CHAPTER XXXVII.

HOW I MET AN INCORRIGIBLE PUNSTER.

As the Midland Circuit was perhaps my favourite, although I liked them all, there would necessarily be more to interest me there than on any other, and at our little quiet dinners, for which there was no special hour (it might be any time between eight o'clock in the evening or half-past one the next day), there were always pleasant conversations and amusing stories. With a large circle of acquaintances, I had learnt many things, sometimes to interest and sometimes to instruct. Although I never sat down to open a school of instruction, a man should not despise the humblest teaching, or he may be deficient in many things he should have a knowledge of.

There was once an old fox-hunting squire whose ambition was to be known as a punster. There never was a more good-natured man or a more genial host, and he would tell you of as many tremendous runs he had had as Herne the hunter. After-dinner runs are always fine.

The Squire loved to hunt foxes and make puns.

We were sitting on a five-barred gate one evening in his paddocks, and while I was admiring the yearlings, which were of great beauty, I suddenly saw looking over his left shoulder the most beautiful head of a thoroughbred I ever beheld, with her nose quite close to his ear.

"Halloa, my beauty!" said he. "What, Saltfish, let me see if I've a bit of sugar, eh, Saltfish?—sugar—is it?"

His hand dived into the capacious pocket of his shooting-coat and brought out a piece of sugar, which he gave to the mare, and then affectionately rubbed her nose.

"There, Saltfish—there you are; and now show us your heels."

I knew by his mentioning the mare's name so often that there was a pun in it, so I waited without putting any question. After a while he said (for he could contain his joke no longer),—

"Judge, do you know why I call her Saltfish?"

"Not the least idea," said I.

"Ha!" he explained, with a prodigious stare that almost shot his blue globular eyes out of his head: "because she is such a capital mare for a fast day! Ha, ha!"

Suddenly he stopped laughing from disappointment at my not seeing the joke. He repeated it—"fast day, fast day"—then glared at me, and his underlip fell. At last the old man tossed his head, and whipped his boot with his crop. I have no doubt I deprived that man of a great deal of happiness; for if anything is disappointing to a punster, it is not seeing his joke. He had not done with me yet, however, and before abandoning me as an incorrigible lunatic, asked if I would like to see Naples.

"Naples! By all means, but not at this time of year."

"Oh, I don't mean the town—no, no; but if you don't mind a little mud, I'll show you Naples. Come along this lane."

"Watercourse, you mean. I don't mind a little mud," said I; "it washes off, whoever throws it"—and I looked to see what he thought of that, knowing he would tell it at dinner.

"Good!" said he; "devilish good! Wash off, no matter who throws it—devilish good!"

Down we came off the gate, and through the mud we went, he leading with a fat chuckle.

"You don't see the joke, Hawkins—you don't see the joke about that fast day;" and he gave me another look with his great blue eyes.

I didn't know it was a joke; I thought it was the mare's name, and I heard him mutter "Damn!"

"This is the way," he said angrily. We seemed to travel through an interminable cesspool, but at last reached the open, and coming to another gate, he extended his arms on it, after the manner of a squire, and said,—

"There, there's Naples. Isn't she lovely?"

"Where?" I asked.

"There; and a prettier mare you never saw. Look at her!"

"She's a beauty—a real beauty!" I exclaimed.

He breathed rather short, and I felt easy. His manner, especially the distending of his cheeks, showed me that he was about to bring forth something—a pun of some sort.

"Do you know," he asked, with another turn of his eyes, "why I call her Naples?"

"No, I haven't the faintest idea. Naples? no."

"Well," he said, "I've puzzled a good many. I may say nobody has ever guessed it. I call that mare Naples because she's such a beautiful bay."

I was glad I was not sitting on the gate, for I might have fallen and broken my neck. As I felt his eyes staring at me I preserved a dignified composure, and had the satisfaction of hearing him mutter again, "Damn!"

"This is our way," said he.

I have no doubt he thought me the dullest fool he ever came near.

Our adventures were not ended. We went on over meadow and stile until we came to "The Park," a tract of land of great beauty and with trees of superb growth. He was sullen and moody, like one whose nerves had failed him when a covey rose.

I saw it coming—his last expiring effort. In the distance was a beautiful black mare, such as might have carried Dick Turpin from London to York. He was watching to see if I observed her, but I did not.

"Look," he said, in his most coaxing manner, "don't you see that mare yonder—down there by the spinny?"

"What," I said, "on the left?"

"Down there! There—no, a little to the right. Look! There she is."

"Oh, to be sure, a pretty animal."

"Pretty! Why, there's no better bred animal in the kingdom. She's by —— out of ——."

"She ought to win the Oaks."

"Come, now, isn't she superb?"

"A glory. A novelist would call her a dream."

"Ah, I thought you would say so. You know what a horse is."

"When I see one," I said. "I thought you said this was a mare."

This is what the Squire thought,—

"Well, of all the dull devils I ever met, you are the most utterly unappreciative!"

He was at his wits' end, although you must be clever if you can perceive the wits' end of a punster.

"That's Morning Star," said he. "Now do you know why I call her Morning Star?"

I answered truthfully I did not.

"Why," he said, with a merry laugh, "because she's a roarer."

"What a pity!" I exclaimed. "But I don't wonder at it if she has to carry you and your jokes very far."

He took it in good part, and we had a pleasant evening at the Hall. He discharged a good many other puns, which I am glad to say I have forgotten. But there was a man present who was a good story-teller. Some I had heard before, but they were none the less welcome, while one or two I related were as good as new to my host and old Squire Fullerton, who had once been High Sheriff, and was supposed to know all about circuit business. He prefaced almost everything he said with, "When I was High Sheriff," so I asked him innocently enough how many times he had been High Sheriff, on which my host, being a quick-witted man, looked at him with a broad grin, while he balanced the nutcrackers on his forefinger.

"Well," said Fullerton, "it was in Parke's time."

"Yes; but which of them?" I asked. "Are you alluding to Sir Alan? They did not both come together, surely."

"Now, lookee, Fullerton," said my old friend, tapping the mahogany with the nutcrackers, as though he was about to say something remarkably clever; "one of 'em, Jemmy, had a kind of a cast in one of his eyes—didn't he, Judge?"

"Yes," said I; "but their names were not spelt alike."

"No, no!" cried the squire; "I'm coming to that. One eye was a little troublesome at times, I believe—at least they said so in my time when I was High Sheriff—and that made him a little ill-tempered at times. Now, that Judge's name was spelt P-a-r-k-e" (tapping every letter with his nutcrackers), "so the Bar used to call him 'Parke with an "e";' and what do you think they used to call the other, whose name was Park?—Come, now, Judge, you can guess that."

I suppose I shook my head, for he said, "Why, you told me the story yourself four years ago—ah! it must be five years ago—at this very table, when old Squire Hawley had laid two thousand on Jannette for the Leger. 'This is it,' said you; 'they call one of them Parke with an "e," and the other Park with an "i."'"

"Very well," I said, after they had done laughing at the way in which my host had caught me; "now I'll tell you what the Duke of Wellington said one morning. You recollect his Grace met with an accident and lost an eye, which was kept in spirits of wine. On asking him how he was, the Duke answered,—

"'Oh, Lord Cairns asked me yesterday the same question; and I said, "I am rather depressed, but I believe my eye is in pretty good spirits."'"