But Collins had a lighter side. Nearly all his characters were invested with some degree of humor—a humor which could not forbear flashing into some of the novelist’s darker scenes. “The Stolen Letter,” which appeared in the June number of The Scrap Book, affords an example of the manner in which Collins was wont to blend humor and mystery. In “Major Namby,” which is printed herewith, we have a clever character-sketch in which humor is seen to be the dominant element.
I am a single lady—single, you will please to understand, entirely because I have refused many excellent offers. Pray don’t imagine from this that I am old. Some women’s offers come at long intervals, and other women’s offers come close together. Mine came remarkably close together—so, of course, I cannot possibly be old. Not that I presume to describe myself as absolutely young, either; so much depends on people’s points of view. I have heard female children of the ages of eighteen or nineteen called young ladies. This seems to me to be ridiculous—and I have held that opinion, without once wavering from it, for more than ten years past. It is, after all, a question of feeling; and, shall I confess it? I feel so young!
I live in the suburbs, and I have bought my house. The major lives in the suburbs, next door to me, and he has bought his house. I don’t object to this, of course. I merely mention it to make things straight.
Major Namby has been twice married. His first wife—dear, dear! how can I express it? Shall I say, with vulgar abruptness, that his first wife had a family? And must I descend into particulars, and add that they are four in number, and that two of them are twins? Well, the words are written; and if they will do over again for the same purpose, I beg to repeat them in reference to the second Mrs. Namby (still alive), who has also had a family, and is—no, I really cannot say is likely to go on having one.
There are certain limits in a case of this kind, and I think I have reached them. Permit me simply to state that the second Mrs. Namby has three children at present. These, with the first Mrs. Namby’s four, make a total of seven. The seven are composed of five girls and two boys. And the first Mrs. Namby’s family all have one particular kind of constitution, and the second Mrs. Namby’s family all have another particular kind of constitution.
Let me explain once more that I merely mention these little matters, and that I don’t object to them.
My complaint against Major Namby is, in plain terms, that he transacts the whole of his domestic business in his front garden. Whether it arises from natural weakness of memory, from total want of a sense of propriety, or from a condition of mind which is closely allied to madness of the eccentric sort, I cannot say; but the major certainly does, sometimes partially and sometimes entirely, forget his private family matters, and the necessary directions connected with them, while he is inside the house, and does habitually remember them, and repair all omissions by bawling through his windows at the top of his voice, as soon as he gets outside the house.
It never seems to occur to him that he might advantageously return indoors, and there mention what he has forgotten in a private and proper way. The instant the lost idea strikes him—which it invariably does, either in his front garden or in the roadway outside his house—he roars for his wife, either from the gravel walk or over the low wall, and (if I may use so strong an expression) empties his mind to her in public, without appearing to care whose ears he wearies, whose delicacy he shocks, or whose ridicule he invites.
If the man is not mad, his own small family fusses have taken such complete possession of all his senses that he is quite incapable of noticing anything else, and perfectly impenetrable to the opinions of his neighbors. Let me show that the grievance of which I complain is no slight one, by giving a few examples of the general persecution that I suffer, and the occasional shocks that are administered to my delicacy, at the coarse hands of Major Namby.
We will say it is a fine, warm morning. I am sitting in my front room, with the window open, absorbed over a deeply interesting book. I hear the door of the next house bang; I look up, and see the major descending the steps into his front garden.