Charades in a Setting
THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.
I WAS welcomed, in England, to a country house by my niece, whose husband is a banker by heritage, a soldier by profession, and a hunter by taste and devotion. His guests were according, particularly of the “ horsy ” type, and I felt like David Copperfield on the top of the coach, behind the great breeder. This comparison occurred to me so strongly as to suggest the following charade : —
Where the Peggottys abode,
I sought my second’s agency
To bear my body’s load ;
But it sore belied its title,
In vain I stormed and cursed ;
I could not force nor coax to speed
My irresponsive first.
Where the Peggottys abode,
Into ocean for refreshment
In its sunlit brine I strode.
Then for my late profaneness
Came vengeance on my soul,
As my neck in torture quivered
With the keen stroke of my whole.
“ You hunt, I suppose ? ’’ said my niece at breakfast, the first morning. “ No, I don’t,” said I, playing with an old Derby china cup ; “ much as ever I can ride.” “ Well, you shoot, I know.” “ No, I fear I should take a ramrod for a bayonet.” “ What do you do, then ? ” said Lilian, rather snappishly, for the orifice of her teapot would not pour. “ I know : he plays football,” said her Harrow brother-in-law. “Not even that, Arthur,” said I. “ I’m no hand at any sports ; I can’t even play with stocks and bullion, like your uncle John.” “I ’m afraid you ’ll lack amusement,” said Lilian, in a great tone of compassion. “Not at all,” said I. “ People always amuse me. There was that incipient courtship I overheard last night, on which I composed this charade.
I hear my first awake the air ;
My first I ’ll lend,’ Sir Robert said,
' And thou my first shalt win and wear.’
Or thou shalt lend my next alone ;
My next is still a sound of care,
And I have ever shunned a loan.’
The hearts of lovers to entwine ;
Howe’er these bitter jests we trade,
My third advantage will be thine.
My faultless next our compact bind.'
“ ’Never ! ’ she cried, and smit fell he
With wound, as of my whole, unkind.”
This was received with applause, and 1 was admitted as a sort of performer, though a non-equestrian, non-military, non-money man was unknown to the Milford archives. On the banker element, however, I was soon revenged. Sir John Mitford, the august head of the banking firm, rising late, and determined to outdo his sons and nephews by reviving the hunting exploits of his youth, had made his horse fly over fence after fence, till suddenly — But let the charade which greeted him after dinner speak : —
With breezy call of opening morn ;
And mixed with shouts and yelps and cheers
Blithely sounds the huntsman’s horn.
Horse and hound and groom are there,
Stirrup and snaffle and rein are on,
And ladies’ laughter awakes the air,
But why delayeth the good Sir John ?
That thus he lingers in sweet repose ?
A pearly button he breaks, perchance,
Hath lost his heart or his striped hose.
Sudden he bounds through stair and hall,
Vaults upon Ormonde’s chestnut foal ;
Never he recks the butler’s call,
Never he stops to take my whole.
That soon arrested his airy flight,
The straining bound and thundering pitch
That spiked the charger and lamed the knight!
Vainly he hears the hounds sweep by,
Vainly their music stirs his blood,
And vainly now for my whole he ’ll sigh,
For he’s my second in Melton mud.
Moreover, a very charming young lady was so disgusted with the brag of a military suitor that she received with pleasure the following : —
And proudly gallops to the mead.
“ I reck not of my last,” he cries,
“ When honor points me to the skies !
On, my brave troop ! my first may come,
The trumpet bray, and roll the drum.
Squadrons, advance ! as gayly ride,
As in my last my first you plied.”
To hold the ground, my last the air ; Slaughter and wounds the meadow fill,
Where chargers crush and sabres kill;
But all the horrors of the fight,
And all the pangs when fell the night,
Match not the tale of mangling blows
Wherewith my whole its field bestrews.
She actually joined me in a little starlight flirtation, calling it an astronomy lesson, which led to this : —
On earth to glitter, they combine ;
Apart, men fly their furious harms;
Together, court their brilliant charms ;
Nor onset fierce, nor mystic power,
Slays like that beauty’s fatal dower.
On the other hand, her suitor, being assured I was terribly clever, drew me aside to consult me on matrimony. My advice may be found hidden in these lines : —
How shall I a consort choose ?
How secure my first, who makes me
All to gain, and naught to lose?
Is my second wealth uncounted,
Sparkling beauty, smiling wit,
That shall make me first of mortals ?
How should prudence settle it ? ”
“ List the counsel of my third;
Let not wealth alone, nor beauty,
Wit nor temper be preferred.
Look beyond thy charmer’s person,
Let her race thy choice control;
Fathers make and mothers fashion, —
Let thy compass be my whole.”
It had really become serious. I could not open my lips without having a charade called for. The morning newspaper set the old men on me, and elicited this : —
The reaper’s steel.
Where speech may need.
Though vast her wall.
A difficulty with the lamp at five-o’clock tea made the ladies call for one, and I responded thus : —
When all in one were land and sea;
The splendors of my first recall
When land was naught, and sea was all.
Give shelter to a band unsexed ;
Yet if my next should rack your child,
They soothe it with a nectar mild.
Seek but the new, and miss the old ;
Nor from my whole the lesson draw
That wit and force must yield to law.
And at bedtime, when the servant reported to the dispersing guests that the frost was too hard for hunting, I had the sportsmen, each stirring a nightcap, stand round me, and say, “ Can you get anything witty out of this beastly frost, old fellow?” Well, I sat down, and scratched off this : —
Farewell, my precious wife !
I go to prove my trenchant steel
In wild, adventurous strife!
My troops are gone, their harness on,
For sharp encounter stirred ;
The gleaming; foe their strokes shall know,
My faithless, heartless third.
And each manœuvre skilled ;
Fear not my feet in foul retreat
Shall break by terror chilled.
My first, my second, — words of doubt, —
Must they your hearts appal ?
Be far removed from champion proved
Such omens of his fall.”
His darlings watched him ply
His blade’s keen edge, like woodman’s wedge,
With sparkling, tearful eye.
One rattling stroke — the foe he broke,
And made my yawning whole,
While sharply rang as one should say
The parting of his soul.
Perhaps my readers will not find out, any more than my hearers, where the cold weather comes in.
In short, from a nobody I had risen to a hero ; but my glory was paramount when we all came home from a ball where a naval officer had cut out every man jack of us, bankers, soldiers, and hunters, the blue coat beating black and red out of the field. The jilted crowd called on me with one voice for a “skit on that beggar of a midshipman ” (I believe he was a lieutenant commander), and expressed the greatest delight when I produced the following : —
A young naval officer’s lately come down ;
There ’s gold on his cap, and a dirk by his side,
And his black silk cravat is most jauntingly tied.
Every girl in the town is delighted to know
She’s a chance of securing so charming a beau ;
Not a day in the week but he’s asked out to tea,
And my first are all set when his coming we see.
Of shipwrecks and icebergs and imminent fate;
The pirates he conquered, the captives he saved,
The hardships he bore, and the dangers he braved.
When he opens his mouth we sit mum as the dead,
You would think that my second was everywhere spread ;
The most desperate gossips are silent for once,
And the brightest young spark is as mute as a dunce. His ship ’s to be here, and we’ve made him agree
To take us on board all her wonders to see :
The sheets and the royals, the spanker and jib, —
You see he has taught me to say them off glib, —
The shot and the shell lying round cheek by jowl,
And the pistols and cutlasses decking my whole.
’T is true, my dear Ethel, our heads fairly swim;
We have ne’er had a beau so delightful as him !
You will find the answer to every charade, dear reader, somewhere in the prose of this story.