Puck — October 9, 1878 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

not te, n- an he t= at PUCK. It BOREALL, The turkey ? EpMunp.. It was the involuntary cause of our first quarrel. We shall dine better without it. Lucy. Oh, certainly. EpMunp. The turkey is yours. Boreatt (dropping his hat and cane). Heavens and earth! Epmunp, Go and eat it with your wife. Boreatt ‘There is still generosity in youth. And truf- fles—delicious truffles. Epaunp (to his wife). Now what is your penalty, you little rogue? +UCY. That shall be paid at dessert, false one. Boreatt. Dine alone, my dears, and expect me next ‘Thursday, with a turkey—an immense turkey. [THe END] PATIENT KITTY. By James Payn. I, = epee ‘JeSRED RAYNOR and | were apprentices a By together, or what would have been called re“ such in the good old times. We were in the house of Halland Brothers, general ware- housemen, Gravel Street, City, and a very re- spectable house it was. There was nothing flashy about it; it was not what is nowadays genteelly called “enterprising,” a city term which covers some strange doings, but it did a good business in a safe, old-fashioned way. Its customs were so old-world that the younger of the two partners always slept on the premises, instead of leaving at four or five o’clock at the latest, as others in his position do, for their villas in the country or by the sea. They made their money slowly, but very surely, as all folks must do who have # tolerably large connection, and are always getting discount for their ready money. Our principals were, I believe, as kindly as they were honest; but in my humble sphere I was not at that time brought into much per- sonal connection with them. The link between them and their employés was Mr. Raynor, my friend’s father and their head clerk. He was as much respected by his inferiors as by the members of the firm; but I am not so sure that he was liked, so well at least, by the junior clerks, He never said in words, of course, that because he was virtuous it behoved us to have no cakes and ale, but his virtue was so very patent, and also, let me allow, at once so perfectly genuine, that it not only reproved all dissipation, but even suppressed the harmless ebullition of our youthful spirits. He had also the unpopular habit of applying for subscrip- tions under the name of “ our mites,” in aid of missionary enterprise both abroad and at home; of the discouragement of Sunday trad- ing; of the abolition of the liquor traffic; and even of the purging of Great Britain from the crying sin and shame of tobacco-smoking. We did not mind giving our fourpenny ieces, though /iafwassometimes inconvenient, ff so much as having to write our names down, as was always insisted upon, in these charitable lists. We would thank us for our donations in the most earnest manner; but at the same time would reflect upon our hand- writing, in which “he was surprised to find so little improvement, considering the experience of which we had had the advantage during our engagement with Halland Brothers.” At Clap- ham, where he lived, if not in the odor of sanctity, in an atmosphere of good report, he was President of its Teetotal Society, Vice- Chairman of its Band of Hope, Honorary Se- cretary of its Anti-Climbing Boy Association, and, in short, the working member of all its Benevolent Institutions. He ‘often assisted them very liberally, considering his limited in- come, with his purse; but his gift of oratory was always at their service, and he poured it out in lecture hall, assembly and schoolroom in lavish profusion. ‘In those days a free pass to the pit of a theatre was a great boon to us; but we did not so highly estimate even a plat- form ticket to a meeting in Zion Chapel, or in the Young Men’s Improvement Hall, to hear old Raynor lecture. He was most generous in the distribution of these favors, and not to make use of the privileges thus offered to us was to give him great offense. Poor Fred led a sad life with some of us on this account, “Confound you, Raynor! here’s your gov- ernor sent me another ticket to hear him spout ;” or, “I say, Fred, will you guarantee me a rise in salary at Christmas if I sacrifice myself this time ?”” It was very hard upon the poor young fellow, for, as he justly said, “ Well, / can’t help it, you know. It’s a precious sight worse for me than for you. I have to go to a// these things. I sometimes wonder whether anyone was ever preached to death.” He certainly suffered considerably; for whereas during the delivery of the old_gentle- man’s addresses his eye only occasionally wan- dered to one or the other of us, it always made the wretched Fred its starting-point, and gen- erally came back again to him after any pecu- liarly “ powerful” appeal to our “nobler na- tures,” as much as to say, “ What do you think of that, you young reprobate? Did not that search your very marrow?” Not that poor Fred was a reprobate, but that he had a natural taste for pleasure of all kinds, and did not by any means count the listening to these improv- ing discourses as a pleasure. But at the same time he reverenced his father most profoundly, and thought him not only one of the best men alive, but gifted with extraordinary talents. “Tt is my own fault,” he used to say, ‘that I don’t like his lectures. Everybody whose opinion is worth having tells me they are first- rate. It is sheer stupidity, I know, that makes me fail to see their merits; but, thank Heaven, I do understand how good the old governor is, down to his very boots.” In this artless manner Fred Raynor used to confess to me his faith in his parent; but the world at large was doubtless scarcely aware of the feelings that did such honor to the lad’s nature, ‘The reason of this confidence in my case was that Fred was what we in those days used to call ‘sweet upon” my sister Kitty. Of course the thing ought never to have been “dreamt of” (only young people have no com- mand over their dreams), for Fred had but ninety pounds a year, paid monthly, and poor Kitty next to nothing at all; but they made a fool’s paradise of their own, and lived in it, Fred’s behavior under these circumstances was worthy of a better cause, or, at all events, of a more feasible one. The frugal.ties he practiced with the idea of eventually buying a furnished residence, and setting up housekeeping on a microscopic scale, were tremendous, and re- minded me of the asceticisms of the cloister. He drank ginger-pop with his dinner instead of half-and-half; started an hour earlier from his home at Clapham every morning, on foot, that he might save his bus fare to the office, and al- ways kept his gloves in his pocket save when in the company of his divinity. ‘Io be sure he would “ break out” every now and then, as habitual drunkards are said to do after months of abstinence, but by no means in the same way; he would indulge himself by buying some pretty little present for his darling, which gave her infinite pleasure save for the thought of the sum it must have cost him. But he always used to silence her by protesting that the money was “a windfall,” and did not affect the great mass of his savings (about 2/. 185. 6d.) at all. ‘These windfalls grew to be pretty frequent after a little while, and with their frequency (though I did not associate the facts together very particularly at the time) I noticed that Fred, whose constitution was always delicate, got to havea thinner and more careworn ap- pearance. Indeed, I remember saying on one occasion when he brought Kitty her first locket (and angered me by declining to accompany mé to the play on the ground of having no money), that he looked as if he had starved himself to buy it. Moreover, when I did oc- casionally persuade him to go with me to any entertainment, he not only did not take the same interest in it as of yore, which | could understand from his love-lorn state, but he used to fall asleep during the best part of it, such as the ballet, which I really could not un- derstand. It was bad enough for one's friend to fall in love, but that he should do so with one’s sister was a double misfortune, and deso- lated me, as it were, both ways, for Kitty and I being orphans lived alone together; and her attentions, which should have been exclusively devoted to me, were divided between myself and Fred; while, as I have said, I lost my friend’s companionship. ‘This state of things went on for about a year —quite long enough to knit the two young people together very firmly, and to make me feel Fred to be quite “one of the family’—and then the bright little bubble burst. Mr. Jacob Raynor discovered what was going on, and stamped it out as though it had been the foot-and-mouth disease instead of the tender passion, For my part, considering the great benevo- lence of his character, I thought it was done rather brutally. There was to be a total cessa- tion of all intercourse; the lovers were not even to write to one another for two whole years, when Fred would come of age. After that, said the old gentleman, if his son was still blinded by his folly, he might take his own course, though it would never have his father's approbation. I confess it seemed to me that Fred showed some lack of spirit in submitting to such harsh conditions; for since he did not mean to give Kitty up, and was not in the end to have the paternal sanction, I could not see what advantage was gained by denying himself her society in the meantime. But his sense of duty, notwithstanding we felt sure that his em- ployers would not have dismissed him for tak- ing his own way in such a matter, forbade that course. He told me that he had expressed himself very strongly, though with great re- spect, to his parent, and that it had taken all he knew to prevent an immediate rupture, “ It is my father’s love for me,” he said, “ which makes him so inexorable, since he cannot be- lieve that my happiness lies where it does; while as to making me an allowance on which I could marry, it is the simple fact that he has not a guinea to spare, so we must not be too hard upon the governor.” “He would have guincas to spare,” said I bitterly (for I felt for poor Kitty), “if he did not throw them away upon the Ojibbeways and other unconverted tribes.” “Well, it is his own money, Frank,” an- swered Fred gravely, “and he thinks he is do- ing good with it.” ‘And Kitty of course took the same view of the affair as Fred did. She worked her fingers to the bone in making articles of fancy work (in which she had a very pretty taste), and dis- posed of them for such prices as she could get, aed comicbooks.com