"'Ask what he's doing, sir,' says my wife, quite amazed. Back comes the answer in a Jiffy--
"'C. R. Y. I. N. G.'
"This caused all the bystanders to laugh excep my pore Mary Hann, who pull'd a very sad face.
"The good-naterd feller presently said, 'he'd have another trile;' and what d'ye think was the answer? I'm blest if it wasn't--
"'P. A. P.'
"He was eating pap! There's for you--there's a rogue for you--there's a March of Intaleck! Mary Hann smiled now for the fust time. 'He'll sleep now,' says she. And she sat down with a full hart.
*****
"If hever that good-naterd Shooperintendent comes to London, HE need never ask for his skore at the 'Wheel of Fortune Otel,' I promise you--where me and my wife and James Hangelo now is; and where only yesterday a gent came in and drew this pictur* of us in our bar.
* This refers to an illustrated edition of the work.
"And if they go on breaking gages; and if the child, the most precious luggidge of the Henglishman, is to be bundled about this year way, why it won't be for want of warning, both from Professor Harris, the Commission, and from
"My dear Mr. Punch's obeajent servant,
"JEAMES PLUSH."
THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN.
CHAPTER I.
"TRUTH IS STRANGE, STRANGER THAN FICTION."
I think it but right that in making my appearance before the public I should at once acquaint them with my titles and name. My card, as I leave it at the houses of the nobility, my friends, is as follows:--
MAJOR GOLIAH O'GRADY GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S.,
Commanding Battalion of Irregular Horse,
AHMEDNUGGAR.
Seeing, I say, this simple visiting ticket, the world will avoid any of those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so frequent of late. There has been no end to the blunders regarding this humble title of mine, and the confusion thereby created. When I published my volume of poems, for instance, the Morning Post newspaper remarked "that the Lyrics of the Heart, by Miss Gahagan, may be ranked among the sweetest flowrets of the present spring season." The Quarterly Review, commenting upon my Observations on the "Pons Asinorum" (4to. London, 1836), called me "Doctor Gahagan," and so on. It was time to put an end to these mistakes, and I have taken the above simple remedy.
I was urged to it by a very exalted personage. Dining in August last at the palace of the T-lr-es at Paris, the lovely young Duch-ss of Orl--ns (who, though she does not speak English, understands it as well as I do,) said to me in the softest Teutonic, "Lieber Herr Major, haben sie den Ahmednuggarischen-jager-battalion gelassen?" "Warum denn?" said I, quite astonished at her R---l H-----ss's question. The P---cess then spoke of some trifle from my pen, which was simply signed Goliah Gahagan.
There was, unluckily, a dead silence as H. R. H. put this question.
"Comment donc?" said H. M. Lo-is Ph-l-ppe, looking gravely at Count Mole; "le cher Major a quitte l'armee! Nicolas donc sera maitre de l'Inde!" H. M---- and the Pr. M-n-ster pursued their conversation in a low tone, and left me, as may be imagined in a dreadful state of confusion. I blushed and stuttered, and murmured out a few incoherent words to explain--but it would not do--I could not recover my equanimity during the course of the dinner and while endeavoring to help an English Duke, my neighbor, to poulet a l'Austerlitz, fairly sent seven mushrooms and three large greasy croutes over his whiskers and shirt-frill. Another laugh at my expense. "Ah! M. le Major," said the Q---- of the B-lg--ns, archly, "vous n'aurez jamais votre brevet de Colonel." Her M----y's joke will be better understood when I state that his Grace is the brother of a Minister.
I am not at liberty to violate the sanctity of private life, by mentioning the names of the parties concerned in this little anecdote. I only wish to have it understood that I am a gentleman, and live at least in DECENT society. Verbum sat.
But to be serious. I am obliged always to write the name of Goliah in full, to distinguish me from my brother, Gregory Gahagan, who was also a Major (in the King's service), and whom I killed in a duel, as the public most likely knows. Poor Greg! a very trivial dispute was the cause of our quarrel, which never would have originated but for the similarity of our names. The circumstance was this: I had been lucky enough to render the Nawaub of Lucknow some trifling service (in the notorious affair of Choprasjee Muckjee), and his Highness sent down a gold toothpick-case directed to Captain G. Gahagan, which I of course thought was for me: my brother madly claimed it; we fought, and the consequence was, that in about three minutes he received a slash in the right side (cut 6), which effectually did his business:--he was a good swordsman enough--I was THE BEST in the universe. The most ridiculous part of the affair is, that the toothpick-case was his, after all--he had left it on the Nawaub's table at tiffin. I can't conceive what madness prompted him to fight about such a paltry bauble; he had much better have yielded it at once, when he saw I was determined to have it. From this slight specimen of my adventures, the reader will perceive that my life has been one of no ordinary interest; and, in fact, I may say that I have led a more remarkable life than any man in the service--I have been at more pitched battles, led more forlorn hopes, had more success among the fair sex, drunk harder, read more, and been a handsomer man than any officer now serving her Majesty.
When I at first went to India in 1802, I was a raw cornet of seventeen, with blazing red hair, six feet four in height, athletic at all kinds of exercises, owing money to my tailor and everybody else who would trust me, possessing an Irish brogue, and my full pay of 120L. a year. I need not say that with all these advantages I did that which a number of clever fellows have done before me--I fell in love, and proposed to marry immediately.
But how to overcome the difficulty?--It is true that I loved Julia Jowler--loved her to madness; but her father intended her for a Member of Council at least, and not for a beggarly Irish ensign. It was, however, my fate to make the passage to India (on board of the "Samuel Snob" East Indiaman, Captain Duffy,) with this lovely creature, and my misfortune instantaneously to fall in love with her. We were not out of the Channel before I adored her, worshipped the deck which she trod upon, kissed a thousand times the cuddy-chair on which she used to sit. The same madness fell on every man in the ship. The two mates fought about her at the Cape; the surgeon, a sober, pious Scotchman, from disappointed affection, took so dreadfully to drinking as to threaten spontaneous combustion; and old Colonel Lilywhite, carrying his wife and seven daughters to Bengal, swore that he would have a divorce from Mrs. L., and made an attempt at suicide; the captain himself told me, with tears in his eyes, that he hated his hitherto-adored Mrs. Duffy, although he had had nineteen children by her.
We used to call her the witch--there was magic in her beauty and in her voice. I was spell-bound when I looked at her, and stark staring mad when she looked at me! O lustrous black eyes!--O glossy night-black ringlets!--O lips!--O dainty frocks of white muslin!--O tiny kid slippers!--though old and gouty, Gahagan sees you still! I recollect, off Ascension, she looked at me in her particular way one day at dinner, just as I happened to be blowing on a piece of scalding hot green fat. I was stupefied at once--I thrust the entire morsel (about half a pound) into my mouth. I made no attempt to swallow, or to masticate it, but left it there for many minutes, burning, burning! I had no skin to my palate for seven weeks after, and lived on rice-water during the rest of the voyage. The anecdote is trivial, but it shows the power of Julia Jowler over me.
The writers of marine novels have so exhausted the subject of storms, shipwrecks, mutinies, engagements, sea-sickness, and so forth, that (although I have experienced each of these in many varieties) I think it quite unnecessary to recount such trifling adventures; suffice it to say, that during our five months' trajet, my mad passion for Julia daily increased; so did the captain's and the surgeon's; so did Colonel Lilywhite's; so did the doctor's, the mate's--that of most part