Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/201

188 compositions, in which I endeavoured to disclose the nature of my sufferings to—as I then believed—thy not wholly unsympathising heart, shall ever be copied out at the rate of seventy words to the folio, and for the charge of three half-pence per folio, and delivered into the hands of those objectionable, heartless men in wigs and gowns, that they may serve as nets of my own knitting to entrap and bind me in my struggles? Shall I, like a foolish, thoughtless—but at the same time well-meaning—bee, be smothered in honey of my own collection? I know that thou hast preserved them—not without a few rose-leaves, and, I believe, some sprigs of lavender, in allusion to a playful passage which occurs in one of the later documents. It runs thus:—

Roses are red,

Diddle—diddle:

Lavender’s blue—

Flora, by George!

Diddle—diddle—

How I love you!

Although it expresses the emotions of an honest heart, I should not like to have that passage read out in full court by the gentleman with the cold in his head—not only on account of the poetical liberty which I have taken with the metre (I mean with reference to the patent discrepancy in sound between the words “red” and “George”)—but because, even as far as the floral illustrations of my passion are concerned, I think I could do better with a view to publication. As I stand pondering over these things, another letter rises to my recollection, which I had addressed: “To my Flora, then in her Rose-Bower at Twickenham.” You were then stopping, dear Flo, with Mrs. Madrigal—Bessie Hincks was of the party. I remember that I had been torn away from thy beloved side (as I presume the writer in the case of Tubbs v. Tubbs, now sub judice) by some inconsiderate friends, and compelled by them, sorely against my own will, to dine with them at the Crown and Sceptre. When I returned home it was 1.45, or thereabouts. The passion pent up within my breast throughout that tedious banquet would have its way, and poured on in impetuous current through seven sheets of note-paper. This time I expressed myself in prose—but such prose!—a Niagara from a furnace—seething, burning, boiling, bubbling—red-hot from my manly heart. I cannot but fear that if this document were submitted to Sir Cresswells inspection on a cold morning in February, at 11, that learned judge might find the imagery over-wrought, and of a somewhat Eastern and voluptuous character. Indeed, there was one contrast between a supposed Alhambra and a foul pot-house, and another between my Flora and the friends who had torn me from her beloved presence, of which I should never hear the last if my friend Molyneux—Molyneux the Black, we used to call him—were to get hold of it. He has a courteous but distant way of making allusions to any disagreeable little incident of this kind—the result of which would, in the long run, be my own disappearance from London life, and emigration to British Columbia. Then there was another letter in which I had confided to my Flora the aspirations of my youthful ambition. I looked forward then to driving my Triumphal Car through the British Forum at a slapping pace indeed, although, for reasons not worth entering upon just now, I have not followed up the profession. But, as I remember, in the letter in question I had ventured to speak of the fifteen judges as of fifteen mature matrons, and perhaps Sir C. C. might not take this well, as he was upon the judicial bench at the time, and I have not had the opportunity I anticipated of setting him right upon points of law. There is but one thing to do. I will invite my Flora to accompany me this very afternoon upon a long walk, and fairly weary out her tender limbs. When sleep has sealed up her gentle eyelids, I will steal softly forth, and glide with that desk of my beloved one into my dressing-room, and abstract the documents. One never knows what may happen.

Whilst these thoughts are passing through my mind, and my cheeks are uncomfortably red—two young men have strolled into the passage, and tapped at the door with little ceremony. They have come down to enjoy the fun—they are obvious Clubbists—and it needs not any long experience to inform me that they must have chucked away the ends of their cigars at the entrance of Westminster Hall. The trap is summarily shut in their faces. Sir Cresswell does not keep open Court for them. Their turn will come—but not yet. Nature has set the indelible mark of “Co-Respondent” upon the brow of each of them. There will surely be a day when the policeman at the trap will give them admission to the Court without any difficulty, if they care to claim it. They try a little quiet joking—but it won’t do—you might as well offer a slice of nicely toasted bacon to a French gentleman, when halfway between Calais and Dover, as try joking here—that is, what they would call joking. One of the youths—the one with the mandarin hat—unless my eyes deceive me—has distinctly made ocular overtures to the young female leopard before alluded to. The young lady simply glares at him in reply: he might as well have winked at Medusa. I am sorry for him—so awful and stony is the gaze of that young Sphinx, in the leghorn, trimmed with black, at the foolish boy. Away, young Co-Respondents—back to your pool and your muddled betting-books—your time will come!

Then an elderly clergyman-looking man drops in, and tries the door, with a bland smile, just as though he were about to claim admission to his own vestry. The trap opens, and the usual few words of dialogue are exchanged, the result of which is that the reverend gentleman is left smiling in the passage just like one of us ordinary people. What can he be doing here? I should as soon have expected to meet such a man at Cremorne or the Cyder Cellars. His respectable consort cannot, I am very confident, have the smallest idea of the way in which he intended to occupy his morning. When that reverend gentleman left home after breakfast—he looks like a person who would have lodgings in Suffolk Street—he spread false reports of his intention to assist at a meeting of the society for the S.P.G., or