We visited the church, and saw his tomb, and there again was the superior half of him occupied with writing verses on a cushion in a mural niche, supported by pillars. Upon a slab below is inscribed a verse requesting that his dust should not be digged, and cursing him who should interfere with his bones, but in so mediocre a style, and of such indifferent orthography, that it is considered by some to be a sort of spurious cryptogram composed by Hon'ble BACON.

On such a _vexata quaestio_ I am not to give a decided opinion, though the verse, as a literary composition, is hardly up to the level of _Hamlet_, and it would perhaps have been preferable if the poet, instead of attempting an impromptu, had looked out some suitable quotation from his earlier works. For, when an author is occupied in shuffling off his mortal coil, it is unreasonable to expect him to produce poetry that is up to the mark.

When I advanced this excuse aloud in the church, a party of Americans within hearing exclaimed, indignantly, that such irreverent levity was a scandal in a spot which was the Mecca of the entire civilised universe.

Whereupon I did protest earnestly that I meant no irreverence, being _nulli secundus_ in respect for the _Genius Loci_, only, as a critic of English Literature, I could not help regretting that a poet gifted with every requisite for producing a satisfactory epitaph had produced a doggerel which was undeniably below his usual par.

This rendered them of an increased ferocity, until Mr ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT good naturedly took them into a corner and whispered that I was a very wealthy young Indian Prince, of great scholastic attainments, but oppressed by an uncontrollable _navete_, after which they all came and shook me by the hand, saying they were very proud to have met me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS HERE," I SAID, REVERENTLY, "THAT THE SWAN OF AVON WAS HATCHED!"]

Afterwards we proceeded to the Birthplace, where a very gentlewomanly female exhibited the apartment in which the Infant Bard first saw the light. Alack! there was but little light to behold, being a shockingly low and dingy room, meagrely furnished with two chairs and a table, on which was another of the busts. As I came in, I uttered a remark which I had prepared for the occasion. "It was here," I said, reverently, "here that the Swan of Avon was hatched!" At which Miss WEE-WEE was again overcome by emotion.

The room was greatly in the necessity of whitewash, being black with smoke and signatures in lead pencil. Even the window-panes were scratched all over by diamonds, on seeing which, and being also the possessor of a diamond and gold ring, I was about to inscribe my own name, but was prevented by the lady custodian.

I indignantly and eloquently protested that if Hon'ble Sirs, WALTER SCOTT, Lord BYRON, ISAAC WALTON, WASHINGTON IRVING and Co. were permitted to deface the gla.s.s thus, surely I, who was a graduate of Calcutta University, and a valuable contributor to London _Punch_, was equally ent.i.tled, since what was sauce for a goose was sauce for a gander, and Mrs ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT urged that I was a distinguished Shakspearian student and Indian prince, but the custodian responded that she couldn't help that, for it was _ultra vires_, nevertheless.

However, while she was engaged in pointing out the spot where somebody's signature had been before it was peeled away, I, s.n.a.t.c.hing the opportunity behind her back, did triumphantly inscribe my autograph on the bust's nose.

In the back-room they showed us where SHAKSPEARE'S father stapled his wool, which caused Mrs ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT to remark that she had always understood that the poet was of quite humble origin, and that, for her part, she thought it was all the more creditable to him to have done what he did do.

We also inspected the Museum, and were shown SHAKSPEARE'S jug, a rather ordinary concern; the identical dial which one of the clowns in his plays drew out of a poke, and a ring with W. S. engraved on it, found in the churchyard some years ago, and, no doubt, dropped there by the poet himself, while absorbed in the composition of his famous and world-renowned elegy.

There were several portraits of him also, all utterly unlike one another, or only agreeing in one respect, namely, their total dissimilarity from the bust.

We likewise saw the very desk SHAKSPEARE used, after creeping unwillingly to school with a shining face like a snail's. I was pained to see evidence of the mischievousness of the juvenile genius, for it was slashed and hacked to such a doleful degree as to be totally incapacitated for scholastic use!

I myself was sprightly in my youth, but never, I am proud to say, to the extent of wilfully damaging my master's furniture! Before leaving, we walked to visit the residence of SHAKSPEARE'S wife, which turned out to be a very humble thatched-roof affair, such as is commonly occupied by peasants.

But, as Mrs ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT said, it is a sad fact that distinguished literary characters often make most imprudent marriages. Which put me in a wonderment whether she had heard anything about myself and Miss MANKLETOW.

At one of the bazaars I purchased a beautiful Shakspearian souvenir, in the form of a coloured porcelain model of SHAKSPEARE'S birthplace, which can be rendered transparent and luminous by the insertion of a night-light.

This I had intended humbly to offer for the gracious acceptance of Miss WEE-WEE, but having thrust it into a coat-tail pocket, I unfortunately sat upon it in the train as we were returning.

So I presented it as a token of remembrance to JESSIMINA, who was transported with delight at the gift, which she said could be easily rendered the _statu quo_ by dint of a little diamond cement.

XVII

_Containing some intimate confidences from Mr Jabberjee, with the explanation of such apparent indiscretion._

Since writing my latest contribution I have folded up my tent like an Arab, and silently stolen away from Porticobello House, this independent hook being taken under the ostensible and colourable pretext of a medical opinion that the climate of Bayswater was operating injuriously upon my internal arrangements, but the real _causa causans_ and _dessous des cartes_ being a growing disinclination for the society of select male and female boarders.

Miss JESSIMINA was naturally bathed in tears at the announcement of my approaching departure, although I fondly sought to console her by a.s.surances that my residence in Highbury, Islington, though beyond the radius and of inaccessible remoteness from Ladbroke Grove, should not obliterate her brilliant image from the cracked looking-gla.s.s of my heart, and that I would write to her with weekly regularity, and revisit the glimpses of her moony presence at the first convenient opportunity.

I do correspond with effusiveness and punctuality through the obliging medium of a young intimate Indian acquaintance of mine, who does actually reside at Highbury, and has kindly undertaken to forward my _billets doux_.

This stratagem is necessitated by the circ.u.mstance that (as a matter of fact) I am dwelling under a rose at Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, which is in convenient proximity to Prince's Square and the stately home of the ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT family, with whom I am now promoted to become the tame cat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"UNACCUSTOMED TO DARK-COMPLEXIONED GENTLEMEN."_ (frontispiece)]

In Hereford Road I occupy garishly genteel first-floor front and back apartments at rupees fifteen per week and the Lady of the Land has entreated me to kindly excuse the waiting-maid for jumping with diffidence whenever I pop upon her unpremeditatedly on the stairs, being a nervous girl and unaccustomed to dark-complexioned gentlemen--though her own countenance, from superabundance of blacking and s.m.u.ts, being of a far superior nigritude, it is I myself who should be more justified in jumping.

However, she is already becoming the _habituee_, and seldom drops the crockery-ware now--except when I simper with too beaming a condescension.

Certain of my readers will perhaps hold up the hands of amazement at my imprudence in disclosing my whereabouts, and other private concerns, in the publicity of a popular periodical--but there is method in such madness; they do not take in _Punch_ at Porticobello House, considering that one penny (or even the moiety of that sum) is more correct value for funny and comical ill.u.s.trated journalism, while the ALLb.u.t.t-INNETTS, although they see _Punch_ weekly do not peruse the literary contents, especially in the season, when, as Mrs A.-I. frequently remarks, they are in such a constant whirl of social dissipation that they have absolutely no time for serious reading.

At first I was severely mortified that--so far as my acquaintances were concerned--these t.i.ttlings and jottings should be thus written with water, but I have since made the discovery that my cloud of disappointment is internally lined with precious silver.

XVIII

_Mr Jabberjee is a little over-ingenious in his excuses._

Since shaking the dust off my feet at Porticobello House, I have not succeeded to pluck the courage for a personal interview with Miss JESSIMINA, and my correspondence, duly forwarded per Mr BHOOBONE LALL JALPANYBHOY, of Highbury, has consisted mainly of abject excuses for non-attendance on plea of over-study for Bar Exam, and total incapacity to journey due to excessive disorderliness in stomach department.

This, unhappily, at length inspired her with the harrowing dread that I was on the point of being launched into the throes of eternity, if not already as dead as Death's door-nail, and so, with feminine want of reflection, she performed a hurried pilgrimage to Highbury.

Now, whether on account of the beetleheadedness of a domestic, or Baboo JALPANYBHOY'S incompetency in the art of equivocation, I am not to say--but the sequel of her inquiries was the unshakable conviction that I had not struck root in the habitation from which my letters were ostensibly addressed.

And in a subsequently forwarded letter she did reproach me pathetically with my duplicity, and accused me of being a fickle--by which I was so unspeakably cut up that I abstained from the condescension of a rejoinder.

Next I became the involuntary recipient of another letter in more intemperate style, menacing me that with a hook or a crook, she would dislodge me from the loophole in which I was snugly established, and that several able-bodied boarders were the hue of a full cry in pursuit.

Since Hereford Road is in dangerous proximity to Ladbroke Grove, I was sitting tight in my apartments on receipt of this grave intelligence, with funk in my heart, and the Unknown hovering above me, when my young friend HOWARD ALLb.u.t.t-INNETT, Esq., arrived with his bicycle, like a G.o.d on a machine, and perceiving the viridity of my countenance, inquired sympathetically what was up.

At first, being mindful of the excessive liveliness with which he had bantered my residence in a boarding-house of such mediocre pretensions, I was naturally disinclined to reveal that I was in the plight of troth with the proprietress's daughter; but eventually I overcame my coyness, and uncovered the pretty kettle of fish of my _infandum dolorem_, and my ardent longing to hit upon some plan to extricate myself from the suffocating coils of such a Laoc.o.o.n.

"My dear old chap," he said kindly, after I had unfolded the last link of my tale of woe, "I will put you up in a dodge that will perform the trick. Don't see the young woman, or she will get round you with half a jiffy. Write to her that you are not worthy of a rap, and no more a Prince than I am!"

Hearing his last words, I started, and did, like the ghost of _Hamlet_, Senior, "jump at this dead hour," being convinced that young HOWARD had found out (perhaps from Hon'ble c.u.mMERBUND) that my t.i.tle was a bogus, and antic.i.p.ating that, if he divulged the skeleton of my bare cupboard to his highly genteel parents, I should infallibly experience the crushing mortification of a chuck out.

However, I hid the fox that was nibbling my vitals by inquiring, in a rather natural accent, what he meant by such a suggestion.

"Are you such an innocent, simple old Johnny, Prince," he said, with rea.s.suring _bonhomie_, "as not to catch the idea? Do you not know that European feminines in all ranks of society--alack, even in our own!--are immoderately attracted by anyone possessed of riches and a t.i.tle--or of either of the two? As an _au fat_ in the female temperament, I shall wager that it is nine out of ten that if you spoof this mercenary young minx into believing that you are merely a native impecunious nonent.i.ty, and not to be shot at with powder, she will instantaneously drop pursuing such a hot potato."

To this speech (reported _verbatim_ to best of my ability) I did shake my head sorrowfully, and reply that I greatly feared that JESSIMINA'S devotion to this unlucky self was too severe to be diverted, or even checked, like a cow that is infuriated or _non compos mentis_, by the mere relinquishment of such tinsel and gewgaw wraps as a t.i.tle or worldly belongings, having frequently (and that, too, _prior_ to our engagement) protested her preference for very dark-complexioned individuals, and her vehement curiosity to behold India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ASCENDED HIS BICYCLE WITH A WAGGISH WINKLE IN HIS EYE."]

But he, as he ascended his bicycle with a waggish winkle in his eye, repeated that I might try it on at all events.