“Papa!” from the young lady on the back seat of the carriage—“Now, I thought it was an impromptu——”
“Dashed off upon the backs of a pocketful of letters, between daylight and dark, a flat grave-stone for a desk,—and published in the next morning’s issue of the ‘Stoke-Pogis Banner of Light!’” finished the senior, banteringly.
But there is a lesson, with a moral, in the brief dialogue.
CHAPTER X.
Our English Cousins.
WE had seen the Carnevale at Rome, and the wild confusion of the moccoletti, which is its finale; festas, in Venice, Milan, and almost every other Italian town where we had stayed overnight. There are more festas than working-days in that laughter-loving land. In Paris we had witnessed illuminations, and a royal funeral, or of such shreds of royalty as appertained unto the dead King of Hanover,—the Prince of Wales, very red of face in the broiling sun, officiating as chief mourner in his mother’s absence. In Geneva we had made merry over the extravaganzas of New Year’s Day, and the comicalities of patriotism that rioted in the Escalade. We were au fait to the beery and musical glories of the German fest. We would see and be in the thick of a British holiday. What better opportunity could we have than was offered by the placards scattered broadcast in the streets, and pasted upon the “hoardings” of Brighton, announcing a mammoth concert in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; a general muster of Temperance Societies; an awarding of prizes to competitive brass bands, and a prospective convocation of 100,000 souls from every town and shire within a radius of fifty miles? Such facilities for beholding that overgrown monster, the British Public, in his Sunday clothes and best humor—might not occur again—for us—in a half-century.
True, the weather was warm, but the Palace and grounds were spacious. The musical entertainment was not likely to be of the classic order, but it would be something worth the hearing and the telling,—the promised chorus of 5,000 voices, led by the immense organ, in “God save the Queen!” Thus we reasoned away Caput’s predictions that we would be heartily sick of the experiment before the day was half-gone, and thankful to escape, as for our lives, from the hustling auditors of the grand chorus. We yielded one point. Instead of going up to Sydenham in an excursion-train, the better to note the appearance and manners of the Public, we waited for a quieter and later, at regular prices, and so reached the Crystal Palace Station about eleven o’clock.
The punishment of our contumacy began immediately. Wedged in a dark passage with a thousand other steaming bodies, with barely room enough for breathing—not for moving hand or foot—retreat cut off and advance impracticable, we waited until the pen was filled to overflowing by the arrival of the next train before the two-leaved doors at the Palaceward end split suddenly and emptied us into the open air. We made a feint of going through the main building with those of our party who had not already seen it, but every staircase was blocked by ascending and descending droves, and nobody gave an inch to anybody else. The Mothers of England were all there, each with a babe in arms and another tugging at her skirts. Men swore—good-humoredly,—women scolded as naturally as in their own kitchens and butteries, and babies cried without fear or favor. The police kept a wise eye upon the valuables of the Palace, and let the people alone. Repelled in every advance upon art-chamber and conservatory, we collected our flurried forces and withdrew to the grounds. When sore-footed with walking from fountain to flower-bed, the gentlemen watched for and obtained seats for the ladies upon a bench near the stand, where the competitive brass bands were performing, heard, perhaps by themselves and their rivals, but few besides.