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be your idea of a quiet spot to live in, I wonder what, according to your notion, need be added to its tumult to make a noisy town. Here is a list of aural tortures wherewith we are tormented, which may serve by way of time-table to advertise the musical attractions of the place:—

1 a.m.—Voices of the night. Revellers returning home.

1.30 a.m.—Duet, "Io t'amo", squealed upon the tiles, by the famous feline vocalists Mademoiselle Minette and Signor Catterwaulini.

2 a.m.—Barc-arole and chorus, "Bow wow wow" (Bach), by the Bayers of the Moon.

3 a.m.—Song without words, by the early village cock.

REDCAR REDCAR

3.30 a.m.—Chorus by his neighbours, high and low, mingling the treble[Pg 64] of the Bantam with the Brahma's thorough bass.

4 a.m.—Twittering of swallows, and chirping of early birds, before they go to catch their worms.

4.45 a.m.—Meeting of two natives, of course just under your window, who converse in a stage-whisper at the tip-top of their voices.

5 a.m.—Stampede of fishermen, returning from their night's work in their heavy boots.

6 a.m.—Start of shrimpers, barefooted, but occasionally bawling.

7 a.m.—Shutters taken down, and small boys sally forth and shout to one another from the two ends of the street.

HEIGHT OF THE SEAS-ON ENJOYING THE HEIGHT OF THE SEAS-ON

7.15 a.m.—"So-holes! fine fresh so-holes!"

7.30 a.m.—"Mack'reel! fower a shillun! Ma-a-ack'reel!"

8 a.m.—Piano play begins, and goes on until midnight.

[Pg 66]

8.25 a.m.—Barrel-organ at the corner. Banjo in the distance.

9 a.m.—German band to right of you. Ophicleide out of time, clarionette out of tune.

OLD AND NEW PEERS MEETING OF THE OLD AND NEW PEERS AT BRIGHTON

9.30 a.m.—"Pa-aper, mornin' pa-aper! Daily Telegraft!"

9.45 a.m.—German band to left of you. Clarionette and cornet both out of time and tune.

10.15 a.m.—A key-bugler and a bag-piper a dozen yards apart.

11 a.m.—Performance of Punch and Toby, who barks more than is good for him.

WALTON ON THE NAZE WALTON ON THE NAZE

11.30 a.m.—Bellowing black-faced ballad-bawlers, with their banjoes and their bones.

Such is our daily programme of music until noon, and such, with sundry variations, it continues until midnight. Small wonder that I have so little relish for my meals, and that, in spite of the sea air, I can hardly sleep a wink. I shall return to Town to-morrow, for surely all the street tormentors must be out of it, judging by the numbers that now plague the sad seaside.

    Miserrimus.

[Pg 68]

MEAT SUPPLY "THE MEAT SUPPLY"

Bathing-man. "Yes, mum, he's a good old 'orse yet. And he's been in the salt water so long, he'll make capital biled beef when we're done with him!!!"


Our Poetess. "Do not talk to me of dinner, Edwin. I must stay by this beautiful Sea, and drink it all in!"

Bill the Boatman. "Lor! She's a thirsty one too!"


[Pg 65]

KILL TIME AT THE SEASIDE HOW TO KILL TIME AT THE SEASIDE

Hire bath-chairs, put the bath-chairmen inside, and drag them as fast as you can up and down the parade.

[Pg 67]

INOPPORTUNE INOPPORTUNE

Enthusiast of the "No Hat Brigade" (to elderly gentleman, who has just lost his hat). "Fine idea this, sir, for the hair, eh?"

[Pg 69]

Beauty and the Beast

Jones. "Hullo, Brown, what's the matter with you and Mrs. Brown?"

Brown. "Matter? Why, do you know what they call us down here? They call us Beauty and the Beast! Now I should like to know what my poor wife has done to get such a name as that!"

[Pg 70]

THE TREACHEROUS TIDE
cartoon

I sat on a slippery rock,

In the grey cliff's opal shade,

And the wanton waves went curvetting by

Like a roystering cavalcade.

And they doffed their crested plumes,

As they kissed the blushing sand,

Till her rosy face dimpled over with smiles

At the tricks of the frolicsome band.

Then the kittywake laughed, "Ha! ha!"

And the sea-mew wailed with pain,

As she sailed away on the shivering wind

To her home o'er the surging main.

And the jelly-fish quivered with rage,

While the dog-crabs stood by to gaze,

And the star-fish spread all her fingers abroad,

And sighed for her grandmothers' days.

cartoon [Pg 71]

And the curlew screamed, "Fie! fie!"

And the great gull groaned at the sight,

And the albatross rose and fled with a shriek

To her nest on the perilous height.

* * * * *

Good gracious! the place where I sat

With sea-water was rapidly filling,

And a hoarse voice cried, "Sir, you're caught by the tide!

And I'll carry ye off for a shilling!"

SCENT BEES SCENT BEES
A SAIL OVER THE BAY A SAIL OVER THE BAY

"Local Colour."—Place: South Parade, Cheapenham-on-Sea.—Edith. "Mabel dear, would you get me Baedeker's Switzerland and the last Number of the World."

Mabel. "What do you want them for?"

Edith. "Oh, I'm writing letters, and we're in the Engadine, you know, and I just want to describe some of our favourite haunts, and mention a few of the people who are staying there—here, I mean."

[Pg 72]

THE LAY OF THE LAST LODGER I.

O

Oh dreary, dreary, dreary me!

 My jaw is sore with yawning—

I'm weary of the dreary sea,

With its roaring beach

Where sea-gulls screech,

And shrimpers shrimp,

And limpets limp,

And winkles wink,

And trousers shrink;

And the groaning, moaning, droning tide

Goes splashing and dashing from side to side,

With all its might, from morn to night,

And from night to morning's dawning.

II.

The shore's a flood of puddly mud,

And the rocks are limy and slimy—

And I've tumbled down with a thud—good lud!—

And I fear I swore,

For something tore;

And my shoes are full

Of the stagnant pool;

[Pg 74]

And hauling, sprawling, crawling crabs

Have got in my socks with starfish and dabs;

And my pockets are swarming with polypes and prawns,

And noisome beasts with shells and horns,

That scrunch and scrape, and goggle and gape,

Are up my sleeve, I firmly believe—

And I'm horribly rimy and grimy.

III.

I'm sick of the strand, and the sand, and the band,

And the niggers and jiggers and dodgers;

And the cigars of rather doubtful brand;

And my landlady's "rights",

And the frequent fights

On wretched points

Of ends of joints,

Which disappear, with my brandy and beer,

In a way that, to say the least, is queer.

And to mingle among the throng I long,

And to poke my joke and warble my song—

But there's no one near

On sands or pier,

For everyone's gone and I'm left alone,

The Last of the Seaside Lodgers!


Note by Our Man Out of Town—Watering places—resorts where the visitor is pumped dry.


[Pg 73]

A STARTLING PROPOSITION A STARTLING PROPOSITION

Seedy Individual (suddenly and with startling vigour)—

"Aoh! Floy with me ercross ther sea,

Ercross ther dork lergoon!!"

[Pg 75]

CROWDED STATE OF LODGING HOUSES CROWDED STATE OF LODGING HOUSES

Lodging-House Keeper. "On'y this room to let, mem. A four-post—a tent—and a very comfortable double-bedded chest of drawers for the young gentlemen."

A WET DAY AT THE SEASIDE
FILEY FILEY

Why does not some benefactor to his species discover and publish to a grateful world some rational way of spending a wet day at the seaside? Why should it be something so unutterably miserable and depressing that its mere recollection afterwards makes one shudder?

This is the first really wet day that we have had for a fortnight, but what a day! From morn to dewy eve, a summer's day, and far into the black night, the pitiless rain has poured and poured and poured. I broke the unendurable monotony of gazing from the weeping windows of my seaside lodging, by rushing out wildly and plunging madly into the rainy sea, and got drenched to the skin both going and returning. After changing everything, as people say but don't mean, and thinking I saw something like a break in the dull leaden clouds, I again rushed out, and called on Jones, who has rooms in an adjacent terrace, and, with some difficulty, persuaded him to accompany me to the only billiard table in the miserable place. We both got gloriously wet on our way to this haven of amusement, and were received with the pleasing intelligence that it was engaged by a private party of two, who had taken it until the rain ceased, and, when that most improbable event happened, two other despairing lodgers had secured the reversion. Another rush home, another drenching, another change of everything, except the weather, brought the welcome sight of dinner, over which we fondly lingered for nearly two mortal hours.

But one cannot eat all day long, even at the seaside on a wet day, and accordingly at four o'clock I was again cast upon my own resources.

I received, I confess, a certain amount of grim satisfaction at seeing Brown—Bumptious Brown, as we call him in the City, he being a common councilman, or a liveryman, or something of that kind—pass by in a fly, with heaps of luggage and children, all looking so depressingly wet,—and if he had not the meanness to bring with him, in a half-dozen hamper,[Pg 82] six bottles of his abominable Gladstone claret! He grinned at me as he passed, like a Chester cat, I think they call that remarkable animal, and I afterwards learnt the reason. He had been speculating for a rise in wheat, and, as he vulgarly said, the rain suited his book, and he only hoped it would last for a week or two! Ah! the selfishness of some men! What cared he about my getting wet through twice in one day, so long as it raised the price of his wretched wheat?

SECURING A LIVELY-HOOD BOATMAN SECURING A LIVELY-HOOD

My wife coolly recommended me to read the second volume of a new novel she had got from the Library, called, I think, East Glynne, or some such name, but how can a man read in a room with four stout healthy boys and a baby, especially when the said baby is evidently very uncomfortable, and the four boys are playing at leap-frog? Women have this wonderful faculty, my wife to a remarkable extent. I have often, with unfeigned astonishment, seen her apparently lost in the sentimental troubles of some imaginary heroine, while the noisy domestic realities around her have gone on unheeded.

I again took my place at the window, and gazed upon the melancholy sea, and remembered, with a smile of bitter irony, how I had agreed to pay an extra guinea a week for the privilege of facing the sea!—and such a sea! It was, of course, very low water—it generally is at this charming place; and the sea had retired to its extremest distance, as if utterly ashamed of its dull, damp, melancholy appearance. And there stood that ridiculous apology for a pier, with its long, lanky, bandy legs, on which I have been dragged every evening to hear the band play. Such a band! The poor wheezy cornet was bad enough, but the trombone, with its two notes that it jerked out like the snorts of a starting train, was a caution. Oh! that poor "Sweetheart", with which we were favoured every evening! I always pictured her to myself sitting at a window listening, enraptured, to

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