Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, July 25, 1891 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 38 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, July 25, 1891.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, July 25, 1891 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 38 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, July 25, 1891.
winked at it, and when the first officer was coming his rounds I winked at them; but this friendly act on my part they did not heed, and consequently to save them from being put in irons and confined in the deepest dungeon beneath the Grantully Castle moat, I “came along just then,” as he reports, “and removed the lamp to another part of the deck, leaving the chess-players in the dark”—­as if this consequence were anything extraordinary when a lamp is removed!  Why any schoolboy, the merest tyro in Scripture History, knows where the great Hebrew Lawgiver was when the candle went out.  And were these passengers to be exempt from the action of Nature’s ordinary laws!  Bah!—­“without a word of apology or explanation.”  I had winked, but they were worse than blind horses, and more resembled the inferior quadruped in obstinately refusing to move, or in subsequently acknowledging this act of thoughtful kindness on my part.

As to my eating for breakfast a flying-fish, which somebody on board had caught and given me, all I ask is, why shouldn’t I? I never had eaten a flying-fish before, and I don’t think I ever shall again.  If the gentleman who caught it didn’t want me to eat it, he should have said so:  for there were three courses open to him; viz., first, to refuse to give it me; secondly, to give it me on condition that I kept it in memory of the occasion; thirdly, to throw it back into the sea.  But there was only one course open to me when I got it, and that was the first course at breakfast; the second course was kidgeree.  It was a small fish just enough for one, and now I rather fancy I remember this Black and White correspondent, for it must have been he, coming to my table, eyeing the fish, smacking his lips, and observing that he “had never had the chance of tasting a fried flying-fish.”  At that moment I was just finishing the tail (a sweet morsel and not the worst part by any means), and there was nothing left to offer him.  So he went away disappointed, with a grudge against yours truly.  This, Sir, is the true tale of the flying-fish, and if it isn’t, let me hear the revised version from my aspersers and caluminators.  I can write no more to-day.  I am boiling over, and must go and kick somebody.  Yours, &c.,

[Illustration:  Grandolph the Explorer.]

* * * * *

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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, July 25, 1891 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.