Sketches by Seymour Part 24

THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. I.

Those wags who are so fond of playing off their jokes upon others, require great skill and foresight to prevent the laugh being turned against themselves.

Jim Smith was an inveterate joker, and his jokes were, for the most part, of the practical kind. He had a valuable tortoisesh.e.l.l cat, whose beauty was not only the theme of praise with all the old maids in the neighbourhood, but her charms attracted the notice of numerous feline gentlemen dwelling in the vicinity, who were, nocturnally, wont to pay their devoirs by that species of serenades, known under the cacophonous name of caterwauling.

One very ugly Tom, (who, it was whispered abroad, was a great--grandfather, and scandalously notorious for gallantries unbecoming a cat of his age) was particularly obnoxious to our hero; and, in an unlucky moment, he resolved to 'pickle him,' as he facetiously termed it.

Now his process of pickling consisted in mixing a portion of prussic acid in milk. Taking the precaution to call in his own pet and favorite, he placed the potion in the accustomed path of her long-whiskered suitor.

Tom finding the coast clear slipped his furry body over the wall, and dropped gently as a lady's glove into the garden, and slily smelling the flower-borders, as if he were merely amusing himself in the elegant study of botany, stealthily approached the house, and uttering a low plaintive 'miau,' to attract the attention of his dear Minx, patiently awaited the appearance of his true-love.

Minx heard the voice she loved so well, and hurried to meet her ancient beau. A slight noise, however, alarmed his timidity, and he scaled the wall in a twinkling.

Presently the screams of the maid a.s.sured him that 'something had taken place;' and when he heard the words, "Oh! the cat! the cat!" he felt quite certain that the potion had taken effect. He walked deliberately down stairs, and behold! there lay Miss Minx, his own favorite, struggling in the agonies of death, on the parlor rug. The fact is, he had shut the doors, but forgotten that the window was open, and the consequence was, the loss of poor Minx, who had drunk deep of the malignant poison designed for her gallant.

This was only one of a thousand tricks that had miscarried.

Having one day ascertained that his acquaintance, Tom Wilkins, was gone out 'a-shooting,' he determined to way-lay him on his return.

It was a beautiful moonlight night in the latter end of October.

Disguising himself in a demoniac mask, a pair of huge wings, and a forked tail, he seated himself on a stile in the sportsman's path.

Anon he espied the weary and unconscious Tom approaching, lost in the profundity of thought, and though not in love, ruminating on every miss he had made in that day's bootless trudge.

He almost, touched the stile before his affrighted gaze encountered this 'goblin d.a.m.ned.'

His short crop bristled up, a.s.suming the stiffness of a penetrating hair brush.

For an instant his whole frame appeared petrified, and the tide and current of his life frozen up in thick-ribbed ice.

Jim Smith, meanwhile, holding out a white packet at arm's length, exclaimed in a sepulchral tone,

"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?"

THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. II.

Awfully ponderous as the words struck upon the tightened drum of Tom's auriculars, they still tended to arouse his fainting spirit.

"Mer-mer-mercy on us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he, and shrank back a pace or two, still keeping his dilating optics fixed upon the horrible spectre.

"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?" repeated Jim Smith.

"Mur-mur-der!" screamed Tom; and, mechanically raising his gun for action of some kind appeared absolutely necessary to keep life within him, he aimed at the Tempter, trembling in every joint.

Jim, who had as usual never calculated upon such a turning of the tables, threw off his head--his a.s.sumed one, of course, and, leaping from the stile, cried aloud--

"Oh! Tom, don't shoot--don't shoot!--it's only me--Jim Smith!"

Down dropped the gun from the sportsman's grasp.

"Oh! you fool! you--you--considerable fool!" cried he, supporting himself on a neighbouring hawthorn, which very kindly and considerately lent him an arm on the occasion. "It's a great mercy--a very great mercy, Jim--as we wasn't both killed!--another minute, only another minute, and--but it won't bear thinking on."

"Forgive me, Tom," said the penitent joker; "I never was so near a corpse afore. If I didn't think the shots were clean through me, and that's flat."

"Sich jokes," said Tom, "is onpardonable, and you must be mad."

"I confess I'm out of my head, Tom," said Jim, who was dangling the huge mask in his hand, and fast recovering from the effects of his fright.

"Depend on it, I won't put myself in such a perdicament again, Tom. No, no--no more playing the devil; for, egad! you had liked to have played the devil with me."

"A joke's a joke," sagely remarked Tom, picking up his hat and fowling piece.

"True!" replied Smith; "but, I think, after all, I had the greatest cause for being in a fright. You had the best chance, at any rate; for I could not have harmed you, whereas you might have made a riddle of me."

"Stay, there!" answered Tom; "I can tell you, you had as little cause for fear as I had, you come to that; for the truth is, the deuce a bit of powder or shot either was there in the piece!"

"You don't say so!" said Jim, evidently disappointed and chop-fallen at this discovery of his groundless fears. "Well, I only wish I'd known it, that's all!"--then, cogitating inwardly for a minute, he continued--"but, I say, Tom, you won't mention this little fright of yours?"

"No; but I'll mention the great fright--of Jim Smith--rely upon it," said Tom, firmly; and he kept his word so faithfully, that the next day the whole story was circulated, with many ingenious additions, to the great annoyance of the practical joker.

FISHING FOR WHITING AT MARGATE.

"Here we go up--up--up; And here we go down--down--down."

"Variety," as Cowper says, "is the very spice of life"--and certainly, at Margate, there is enough, in all conscience, to delight the most fastidious of pleasure-hunters.

There sailors ply for pa.s.sengers for a trip in their pleasure boats, setting forth all the tempting delights of a fine breeze--and woe-betide the unfortunate c.o.c.kney who gets in the clutches of a pair of plyers of this sort, for he becomes as fixed as if he were actually in a vice, frequently making a virtue of necessity, and stepping on board, when he had much better stroll on land.

Away he goes, on the wings of the wind, like--a gull! Should he be a knave, it may probably be of infinite service to society, for he is likely ever afterwards to forswear craft of any kind!

Donkies too abound, as they do in most watering placesand, oh! what a many a.s.ses have we seen mounted, trotting along the beach and cliffs!

The insinuating address of the boatmen is, however, irresistible; and if they cannot induce you to make a sail to catch the wind, they will set forth, in all the glowing colors of a dying dolphin, the pleasurable sport of catching fish!

They tell you of a gentleman, who, "the other day, pulled up, in a single hour, I don't know how many fish, weighing I don't know how much." And thus baited, some unwise gentleman unfortunately nibbles, and he is caught. A bargain is struck, 'the boat is on the sh.o.r.e,' the lines and hooks are displayed, and the victim steps in, scarcely conscious of what he is about, but full well knowing that he is going to sea!

They put out to sea, and casting their baited hooks, the experienced fisherman soon pulls up a fine lively whiting.

"Ecod!" exclaims the c.o.c.kney, with dilated optics, "this is fine--why that 'ere fish is worth a matter of a shilling in London--Do tell me how you cotched him."

"With a hook!" replied the boatman.