VISIT TO MERCURY.
Mr. Punch and Father Time were once again whirling on their way through boundless space.
They were approaching their next destination, and the dark globe of the planet had just come into view on the horizon. Rapidly it increased in size as they neared it, and the seas and continents could be easily traced.
"Dear me?" exclaimed Mr. Punch. "Why, I declare if there is not something written upon it!" and he put up his binoculars, "Why, it is nothing more nor less than a big advertisement. Looks like humbug," he continued. "What's the name of the Planet, eh?"
"Mercury," replied Father TIME, with cheery spirit; "and with that device they try to catch the eye of a passing Comet."
"Hum—they won't catch me!" observed the Sage, brightly. "I brought my truth-compeller with me—a little, patent, electrical hypnotic arrangement, in the shape of this ring"—he showed it as he spoke. "I have only to turn it on my finger, and it obliges anyone who may be addressing me instantly to speak the truth."
They suddenly found themselves deposited in the centre of a vast square, surrounded by large palatial-looking buildings, public offices, stores, shops, picture-galleries, gigantic blocks of private residences, in flats five-and-twenty storeys high, and other architectural developments of the latest constructive crazes, fashioned, apparently, after the same models, and on similar lines, to those at present so much in vogue in that now distant planet, the Earth. There was a profusion of advertisement-boards, these, in many instances, entirely covering the whole façade of the building with large-lettered announcements of the nature of the trade or business conducted within. An eager and excited crowd thronging the pavements, and hustling each other, without any apparent purpose or aim, was pushing in all directions.
"I wonder what all this is about," observed Mr. Punch; "suppose we ask a Policeman?"
They noticed a being attired in every respect like the familiar guardians of the peace on Earth, except that he carried a harmless and gaily-decked bladder in place of the more serviceable bâton, and beckoned to him. He approached with polite alacrity.
"You want to know what's up, Gents?" he commenced, divining their purpose instinctively. "It's the Half-Quarterly Meeting of the Solid Gold Extract of Brick-Dust Company. There's been some little talk about the dividend not being quite so good as the prospectus led the shareholders to believe, and as the shares have been mostly taken up by widows and orphans, some of their friends, you see, are a little anxious to hear the Chairman's Report. But, you see, it'll be all right."
At this moment a widow, with blanched cheeks and dishevelled hair, who had been listening with an anxious and eager gaze to what the Policeman had been saying, joined the group.
Mr. Punch looked at her with mournful sympathy, and slowly turning the ring on his finger, addressed the Policeman. "Tell me, my good man," he said, persuasively, "is that the truth? Is it really all right?"
"All right?" rejoined the guardian of the peace in amazement, but apparently unconscious of the purport of his speech, "I should rather think not. Call it 'all wrong' and then you'll about hit it. Why it's well known that the patent's all fudge. It's the biggest swindle out. No more in it than in this here bladder. But you'll see; the whole thing's burst, and you'll know it in a minute."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a roar of a thousand angry voices, followed by a sudden rush from the building of a mad and raging crowd, obliged Mr. Punch, for a moment, to pause. When the uproar had somewhat subsided, he turned to the Policeman, and pointed feelingly to the unfortunate widow, who had fallen on to an apple-stall in a fit of hysterics, and, locking his arm in that of his aged companion, proceeded to cross the square. "Give us a song, old 'un!" shouted a portion of the mob, who had followed them.
"Certainly. Oblige them!" added Mr. Punch, taking a banjo from one of the crowd and placing it in Father TIME's hands. "Give them a stanza of the Ballad of Truth."
He turned his ring, and his aged companion struck up the following ditty:—
"Know ye the land where dwells only mock-turtle,
Where wine that should gladden but makes you fell queer.
Where bayonets bend, where guns burst and hurtle
Their breech in the face of their friends at the rear,
Where lamps labelled 'safety' with just terrors fill you,
Where water supplied you for milk is no theft,
Where pills that should cure, if persisted in, kill you
And the 'Hair Resurrector' takes all you've got left!
Where soap, that should soften your skin, only flays you,
Where a horse proves a screw though got through a friend,
Where the loss of your 'cover' confounds and dismays you,
Though assured by the Firm 'if you hold on t'will mend'?
Know ye, in fine, where by pushing and 'rushing,'
This—and much more, down the public throat crams,
Blatant Advertisement, brazen, unblushing—?
If you do, then you've spotted the Planet of Shams."
Though a few paving-stones were hurled at the aged singer, the conclusion of his sons was greeted by a general roar of laughter, the populace apparently recognising the picture of their own chicanery with amusement and relish.
After that they held on their way for some minutes in silence. They had now reached the other side, and were confronted by a couple of respectable-looking gentlemen of an almost clerical aspect, who appeared to be catering in the public streets in the interests of some institution. They approached Mr. Punch and Father TIME, and offered them a prospectus.
"'THE DEAR LITTLE CHILDREN'S HAPPY AND ELEGANT BURIAL INSTITUTION,'" read Mr. Punch, surveying the paper presented to him, and continuing, "'A trivial payment of Ninepence a Month will ensure the youthful Subscriber, or his Representative, a sweet and elegantly-constructed little Coffin, beautifully frilled, with a one-black-horse Family Omnibus Hearse, and a tray of Two Handsome Plumes. N.B.—if preferred, payment of £2 19s. 6d. in cash on production of Corpse.'"
They showed Mr. Punch and Father TIME up the front steps, and ushered them into a large hall. It was thronged with a crowd of dirty and raggedly-dressed people, and partitioned off by a handsome and massive mahogany counter, beyond which sat a staff of clerks busily engaged in keeping the books and generally discharging the duties of the institution.
"Ha, Mrs. MACSTOGGINS, and are we in your debt again?" asked the Agent of a beetle-browed woman of a sinister and forbidding expression, who was thrusting a paper across the counter to the cashier.
"Yes; and I'll trouble you not to keep me waiting, either—seeing that it's gone three days since the burial."
"Is this woman demanding the insurance money for the burial of her own child?" asked Mr. Punch, sternly. And he turned his ring. "And pray, Madam," he continued, addressing the beetle-browed woman, "tell me the truth."
"Certainly," replied the woman, as if in a trance. "First, I insured my own KATE—then I starved her to death, and took the money. Then little BILL followed. I let him catch cold in the winter, and gave him a night or two on the stones, and that finished him. Then came TIM FLAHERTY, and I managed him with the beetle-poison, and—"
"Come," said Mr. Punch, taking Father TIME's arm once more; "let us get out of this—I can't breathe here."
Scarcely had they quitted the place ere they had to encounter an appeal for custom, the Applicant being apparently one of the big guns in the Mercury wine trade, and he was not long in importuning Mr. Punch just to step inside his office, and sample a delicious Lafitte of the 1874 vintage.
"Now, try that, Sir," he said, at the same time offering Mr. Punch a glass of the rich ruby-coloured beverage, "and tell me what you think of it. We have a small parcel of it still left, and could let you have it at the remarkably low figure of 112s. the dozen."
"It looks all right," drily replied Mr. Punch, "but I can't think how you can sell it at the price." Then holding up the glass critically, and turning his ring, continued, "How do you manage it?"
"How do I manage it?" replied the unconscious merchant, laughing heartily at the apparent joke. "Why, my dear Sir, there's not much difficulty about that. I just make it myself. Listen to my receipt:—
"Potato spirit—that the 'body' finds;
And then, as for colour,
Be it brighter or duller,
You see I am supplied with several kinds,
And as to flavour, I get that desired,
By adding various poisons as required.
Ha! ha! Let me send you in a few dozen." He offered Mr. Punch an elaborate price-list as he concluded his self-condemnatory verse with an obsequious bow.
"Come," said Mr. Punch, once more taking hold of his aged companion's arm, without condescending to give the cheating tradesman any reply, "come—let us get out of this. 'Pon my word, I think we've almost had enough of Mercury!"
"Their morality does seem to have reached rather a low ebb, I must confess," replied Father TIME.
"Nothing like this on our Earth, anyhow," continued Mr. Punch, with a satisfied sigh of relief. "But come, we'll hear what the whole people say of themselves. See here's a chance. I believe there's a lot of them over there singing their National Anthem."
They listened as Mr. Punch spoke. He was right. There was a vast crowd collected outside one of the principal buildings on the other side of the square, and they were clearly finishing some popular anthem in chorus, for, as Father TIME and Mr. Punch paused to listen, the well-known familiar refrain—
"Never, never, never,
Shall be slaves!"
smote their ear.
"Capital! Capital!" cried Mr. Punch, approaching the throng. "We'll have that again." He turned his ring once more as he spoke, and the mob responded by shouting their second verse.
"Fool! Mercurius!
Of greed thy sons are slaves;
And they ever, ever, ever—
Shall be knaves!"
"Come," cried Mr. Punch, "I think that judgment of themselves out of their own mouths settles the matter! I have done with them. Come, let us seek some healthier place. Up we go!"
He seized hold of Old Father TIME as he spoke, and bounded with him upwards suddenly into space. In another minute they were in search of a brighter, a better, and a truer world.
