the fair.

As he urged on his headlong career, he was
constantly inquiring of the occupants of the
various vehicles if he was still in time for the
Derby, and they invariably hallooed to him
that if he desired to witness the spectacle he
was to buck himself up.[90]

Mr Bhosh bucked himself up to such good
purpose that, long before the clock struck one,
his eyes were gladdened by beholding the
summit of Epsom grand stand on the distant
hill-tops.

Leaning himself forward, he whispered in
the shell-like ear of Milky Way: "Only one
more effort, and we shall have preserved both
our bacons!"

But, alas! he had the mortification to perceive
that the legs of Milky Way were
already becoming tremulous from incipient
grogginess.

And now, beloved reader, let me respectfully
beg you to imagine yourself on the Epsom
Derby Course immediately prior to the grand
event. What a marvellous human farrago!
All classes hobnobbing together higgledy-piggledy;
archbishops with acrobats; benchers
with bumpkins; counts with candlestickmakers;
dukes with druggists; and so on through the
entire alphabet. Some spectators in carriages;[91]
others on terra firma; flags flying; bands
blowing; innumerable refreshment tents rearing
their heads proudly into the blue
Empyrean; policemen gazing with smiling
countenances on the happy multitudes when
not engaged in running them in.

Now they are conducting the formality of
weighing the horses, to see if they are qualified
as competitors for the Derby Gold Cup,
and each horse, as it steps out of the balancing
scales and is declared eligible, commences to
prance jubilantly upon the emerald green turf.

(N.B.-The writer of above realistic description
has never been actually present at any
Derby Race, but has done it all entirely from
assiduous cramming of sporting fictions. This
is surely deserving of recognition from a
generous public!)

Now follows a period of dismay—for Milky
Way, the favourite of high and low, is suddenly
discovered to be still the dark horse! The
only person who exhibits gratification is the
Duchess Dickinson, who makes her entrance[92]
into the most fashionable betting ring and,
accosting a leading welsher, cries in exulting
accents: "I will bet a million to a monkey
against Milky Way!"

Even the welsher himself is appalled by the
enormity of such a stake and earnestly counsels
the Duchess to substitute a more economical
wager, but she scornfully rejects his well-meant
advice, and with a trembling hand he inscribes
the bet in his welching book.

No sooner has he done so than the saddling
bell breaks forth into a joyous chime, and the
crowd is convulsed by indescribable emotions.
"Huzza! huzza!" they shout. "Welcome to
the missing favourite, and three cheers for
Milky Way!"

The Duchess had turned as pale as a witch,
for, galloping along the course, she beholds Mr
Bhosh, bereft of his tall hat and covered with
perspiration and dust, on the very steed which
she fondly hoped had been mislaid among the
left luggage![93]

CHAPTER XIII

A SENSATIONAL DERBY STRUGGLE

THE Duchess, seeing that her plot was
foiled by the unexpected arrival of
Mr Bhosh, made the frantic endeavour to
hedge herself behind another bet of a million
sterling to a monkey that Milky Way was to
come off conqueror—but in vain, since none
of the welshers would concede such very long
odds.

So, wrapping her features in a veil of
feminine duplicity, she advanced swimmingly
to meet Mr Bhosh. "How lucky that you
have arrived on the neck of time!" she said.[94]
"And you have ridden all the way from town?
Tell me now, would not you and your dear
horse like some refreshment after so tedious
a journey?"

"Madam," said Mr Bhosh, bowing to his
saddle-bow, while his optics remained fixed
upon the Duchess with a withering glare.
"We are not taking any—from your
hands."

This crushing sarcasm totally abashed the
Duchess, who perceived that he had penetrated
her schemes and crept away in discomfiture.

After this incident Milky Way was subjected
to the ordeal of trying her weight, which she
passed with honours. For—very fortunately
as it turned out—the twenty-four hours' starvation
which she had endured as left luggage
had reduced her to the prescribed number of
maunds, which she would otherwise have infallibly
exceeded, since Mr Bhosh, being as
yet a tyro in training Derby cracks, had
allowed her to acquire a superfluous obesity.

Thus once more the machinations of the[95]
Duchess had only benefited the very individual
they were intended to injure!

But it remained necessary to hire a practical
jockey, since Cadwallader Perkin was still
lamenting in dust and ashes at home, so Mr
Bhosh ran about from pillow to post endeavouring
to borrow a rider for Milky
Way.

Owing, probably, to the Duchess's artifices,
he encountered nothing but refusals and pleas
of previous engagement—until, at the end of
the tether of his patience, he said: "Since my
mare cannot compete in a riderless condition,
I myself will assume command and steer her
to victory!"

Upon which gallant speech the entire air
became darkened by clouds of upthrown hats
and shouts of "Bravo, Bindabun!"

But upon this the pertinacious Duchess
lodged the objection that he was not in correct
toggery, and that, even if he still retained his
tall hat, it would be contrary to etiquette to
ride the Derby in a frock coat.[96]

"Where are his racing colours?" she demanded.

"Here!" cried Mr Bhosh, pulling forth the
cream and sky-blue silken jacket and cap from
his pockets, and, discarding his frock coat, he
assumed the garbage of a jockey in the twinkle
of a jiffy.

"I protest," then cried the undaunted
Duchess, "against such cruelty to animals
as racing an overblown mare so soon after
she has galloped from London!"

"Your stricture is just, O humane and distinguished
lady," responded the judge, who
had conceived a violent attachment to Milky
Way and her owner, "and I will willingly
postpone the race for an hour or two until
the horse has recovered her breeze."

"Quite unnecessary!" said Bindabun.
"My mare is not such a weakling as you
imagine, and will be as fit as a flea after
she has imbibed one or two champagne
bottles."

And his prediction was literally fulfilled,[97]
for the champagne soon rendered Milky
Way playful as a kitten. Mr Bhosh ascended
into his saddle; the other horses were drawn
up in single rank; the starter brandished his
flag—and the curtain rose on such a race as
has, perhaps, never been equalled in the annals
of the Derby.

The rival cracks were named as follows:——Topsy
Turvey, Poojah, Brandy Pawnee,
Tiffin Bell, Tripod, Cui Bono, British Jurisprudence
and Roseate Smell. The betting
was even on the field.

Poojah was a large tall horse with a nude
tail, but excessively nimble; Tripod, on the
contrary, was a small cob of sluggish habits
and needing to be constantly pricked; Tiffin
Bell was a piebald of goodly proportions;
and Roseate Smell was of same sex as
Milky Way, though more vixenish in
character.

Not long after the start Mr Bhosh was
chagrined to discover that he was all behindhand,
and he almost despaired of overtaking[98]
any of his fore-runners. Moreover, he was
already oppressed by painful soreness, due
to so constantly coming in contact with the
saddle during his ride from London—but "in
for a penny, in for a pound of flesh," and he
plodded on, and soon had the good luck to
recapture some of his lost ground.

It was the old fabulous anecdote of the
Hare and the Tortoise. First of all, Topsy
Turvey was tripped up by a rabbit's hole;
then Roseate Smell leaped the barrier and
joined the spectators, while Tripod sprained
his offside ankle. Gradually Mr Bhosh
passed Brandy Pawnee, Cui Bono, and
British Jurisprudence, until, on arriving at
Tottenham Court Corner, only Tiffin Bell
and Poojah remained in the running.

Tiffin Bell became so discouraged by the
near approach of Milky Way that he
dwindled his pace to a paltry trot, so Mr
Bhosh was easily enabled to defeat him, after
which by Cyclopean efforts he urged his mare
until she and Poojah were cheek by jowl.[99]

For some time it was the dingdong race
between a hammer and tongs!

Still, as the quadrupeds ploughed their
way on, Poojah churlishly refused to give
place aux dames, and Milky Way began to
drop to the rear. Seeing that she was
utterly incompetent to accelerate her speed
and therefore in imminent danger of being
defeated, Chunder Bindabun had the happy
inspiration to make an appeal to the best
feelings of the rival jockey, whose name was
Juggins.

"Juggins!" he wheezed in an agonised
whisper, "I am a poor native Indian, totally
unpractised in Derby riding. Show me some
magnanimous action, and allow Milky Way
to take first prize, Juggins!"

But Mr Juggins responded that he earnestly
desired that Poojah should obtain said prize,
and applied a rather severe whipsmack to his
willing horse.

"My mare is the favourite, Juggins!"
pleaded Mr Bhosh. "By defeating her you[100]
will land yourself in the bad odour of the oi
polloi. Have you considered that, Juggins?"

Juggins's only reply was to administer
more whip-smacks, but Chunder Bindabun
persevered. "Consider my hard case,
Juggins! If I am beaten, I lose both a
placens uxor and the pot of money. If, on
the other hand, I come in first at the head
of the winning pole I promise to share my
entire fortune with you!"

Upon this, the kind-hearted and venial
equestrian relented, warmly protesting that
he would rather be a proxime accessit and
second fiddle than deprive another human
being of all his earthly felicity, and accordingly
he reined in his impetuous courser
with such consummate skill that Milky Way
forged ahead by the length of a nose.

Thus they galloped past the Grand Stand,
and, as Mr Bhosh gazed upwards and
descried the elegant form of the Princess
Petunia standing upon the topmost roof,
he was so exalted with jubilation that he[101]
elevated himself in his stirrups; and waving
his cap in a chivalrous salute, cried out:
"Hip-hip-hip! I am ramping in!"

"Then," I hear the reader exclaim, "it is
all over, and Milky Way is victorious."

Please, my honble friend, do not be so premature!
I have not said that the race was
over. There are still some yards to the
judge's bench, and it is always on the racing
cards that Poojah may prove the winner
after all.

Such inquisitive curiosity shall be duly
satisfied in the next chapter, which is also
the last.[102]

CHAPTER XIV

A GRAND FINISH

ON the summit of the Grand Stand might
have been observed groups of spectators
eagerly awaiting the finish. Conspicuous
amongst them were Princess Petunia (most
sumptuously attired) and her parent, Merchant-prince
Jones; and close by Duke and
Duchess Dickinson, following the classic contest
through binocular glasses.

"Poojah will prove to be the winner!...
No, it is Milky Way!... They are neck
or nothing! It will be a deceased heat!"
exclaimed the excited populaces.

And the beauteous Petunia was as if seated[103]
upon the spike of suspense, since Mr Bhosh's
success was a sine quâ non to their union.
Suddenly came the glad shout: "The
Favourite takes the cake with a canter!"
and Duchess Dickinson became pallid with
anguish, for, rich as she was, she could ill
afford to become the loser of a cool million.

The shout was strictly veracious, for Mr
Bhosh was ruling the roast by half-a-head,
and Poojah was correspondingly behind.
"Macte virtute!" cried Princess Petunia, in
the silvery tones of a highly-bred bell, while
she violently agitated her sun-umbrella: "O
my beloved Bindabun, do not fall behind at
eleven o'clock!"

And, as though in answer to this appeal
(which he did not overhear), she beheld her
triumphant suitor saluting the empress of his
soul with uplifted jockey-cap.

Alack! it was the fatal piece of politeness;
since, to avoid falling off, he was compelled
to moderate the speed of his racer while
performing it, and Juggins, either repenting[104]
his good-nature, or unable any longer to restrain
the impetuosity of Poojah, was carried
first past the winning-pole, Mr Bhosh following
on Milky Way as the bad second!

At this the Princess Petunia emitted a
doleful scream; like Freedom, which, as some
poet informs us, "squeaked when Kockiusko
(a Japanese gentleman) fell," and suspended
her animation for several minutes, while the
Duchess "grinned a horrible ghastly smile,"
as described by Poet Milton in Paradise Lost,
at Mr Bhosh's shocking defeat and her own
gain of a million, though all true sportsmen
present deeply sympathised with our hero
that he should be thus wrecked in sight of
port on account of an ordinary act of courtesy
to a female!

But Mr Bhosh preserved his withers as
unwrung as though he possessed the hide of
a rhinoceros. "Honble Sir," said he, addressing
the Judge, "I humbly beg permission
to claim this Derby race and lodge an
objection against my antagonist."[105]

"On what grounds?" was the naturally
astonished rejoinder.

"On the grounds," deliberately replied
Chunder Bindabun, "that he surreptitiously
did pull his horse's head."

Juggins was too dumbfoundered to reply
to the accusation, and several spectators came
forward to testify that they had personally
witnessed him curbing his steed, and—it
being contrary to the lex non scripta of turf
etiquette to pull at a horse's head when he
is winning—Juggins was very ignominiously
plucked by the Jockey's Club.

The Duchess made the desperate attempt
to argue that, if Juggins was a pot, Mr Bhosh
was a kettle of equally dark complexion, since
he also had reined up before attaining the goal—but
Chunder Bindabun was able easily to
show that he had done so, not with any intention
to forfeit his stakes, but merely to salute his
betrothed, whereas Juggins had pulled to prevent
his horse from achieving the conquest.

So, to Mr Bhosh's inexpressible delight,[106]
the Derby Cup, full as an egg with golden
sovereigns, was awarded to him, and the
notorious blue ribbon was pinned by the judge
upon his proud and heaving bosom.

But, as he was reverting, highly elated, to
the side of his beloved amidst the acclamations
of the multitude, the disreputable Juggins had
the audacity to pluck his elbow and demand
the promised quid pro quo.

"For what service?" inquired Chunder
Bindabun in amazement.

"Why, did you not promise me the moiety
of your fortune, honble Sir," was the reply,
"if I allowed you to be the winner?"

Mr Bhosh was of an exceptionally mild,
just disposition, but such a piece of cheeky
chicanery as this aroused his fiercest indignation
and rendered him cross as two sticks.
"O contemptible trickster!" he said, in terrific
tones, "my promise (as thou knowest well)
was on condition that I was first past the
winning-pole. Whereas—owing to thy perfidy—I
was only the bad second. Do not
[107]attempt to hunt with the hare and run with
hounds. Depart to lower regions!"

THE NOTORIOUS BLUE RIBBON WAS PINNED BY THE JUDGE UPON HIS PROUD
AND HEAVING BOSOM

And Juggins slinked into obscurity with
fallen chops.

Benevolent and forbearing readers, this unassuming
tale is near its finis. Owing to his
brilliant success at the Derby, Mr Bhosh was
now rolling on cash, and, as the prediction
of the Astrologer-Royal was fulfilled, there
was no longer any objection to his union with
the Princess Jones, with whom he accordingly
contracted holy matrimony, and now lives in
great splendour at Shepherd's Bush, since all
his friends earnestly besought him that he
was not to return to India. He therefore
naturalised himself as a full-blooded British,
and further adopted a coat-of-arms from the
Family Herald, with a splendidly lofty crest,
and the motto "Sans Peur et Sans Reproche."
("Not being funky myself, I do not reproach
others with said failing"—free translation.)

But what of the wicked Duchess? I have
to record that, being unable to pay the welsher[108]
her bet of a million pounds, she was solemnly
pronounced a bankruptess and incarcerated
(by a striking instance of the tit-for-tat of
Fate) in the identical Old Bailey cell to which
she had consigned Chunder Bindabun!

And in her case the gaoler's fair daughter,
Miss Caroline, did not exhibit the same
softheartedness. Mr Bhosh and his Princess-bride,
being both of highly magnanimous
idiosyncrasies, for some time visited their
relentless foe in her captivity, carrying her
fruit and flowers and sweets of inexpensive
qualities, but were received in such a cold,
standoffish style that they soon discontinued
such thankless civilities.

As for Milky Way, she is still hale and
flourishing, though she has never since displayed
the phenomenal speed of her first (and
probably her last) Derby race. She may
often be seen in the vicinity of Shepherd's
Bush, harnessed to a small basketchaise, in
which are Mr and Mrs Bhosh and some of
their blooming progenies.[109]

Here, with the Public's kind permission,
we will leave them, and although this trivial
and unpretentious romance can claim no merit
except its undeviating fidelity to nature, I
still venture to think that, for sheer excitement
and brilliancy of composition, &c., it will
be found, by all candid judges, to compare
rather favourably with more showy and meretricious
fictions by overrated English novelists.

End

of

A Bayard From Bengal.

N.B.—I cannot conscientiously recommend the Indulgent Reader to
proceed any further—for reasons which, should he do so, will be
obvious.        
       
       
       
       
H. B. J.

[110]

THE PARABLES OF PILJOSH

FREELY RENDERED INTO ENGLISH FROM THE ORIGINAL STYPTIC WITH INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES

BY

H. B. JABBERJEE, B.A.

INTRODUCTION

I shall begin by begging that it may not
be supposed either that I am the Author
or even the Translator of the appended fables!

The plain truth of the matter is that I am
far indeed from standing agog with amazement
at their literary or other excellences, and
inclined rather to award them the faint damnation
of a very mediocre eulogy.

But it so happens that the actual translator
is the same young English friend who kindly
furnished me with a few selected poetic extracts
for my Society novel, and has earnestly entreated
me (as the quid pro quo!) to compose
an introduction and notes for his own effusion,[112]
alleging that it is a sine quâ non nowadays for
all first class Classics to be issued with introduction,
notes and appendix by some literary
knob—otherwise they speedily become obsolete
and still-born.

Therefore I readily consented to oblige him,
although I am no au fait in the Styptic dialect,
and cannot therefore be held answerable for
the accuracy of my friend's translation, which
he admits himself is of a rather free description.

Of the Philosopher who composed these
Proverbs or Fables little is known, even in his
own country, except that (as all Scholiasts are
aware) he was born on the 1st of April 1450
(old style), and for some years filled the important
and responsible post of Archi-mandrake
of Paraprosdokian. He probably met with a
violent end.

I shall not undertake to provide a note to
every parable, but only in cases where I think
that the Parabolist is not quite as luminous as
the nose on one's face, and needs the services
of an experienced interpreter.

H. B. J.

[113]

The Butterfly visited so many flowers that
she fell sick of a surfeit of nectar. She called
it "Nervous Breakdown."

"Instead of vainly lamenting over those we
have lost," said the young Cuckoo severely,
to the Father and Mother Sparrow, "it seems
to me that you should be rejoicing that I am
still spared to you!"

Note.—A mere plagiaristic adaptation of the trite adage
concerning the comparative values of birds in the hand and in the
bush.—H. B. J.

"I am old enough to be thy Grandfather!"
the Egg informed the Chicken.

"In that case," replied the Chicken, "it is
high time thou bestirredst thyself!"

"Not so!" said the Egg, "since the longer
I remain quiescent, the fitter I shall be for the
career that is destined for me."[114]

"Indeed," inquired the Chicken, "and what
may that be?"

"Politics!" answered the Egg with importance.

And the Chicken pondered long over that
saying.

Note.—I must confess to following the Chicken's precedent,
without arriving at any solution. For, logically, an Egg must be the
junior of any Chicken. And again, even for parabolical purposes, it
is far-fetched to represent an Egg as a potential Member of
Parliament. On the whole, I am not entirely satisfied that my young
friend is so proficient in acquaintance with Cryptic as he has
represented to me.—H. B. J.

There is only one thing that irritateth a
woman more than the man who doth not
understand her, and that is the man who
doth.

A certain Artificer constructed a mechanical
Serpent which was so marvellously natural that
it bit him in the back. "Had I but another
hour to live," he lamented in his last agonies,
"I would have patented the invention!"[115]

The Woman was so determined to be independent
of Man that she voluntarily became
the slave of a Machine.

Note.—I do not understand the meaning of the
Fabulist here.—H. B. J.

"She used to be so fresh; but she is gone
off terribly since I first knew her!" said the
Slug of the Strawberry.

Note.—See my remark on the last parable.—H. B. J.

"Now, I call that downright Plagiarism!"
observed the Ass, when he heard the Lion
roar.

"A cheery laugh goes a long way in this
world!" remarked the Hyena.

"But a bright smile goes further still!" said
the Alligator, as he took him in.

Note.—If the honble Philosopher is censuring here merely the
assumption of hilarity and not ordinary quiet facetiousness, I am
[116]
entirely with him. But I rather regard him as a total deficient in
Humour and fanatically opposed to it in any form.—H. B. J.

"I trust I have now made myself perfectly
clear?" observed the Cuttlefish, after discharging
his ink.

The Cockney was assured that, if he placed
the Sea-shell to his ear, he would hear the
murmur of Ocean.

But all he caught distinctly was the melody
of negro minstrels.

"It is some satisfaction to feel that we have
both been sacrificed in a thoroughly deserving
cause!" said the Brace-button, complacently,
to the Threepenny Bit, as they met in the
Offertory Bag.

Note.—This must be some local allusion, for I
do not know what sort of receptacle an Offertory
Bag may be, or why such articles should be inserted
therein.—H. B. J.

[117]

Mistrust the Bridegroom who appeareth at
his wedding with sticking-plaster on his chin
[or "without sticking-plaster," &c.—the Styptic
is capable of either interpretation.—Trans.].

Note.—Then I will humbly say that it must be a peculiarly elastic
tongue. But in either form the Proverb is meaningless.—H. B. J.

"What!—My Original dead?" cried the
Statue. "Then I have lost all chance of
ever becoming celebrated!"

Note.—This is an obvious mistranslation, since a Statue is only
erected when the Original is already celebrated.—H. B. J.

"What is your favourite Perfume?" they
asked the Hog, and he answered them, "Pigwash."

"How vulgar!" exclaimed the Stoat. "Mine
is Patchouli!"

But the Fox said that, in his opinion, the
less scent one used the better.

Note.—This merely records the well-known physiological fact that
[118]
some persons are born without the olfactory sense. Emperor
Vespasian was accustomed to declare (erroneously) that "pecunia non
olet."—H. B. J.

"I wonder they allow such a cruel contrivance
as that 'Catch 'em alive, oh!' paper!"
said the Spider tearfully, as she sat in her web.

Note.—From this we learn that there may be a soft spot in the

most unpromising quarters. Even Alexander the Great, who spent the

blood of his troops like pocket money, is recorded to have wept at a

review on suddenly reflecting that all his soldiers would probably

be deceased in a hundred years. It is barely possible that Piljosh

may have been a spectator of this incident.—H. B. J.

A certain Pheasant was pluming herself
upon having become a member of the Anti-Sporting
League.

"Softly, friend!" said a wily old Cock, "for,
should this League of thine succeed in its
object, every man's hand would be against us
both by day and night; whereas, at present,
our lives are protected all night by vigilant[119]
keepers, and spared all day by our owner and
his guests, who are incapable of shooting for
nuts!"

Note. —This is a glaring non sequitur and fallacy. I myself
have never shot for nuts—but it does not necessarily follow that
any pheasant would remain intact after I discharged my
rifle-barrel!—H. B. J.

"It is not what we look that signifieth,"
said the Scorpion virtuously, "it is what we
are!"

Note.—True enough—but the moral would have been improved by
attributing the saying to some insect of more innocuous character
than a Scorpion. Perhaps this is so in the original Styptic, for, as
I have said, I cannot repose implicit faith in my young friend's
version.—H. B. J.

"I have composed the most pathetic poem
in the world!" declared the Poet.

"How can'st thou be sure of that," he was
asked.

"Because," he replied, "I recited it to the
Crocodile, and she could not refrain from
shedding tears!"[120]

"It is gratifying to find oneself appreciated
at last," said the Cabbage, when the Cigar
Merchant labelled him as a Cabaña.

"Don't talk to me about Cactus," said the
Ostrich contemptuously to the Camel. "Insipid
stuff, I call it! No—for real flavour
and delicacy, give me a pair of Sheffield
scissors!"

"The accommodation might be more
luxurious, it's true," remarked the philosophic
Mouse, when he found himself in the Trap,
"but, after all, it's not as if I was going to
stay here long!"

"People tell me he can shine when he
chooses," said the Extinguisher of the Candle.
"All I know is, he's positively dull whenever
he's with me!"

There was once a Musical Box which played
but one tune, to which its owner was never[121]
weary of listening. But, after a time, he
desired a novelty, and could not rest until he
had exchanged the barrel for another. However,
he sickened of the second tune sooner
than of the first, and so he exchanged it for a
third, which he liked not at all.

Accordingly he commanded that the Box
should return to the first tune of all—and lo!
this had become an abomination unto his ears,
nor could he conceive how he had ever been
able to endure it!

So the Musical Box was laid upon the shelf,
and the Owner procured for himself a cheap
mouth-organ which could play any air that was
suggested to it, and thus became an established
favourite.

Note.—This is apparently designed to illustrate the ficklety of
the Musical Character.—H. B. J.

"Do come in!" snapped the severed Shark's
Head to the Ship's Cat. "As you perceive,
I am carrying on business as usual during the
alterations."[122]

The Bulbul had no sooner finished her song
than the Bullfrog began to make profuse apologies
for having left his music at home.

To a Butterscotch Machine the Penny and
the Tin Disc are alike.

Note.—Surely not if an official is looking on!—H. B. J.

"My dears," said the Converted Cannibal
reverently to his Wife and Family, as they
sat down to their Baked Missionary, "do
not let us omit to ask a blessing!"

There is but one Singer whom it is futile
to encore—and that is a Dying Swan.

"I am doing a series of 'Notable Nests'
for 'Sylvan Society,'" said the insinuating Serpent,
on finding the Ringdove at home, "and
I should so much like to include you." "You
are very kind," said the Ringdove, in a flutter,
"but I can assure you that there is no more[123]
in my poor little eggs than in any other
bird's!" "That may be," replied the Serpent,
"but I must live somehow!"

"No outsiders there—only just their own
particular set!" said the Cocksparrow, when
he came home after having been to tea with
the Birds of Paradise.

The Elephant was dying of starvation, and
a kind-hearted person presented him with an
acidulated drop.

Note.—It is well-nigh incredible that any Philosopher should be
so ignorant of Natural History as to imagine that any Elephant would
accept an acid drop, even if it was on its last legs for want of
nutrition.



The conclusion of this anecdote would seem to be either lost, or
unfit for publication.—H. B. J.

There was once a famous Violinist who serenaded
his Mistress every evening, performing
the most divine melodies upon his instrument.

But all the while she was straining her ears
to listen to a piano-organ round the corner
which was playing "Good-bye, Dolly Gray!"[124]

The Performing Lioness kisses her Trainer
on the mouth—but only in public.

The Candle complained bitterly of the unpleasantness
of seeing so many scorched moths
in her vicinity.

"I have taken such a fancy to thee," said
the Hawk genially to the Field-Mouse, "that
I am going to put thee into a really good
thing."

And he opened his beak.

There are persons who have no sense of the
fitness of things.

Like the Grasshopper, who insisted on putting
the Snail up for the Skipping Club.

The Cat scratched the Dog's nose out of
sheer playfulness—but she had no time to
explain.[125]

"After all, it is pleasant to be at home
again!" said the Eagle's feathers on the shaft
that pierced him.

But the Eagle's reply is not recorded.

Note.—Poet Byron also mentions this incident.—H.B.J.

A certain Painter set himself to depict a
lovely landscape. "See!" he cried, as he
exhibited his canvas to a Passing Stranger,
"doth not this my picture resemble the scene
with exactitude?"

"Since thou desirest to know," was the
reply, "thou seemest to me to have portrayed
nothing but a manure heap!"

"And am I to blame," exclaimed the indignant
Painter, "if a manure heap chanced
to be immediately in front of me?"

Before a Man marrieth a Woman he delighteth
to describe unto her all his doings—even
the most unimportant.

But, after marriage, he considereth that such
talk may savour too much of egotism.[126]

Note.-This is very very shallow. I have never experienced any such
compunctiousness with my own wives.—H. B. J.

"I shouldn't have minded so much," said the
Bee, with some bitterness, just before breathing
his last in the honey-pot, "only it happens
to be my own make!"

"Is the White Rabbit beautiful?" someone
inquired of the Albino Rat.

"She might be passable enough," replied
the Rat, "but for one most distressing deformity.
She has pink eyes!"

When the Ass was asked about his Cousin
the Zebra, he said: "Do not speak about him—for
he has disgraced us all. Never before
has there been any eccentricity in our family!"

The full-blown Sausage professeth to have
forgotten the days of his puppyhood.

"Will you allow me to pass?" said the
courteous Garden Roller to the Snail.[127]

Had anyone met the Red Herring in the
sea and foretold that he would one day be
pursued by Hounds across a difficult country,
the Herring would have accounted him but a
vain babbler.

Yet so it fell out!

Note.—I shrewdly suspect that my young friend has made the rather
natural mistake of substituting the word "Red Herring" for "Flying
Fish."



It is not absolutely incredible that one of the latter department
should fly inland and be chased by Dogs—but even Piljosh should be
aware that no Herring could pop off in such a way.—H. B. J.

An Officious Busybody, perceiving a Phœnix
well alight, promptly extinguished her by means
of a convenient watering-pot.

"Had you refrained from this uncalled for
interference," said the justly irate Bird, "I
should by this time be rising gloriously from
my ashes—instead of presenting the ridiculous
appearance of a partially roasted Fowl!"

[128]

Note.—I can offer no explanation of this allegory, except to

remind the reader that the Phœnix is the notorious symbol for a

fire insurance.—H. B. J.

"Alas!" sighed the Learned Pig, while expiring
from inflammation of the brain, brought
on by a laborious endeavour to ascertain the
sum of two and two, "Why, why was I cursed
with Intellect?"

"I shall know better another time!" gasped
the Fish, as he lay in the Landing-net.

A certain Merchant sold a child a sharp
sword. "Thou hast done wrong in this,"
remonstrated a Sage, "since the child will
assuredly wound either himself or some other."

"I shall not be responsible," cried the
Merchant, "for, in selling the sword, I did
recommend the child to protect the point with
a cork!"

A certain grain of Millet fell out of a sack
in which it was being carried into the City,
and was soon trampled in the dust.

"I am lost!" cried the Millet-seed. "Yet[129]
I do not repine so much for myself as for
those countless multitudes who, deprived of
me, are now doomed to perish miserably of
starvation!"

"I have given up dancing," said the Tongs,
"for they no longer dance with the Elegance
and Grace that were universal in my young
days!"

"But for the Mercy of Providence," said
the Fox, piously, to the Goose whom he found
in a trap that had been set for himself, "our
respective situations might now be reversed!"

"She really sang quite nicely," remarked
the Cuckoo, after she had been to hear the
Nightingale one evening, "but it's a pity
her range is so sadly limited!"

The Mendicant insisted on making his Will:[130]

"But what hast thou to leave when thou
diest?" cried the Scribe.

"As much as the richest," he replied; "for
when I die, I leave the entire World!"

Note.—This is (if not incorrectly translated) a grotesque and
puerile allegation. The veriest tyro is aware that when a
Millionaire hops the twig of his existence, he leaves more behind
him than a mere Mendicant!—H. B. J.

"Forgive me," said the Toad to the
Swallow, "but, although you may not be
aware of it, you are flying on totally false
principles!"

"Am I?" said the Swallow meekly. "I'm
so sorry! Do you mind showing me how you
do it?"

"I don't fly myself," said the Toad, with an
air of superiority. "I've other things to do—but
I have thoroughly mastered the theory of
the Art."

"Then teach me the theory!" said the
Swallow.

"Willingly," said the Toad; "my fee—to
you—will be two worms a lesson."[131]

"I can't bear to think that no one will weep
for me when I am gone!" said the sentimental
Fly, as he flew into the eye of a Moneylender.

Note.—Cf. Poet Byron: "'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will
mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come!"—H. B. J.

A certain Cockatrice, feeling sociably inclined,
entered a Mother's Meeting, bent upon
making himself agreeable—but was greatly
mortified to find himself but coldly received.

"Women are so particular about trifles!"
he reflected bitterly. "I know I said 'Good
Afternoon' with my mouth full—but, as I
explained, I had just been lunching at the
Infant School!"

"I want to be useful!" said the Silkworm,
as she sat down and "set" a sock for a
Decayed Centipede.[132]

A Traveller demanded hospitality from
fourteen Kurds, who were occupying one
small tent.

"Enter freely," said the Kurds, "but we
must warn thee that thou wilt find the atmosphere
exceedingly unpleasant—for, by some
inadvertence, we have greased our boots from
a jar of Attar of Roses!"

Note.—Once more I do not entirely fathom the Fabulist's
meaning—unless it is that such a valuable cosmetic as Attar of
Roses may become so deteriorated as to offend even the nostril organ
of a Kurd.—H. B. J.

A certain Basilisk having attained great
success in petrifying all who came under his
personal observation, there was a Scheme set
afoot to present him with some Token of
popular esteem and regard.

"If we give him anything" said the Fox,
who was consulted as to the form of the
proposed Testimonial, "I would suggest that
it should take the shape of a pair of Smoked
Spectacles."[133]

Note.—The Satire here, at least, is obvious enough. Smoked
spectacles are a very inexpensive gift.—H. B. J.

"How truly the Poet sang that: 'we may
rise on stepping-stones of our dead selves to
higher things!'" remarked the Chicken's Merrythought,
when it found itself apotheosised into
a Penwiper.

Note.—A young lady, that shall be nameless, once presented me
with a very similar penwipe, which represented a Church of England
ecclesiastic in surplice and mortar-cap.—H. B. J.

"I shall not have perished in vain!" gasped
an altruistic Cockroach, immediately before
expiring from an overdose of Insect Powder,
"for, after this fatality, the Owners of the
House will doubtless be more careful how they
leave such stuff about!"

Note.—British Cockroaches, however, resemble Emperor Mithridates
[134]
in being totally impervious to beetle poison.—H. B. J.

The Sheep was so exceedingly tough and
old, that the Wolf had thoughts of becoming a
Vegetarian.

Note.—When we see some person attaining Centenarian longevity, we
are foolishly inclined to fancy that, by adopting their diet, we
also are to become Methusalems!—H. B. J.

A certain Ant that had lost its All owing to
the sudden collapse of the Bank in which its
savings were invested, applied to a Grasshopper
for a small temporary advance.

"I am sorry, dear boy," chirpily replied the
Grasshopper, "that, although I am playing to
big business every evening, I have not put by
a single grain. However, I will get up a
matinée for your benefit."

This he did with such success that, next
winter, the Ant was once more sufficiently
prosperous to discharge his obligation by
offering the Grasshopper a letter to the
Charity Organisation Society!

Note.—The application of this is that a kind action is never
[135]
really thrown away.—H. B. J.

"I never feel quite myself till I've had a
good bath!" said the Bird whom an elderly
Lady had purchased from a Street Boy as a
Goldfinch.

And behold, when the Bird came out of its
saucer of water, it was a Sparrow!

Note.—Like many Philosophers, Piljosh would seem to have had no
great liking for ablutions. But water which could transform a
Goldfinch into a Sparrow must previously have been enchanted by some
Magician, so that our Parabolist's shaft misses fire in this
instance (as indeed in many others!). Possibly, however, his
Translator has once more proved a Traitor!—H. B. J.

"Pride not yourself upon your Lustre and
Symmetry," said the Jet Ear-ring austerely to
the Pearl, "for, after all, you owe your beauty
to nothing but the morbid secretions of a
Diseased Oyster!"

"I am sorry to spoil your moral," retorted
the Pearl with much suavity, "but, like yourself,
I happen to be Artificial."

Note.—Inhabitants of glassy mansions should not indulge in
[136]
lapidation.—H. B. J.

"Come!" said the Peacock's Feather proudly
to the Fly-flapper and the Tin Squeaker, as
the final illumination flickered out and they lay
in the gutter together, limp and exhausted
with their exertions in tickling and generally
exasperating inoffensive strangers. "They
may say what they please—but at least we
have shown them that the Spirit of Patriotism
is not yet extinct!"

Note.—This must refer to some Cryptic customs prevalent in the
Parabolist's time. But I do not clearly apprehend what connection
either tickling, fly-flapping, or squeaking can have with
Patriotism!—H. B. J.

Last Words

Here conclude the Parables of Piljosh,
together with the present volume. That the
former can possibly obtain honble mention
when compared with the apologues of Plato,
Æsop, Corderius Nepos, or even Confucius,
I cannot for a moment anticipate, and none
can be more sensible than my humble self[137]
how very poor a figure they cut in proximity
to the production of my own pen!

However, indulgent critics will please not
saddle my unoffending head with the responsibility,
the fact being that I was vehemently
advised that, without some meretricious padding
of this sort, my Romance would not be
of sufficient robustness to produce a boom.

But should "A Bayard from Bengal" unfortunately
fail to render the Thames combustible,
I should rather attribute the cause
to its having been unwisely diluted with such
milk and watery material as the Parables of
Piljosh.

So, leaving the decision to the impartial
and unanimous verdict of popular approval, I
subscribe myself,

The Reader's very obsequious and palpitating Servant,


Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

PRINTED BY

TURNBULL AND SPEARS,

EDINBURGH

Author's Notes on Illustrations:

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. I.

(Frontispiece).

Had Mr Bernadhur Pahtridhji taken the very ordinary
precaution to consult myself upon the etiquettes proscribed
by smart society, I should infallibly have saved
him from so shocking an exhibition of his ignorance.

As it is, I can only say that of course a highly cultivated
Indian gentleman like Mr Bhosh would not dream of presenting
himself at any upper-class entertainment—even
a Baronet's—in so free and easy a garbage as a smoker's
jacket. Were he to be guilty of such want of savoir faire
he would inevitably incur some penalty kick or other.

Moreover, at these functions the hired musicians are
never compelled to remove their shoes and stockings.

Another correction I hazard with rather less confidence,
as I am unable at this moment to consult any authorised
work on ducal head coverings. But I am practically
certain that all the duchesses whom I have had the
privilege to encounter at fashionable soirées wore
coronets surmounted with golden balls, and of an
altogether different pattern from the very humdrum
concern which Mr Pahtridhji has thought proper to
represent on the Duchess of Dickinson's cranium.

I fear I must again ask the critic's kind indulgence for
an illustrator who has only too obviously never figured as
the hailfellow well-met in aristocratic London saloons.

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. II.

As I feared, a tolerably keen eye will detect, almost at a
glance, that my young native illustrator—though undeniably
gifted—has little or no personal acquaintance with
the English surroundings he so rashly professes to depict.

Very curiously, he has succeeded just where I should
have expected him to fail, and vice versâ!

For the students are quite correctly represented in their
collegiate caps and robes, whereas the police-officer is
furnished with far too excessive a superfluity of weapons,
nor do policemen in England, to my knowledge, wear
plumes in their helmets, or chest-protectors embroidered
with the initials E.R.

But it is in the presentment of the irate cow that Mr
Pahtridhji displays the most inexcusable ignorance. The
merest tyro could have informed him that animals of this
Brahminical type are very unfamiliar objects in Anglo-Saxon
landscapes!

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. III.

If a story is to be judged by the style in which it is
illustrated then truly will all professional Fox-chasers after
beholding this picture jump to the conclusion that the
Author has foolishly undertaken to write upon topics
concerning which he is the total ignoramus!

But if such captious critics will only do me the ordinary
justice to refer to the printed text they will find that I
am not responsible for such a childish blunder as representing
that any English Sportingman would run a
fox to the earth mounted upon a camel.

Nor am I to blame because Mr Pahtridhji, with
characteristic native conceit, has chosen to depict a
purely British episode as taking place in scenery of an
Oriental character.

However, to give the devil his due, my illustrator has
drawn other parts of the picture—especially the attitude
of Mr Bhosh—with considerable spirit and fidelity to the
Author's conceptions.

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. IV.

The duelling incident has already been found fault with
by certain superficial criticasters, on the alleged ground
of its improbability at so modern a period as the present.

I will only reply that I am not addicted to describing—even
in fiction—manners and customs of which I have
had no personal experience, and also drop a hint that
some such duel may actually have taken place in London
not so many years ago (though, of course, under a rose
without the presence of any reporter), and that a native
gentleman, who shall be nameless, may possibly have
figured as hero on that occasion.

I have not many remarks to offer on this illustration,
which is sufficiently true to Nature to pass muster.

Monkeys are not usually permitted to be present at
these encounters, but it is quite credible that the one in
the picture was a particular pet of Duchess Dickinson's
and therefore the chartered libertine.

Only I am strongly of opinion that she would have
ordered him off the line of fire, for fear that he might
receive his quietus from some stray bullet.

Mr Bodgers ought not to have been drawn in a sun-helmet.
He wore, of course, the more ceremonious covering
of chimney-pot pattern. But poor Mr Pahtridhji
could not perhaps be expected to know this!

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. V.

Once more I stand agog before the overweaned self-confidence
with which Mr Pahtridhji sets out to depict
scenes and episodes requiring the most exhaustive
familiarity with West End London habits, if the artist
is to escape the risum teneatis of a shocking fiasco!

There is scarcely any habitué of Hyde Park who
could not point the finger of scorn at some howling
piece of inaccuracy in this soi-disant representation of
Mr Bhosh on his cantankerous gifthorse.

The figure of the hero himself is passably correct,
though I may hint to Mr P. that no rider in Rotten
Row who belongs to the bon ton would wear golden
tassels attached to his riding topboots.

But how am I to excuse such a Leviathan lapsus
linguæ as the figure of the equestrian mounted upon a
cow? It is true that Honble Hampden was so upset
at having to pay sheep-money that he rode a cow, but
not all his social influence could launch so stagnant a
quadruped as a successful competitor with the swifter
and more spirited horse, and consequently it has long
been disused as the beast of pleasure, even by riders of
the funkiest temperaments.

And, as before, Mr Pahtridhji has represented (only with
far far less plausibility) a monkey as occupying a prominent
situation on the scene of action. I can only conjecture
that he is under the impression that ladies in the social
position of Princess Jones take horse exercise accompanied
by such Simian favourites! Readers, of course,
will not hold the writer responsible for these grotesque
absurdities, but the pity of it that an ambitious young
Native draughtsman should be employed to make a
fool of himself in this public manner! I will not insinuate
that Misters Publishers are guided by economical
motives.

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. VI

I cannot refrain once more from natural annoyance at
the excessively careless fashion in which my conceptions
are being realised by this Mr Birnadhur Pahtridhji.

Surely, if he was ignorant of the costume of so exalted
a pundit as the British Astrologer Royal, he could at
least have taken the trouble to cram up the uniform in
some work of reference at a Public Library!

In any case a little reflection would have shown even
Mr Pahtridhji that such a dignitary could not be
correctly represented in a turban.

Most probably on so special an occasion he would
have assumed his full-dress extinguisher cap adorned
with Zodiacal emblems.

Such inaccuracies would perhaps be of mediocre importance
if they occurred in the illustrations to a work
of ordinary fiction. But in the present case of a novel
which depends chiefly on its scathingly realistic exposures
of London High Life, it is much to be deplored
that some more observant and experienced artist could
not have been selected.

I would respectfully remind my honble friends the
Publishers that many a stately vessel has become a total
loss owing to ill-judged parsimony in the tar department!

And I humbly recommend them (if not too late) to
adopt Spartan measures, by instantaneously throwing
Mr Pahtridhji overboard, and handing the job over to
the President of the Royal Academy of Arts, who from
his tip-top position would be most likely to execute same
in a competent manner and to the general satisfaction
of the Public.

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. VII.

I earnestly implore my benevolent publishers to suppress
at all events this illustration—as much for the sake
of Mr Birnadhur Pahtridhji (who, if it appears, will be the
jesting-stock of every cultivated young Indian with any
acquaintance at all with English life) as on my own poor
account.

I ask anyone endowed with common sense—could there
be a more preposterously grotesque misrepresentation
than this of such a well-known scene as the annual
pilgrimage to the Derby Race?

It is true that I wrote "every description of conveyance"—but
how was I, being "Davus non Œdipus," to
anticipate that Mr Pahtridhji would interpret the phrase
as including such nondescript vehicles as a hansom cab
propelled by a bullock, and a kind of palkee borne by
two members of the flunkey caste?

He further displays his colossal ignorance by the
introduction of a snake charmer—a character who,
even assuming that he ever made his début on a
London roadway, would be speedily run in, with all
his serpents, for obstructing traffic.

Moreover, where is his authority for representing an
adjutant bird as an ordinary London fowl?

Time and patience fail me to indicate the countless
and howling croppers which Mr Pahtridhji has achieved
in the space of this single picture.

But I say once more: unless it is possible to provide
a novel of this calibre with congenial and appropriate
drawings by an artist who is acquainted with what is
what, it is infinitely preferable to dispense with illustrations
altogether than to disfigure such a work with
mediocre and puerile pictures!

H. B. J.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION No. VIII.

After having been compelled to pluck so many crows
with Mr Pahtridhji, I would gladly (if I could) commend
his final attempt without reserve.

And I cheerfully allow that he has rather cleverly
succeeded in delineating both the modest elation of
Mr Bhosh and the paternal benevolence on the judicial
physiognomy.

But heigho! surgit amari aliquid—and Mr Pahtridhji,
of course, was fated to insert the cloven hoof of inaccuracy
into some portion of what might otherwise have been a
passably correct presentment of a very simple episode!

Surely, surely even a native artist might have known
that the judge who decides such an open air affair as the
Derby race does not assume his wig and gown for the
purpose, nor is he, necessarily, even a member of the
legal profession! Moreover, if such a judge indulges in
tobacco in any form (as to which I express no opinion),
then indubitably he would not employ a pipe of a pattern
which only an Oriental could puff without experiencing
severe internal disturbances.

I am confoundedly sorry now that I did not take the precaution
of supplying my illustrator with a few photographs
of ordinary English characters, as I actually proposed to
do, only unfortunately my aforesaid young English friend
earnestly assured me that Mr P. would be as right as rain,
provided that I left him a free hand.

And these are the free-hand drawings which have
resulted!

All I can say is, that if my Publishers persist in including
them in the volume, they must be prepared to take
the consequences. Should this novel fail to secure the
brilliant ovation which I anticipate for it, don't blame
me, Misters!

H. B. J.