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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 152 January 10 1917 by Various
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"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said. "Such a charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and enclosing a present to show his appreciation." She smiled. She seemed hugely pleased about something. "He addresses it to me," she went on; "but, though I am grateful for the kind thought, I do not myself eat chocolates."
She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented with an orange satin bow.
"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said, "and Renshaw was in your ward. You have really the best right to them."
She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled Saint and he gazed back. I could almost have sworn he winked.
Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the corridor into the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and khaki-clad, more like St. George than the gallant knight himself.
"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear old thing!" As he held out his hand I put something into it. "A box of chocolates," I explained; "I bought them for your birthday!"
As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.
THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.
When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired billy-goat he was, the same.
"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses, the dear knows," says she.
So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment;" and with that she'd start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long silky hair.
"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily, and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.
The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had with the owld rigiment and the high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith, 'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the dresses off them before they dare say a word.
In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.
"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor boy.
"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' to sprinkle the mascot wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his powerfulness, she says."
I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope, got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as lead, but we held on.
The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as an eel, and broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.
He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.
Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp beyond.
"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.
"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the dear knows they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by this half-hour, and the breath is from them, their tongues is hangin' out a yard," I says.
'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.
"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll see sport this day."
"Herself--" he begins.
"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we dragged me bowld goat out before the dogs and let go the chain.
The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let a yowl out of them like all the banshees in the nation of Ireland, and the billy legged it for his life--small blame to him!
Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.
"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the crature howlds them by two lengths."
"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a Jew."
"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the howly Saints he cannot burrow."
"He has tripped up--they have him bayed," says Mikeen.
And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.
Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds like a lad to a fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their ribs a mile away. But they were too many for him and bit the grand silky hair off him by the mouthful. The way it flew you'd think it was a snowstorm.
"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.
"They have," says I, "God be praised!"
At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double beside us; he was phlastered with muck from his hair to his boots.
"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the mud and not knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out before him, whether it would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.
"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an' God save your honour for she'll have your blood in a bottle for this day's worrk."
The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides afther them, flat on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the wink of an eye he is down among the dogs, larruppin' them with his whip and drawin' down curses on them that would wither ye to hear him--he had great eddication, that orficer.
But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and well, the thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he had not a hair of it left to him, and when he stood up before you you wouldn't know him; he was that ordinary without his fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's goat, he was no more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the truth.
He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young gerrl.
Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.
"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole Calendar--Mikeen too.
"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she, and stepped indoors without another word.
We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his nakedness.
"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra luck you would bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are now--you'll never step along again with the drums and tambourines."
And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen rubbing him daily with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never grew the same grand fleece again, and he'd stand about in the back-field, brooding for hours together, the divilment clane gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the stroke of an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just look at you sad-like and pass no remarks.
TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.
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