The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 by Harry Furniss (classic novels for teens .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Harry Furniss
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On a side table the stranger sees a number of what appear to him diagrams of City improvements, with mains and drains and all sorts of things, but on closer inspection they turn out to be the plans of the table. You discover one bearing your name, and opposite it a red cross, or perhaps I ought to say an exaggerated asterisk.
When you have taken your seat downstairs in the Banqueting Hall you inspect your plan, from which you find that you can tell who everybody is. Capital idea!
"Ah, seat Number 24, the great Professor Snuffers!"
You direct your gaze across the table to seat No. 24, and lo! your cherished preconception of the Professor vanishes instanter, for his bearing is military, and his whole appearance seems to denote muscle rather than mind.
This plan opens up a mine of instruction and information. You refer again, and next to the Professor you find the "Master of the Scalpers' Company."
"Dear, me, what a clerical-looking old gentleman!" is your mental comment.
Next you look for "The Rev. Canon Dormouse."
"Why, he's quite a youth! Can't be more than five-and-twenty, and wears a medal and an eye-glass! How types have changed!"
It occurs to you to open a conversation with your next neighbour, which you do by making a casual allusion to the Canon.
"Yes, dear old gentleman; does a lot for the poor—life devoted to them."[Pg 239]
"Dear me, does he? Now to my mind, judging from appearances, the Master of the Scalpers' Company seems more cut out for that kind of work."
"Ha! ha! He's better at curing hams than souls."
"Well, I should not have thought so, merely judging character as an artist. Professor Snuffers seems to me also curiously unique. I know a good many Professors, but I never met one so anti-professional in appearance as that gentleman."
ALDERMAN. IDEAL. REAL.
"Ah, Snuffers! Old friend of mine—where is he?"
"There," and you point to the name on the plan and nod over to the other side of the table.
"No, that's not Snuffers! I recollect now he told me he would not be able to come. That's Major Bangs, a guest asked to fill a vacant chair."
Similarly you find that the eye-glass youth is not Canon Dormouse, the clerical-looking gentleman not the Master of the Scalpers' Company, and so on. Oh, they are a capital idea, those plans!
On the occasion in question I met one of the Sheriffs of the City, who is also an Alderman—not a fat, apoplectic, greasy, vulgar Crœsus, but a handsome, thoughtful-looking gentleman,[Pg 240] decidedly under fifty, who might be anything but an Alderman. But indeed the long-accepted type of an Alderman is exploded—such a type, bursting with good dinners, wealth and vulgarity, must explode—and the phœnix which has risen from his ashes would scarcely be recognised by the most liberal of naturalists as belonging to the same species. John Leech may have had living examples for his gross and repulsive monuments of gluttony; in my own experience, however, I find a gulf of great magnitude between the Alderman of caricature and the Alderman I have met in the flesh. The former has gone over to the majority of "four-bottle men" and other bygone phenomena.
Well, let us return to the dinner. The fare is excellent, the company delightful, and I am just revelling in that beatific state of mind born of a sufficiency of the good things of this earth, when nothing seems to me more pleasant than a City dinner, when I am tapped upon the shoulder by the Toastmaster, who bears a warrant to consign me to misery. I have to make a speech. I have passed through the ordeal before, but I find that familiarity, as far as speech-making is concerned, breeds no contempt. Between the City and the art in which I am interested there exists no affinity, and this perhaps is a blessing in disguise, as for once in a way one is of necessity compelled to "sink the shop." However, it is soon over. A plunge, a gasp or two, a few quick strokes, and I am through the breakers and on the shore—I mean on my seat. That was years ago—I am an old hand now.
I never could subscribe to that unwritten and unhonoured law which provides that an after-dinner speaker is entitled to five minutes in which to apologise for his incompetency in that capacity, and fifty-five minutes in which to speechify; and I have often wished that speechmakers one and all would recollect that a few words well-chosen and to the point, and a timely termination, are far more acceptable to the listener than all their maundering oratorical tours "from China to Peru," from the Mansion House to the moon. When I am going to a City dinner my own children show a lively interest to know the[Pg 241] name of the Company, and if I name the Skinners' Guild their interest culminates in uproarious delight; but if I mention any other, most uncomplimentary groans greet the announcement, for the guests of the Company to which I refer can choose either to take or have sent to them a huge box of the choicest sweetmeats when the entertainment is over.
A propos of this, I recollect an incident the mention of which will, I fear, send a cold shudder through any worshipper of "Nubian" nocturnes and incomprehensible "arrangements." On one occasion after leaving the banquet of this Guild I beheld Whistler—"Jimmy" of the snowy tuft, the martyred butterfly of the "peacock room"—to whose impressionable soul the very thought of a sugar-stick should be direst agony, actually making his way homewards hugging a great box of lollipops!
I met a curious City man, not at a City dinner, but at "Ye Odd Volumes," where we both happened to be guests. He was certainly an odd-looking guest, a very old volume out-of-date—odd-fashioned overcoat with gold buttons, an odd-fashioned "stock," and an odd-looking shirt. While waiting for dinner he looked at me oddly, and eventually addressed me in this odd way:
"Sir, may I have the pleasure of exchanging names with you?"
"Why, certainly; my name is Harry Furniss."
"H'm, ha, eh, ha!" and he walked away.[Pg 242]
After dinner came the speeches. As each guest was called upon, my odd friend was to his evident chagrin not named; I noticed from time to time the old gentleman was elevated—sitting high. At last, after I had returned thanks for the visitors, he rose and asked to be allowed to speak. He said something nice about me—the reason he explained to me later. The burthen of his speech was a protest that he had not seen one odd volume that night. "If you've got 'em, produce 'em. Ah!" (snapping his fingers at the company in general) "I don't think you know what an odd volume is!" And then turning round he placed on the table a huge volume on which he had been sitting all through dinner.
"There," he said, "that's an odd volume if you like—that's something unique. It contains 9,987 hotel bills—a chronicle (of my hotel expenses) for two-thirds of the present century."
Later he came round to me. He assured me that he didn't catch my name when he asked for it, but when I was speaking he recognised me and was glad to have the opportunity of making my acquaintance. It appeared he had bought many hundreds of "Romps" books for children and given them to[Pg 243] Children's Hospitals and other institutions. So he had besides an odd volume a good heart—and what is more surprising, a watch in every pocket! Watch-collecting was his hobby, and, like a conjuror, he produced them from the most unexpected and mysterious places. One belonged to the Emperor Maximilian, and had in its case moving figures to strike the time. I confess I wished he had exchanged watches with me in place of names. His name, by the way, was Holborn; he was a well-known City tea-merchant.
When I visited Leeds for the British Association Meeting, I was made a member of Ye Red Lyon Clubbe, a dining club which I understand meets once a year as a relief to the daily monotony of the serious business of the Association—in fact, "for one night only" the British Ass. assumes the Lion's skin. To see learned Professors who have been dilating for hours and days on the most abstruse scientific subjects, with the most solemn faces, amidst the dullest surroundings, suddenly appear wagging their dress-coat tails to represent the tail of the hungry lion, and emitting the most extraordinary mournful, growling sounds, the nearest approach at imitating the roar of the lion, and otherwise behaving like a lot of schoolboys on the night before the holidays, is certainly[Pg 244] a scene not familiar to the thousands who belong to the British Association.
Burlesque-scientific speeches are made after dinner, and although there are generally some practical jokes in chemical illustrations, the merry wits do not tamper with the dinner itself further than preparing a most excellent burlesque menu, which I take the liberty of here introducing:
JOURNALOF
SECTIONAL PROCEEDINGS.
Issued Tuesday Evening, September 9th, 1890, at 5.30 p.m.
Consommé à la Princesse—Hydracid Halogen. Section C... Boiled Salmon—Glacial Lepidodendron.
Fried Smelts—Horned Dinosaur. Section D... Kromesky à la Russe—Androgynous Cones.
Poulet Sauté à la Chasseur—Chytridian Woronina. Section E... Braised Fillet of Beef—Lobengula Lion.
Roast Saddle of Mutton—Native Kalahari. Section F... Grouse—Statistics of Slaughter.
Partridge—Progressive Decimation. Section G... *Savarin à l'Abricot—Diamagnetic amperes.
Sicilian Cream—A New Lubricant.
Victoria Jelly—High Carbon Slag.
Maids of Honour—Kinetic Leverage.
Pastry—Approaching the Elastic Limit. Section H... Ice Pudding—Prognathous Brachycephaloid.
Croûte d'Anchois—Unidentified Origin.
Dessert—Prehistoric Jourouks.
* Should the discussion of these Papers interfere with the transactions of the other Sections, one or more will be taken as eaten.
H.B. ——, Jackals.
W. ——,
[Pg 245]
OMEBODY has said that an Englishman will find any excuse to give a dinner, but my experience has been that this is truer of Americans. I have been the guest of many extraordinary dining clubs, but as the most unique I select the Pointed Beards of New York. To club and dine together because one has hair cut in a particular way is the raison d'ĂŞtre of the club; there is nothing heroic, nothing artistic or particularly intellectual. It is not even a club to discuss hirsute adornments; such a club might be made as interesting as any other, provided the members were clever.
That most delightful of littérateurs, Mr. James Payn, once interested himself, and with his pen his readers, in that charming way of his, on the all-important question, "Where do shavers learn their business? Upon whom do they practise?" After most careful investigation he answers the question, "The neophytes try their prentice hands upon their fellow barbers." That may be the rule, but every rule has an exception, and I happened once to be the unfortunate layman when a budding and inexperienced barber practised his art upon me. I sat in the chair of a hairdresser's not a hundred miles from Regent Street. I had selected a highly respectable, thoroughly English establishment, as I was tired of being held by the nose by foreigners' fingers saturated with the nicotine of bad cigarettes. I entered gaily, and to my delight a fresh-looking British youth tied me up in the chair of torture, lathered my chin, and began operations. I was not aware of the fact that I was being made a chopping-block of until the youth, agitated and extremely nervous, produced[Pg 246] a huge piece of lint and commenced dabbing patches of it upon my countenance. Then I looked at myself in the glass. Good heavens! Was I gazing upon myself, or was it some German student, lacerated and bleeding after a
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