Baboo Jabberjee, B.A., F. Anstey [best autobiographies to read .TXT] 📗

Magnanimous and Ever Adorable Jessimina!

I am immensely tickled with flattered complacency at your indomitable desire to become the bride of such a man of straw as this undeserving self, and will no longer offer any factious opposition to your wishes.

But in the intoxicating ardour of my billing and cooing I may have omitted to mention that, when I have led you to the Hymeneal altar, you will not be alone in your glory. As a Koolin Brahmin, I am, by laws of my country, entitled to about thirty or forty spouses, though, owing to natural timidity and economical reasons, I have not hitherto availed myself of said privilege.

However, when that I was a little tiny boy, I was compelled by family pressure to contract matrimony with an equally juvenile female of eight, and, though circumstances have prevented the second ceremony being celebrated on arriving at the more mature age of discretion, such infant marriage is notwithstanding the binding affair.

What of it? Your overwhelming affection will render you totally indifferent to the unpleasant side of your position as a sateen or rival wife, though it is the antipode of the bed of roses, especially under internecine feuds and perpetual snipsnaps with sundry aunts and sisters-in-law of mine of rather nagging idiosyncracies. But ignorance of language will probably blind your sensitive ears to the sneering and ill-natured tone of their remarks.

I can only say that I am quite ready (if you insist upon it) to fulfil my contract to best ability, and undertake the heavy burden which Providence has, very injudiciously, saddled upon my feeble back. Mr Chuckerbutty Ram, of 15 Jubilee Terrace, Clapham, was present at my first wedding, and will doubtless certify to same on application.

Ever yours faithfully and devotedly,

H. B. J.

In writing the above, I was well aware that there is a strong prejudice in the mind of European feminines in favour of monogamy, and my letter (as will be seen by the intelligent reader) was rather cleverly composed so as to shift the burden of breach of contract from my shoulders to hers.

So that I rubbed my hands with gleeful jubilation on receiving her reply that she was astounded with wonderment at the sublimity of my cheek in supposing that she would play the subordinate fiddle to any native wife, and that she had communicated with Chuckerbutty Ram, Esq., and if my statement re infant marriage (which at present she suspected to be a mere spoof) proved correct, she would certainly decline my insulting offer.

Now as it is the undeniable fact that I was wedded when a mere juvenile, I shall save my brush from this near shave—provided that Mr Chuckerbutty Ram has received my tip in time and does not, like Hon'ble Cummerbund, go beyond his instructions.

But this is not reasonably probable, Baboo Chuckerbutty Ram being a tolerably discreet, subtle chap.

Mr Jabberjee halloos before he is quite out of the Wood.

Being (to my best of belief) satisfactorily off with the old love, I naturally became as playful as a kitten or gay as a grig. For the most superficial observer, and with the half of a naked optic, could easily discern the immeasurable superiority of Miss Wee-Wee to Jessimina in all the refinements and delicacies of a real English lady, and although, up to present date, the timidity of girlishness has restrained Miss Allbutt-Innett from reciprocating my increasing spooniness, her parents and brother are of an overwhelming cordiality, and repeatedly mention their ardent hope that I may become their guest up in the hills some time this autumn.

So that Hope is already recommencing to hop jauntily about the secret chamber of my heart.

For, seeing the magnanimous contempt for the snobbishness of chasing a tuft that actuates their bosoms, I am no longer apprehensive that their affection for this present writer will be at all impaired by the revelation that he is merely a member of nature's nobility. Rather the contrary.

As Poet Burns remarks with great truthfulness, "Rank is but a penny stamp and a Man is a Man and all that." Nevertheless, for the present, I am resolved to remain mum as a mouse.

Since I am now in their pockets for a perpetuity, I was privileged on a recent evening to escort the Allbutt-Innett ladies to the Empire of India Exhibition, upon which I shall now pronounce the opinion of an expert, though space forbids me to describe its multitudinous marvels, save with the brevity of a soul of wit.

In the Cinghalese Palace we beheld a highly pious Yogi from Ceylon, who had trained himself to perform his devotions with one of his legs embracing his neck, or walking upon the caps of his knees with his toes inserted into his waistband. But I am not convinced that such a style of prayer-making is at all superior in reverence to more ordinary attitudes, especially when exhibited publicly for an honorarium.

I feel proud to narrate that, at Miss Wee-Wee's urgent entreaties, I subdued my native funkiness so far as to make the revolution of the Gigantic Wheel, in spite of grave apprehensions that it would prove but a house of cards, or suddenly become totally immobile—though to pass interminable hours at a lofty attitude with such a lively companion might, on secondary thoughts, have possessed pleasing saccharine compensations. Nevertheless, I was relieved when we descended without having hitched anywhere, and I did most firmly decline to fly in the face of Providence for five shillings in the basket of a captive balloon.

The Indian street is constructed with cleverness, but gives a very, very inadequate idea of the principal Calcutta thoroughfares; moreover, to cultivated Indian intellects, the fuss made by English ladies over native artisans and mechanics of rather so-so abilities and appearance seems a little ludicrous!

After dining, we witnessed the Historical Spectacle of India in the Empress Theatre, and Miss Wee-Wee made the criticism that the fall of Somnath was accomplished with a too great facility, since its so-called defenders did lie down with perfect tameness and counterfeit death immediately the army of Sultan Mahmud galloped their horses through the gateway.

But this appeared to me rather a typical and prudent exercise of their discretion.

It seems—though (in spite of extensive historical researches) I was in previous ignorance of the fact—that Sultan Mahmud, the Great Mogul Akbar, and Sivaji, the Mahratta Chief, were each taken in tow and personally conducted by a trio of Divine Guides, respectively named Love, Mercy and Wisdom, who came forward whenever nothing of consequence was transpiring, and sang with the melodiousness of Paradisiacal fowls.

As for the representation of the Hindu Paradise, I shall confess to some disappointment, seeing that it was exclusively reserved to military masculines—the more highly educated civilian class of Baboos being left out of the cold altogether! Nor am I in love with a future state in which there is so much dancing up and down lofty flights of stairs with terpsichorean energy, and manœuvring in companies and circles with members of the softer sex. As a philosophical conception of disembodied existence, it is undeniably deficient in repose, though perhaps good enough for ordinary fighting chaps!

I spent a rapturous and ripping evening, however, greatly owing to the condescension of Miss Wee-Wee, who exhibited such entertainment at my comments that I left under the confident persuasion that I was infallibly to be the favoured swain.

On returning to Hereford Road, I found a last letter from Jessimina, beseeching me, for the sake of "Old Langsyne," to meet her on the following evening at Westbourne Park Station, and mentioning that certain events had occurred to change her views, and she was now only desirous for an amicable arrangement.

Accordingly, perceiving that I had no longer any reason to dread such an encounter, and not wishing her to peak and pine through my unkindness, I wrote at once accepting the rendezvous.

When I duly turned up, lo and behold! I found she was escorted, not only by her eagle-eyed mother (Jessimina herself inherits, in Hamlet's immortal phraseology, "an eye like Ma's, to threaten or command"), but also by a juvenile individual with a black neck-tie and Hebrew profile, whom she formerly introduced to me as Mr Solomons.

Though a little hurt by this proof of the rapidity of feminine fickleness, I began to congratulate her effusively on having obtained such an excellent substitute for my worthless self, and to wish the happy couple all earthly felicities, when she explained that he was not a fiancé, but merely a sort of friend, and Mrs Mankletow severely added that they had come to know whether I still declined to fulfil my legal contract.

Naturally I made the answer that I had recently offered to fulfil same to best ability, but that, my offer having been declined with contumeliousness, the affair was now on its end.

Here Jessimina said that she had of course refused to marry a man who declared that he was already the owner of a dusky spouse, but that, on inquiries from Mr Chuckerbutty Ram, she had made the discovery that my said infant wife had popped off with some juvenile complaint or other three or four years ago.

At this I was rendered completely flabaghast—for, although the allegation was undeniably correct, I had confidently hoped that my friend Ram was unaware of the fact, or would at least have the ordinary mother-wit to refrain from blurting it out! "Et tu, Brute!" But I must make the dismal confession that my friends are mostly a very fat-witted sort of fellows.

Que faire?—except to explain that my melancholy bereavement must have entirely slipped off my memory, and that in any case it had no logical connection with the matter in hand.

Then Mrs Mankletow inquired, would I, or would I not, marry her illused child? and stated that all she wished for was a plain answer.

I replied that it was a very natural and moderate desire, and I was prepared to gratify it at once by the plain answer of—Not on any account.

Whereupon Mr Solomons stepped forward and politely handed me a folded paper, and, observing that he thought there was no need to protract the interview, he lifted his hat and went off with the ladies, leaving myself upon a bench endeavouring to get the sense of the official document into my baffled and bewildered nob.