A Bayard From Bengal. Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh…

Now the Princess was the solitary brat of a very wealthy merchant prince, Honble Sir Monarch Jones, whose proud and palatial storehouses were situated in the most fashionable part of Camden Town.

Sir Jones, in spite of Lord Jack's resignation, did not at first regard Mr Bhosh with the paternal eye of approval, but rather advanced the objection that the colour of his money was practically invisible. "My daughter," he said haughtily, "is to have a lakh of rupees on her nuptials. Have you a lakh of rupees?"

Bindabun was tempted to make the rather facetious reply that he had, indeed, a lack of rupees at the present moment.

Sir Monarch, however, like too many English gentlemen, was totally incapable of comprehending the simplest Indian jeu des mots, and merely replied. "Unless you can show me your lakh of rupees, you cannot become my beloved son-in-law."

So, as Mr Bhosh was a confirmed impecunious, he departed in severe despondency. However, fortune favoured him, as always, for he made the acquaintance of a certain Jewish-Scotch, whose cognomen was Alexander Wallace M

Alpine, and who kindly undertook to lend him a lakh of rupees for two days at interest which was the mere bite of a flea.

Having thus acquired the root of all evil, Bindabun took it in a four-wheeled cab and triumphantly exhibited his hard cash to Sir Jones, who, being unaware that it was borrowed plumage, readily consented that he should marry his daughter. After which Mr Bhosh honourably restored the lakh to the accommodating Scotch minus the interest, which he found it inconvenient to pay just then.

I am under great apprehensions that my gentle readers, on reading thus far and no further, will remark: "Oho! then we are already at the finis, seeing that when a hero and heroine are once booked for connubial bliss, their further proceedings are of very mediocre interest!"

Let me venture upon the respectful caution that every cup possesses a proverbially slippery lip, and that they are by no means to take it as granted that Mr Bhosh is so soon married and done for.

Remember that he still possesses a rather formidable enemy in Duchess Dickinson, who is irrevocably determined to insert a spike in his wheel of fortune. For a woman is so constituted that she can never forgive an individual who has once treated her advances with contempt, no matter how good-humoured such contempt may have been. No, misters, if you offend a feminine you must look out for her squalls.

Readers are humbly requested not to toss this fine story aside under the impression that they have exhausted the cream in its cocoanut. There are many many incidents to come of highly startling and sensational character.

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNWIELDY GIFTHORSE

When dormant lightning is pent in the polished hoofs of a colt,
And his neck is clothed with thunder, – then, horseman, beware of the bolt!
From the Persian, by H. B. J.

IN accordance with English usages, Mr Bhosh, being now officially engaged to the fair Princess Jones, did dance daily attendance in her company, and, she being passionately fond of equitation, he was compelled himself to become the Centaur and act as her cavalier servant on a nag which was furnished throughout by a West End livery jobber. Fortunately, he displayed such marvellous dexterity and skill as an equestrian that he did not once sustain a single reverse!

Truly, it was a glorious and noble sight to behold Bindabun clinging with imperturbable calmness to the saddle of his steed, as it ambled and gamboled in so spirited a manner that all the fashionables made sure that he was inevitably to slide over its tail quarters! But invariably he returned, having suffered no further inconvenience than the bereavement of his tall hat, and the heart of Princess Petunia was uplifted with pride when she saw that her betrothed, in addition to being a B.A. and barrister-at-law, was also such a rough rider.

It is de rigueur in all civilised societies to encourage matrimony by bestowing rewards upon those who are about to come up to the scratch of such holy estate, and consequently splendid gifts of carriage, timepieces, tea-caddies, slices of fish, jewels, blotter-cases, biscuit-caskets, cigar-lights, and pin-cushions were poured forth upon Mr Bhosh and his partner, as if from the inexhaustibly bountiful horn of a Pharmacopœia.

Last, but not least, one morning appeared a saice leading an unwieldy steed of the complexion of a chestnut, and bearing an anonymously-signed paper, stating that said horse was a connubial gift to Mr Bhosh from a perfervid admirer.

Our friend Bindabun was like to throw his bonnet over the mills with excessive joy, and could not be persuaded to rest until he had made a trial trip on his gifted horse, while the amiable Princess readily consented to become his companion.

So, on a balmy and luscious afternoon in Spring, when the mellifluous blackbirds, sparrows, and other fowls of that ilk were engaged in billing and cooing on the foliage of innumerable trees and bushes, and the blooming flowers were blowing proudly on their polychromatic beds, Mr Bhosh made the ascension of his gift-horse, and titupped by the side of his betrothed into the Row, the observed of all the observing masculine and feminine smarties.

But, hoity-toity! he had not titupped very many yards when the unwieldy steed came prematurely to a halt and adopted an unruly deportment. Mr Bhosh inflicted corporal punishment upon its loins with a golden-headed whip, at which the rebellious beast erected itself upon its hinder legs until it was practically a biped.

Bindabun, although at the extremity of his wits to preserve his saddle by his firm hold on the bridle-rein, undauntedly aimed a swishing blow at the head and front of the offending animal, which instantaneously returned its forelegs to terra firma, but elevated its latter end to such a degree that our hero very narrowly escaped sliding over its neck by cleverly clutching the saddleback.

Next, the cantankerous steed executed a leap with astounding agility, arching its back like a bow, and propelling our poor friend into the air like the arrow, though by providential luck and management on his part he descended safely into his seat after every repetition of this dangerous manœuvre.

All things, however, must come to an end at some time, and the unwieldy quadruped at last became weary of leaping and, securing the complete control of his bit, did a bolt from the blue.

Willy nilly was Mr Bhosh compelled to accompany it upon its mad, unbridled career, while all witnesses freely hazarded the conjecture that his abduction would be rather speedily terminated by his being left behind, and I will presume to maintain that a less practical horseman would long before have become an ordinary pedestrian.

But Bindabun, although both stirrupholes were untenanted, and he was compelled to hold on to his steed's mane by his teeth and nails, nevertheless remained triumphantly in the ascendant.

On, on he rushed, making the entire circumference of the Park in his wild, delirious canter, and when the galloping horse once more reappeared, and Mr Bhosh was perceived to be still snug on his saddle, the spectators were unable to refrain from heartfelt joy.

A second time the incorrigible courser careered round the Park on his thundering great hoofs, and still our heroic friend preserved his equilibrium – but, heigh-ho! I have to sorrowfully relate that, on his third circuit, it was the different pair of shoes – for the headstrong animal, abstaining from motion in a rather too abrupt manner, propelled Mr Bhosh over its head with excessive velocity into the elegant interior of a victoria-carriage.

He alighted upon a great dame who had maliciously been enjoying the spectacle of his predicament, but who now was forced to experience the crushing repartee of his tu quoque, for such a forcible collision with his person caused her not only two blackened optics but irremediable damage to the leather of her nose.

The pristine beauty of her features was irrecoverably dismantled, while Mr Bhosh – thanks to his landing on such soft and yielding material – remained intact and able to return to his domicile in a fourwheeled cab.

Beloved reader, however sceptical thou mayest be, thou wilt infallibly admire with me the inscrutable workings of Nemesis, when thou learnest that the aforesaid great lady was no other than the Duchess of Dickinson, and (what is still more wonderful) that it was she who had insidiously presented him with such a fearful gift of the Danaides as an obstreperous and unwieldy steed!

Truly, as poet Shakespeare sagaciously observes, there is a divinity that rough-hews our ends, however we may endeavour to preserve their shapeliness!

CHAPTER VIII

A RIGHTABOUT FACER FOR MR BHOSH

Halloo! at a sudden your love warfare is changed!
Your dress is changed! Your address is changed!
Your express is changed! Your mistress is changed!
Halloo! at a sudden your funny fair is changed!

    A song sung by Messengeress Binda before Krishnagee
    Dr. Ram Kinoo Dutt (of Chittagong).
THOSE who are au faits in the tortoise involutions of the feminine disposition will hear without astonishment that Duchess Dickinson – so far from being chastened and softened by the circumstance that the curse she had launched at Mr Bhosh's head had returned, like an illominous raven, to roost upon her own nose and irreparably destroy its contour – was only the more bitterly incensed against him.

Instead of interring the hatchet that had flown back, as if it were that fabulous volatile the boomerang, she was in a greater stew than ever, and resolved to leave no stone unturned to trip him up. But what trick to play, seeing that all the honours were in Mr Bhosh's hands?

She could not officiate as Marplot to discredit him in the affections of his ladylove, since the Princess was too severely enamoured to give the loan of her ear to any sibillations from a snake in grass.

How else, then, to hinder his match? At this she was seized with an idea worthy of Maccaroni himself. She paid a complimentary visit to the Princess, arrayed in the sheepish garb of a friend, and contrived to lure the conversation on to the vexed question of prying into futurity.

Surely, she artfully suggested, the Princess at such a momentous epoch of her existence had, of course, not neglected the sensible precaution of consulting some competent soothsayer respecting the most propitious day for her nuptials with the accomplished Mr Bhosh?..

What, had she omitted to pop so important a question? How incredibly harebrained! Fortunately, there was yet time to do the needful, and she herself would gladly volunteer to accompany the Princess on such an errand.

Princess Petunia fell a ready victim into the jaws of this diabolical booby-trap and inquired the address and name of the cleverest necromancer, for it is matter of notoriety that London ladies are quite as superstitious and addicted to working the oracle as their native Indian sisters.

The Duchess replied that the Astrologer-Royal was a facile princeps at uttering a prediction, and accordingly on the very next day she and the Princess, after disguising themselves, set forth on the summit of a tramway 'bus to the Observatory Temple of Greenwich, where, after first propitiating the prophet by offerings, they were ushered into a darkened inner chamber. Although they were strictly pseudo, he at once informed them of their genuine cognomens, and also told them much concerning their past of which they had hitherto been ignorant.

And to the Princess he said, stroking the long and silvery hairs of his beard, "My daughter, I foresee many calamities which will inevitably befall thee shouldest thou marry before the day on which the bridegroom wins a certain contest called the Derby with a horse of his own."

The gentle Petunia departed melancholy as a gib cat, since Mr Bhosh was not the happy possessor of so much as a single racing-horse of any description, and it was therefore not feasible that he should become entitled to wear the cordon bleu of the turf in his buttonhole on his wedding day!

With many sighs and tears she imparted her piece of news to the horror-stricken ears of our hero, who earnestly assured her that it was contrary to commonsense and bonos mores, to attach any importance to the mere ipse dixit of so antiquated a charlatan as the Astrologer-Royal, who was utterly incapable – except at very long intervals – to bring about even such a simple affair as an eclipse which was visible from his own Observatory!

However, the Princess, being a feminine, was naturally more prone to puerile credulities, and very solemnly declared that nothing would induce her to kneel by Mr Bhosh's side at the torch of Hymen until he should first have distinguished himself as a Derby winner.