No. IX.—THE CURSE OF COGNAC.
(By WATER DECANT, Author of "Chaplin off his Feet," "All Sorts of Editions for Men," "The Nuns in Dilemma," "The Cream he Tried," "Blue-the-Money Naughty-boy," "The Silver Gutter-Snipe," "All for a Farden Fare," "The Roley Hose," "Caramel of Stickinesse," &c., &c., &c.)
[Of this story the Author writes to us as follows:—"I can honestly recommend it, as calculated to lower the exaggerated cheerfulness which is apt to prevail at Christmas time. I consider it, therefore, to be eminently suited for a Christmas Annual. Families are advised to read it in detachments of four or five at a time. Married men who owe their wives' mothers a grudge should lock them into a bare room, with a guttering candle and this story. Death will be certain and not painless. I've got one or two rods in pickle for the publishers. You wait and see.—W.D.">[
CHAPTER I.
GEORGE GINSLING was alone in his College-rooms at Cambridge. His friends had just left him. They were quite the tip-top set in Christ's College, and the ashes of the cigarettes they had been smoking lay about the rich Axminster carpet. They had been talking about many things, as is the wont of young men, and one of them had particularly bothered GEORGE by asking him why he had refused a seat in the University Trial Eights after rowing No. 5 in his College boat. GEORGE had no answer ready, and had replied angrily. Now, he thought of many answers. This made him nervous. He paced quickly up and down the deserted room, sipping his seventh tumbler of brandy, as he walked. It was his invariable custom to drink seven tumblers of neat brandy every night to steady himself, and his College career had, in consequence, been quite unexceptionable up to the present moment. He used playfully to remind his Dean of PORSON's drunken epigram, and the good man always accepted this as an excuse for any false quantities in GEORGE's Greek Iambics. But to-night, as I have said, GEORGE was nervous with a strange nervousness, and he, therefore, went to bed, having previously blown out his candle and placed his Waterbury watch under his pillow, on the top of which sat a Devil wearing a thick jersey worked with large green spots on a yellow ground.
CHAPTER II.
Now this Devil was a Water-Devil of the most pronounced type. His head-quarters were on the Thames at Barking, where there is a sewage outfall, and he had lately established a branch-office on the Cam, where he did a considerable business.
Occasionally, he would run down to Cambridge himself, to consult with his manager, and on these occasions he would indulge his playful humour by going out at night and sitting on the pillows of Undergraduates.
This was one of his nights out, and he had chosen GEORGE GINSLING's pillow as his seat.
GEORGE woke up with a start. What was this feeling in his throat? Had he swallowed his blanket, or his cocoa-nut matting? No, they were still in their respective places. He tore out his tongue and his tonsils, and examined them. They were on fire. This puzzled him. He replaced them. As he did so, a shower of red-hot coppers fell from his mouth on to his feet. The agony was awful. He howled, and danced about the room. Then he dashed at the whiskey, but the bottle ducked as he approached, and he failed to tackle it. Poor GEORGE, you see, was a rowing-man, not a football-player. Then he knew what he wanted. In his keeping-room were six carafes, full of Cambridge water, and a dozen bottles of Hunyádi Janos. He rushed in, and hurled himself upon the bottles with all his weight. The crash was dreadful. The foreign bottles, being poor, frail things, broke at once. He lapped up the liquid like a thirsty dog. The carafes survived. He crammed them with their awful contents, one after another, down his throat. Then he returned to his bed-room, seized his jug, and emptied it at one gulp. His bath was full. He lifted it in one hand, and drained it as dry as a University sermon. The thirst compelled him—drove him—made him—urged him—lashed him—forced him—shoved him—goaded him—to drink, drink, drink water, water, water! At last he was appeased. He had cried bitterly, and drunk up all his tears. He fell back on his bed, and slept for twenty-four hours, and the Devil went out and gave his gyp, STARLING, a complete set of instructions for use in case of flood.
CHAPTER III.
STARLING was a pale, greasy man. He was a devil of a gyp. He went into GEORGE's bed-room and shook his master by the shoulder. GEORGE woke up.
"Bring me the College pump," he said. "I must have it. No, stay," he continued, as STARLING prepared to execute his orders, "a hair of the dog—bring it, quick, quick!"
STARLING gave him three. He always carried them about with him in case of accidents. GEORGE devoured them eagerly, recklessly. Then with a deep sigh of relief, he went stark staring mad, and bit STARLING in the fleshy part of the thigh, after which he fell fast asleep again. On awaking, he took his name off the College books, gave STARLING a cheque for £5000, broke off his engagement, but forgot to post the letter, and consulted a Doctor.
"What you want," said the Doctor, "is to be shut up for a year in the tap-room of a public-house. No water, only spirits. That must cure you."
So GEORGE ordered STARLING to hire a public-house in a populous district. When this was done, he went and lived there. But you scarcely need to be told that STARLING had not carried out his orders. How could he be expected to do that? Only fifty-six pages of my book had been written, and even publishers—the most abandoned people on the face of the earth—know that that amount won't make a Christmas Annual. So STARLING hired a Temperance Hotel. As I have said, he was a devil of a gyp.
CHAPTER IV.
The fact was this. One of GEORGE's great-great uncles had held a commission in the Blue Ribbon Army. GEORGE remembered this too late. The offer of a seat in the University Trial Eights must have suggested the blue ribbon which the University Crew wear on their straw hats. Thus the diabolical forces of heredity were roused to fever-heat, and the great-great uncle, with his blue ribbon, whose photograph hung in GEORGE's home over the parlour mantelpiece, became a living force in GEORGE's brain.
GEORGE GINSLING went and lived in a suburban neighbourhood. It was useless. He married a sweet girl with various spiteful relations. In vain. He changed his name to PUMPDRY, and conducted a local newspaper. Profitless striving. STARLING was always at hand, always ready with the patent filter, and as punctual in his appearances as the washing-bill or the East wind. I repeat, he was a devil of a gyp.
CHAPTER V.
They found GEORGE GINSLING feet uppermost in six inches of water in the Daffodil Road reservoir. It was a large reservoir, and had been quite full before GEORGE began upon it. This was his record drink, and it killed him. His last words were, "If I had stuck to whiskey, this would never have happened."
THE END.
"IT IS THE BOGIE MAN!"—BLACKIE'S Modern Cyclopedia. Nothing to do with the Christy Minstrel Entertainment, but a very useful work of reference, issued from the ancient house of publishers which is now quite BLACKIE with age. We have looked through the "B's" for "Bogie," but "The Bogie Man" is "Not there, not there, my child!" but he is to be found in that other BLACKIE's collection at the St. James's Hall, which Bogie Man is said to be the original of that ilk. Unde derivatur "Bogie"? Perhaps the next edition of BLACKIE's still-more-Modern-than-ever Cyclopedia will explain.
PARS ABOUT PICTURES (by Old Par).—At the Fine Art Society's Gallery I gazed upon the pictures of "Many-sided Nature" with great content, and came to the conclusion that Mr. ALBERT GOODWIN was a many-sided artist. "Now," said I, quoting SHAKSPEARE—Old Par's Improved Edition—"is the GOODWIN of our great content made glorious." O.P., who knows every inch of Abingdon, who has gazed upon Hastings from High Wickham, who is intimate with every brick in Dorchester, who loves every reed and ripple on the Thames, and has a considerable knowledge of the Rigi and Venice, can bear witness to the truth of the painter. There are over seventy pictures—every one worth looking at.