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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BAYARD FROM BENGAL *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

A BAYARD FROM BENGAL
Cover

frontispiece

EXORTED HER, WITH AN ELOQUENCE THAT MOVED ALL PRESENT, TO ABANDON HER FRIVOLITIES AND LEVITIES

Transcriber's Note:

Author's notes on illustrations have been consolidated at the end of the text.

A BAYARD FROM BENGAL

Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq., B.A., Cambridge, by Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta University, author of "Jottings and Tittlings," etc., etc., to which is appended the Parables and Proverbs of Piljosh, freely translated from the Original Styptic by Another Hand, with Introduction, Notes and Appendix by the above Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A.

 

THE WHOLE EDITED AND REVISED

BY

F. ANSTEY

AUTHOR OF "VICE VERSA," ETC. ETC.


WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE


METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1902

 

Reprinted from "Punch"

 

[v]

CONTENTS

CHAP.   PAGE I. From Calcutta to Cambridge Oversea Route 1 II. How Mr Bhosh Delivered a Damsel from a Demented Cow 8 III. The Involuntary Fascinator 16 IV. A Kick from a Friendly Foot 24 V. The Duel to the Death 33 VI. Lord Jolly is Satisfied 41 VII. The Adventure of the Unwieldy Gifthorse 48 VIII. A Rightabout Facer for Mr Bhosh 55 IX. The Dark Horse 63 X. Trust Her Not! She is Fooling Thee! 70 XI.[vi] Stone Walls do not make a Cage 78 XII. A Race against Time 86 XIII. A Sensational Derby Struggle 93 XIV. A Grand Finish 102   __________     The Parables of Piljosh 111

 

[vii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE "Exhorted her, with an Eloquence that moved all present, to abandon her Frivolities and Levities" Frontispiece "Gave the Animal into Custody as a Disturber of the Peace" 12 "Dismayed the Beast by his determined and ferocious aspect" 28 "The Bullet had perforated a large circular orifice in Honble Bodger's Hat" 42 "The Cantankerous Steed executed a Leap with Astounding Agility" 50 "'My Daughter, I foresee many Calamities which will inevitably befall Thee'" 58 "The Road was chocked full with every description of conveyance" 88 "The Notorious Blue Ribbon was pinned by the Judge upon his proud and heaving Bosom" 106

[ix]

PRELIMINARY

I have the honour humbly to inform my readers that, after prolonged consumption of midnight oil, I succeeded in completing this imposing society novel, which is now, by the indulgence of my friends and kind fathers, the honble publishers, laid at their feet.

My inducement to this enterprise was the spectacle of very inferior rubbish palmed off by so-called popular novelists such as Honbles Kipling, Joshua Barrie, Antony Weyman, Stanley Hope, and the collaborative but feminine authoresses of "The Red Thumb in the Pottage," all of whom profess (very, very incorrectly) to give accurate reliable descriptions of Indian, English or Scotch episodes.

The pity of it, that a magnificent and gullible British Public should be suckled like a babe on such spoonmeat and small beer![x]

Would no one arise, inflamed by the pure enthusiasm of his cacoethes scribendi, and write a romance which shall secure the plerophory of British, American, Anglo-Indian, Colonial, and Continental readers by dint of its imaginary power and slavish fidelity to Nature?

And since Echo answered that no one replied to this invitation, I (like a fool, as some will say) rushed in where angels were apprehensive of being too bulky to be borne.

Being naturally acquainted with gentlemen of my own nationality and education, and also, of course, knowing London and suburban society ab ovo usque ad mala (or, from the new-laid egg to the stage when it is beginning to go bad), I decided to take as my theme the adventures of a typically splendid representative of Young India on British soil, and I am in earnest hopes to avoid the shocking solecisms and exaggerations indulged in by ordinary English novelists.

I have been compelled to take to penmanship of this sort owing to pressure of res angusta[xi] domi, the immoderate increase of hostages to fortune, and proportionate falling off of emoluments from my profession as Barrister-at-Law.

Therefore, I hope that all concerned will smile favourably upon my new departure, and will please kindly understand that, if my English literary style has suffered any deterioration, it is solely due to my being out of practice, and such spots on the sun must be excused as mere flies in ointment.

After forming my resolution of writing a large novel, I confided it to my crony, Mr Ram Ashootosh Lall, who warmly recommended me to persevere in such a magnum opus. So I became divinely inflated periodically every evening from 8 to 12 P.M., disregarding all entreaties from feminine relatives to stop and indulge in a blow-out on ordinary eatables, like Archimedes when Troy was captured, who was so engrossed in writing prepositions on the sand that he was totally unaware that he was being barbarously slaughtered.[xii]

And at length my colossal effusion was completed, and I had written myself out; after which I had the indescribable joy and felicity to read my composition to my mothers-in-law and wives and their respective progenies and offspring, whereupon, although they were not acquainted with a word of English, they were overcome by such severe admiration for my fecundity and native eloquence that they swooned with rapture.

I am not a superstitious, but I took the trouble to consult a soothsayer, as to the probable fortunes of my undertaking, and he at once confidently predicted that my novel was to render all readers dumb as fishes with sheer amazement and prove a very fine feather in my cap.

For all the above reasons, I am modestly confident that it will be generally recognised as a masterpiece, especially when it is remembered that it is the work of a native Indian, whose 'prentice hand is still a novice in wielding the currente calamo of fiction.[xiii]

I cannot conclude without some allusion to the drawings which are, I believe, to adorn my work, but which I have not yet been enabled to inspect, owing to the fact that, having fish of more importance to fry at the time, I commissioned a certain young English friend (the same who furnished sundry poetic headings for chapters) to engage a designer for the pictorial department.

Needless to say, I intended that he was to award the apple only to some Royal Academician of distinguished talentsโ€”yet at the eleventh hour, when too late to make other arrangements, I am informed that the job has been entrusted to a certain Birnadhur Pahtridhji, whose name (though probably incorrectly transcribed) certainly denotes a draughtsman of native Indian origin!

Whether he is fully competent for such a task I cannot at present say. But, unless he is qualified, like myself, by actual residence in Great Britain, I fear that he may not possess sufficient familiarity with the customs and[xiv] solecisms of English society to avoid at least a few ludicrous and even lamentable mistakes.

To guard against such contingencies I shall insert a note or comment opposite each picture as it is submitted to me, pointing out in what respects (if any) the artist has failed to represent the author's intentions.

I sincerely hope that I may now and then be able to pat the aforesaid Mr P. on the back instead of acting as a Rhadamanthus to rap his knuckles.[1]

A BAYARD FROM BENGAL CHAPTER I

FROM CALCUTTA TO CAMBRIDGE OVERSEA ROUTE

At sea the stoutest stomach jerks,
Far, far away from native soil,
When Ocean's heaving waterworks
Burst out in Brobdingnagian boil!

Stanza written at Sea, by H. B. J.
(unpublished).

THE waves of Neptune erected their seething and angry crests to incredible altitudes; overhead in fuliginous storm-clouds the thunder rumbled its terrific bellows, and from time to time the ghastly flare of lightning illuminated the entire neighbourhood. The tempest howled like a lost dog through the cordage of the good ship Rohilkund (Captain O. Williams), which lurched through the vasty deep as though overtaken by the drop too much.[2]

At one moment her poop was pointed towards celestial regions; at another it aimed itself at the recesses of Davey Jones's locker; and such was the fury of the gale that only a paucity of the ship's passengers remained perpendicular, and Mr Chunder Bindabun Bhosh was recumbent on his beam end, prostrated by severe sickishness, and hourly expecting to become initiated in the Great Secret.

Bitterly did he lament his hard lines in venturing upon the Black Water, to be snipped off in the flower of

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