Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious

V

There ensued a scene of considerable excitement. Never tell me again that policemen do not come when they are wanted. As soon as that whistle was blown blue-coated officials began to appear in all directions. A policeman running is a sight to be seen-so the general public with leisure on its hands seemed to think, because each came attended by a tail of stragglers. What the neighbours thought of the proceedings Heaven only knows. People stood on the doorsteps, heads were thrust out of every window. Bangley Gardens had never before experienced such an occasion in the whole course of its history.

The behaviour of the persons who had lost their purses-or wished me to believe that they had-was disgraceful. Judging from the sounds they were wandering over the house wherever their fancy led them. A scuffle seemed to be taking place on the stairs, another in the hall, and there was plainly contention in the drawing-room. Mysterious noises in the basement. Eight or nine excitable people had forced their way into my room, and, headed by "Sarah Eliza Warren," were addressing me in a fashion which, to say the least of it, was lacking in decorum. Meantime the original policeman was standing with his hands in his belt, waiting for the support of his colleagues before taking any steps whatever to save my property from being looted.

"Constable!" I screamed, "I am the owner of this house, and I shall hold you responsible for any damage that is done to my property. Come inside, I tell you, and turn these people out."

He apparently paid no heed to me whatever; I was not the only one who was screaming; The people at the drawing-room window were behaving as if they had just broken loose from Bedlam. From what I afterwards ascertained it seems as if some of them imagined that they were in for a colourable imitation of the original affair of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Suddenly I became conscious that the proceedings in my immediate neighbourhood had positively increased in liveliness. Turning, I perceived that Saunders was engaged in what looked very like a bout of fisticuffs with still another member of the unemployed; he had detected him in the act of pocketing a silver statuette. Regardless of who was standing in the way I rushed to his assistance. I struck out at somebody-somebody struck out at me. What immediately followed must have borne a strong family resemblance to the "divarsion" which marked the occasion of that immortal "Irish christenin'."

"What's the meaning of all this? Who's the owner of this house?"

Never was anything more welcome than the sight of the stalwart, blue-coated figure of the representative of law and order standing in the doorway. I tremble to think of what would have happened if his arrival had been delayed much longer.

"I am-what's left of him."

"Then, if you're the owner of the house, what are all these people doing in it?"

"Perhaps you will be so good as to ask them; they have certainly not been invited by me."

A voice was raised in explanation-the voice of "Sarah Eliza Warren."

"We 've been made the victims of a scandalous hoax, policeman, and if there's a law in the land this person ought to be made to suffer. He's lured people by false pretences from all parts of the country, and I, for one, don't mean to leave this house till he has compensated me for the loss and suffering he has caused me."

"More don't I," chimed in, of all persons, that felonious member of the unemployed.

"Officer, I give that man in charge for theft; my man has just caught him in the act of appropriating my property."

The man began to bluster.

"What are you talking about? Who do you think you are? You rob a poor bloke like me of a whole day's work, and then won't give me so much as a ha'penny piece to make up for it! A nice sort you are to talk of robbery!"

The constable raised his hand in the orthodox official manner, which is intended to soothe.

"Now, then! now, then!" He addressed me. "Is what these persons say true-have you been hoaxing them?"

"Most distinctly not; as, if you will be so good as to rid my house of their presence, I shall have much pleasure in promptly proving to you."

The sergeant-he was a sergeant-made short work of the clearance, even managing, by dint of an assurance that he would listen to all she had to say afterwards, to dislodge "Sarah Eliza Warren." Then he turned to me.

"Now, perhaps, you will tell me what this means. If you're the householder, as you say, you yourself ought to turn anyone out of your own house you want to turn out, as a policeman has no right to come into a private house unless an actual charge is to be preferred. I don't know what you've been doing, but you seem to be responsible for something very like a riot."

I felt that it was hard, after what I had undergone, to be addressed in such a strain by a man in his position.

"When you have heard the explanation which I am about to give you, you will yourself perceive how far you are justified in adopting towards me such a tone." I paused. I seated myself-the support of a chair having become an absolute necessity. "The day before yesterday, as I was turning from Knightsbridge into Sloane Street, I saw a purse lying on the pavement. I picked it up. I inquired of several people standing about, or who were passing by, if they had dropped it. No one had. I brought it home, and yesterday I sent an advertisement to the papers. Here it is, in one of them."

I pointed it out to him in a newspaper of the day.

"Found, A Purse. – Owner may have it by giving description and paying the cost of this advertisement. – Apply to 25, Bangley Gardens, S.W."

"It's too vague," objected the constable.

"I purposely made it as vague as I could, thinking that if I left all the details to be filled in I should render it certain that it could only be claimed by the actual owner, and, to make sure it should be claimed by him, I had it inserted in all the morning papers."

The constable smiled the smile of superiority.

"If you had let me know what you had done I'd have sent my men down in time to protect you. A vague advertisement like that appearing in all the papers is bound to attract the attention of half the riffraff of London, who are always ready for a little game of trying it on, not to speak of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are losing their purses every day."

"I have discovered that fact-a day after the affair."

"You ought to have taken it at once to a police-station. Everyone ought to take the things they find. It would save them a lot of bother."

"That, also, I perceive too late. I was under a different impression at first. I know better now. Perhaps you will allow me to repair my error and confide it to your keeping at this, the eleventh hour. Then I shall have pleasure in referring all further applicants to you."

As he placed the purse in the inside pocket of his tunic the sergeant grinned.

"Don't think you'll get rid of them by giving it to me now, because you won't. Look at the street. There's a pretty sight for you."

It was a pretty sight-of a kind. The usually deserted Bangley Gardens was filled with a clamorous crowd. It distinctly comprised all sorts and conditions of men-and women. Two or three policemen, standing at the foot of my steps, were doing their best to keep the people back. It seemed incredible that all this bother could be about a purse. If ever I found another I would know the reason why.

"I shall have to leave some of my men to keep the people circulating, and to save you from annoyance. I shouldn't be surprised if you have them worrying you for several days to come. If you take my advice you'll put an advertisement in to-morrow's papers, to say that you have handed the purse to us."

I did put an advertisement in the next day's papers, though it was not couched in the terms which he suggested. For the joke was that scarcely had the sergeant turned his back when I took up, half absent-mindedly, a telegram from the heap which was constantly arriving, and found it contained this message-a tolerably voluminous one:

"To 25, Bangley Gardens.

"Referring to advertisement of purse found in to-day's Times, Lady Hester Hammersmith, of Hammersmith House, Grosvenor Square, on Thursday afternoon, between three and four, dropped, probably outside Cane and Wilson's, green silk network purse, secured by two gold rings-emerald in one, sapphire in the other. At one end of the purse were four ten and one five-pound notes; at the other, about nine pounds in gold and silver. As Lady Hester Hammersmith values the purse apart from its intrinsic value, and is greatly troubled at its loss, if this is the purse found, please wire at once. Reply paid."

I rushed to the door.

"Saunders, where is the boy who brought this message? Run after that sergeant of police and bring him back again-this is the purse I found."

It was. And so it came about that the second advertisement which I inserted was not worded as the sergeant had suggested, but was to the effect that no further applications need be made to anyone, because the purse which was found had been restored to its rightful owner.

For One Night Only

"Once I were a waiter. Never again. It was like this here-

"At that time I was fresh from the country-ah! I was fresh-and I was in a situation along with old Bob Perkins, what kep' a greengrocer's shop in the 'Ampstead Road. One day Mr. Perkins says to me:

"'Brocklebank,' he says, 'would you like to do a little job of waiting?' I knew as he went out acting as waiter at private parties and such like, so I says:

"'I don't mind,' I says; 'not that I knows anything about it, if that don't make no odds.

"'Lor', no! that don't make no odds,' he says. 'It's only the cloak-room you'll have to look after, and you'll get 'alf-a-crown and your grub for doin' it.'

"'Cloak-room?' I says. 'What's that?' 'Why,' he says, 'where the gents puts their 'ats and coats and umbrellas.' 'I'm on,' I says. 'I shouldn't be surprised if I was able to keep a heye upon a humbrella; I should think that was about my style.' But I were wrong, as I'm a-goin' to tell yer.

"In the evening I went up with Mr. Perkins to a house in the Camden Road. I had on a old dress suit of Perkins's, which wasn't no sort of fit, seeing as how he was fifty-two in the waist and I was twenty-five. Mrs. Perkins, she'd what she called 'caught the trousers up' in the back, and she said as no one would see me it would be all right, which I hoped it would be. It didn't feel all right, I tell you that.

"When me and Mr. Perkins got up to the house they put me straight away into a little band-box of a cupboard sort of place, where there was some shelves and some 'ooks and some pieces of paper, with numbers on-the same number on two pieces of paper-and a box of pins. The servant girl as shows me in says-a saucy piece of goods she was! – 'There you are! and I hope you're more 'andy than you looks, because if you mixes of the things there'll be excitement.' Mr. Perkins, he'd told me what I'd have to do as we was coming along, so I wipes my 'ot 'and upon his breeches, and I 'opes for the best.

"Presently the people begins a-coming to the party. A young gent, he comes up to me, and he 'ands me his overcoat, and a billycock 'at, and a silk scarf, and a umbrella, and a pair of india-rubber shoes, and I was floored at once; because Mr. Perkins had told me that I was to pin one number to whatever a gent gave me, and I was to give him the same number, so that he might know it by that number when he came again. So when this young gent gave me all that lot of articles I began pinning one number to his 'at-it was a 'ard 'at and not easy to drive a pin in-and another to his overcoat, and another to his umbrella, and another to his shoes, and another to his scarf-as I'd understood Mr. Perkins to tell me. But this here young gent, he wouldn't have it. He wanted me to pin one number to the lot of them; and as I was a-arguing with him, and tryin' to understand how he made out as I could do that, seeing as how the pins was little ones, and the numbers not large ones neither, a lot of other gents came up, and this here young gent he got quite red in the face, and he snatched a number out of my hand and he walked off, and he left me staring.

"Well I got on pretty well, considerin', so long as the people didn't come too fast. But I tell you, if you're not used to pins, they're more difficult to manage than you might think. You never know where you're driving of them. I know that, what with the 'eat and the 'aste, some being all of a flurry, I drove more of them into my 'ands than I quite liked. And I soon saw that that there box of pins wouldn't never last me long, seein' as how I bent three out of every two, so as I couldn't use 'em-not to speak of others I dropped and couldn't stop to find.

"But, as I was a-sayin', I got on somehow, and I daresay I should have got on, somehow, to the end, if it hadn't been that I was fresh from the country. Of course, I didn't know what gentlefolk wear, and one 'at was like another 'at to me-and that was where I was deceived. One gent fair took me aback. He came in with a 'igh top-'at on his 'ead, and when he took it off he put one end against his chest and he gave it a sort of a shove, and he squashed it as flat as my 'and. I tell you, I stared. I thought he'd been having a drop to drink, and had busted his brand new 'at for a sort of a joke. But he seemed to be sober enough, so far as I could see, and he didn't seem to mind what he'd done to his 'at, not a little bit. Presently another gent came alone, and he done the same to his top-'at. Then another, and another-in fact, a whole crowd of them. And there was me, a-perspiring like one o'clock, with Perkins's breeches a-coming undone where his old woman had caught 'em up at the back, a-standing in the middle of a lot of squashed 'igh 'ats, what was lying all over the place. So I began to see that there was more in the nature of a 'igh 'at than I'd supposed.

"Bless you! there wasn't nearly room for all the things that these gents kept a-handing me, and unless I took to standin' on 'em, I didn't see what I was to do. So when there came a sort of a lull like I looks round to see how I could make a bit of room. 'Alf them gents hadn't squashed in their 'igh 'ats, like the other gents 'ad done, and I sees at once as how they were takin' up more than their fair share of space. So I makes up my mind to squash 'em for 'em, and I sets about a-doin' it. I takes up a 'igh 'at what a old gent had just a-give me-a beautiful shiny one it was-and I sets it against my stomach and I starts a-'eavin'. I'd no idea it'd be so 'ard. Them other gents had seemed to squash theirs easy, but this 'ere one took some shovin'. And, when it did go, it went all lop-sided like. I had to sit on it before it'd lie down flat.

"I had my 'and full, I tell you, squashin' all them 'igh 'ats. There was forty of 'em, if there was one. Fair 'ard work I found it. I supposed there was some knack about the thing as I 'adn't yet caught. And when I'd finished the lot I took a squint at 'em. If you'll believe me, a shiver went up and down my back. Somehow I didn't like the way as they was lookin'. There was a crumpled sort of look about 'em which didn't seem like as it ought to be. I was a-perspirin' all over. Perkins's breeches had come undone behind, and was 'anging about me anyhow; my collar had come unpinned at the back of my shirt; the bow that Mrs. Perkins had give me for a necktie had worked loose in front. A lot of them articles hadn't got no numbers on, and most of them as had I felt certain as I'd given to the wrong parties; and, altogether, I began to wish as how I hadn't come.

"Presently the old gent as had given me the 'igh 'at as I had started squashin' came up to the door. He was a tall old gent, very fierce-lookin', with a long white moustache-a regular toff. As he'd been the last to come, and it seemed as how he was goin' to be the first to go, it looked as if he had soon had enough of the party. 'Give me my 'at,' he says.

"I knew which was his 'at, though it 'adn't got no number. I had good reason to. So I routed it out from under a 'eap of others. He looks at it, and then he looks at me.

"'That's not my 'at,' he says.

"'Excuse me, sir,' I says, 'it is your 'at-leastways, it's the one as you gave to me.'

"He looks at the 'at again, and then again he looks at me, and all of a sudden he went quite red in the face.

"'Mine was a new 'at!'

"'Yes, sir,' I says; 'so I thought, sir, when you gave it me. It didn't look as though it 'adn't never been worn. If you try this 'at on, sir, you will find, sir, as it's yours.'

"Then he takes the 'at out of my 'and, lookin' at me once more, searchin' like, and he turns it round and round, and he squints inside of it.

"'As I'm alive,' he says, 'I do believe it's mine!'

"I says,' I'm sure, sir, as how it is. I noticed it most particular.'

"'But, good 'evins!' he says, 'whatever 'ave you been a-doing to it?'

"'I've only been a-squashin' of it, sir,' I says.

"'Only been a-squashin' of it!' he says, and he gives a kind of gasp. 'Are you drunk, man?'

"'No, sir,' I says, 'and that I'm not. I haven't had so much as 'alf a pint since I've been inside this 'ouse!' Which I 'adn't, and my throat was gettin' regular parched.

"He did flare out!

"'Then if you're not drunk, man,' he says, 'what the devil do you mean by tellin' me that you've only been a-squashin' of a brand new 'at?' He gives another squint inside of it. ''Ang me if it doesn't look as if he'd been a-sitting down upon the thing!'

"'I had to,' I says, 'to make it stay down flat.'

"I thought he would have had a fit.

"'My God!' he says,' what sort of a place is it that I've got into?' Then he uses language what I'd always been taught was most unbecomin' to anyone what called 'imself a gentleman. 'You damned scoundrel, you!' he says. 'If you was my servant I'd have you sent to gaol for this! I might have expected that something would come of ever entering such a dog-'ole of a 'ouse! Take the 'at, you 'ound, and be damned to you!'

"And if he didn't throw his own 'at into my face with such violence as not only to break the skin right off my nose, where it 'appened to 'it me, but as to make me feel for the moment as if I had gone silly. When I come to myself, as it were, if he hadn't gone right into the street, for all I knew, and left his 'at behind him. As I was thinkin' what I ought to do-for I ain't accustomed to havin' 'igh 'ats chucked in my face as if they were brickbats, not even at a party-three other gents came 'astening up-young ones, they was.

"''Ats, waiter!' they says. 'We're in a 'urry'-which I could see they was.

"'What is your numbers, gentlemen?' I says.

"'You never give us none,' says they.

"'In that case, gentlemen,' I says, 'I shall have to ask you for to be so good as to choose your own 'ats.'

"So I takes up in both my 'ands a 'eap of squashed 'igh 'ats and I 'olds 'em out to 'em. You should have seen their faces! First they looks at me, and then they looks at each other. Then one of them gives a sort of grin.

"'Ain't you made some sort of mistake?' he says.

"'As 'ow?' I says.

"'Ours was 'igh 'ats,' he says.

"'Well, and ain't these 'igh 'ats?' I says.

"Then again they looks at me, and again they looks at each other; and another one, he speaks-a short, puffy young fellow he was, with curly 'air.

"'They looks to me as if they was low 'ats,' he says; 'uncommon low-I never saw none look lower.'

"All three laughs. What at was more than I could say. I didn't know what to make of 'em. There was they a-starin' at me, and there was I a-starin' at them, with both my arms 'eaped up with them there 'ats. Then the third one, he has a go-a stylish-lookin' chap. He was very 'an'some, like you sees in the barbers' shops.

"'Waiter,' he says, 'are you a-'avin' a game with us?'

"'A game, sir?' I says. 'Beggin' your pardon, sir, I'm not 'avin' no game with no one. Do I look as if I was?'

"Which I didn't feel it, I can tell you that.

"'Well,' he says, 'I asks you for my 'at, and you offers me my choice of them leavings from a rag-and-bone shop; so, if you ain't a-'avin' a game with me, I don't know what you are a-'avin'.'

"'Come, waiter!' says the one as had spoken first; 'didn't we tell you as 'ow we was in a 'urry? Let us 'ave our 'ats. Don't keep on playing the fool with us!'

"'You must excuse me, gentlemen,' I says, speaking a trifle warmish-because, as you'll understand, I was beginning to feel a little badgered like; 'if anyone's a-playin' the fool it seems to me-asking of your leave-as it's you as is playin' the fool with me!'

"'Us as is playin' the fool with you?' they says, all together, as it might be.

"'Eggsactly,' I says. 'That is what I says,' I says, 'and that is what I means,' I says. 'First, you asks me for to give you your 'ats; and then, when I offers you some 'ats for you to take what is your own, you starts a-larfin'. If, as you says, you're in a 'urry, perhaps you'll step inside and cast your eyes around, and point out which is your 'ats. You can take which ones you please for all I care; I'm sure you're very welcome.'

"With that they stepped in. When they was in, and I was in, there wasn't much room left for anything but breathin', and 'ardly room enough for that.

"'Where is the 'igh 'ats?' says the stylish-lookin' feller.

"'Where is your eyes?' I says. 'Ain't they all over the place? Why, you're a-steppin' on one now!'

"You should have seen the 'op he gave!

"'These 'ats,' he says, 'from what I can see of 'em-which isn't much-looks to me as if they had all been squashed.'

"'Of course they has!' I says. ''Ow do you suppose I was a-goin' to find room for them if they wasn't? This ain't the Halbit 'All, and yet it ain't the Crystal Pallis!'

"Then they looks at each other again; and, from the way in which they done it, I felt as 'ow there was something which wasn't altogether what it ought to be. So I goes on-

"'If them 'ats hasn't been squashed eggsactly as they ought to have been squashed, that ain't my fault,' I says. 'You ought to have squashed them for yourselves, as the other gents done. I don't know nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, and I never laid myself out as knowin' nothing. I just put them against my chest and I gives 'em a shove, and then I sits on 'em to make 'em lay down flat. That's all I done!'

"While I was speakin' I could see them there young gents' mouths was gettin' wider and wider open, and when I stopped they burst out larfin' fit to split. What there was to larf at was more than I could see. All I knew was, that I wished I 'adn't never come. They staggered out into the 'all, and the curly-'eaded one, he cries out:

"'Oh, Sheepshanks, do come 'ere!' Then a cove comes up, as I found out afterwards was the bloke as was a-givin' the party. 'Oh, Sheepshanks!' says this young feller; 'if he ain't squashed them just eggsactly as they ought to have been squashed, don't you blame him. He never laid himself out as knowin' nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, but he's done his best-he's sat down upon them to make them lie down flat! Oh, Lord! Someone put a piece of ice down my back, afore I die!'

"This 'ere curly-'eaded young feller kep' on larfin' so I thought he would have bust. Mr. Sheepshanks, he comes up to me, lookin' a bit pinky. 'What's the matter? What's the meanin' of this?' he says.

"'Oh!' says the curly-'eaded young feller, still a-bustin' of 'isself a-larfin'; 'nothing! That waiter of yours has only been a-squashin' the 'igh 'ats-every man-jack of 'em. For goodness sake ask him about them-don't ask me! My gracious! why don't someone bring that piece of ice?'

"Mr. Sheepshanks, he came into the little band-box of a room, looking pinkier and pinkier. He looks at some 'ats which I was a-'oldin' in my 'ands.

"'What have you been a-doin' to those 'ats?' he says.