Happy Thought Hall Part 23

Now about I'll gad!

Widow melancholy!

She will be delighted When I my addresses pay.

Tzing la la la! Tzing la la la!

I'm an artful dodger!

Tzing la la la! Tzing la la la!

Hey! for Victory!

[_Exit out of room R.H._

(_Immense applause. The Signor insisting upon joining in the chorus, which he thinks he knows. MILBURD sings it again and then makes his exit._)

_Enter WAITER with portmanteau._

_Applause. Then enter BOX as if from a long journey; he is wrapped up to the eyes, and above them. Questioning among audience, "_Who's that?_" WAITER points to room L.H. BOX inclines his head. Exit WAITER. BOX commences unb.u.t.toning long foreign overcoat with hood.

Then takes off hood, then takes off immense wrapper. When free of these he appears dressed in very foreign fas.h.i.+on._

[Ill.u.s.tration: DON BOXOS.]

_Re-enter WAITER._

WAITER (_puzzled_).

'Ave you zeen a Herr mit ein long code, ... long tail?

BOX.

A what? A hare with a long tail?

WAITER.

Ah! ah! (_laughing_). You are him I zee (_pointing to coat_). Dat vas you dere. Zo ist goot.

BOX.

Oh, I see. Yes, that's me, I mean that was me, only now I've come out like the b.u.t.terfly out of a grub. (_Aside._) I forgot that this is Germany. (_Aloud._) Ja.

WAITER.

Ach! der Herr sprech Deutsch?

(_Great applause._)

BOX.

Yah. (_Aside._) That's more like a n.i.g.g.e.r. (_Aloud._) On second thoughts, nein.

WAITER.

Vill you your name in dese book write? (_Presenting visitors' book._)

BOX.

I will. (_Writes._) Don Jose John de Boxos Cazadores Regalias, Spain.

WAITER.

Dank you, milor!

[_Exit WAITER C._

BOX.

We know what we are, but we never know what we shall be. I am not quite clear at present, by the way, what I am, let alone what I _shall_ be. If anybody three months ago had said to me, "Box, my boy, you are a grandee of Spain" ... I should have said that he was a ... in point of fact I shouldn't have believed him. But still I am--that is, partially so--I'm gradually becoming one. At present I'm only half a grandee. Three months ago a friend, my legal adviser, a law stationer's senior clerk, near Chancery Lane, said to me, "Box, my boy, you've got Spanish blood in you." I said that I had suspected as much from my peculiar and extreme partiality for the vegetable called a Spanish onion, and I was going to a doctor, when my friend and legal adviser said to me, "Box, my boy, I don't mean _that_. I mean that your great grandmother was of Spanish extraction." I replied that I had heard that they had extracted my great grandmother from that quarter, "I came across some papers," continued my legal adviser, "which allude to her as Donna Isidora y Caballeros, Carvalhos y Cazadores y Regalias, Salamanca, Spain, who married John Box, trader, of Eliza Lane, St. Margaret's Wharf, Wapping. Date and all correct. Go," says he--I mean my legal adviser--"go to Spain, and claim your t.i.tle, your estates, and your money, and I'll stand in with you, and take half the profits." I was struck by this remarkably handsome offer, and went down to Margate to cultivate a Spanish moustache and think about it. Whenever I want to think about anything deeply, I go down to Margate. Well, one morning as I was examining the progress of my moustache, after shaving my chin and letting out some of the blue blood of the Hidalgos in a most tremendous gash, judge of my astonishment, when, walking on the beach, in among the donkeys and the Ethiopian serenaders, I saw in widow's weeds, as majestic as ever, Penelope Anne!

(_Sings_) "I saw her for a moment, but methinks I see her now, with the wreath of--something or other--upon her--something brow"----and then I lost sight of her. But my Spanish blood was up. The extraction from the sunny South boiled in my veins ... boiled over, when I learnt, on referring to the visitors' list, that Penelope Anne was the relict of the short-breath'd--I mean short-lived but virtuous--Knox, who had left her his entire fortune. All my long-stifled pa.s.sion returned--the pa.s.sion which the existence of a Wiggins, her first, had not quenched, which the ephemeral life of a Knox had not extinguished, a pa.s.sion which I have felt for her before I knew that the blue ink--I mean the blue blood, of the Hidalgos danced in my veins, and while she was only a sweet village maiden eighteen years old, and known to all as Miss Penelope Anne, of Park Place, Pimlico! I determined to go out and throw myself at her feet, declare my pa.s.sion, and take nothing for an answer except "Box ... John ... I'm yours truly, Penelope!" I couldn't present myself before her with a scrubbing-brush on my upper lip. So that afternoon I sacrificed Mars to Venus--I mean I shaved off my moustache for the sake of Penelope Anne. The next morning .... Toothache wasn't the name for what I suffered. Face-ache fails to describe my agonies.

Neuralgia doesn't give the faintest idea of my tortures. The left side of my face looked exactly as if I was holding a large dumpling in my mouth, or a gigantic ribston-pippin which I couldn't swallow. Swallow!

Not a bit of food pa.s.sed these lips, except slops, beef-tea, and tea without the beef, for days. At the end of a week I was a shadow.

Penelope Anne had gone. Where, no one knew. Somebody said they thought it was the Continent. I bought a map and looked out the Continent, but it wasn't in that. I suppose it was an old edition--there have been so many changes, and they're building everywhere--so I consulted my medical man and my legal adviser. The first said, "Get change of air. Go abroad!" The second said, "Seize the opportunity and go to Spain. And,"

he added, "come home by the Continent." That suited me down to the ground. I should get my t.i.tle, my lands, and my money, meeting Penelope Anne on the Continent. As I was coming back I should be able to offer her the hand and heart of either Don Jose John de Boxos y Cazadores y Regalias y Caballeros y Carvalhos of Salamanca, Spain, or of plain John Box, of Barnsbury. So here I am. I haven't got the whole t.i.tle yet, as the Spanish legal gentleman and I didn't hit it off exactly.... If I'd only known what he was talking about, it would have shortened the proceedings. However, as that remark applies to all legal business, I couldn't quarrel with a foreigner on that point. Besides, if you quarrel with a Spaniard, his southern blood can't stand it. He stabs you. He's sorry for it afterwards, but that's his n.o.ble nature. So I've adopted half the t.i.tle, and the rest will be sent on to me if the suit is gained. But up to this moment I've not met Penelope Anne. I've had so much of the wines of Spain, that my medical man wrote and advised me to try the waters of Germany. So here I am. (_Takes up paper_). What's this? _Comic Journal_, um. "We are sorry to announce the death of ..."

um, um. (_reads_) "_Spain on the eve of a crisis._" ... There were three while I was there. n.o.body took any notice of them. What's this? "Hotel der Schwein and die Pfeife"--that's here--"Mrs. Penelope Anne Knox." ....

Don Jose de Boxos, she's yours. You've only got to propose, and she's yours. Tell her you're a Spanish grandee, and offer her a position as Spanish grand_she_. Don Boxos, you've only got to give yourself a brush up, and she's yours. (_Taking up c.o.x'S gla.s.s of water which he has left on table_) I wish myself every possible success! To my future happiness!

(_drinks._) Ugh! (_suddenly makes fearfully wry faces. The clock strikes. Re-enter c.o.x, R.H._)

c.o.x.

Punctual to the moment. (_Seeing gla.s.s empty_) Confound it, dash it--who's taken my sulphur wa.s.ser? I say who (_sees BOX who is slowly recovering_)--Have you--(_starts_) Can I believe my eyes?

BOX.

I don't know.

c.o.x.

It _must_ be--.

BOX.

If it _must_ be, then in that case (_opens his eyes and recognises c.o.x_). Ah!

c.o.x.

Box!

BOX.

c.o.x!

[_They are about to rush into each other's arms, when they think better of it, and shake hands rather coolly._