Mr. Punch in Bohemia Part 19

People that have Met me Half-way, by an Insolvent.

People I have Splashed, by a Scavenger.

People I have Done, by a Jew Bill-discounter.

People I have Abused, by a 'Bus Conductor.

People I have Run Over, by a Butcher's Boy.

People I have Run Against, by a Sweep.

A ROARING TRADE.--Keeping a menagerie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPLIMENTS ONE MIGHT IMPROVE ON.--_Mrs. Mudge._ "I _do_ admire the women you draw, Mr. Penink. They're _so_ beautiful and _so_ refined! Tell me, _who_ is your model?" [_Mrs. Mudge rises in Mrs.

Penink's opinion._]

_Penink._ "Oh, my wife always sits for me!"

_Mrs. Mudge_ (_with great surprise_). "You don't say so! Well, I think you're one of the _cleverest_ men I know!" [_Mrs. Penink's opinion of Mrs. Mudge falls below zero._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER."--_George_ (_Itinerant Punch-and-Judy Showman_). "I say, Bill, she _do_ draw!"

_Bill_ (_his partner, with drum and box of puppets_). "H'm--it's more than _we_ can!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SELECTION."--_Brown_ (_as he was leaving our Art Conversazione, after a rattling scramble in the cloak-room_). "Confound it! Got my own hat, after all!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Eccentric Old Gent_ (_whose pet aversion is a dirty child_). "Go away, you dirty girl, and wash your face!"

_Indignant Youngster._ "You go 'ome, you dirty old man, and do yer 'air!"]

MUSICAL FACT.--People are apt to complain of the vile tunes that are played about the streets by grinding organs, and yet they may all be said to be the music of Handle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IS THERE ROOM FOR MARY THERE?

SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photographer._ "I think this is an excellent portrait of your wife."

_Mr. Smallweed._ "I don't know--sort of _repose_ about the _mouth_ that somehow doesn't seem right."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GREAT PRIZE FIGHT.--_Johnnie_ (_who finds that his box_, _20_, _has been appropriated by "the Fancy"_). "I beg your pardon, but this is _my_ box!"

_Bill Bashford._ "Oh, is it? Well, why don't you tike it?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WITHOUT PREJUDICE.--_Ugly Man_ (_who thinks he's a privileged wag, to artist_). "Now, Mr. _Daub_igny, draw me."

_Artist_ (_who doesn't like being called _Daub_igny, and whose real name is Smith_). "Certainly. But you _won't_ be offended if it's _like_ you.

Eh?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Scrimble._ "So sorry I've none of my work to show you.

Fact is, I've just sent all my pictures to the Academy."

_Mrs. Macmillions._ "What a pity! I did so much want to see them. How soon do you expect them back?"]

THE YOUNG NOVELIST'S GUIDE TO MEDICINE

CHLOROFORM. Invaluable to writers of sensational stories. Every high-cla.s.s fictionary criminal carries a bottle in his pocket. A few drops, spread on a handkerchief and waved within a yard of the hero's nose, will produce a state of complete unconsciousness lasting for several hours, within which time his pockets may be searched at leisure.

This property of chloroform, familiar to every expert novelist, seems to have escaped the notice of the medical profession.

CONSUMPTION. The regulation illness for use in tales of mawkish pathos.

Very popular some years ago, when the heroine made farewell speeches in blank verse, and died to slow music. Fortunately, however, the public has lost its fondness for work of this sort. Consumption at its last stage is easily curable (in novels) by the reappearance of a hero supposed to be dead. Two pages later the heroine will gain strength in a way which her doctors--not unnaturally--will describe as "perfectly marvellous." And in the next chapter the marriage-bells will ring.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

DOCTOR. Always include a doctor among your characters. He is quite easy to manage, and invariably will belong to one of these three types: (_a_) The eminent specialist. Tall, imperturbable, urbane. Only comes incidentally into the story. (_b_) Young, bustling, energetic. Not much practice, and plenty of time to look after other people's affairs.

Hard-headed and practical. Often the hero's college friend. Should be given a pretty girl to marry in the last chapter. (_c_) The old family doctor. Benevolent, genial, wise. Wears gold-rimmed spectacles, which he has to take off and wipe at the pathetic parts of the book.

FEVER. A nice, useful term for fictionary illnesses. It is best to avoid mention of specific symptoms, beyond that of "a burning brow," though, if there are any family secrets which need to be revealed, delirium is sure to supervene at a later stage. _Arthur Pendennis_, for instance, had fictional "fever," and baffled doctors have endeavoured ever since to find out what really was the matter with him. "Brain-fever," again, is unknown to the medical faculty, but you may safely afflict your intellectual hero with it. The treatment of fictionary fever is quite simple, consisting solely of frequent doses of grapes and cooling drinks. These will be brought to the sufferer by the heroine, and these simple remedies administered in this way have never been known to fail.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FRACTURE. After one of your characters has come a cropper in the hunting-field he will be taken on a hurdle to the nearest house: usually, by a strange coincidence, the heroine's home. And he will be said to have sustained "a compound fracture"--a vague description which will quite satisfy your readers.

GOUT. An invaluable disease to the humorist. Remember that heroes and heroines are entirely immune from it, but every rich old uncle is bound to suffer from it. The engagement of his niece to an impecunious young gentleman invariably coincides with a sharp attack of gout. The humour of it all is, perhaps, a little difficult to see, but it never fails to tickle the public.