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

Naturally, such feats of arms as these only served to inflame the ardour of the Princess, to whom it was a constant wonderment that Mr Bhosh did never, even in the most roundabout style, allude to the fact that he had saved her life from perishing miserably on the pointed horn of an enraged cow.

She could not understand that the Native temperament is too sheepishly modest to flaunt its deeds of heroism.

Those who are au fait in knowledge of the world are aware that when there are combustibles concealed in any domestic interior, there is always a person sooner or later who will contrive to blow them off; and here, too, the Serpent of Mischief was waiting to step in with cloven hoof and play the very deuce.

It so happened that the Duchess occupied the adjacent bungalow to that of Baronet Jolly and his lady, with whom she was hail-fellow-well-met, and this perfidious female set herself to ensnare the confidence of the young and innocent Princess by discreetly lauding the praises of Mr Bhosh.

"What an admirable Indian Crichton! How many rabbits and salmons had he laid low that week? Truly, she regarded him as a favourite son, and marvelled that any youthful feminine could prefer an ordinary peer like Lord Jolly to a Native paragon who was not only a university B.A., but had successfully passed Bar Exam!" and so forth and so on.

The princess readily fell into this insidious booby-trap, and confessed the violence of her attachment, and how she had striven to acquaint Mr Bhosh with her sentiments but was rendered inarticulate by maidenly bashfulness.

"Can you not then slip a love-letter into his hand?" inquired the Duchess.

"Cui bono?" responded the Princess, sadly. "Seeing that he never approaches near enough to me to receive such a missive, and I dare not entrust it to one of my maidens!"

"Why not to Me?" said the Duchess. "He will not refuse it coming from myself; moreover, I have influence over him and will soften his heart towards thee."

Accordingly the Princess indicted a rather impassioned love-letter, in which she assured Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret passion and fully reciprocated it, also that she was the total indifferent to Lord Jack, with much other similar matters.

Having obtained possession of this litera scripta, what does the unscrupulous Duchess next but deliver it impromptu into the hands of Lord Jack, who, after perusing it, was overcome by uncontrollable wrath and instantaneously summoned our hero to his presence.

Here was the pretty kettle of fish – but I must reserve the sequel for the next chapter.

CHAPTER V

THE DUEL TO THE DEATH

The ordinary valour only worksAt those rare intervals when peril lurks;There is a courage, scarcer far, and stranger,Which nothing can intimidate but danger.Original Stanza by H. B. J.

NO sooner had Mr Bhosh obeyed the summons of Lord Jack, than the latter not only violently reproached him for having embezzled the heart of his chosen bride, but inflicted upon him sundry severe kicks from behind, barbarously threatening to encore the proceeding unless Chunder instantaneously agreed to meet him in a mortal combat.

Our hero, though grievously hurt, did not abandon his presence of mind in his tight fix. Seating himself upon a divan, so as to obviate any repetition of such treatment, he thus addressed his former friend: "My dear Jack, Plato observes that anger is an abbreviated form of insanity. Do not let us fall out about so mere a trifle, since one friend is the equivalent of many females. Is it my fault that feminines overwhelm me with unsought affections? Let us both remember that we are men of the world, and if you on your side will overlook the fact that I have unwittingly fascinated your fiancée, I, on mine, am ready to forget my unmerciful kickings."

But Lord Jolly violently rejected such a give-and-take compromise, and again declared that if Mr Bhosh declined to fight he was to receive further kicks. Upon this Chunder demanded time for reflection; he was no bellicose, but he reasoned thus with his soul: "It is not certain that a bullet will hit – whereas, it is impossible for a kick to miss its mark."

So, weeping to find himself between a deep sea and the devil of a kicking, he accepted the challenge, feeling like Imperial Cæsar, when he found himself compelled to climb up a rubicon after having burnt his boots!

Being naturally reluctant to kick his brimming bucket of life while still a lusty juvenile, Mr Bhosh was occupied in lamenting the injudiciousness of Providence when he was most unexpectedly relieved by the entrance of his lady-love, the Princess Jones, who, having heard that her letter had fallen into Lord Jack's hands, and that a sanguinary encounter would shortly transpire, had cast off every rag of maidenly propriety, and sought a clandestine interview.

She brought Bindabun the gratifying intelligence that she was a persona grata with his lordship's seconder, Mr Bodgers, who was to load the deadly weapons, and who, at her request, had promised to do so with cartridges from which the bullets had previously been bereft.

Such a piece of good news so enlivened Mr Bhosh, that he immediately recovered his usual serenity, and astounded all by his perfect nonchalance. It was arranged that the tragical affair should come off in the back garden of Baronet Jolly's castle, immediately after breakfast, in the presence of a few select friends and neighbours, among whom – needless to say – was Princess Petunia, whose lamp-like optics beamed encouragement to her Indian champion, and the Duchess of Dickinson, who was now the freehold tenement of those fiendish Siamese twins – Malice and Jealousy. At breakfast, Mr Bhosh partook freely of all the dishes, and rallied his antagonist for declining another fowl-egg, rather wittily suggesting that he was becoming a chicken-hearted. The company then adjourned to the garden, and all who were non-combatants took up positions as far outside the zone of fire as possible.

Mr Bhosh was rejoiced to receive from the above-mentioned Mr Bodgers a secret intimation that it was the put-up job, and little piece of allright, which emboldened him to make the rather spirited proposal to his lordship, that they were to fire – not at the distance of one hundred paces, as originally suggested – but across the more restricted space of a nosekerchief. This dare-devilish proposal occasioned a universal outcry of horror and admiration; Mr Bhosh's seconder, a young poor-hearted chap, entreated him to renounce his plan of campaign, while Lord Jack and Mr Bodgers protested that it was downright tomfolly.

Chunder, however, remained game to his backbone. "If," he ironically said, "my honble friend prefers to admit that he is inferior in physical courage to a native Indian who is commonly accredited with a funky heart, let him apologise. Otherwise, as a challenged, I am the Master of the Ceremonies. I do not insist upon the exchange of more than one shoot – but it is the sine quâ non that such shoot is to take place across a nosewipe."

Upon which his lordship became green as grass with apprehensiveness, being unaware that the cartridges had been carefully sterilised, but glueing his courage to the sticky point, he said, "Be it so, you bloodthirsty little beggar – and may your gore be on your own knob!"

"It is always barely possible," retorted Mr Bhosh, "that we may both miss the target!" And he made a secret motion to Mr Bodgers with his superior eyeshutter, intimating that he was to remember to omit the bullets.

But lackadaisy! as Poet Burns sings, the best-laid schemes both of men and in the mouse department are liable to gang aft – and so it was in the present instance, for Duchess Dickinson intercepted Chunder Bindabun's wink and, with the diabolical intuition of a feminine, divined the presence of a rather suspicious rat. Accordingly, on the diaphanous pretext that Mr Bodgers was looking faintish and callow, she insisted on applying a very large smelling-jar to his nasal organ.

Whether the vessel was charged with salts of superhuman potency, or some narcotic drug, I am not to inquire – but the result was that, after a period of prolonged sternutation, Mr Bodgers became impercipient on a bed of geraniums.

Thereupon Chunder, perceiving that he had lost his friend in court, magnanimously said: "I cannot fight an antagonist who is unprovided with a seconder, and will wait until Mr Bodgers is recuperated." But the honourable and diabolical duchess nipped this arrangement in the bud. "It would be a pity," said she, "that Mr Bhosh's fiery ardour should be cooled by delay. I am capable to load a firearm, and will act as Lord Jolly's seconder."

Our hero took the objection that, as a feminine was not legally qualified to act as seconder in mortal combats, the duel would be rendered null and void, and appealed to his own seconder to confirm this obiter dictum.

Unluckily the latter was a poor beetlehead who was in excessive fear of offending the Duchess, and gave it as his opinion that sex was no disqualification, and that the Duchess of Dickinson was fully competent to load the lethal weapons, provided that she knew how.

Whereupon she, regarding Mr Bhosh with the malignant simper of a fiend, did not only deliberately fill each pistol-barrel with a bullet from her own reticule bag, but also had the additional diablerie to extract a miniature laced mouchoir exquisitely perfumed with cherry-blossoms, and to say, "Please fire across this. I am confident that it will bring you good luck."

And Mr Bhosh recognised with emotions that baffle description the very counterpart of the nose-handkerchief which she had flung at him months previously at the aforesaid fashionable Bayswater Ball! Now was our poor miserable hero indeed up the tree of embarrassment – and there I must leave him till the next chapter.

CHAPTER VI

LORD JOLLY IS SATISFIED

Ah, why should two, who once were bosom's friends,Present at one another pistol ends?Till one pops off to dwell in Death's Abode —All on account of Honour's so-called code!Thoughts on Duelling, by H. B. J.

MANY a more hackneyed duellist than our unfortunate friend Bhosh might well have been frightened from his propriety at the prospect of fighting with genuine bullets across so undersized a nosekerchief as that which the Duchess had furnished for the fray.

But Mr Bhosh preserved his head in perfect coolness: "It is indisputably true," he said, "that I proposed to shoot across a pocketkerchief – but I am not an effeminate female that I should employ such a lacelike and flimsy concern as this! As a challenged, I claim my constitutional right under Magna Charta to provide my own nosewipe."

And, as even my Lord Jack admitted that this was legally correct, Mr Bhosh produced a very large handsome nosekerchief in parti-coloured silks.

This he tore into narrow strips, the ends of which he tied together in such a manner that the whole was elongated to an incredible length. Then, tossing one extremity to his lordship, and retaining the other in his own hand, he said: "We will fight, if you please, across this – or not at all!"

Which caused a working majority of the company, and even Lord Jack Jolly himself, to burst into enthusiastic plaudits of the ingenuity and dexterity with which Mr Bhosh had contrived to extricate himself from the prongs of his Caudine fork.

The Duchess, however, was knitting her brows into the baleful pattern of a scowl – for she knew as well as Chunder Bindabun himself that no human pistol was capable to achieve such a distance! The duel commenced. His lordship and Mr Bhosh each removed their upper clothings, bared their arms, and, taking up a weapon, awaited the momentous command to fire.

It was pronounced, and Lord Jolly's pistol was the first to ring the ambient welkin with its horrid bang. The deadly missile, whistling as it went for want of thought, entered the door of a neighbouring pigeon's house and fluttered the dovecot confoundedly.

Mr Bhosh reserved his fire for the duration of two or three harrowing seconds. Then he, too, pulled off his trigger, and after the explosion there was a loud cry of dismay.

The bullet had perforated a large circular orifice in Honble Bodger's hat, who, by this time, had returned to self-consciousness!

"I could not bring myself to snuff the candle of your honble lordship's existence," said Mr Bhosh, bowing, "but I wished to convince all present that I am not incompetent to hit a mark."

And he proceeded to assure Mr Bodger that he was to receive full compensation for any moral and intellectual damage done to his said hat.

As for his lordship, he was so overcome by Mr Bhosh's unprecedented magnanimity that he shed copious tears, and, warmly embracing his former friend, entreated his forgiveness, vowing that in future their affection should never again be endangered by so paltry and trivial a cause as the ficklety of a feminine. Moreover, he bestowed upon Bindabun the blushing hand of Princess Jones, and very heartily wished him joy of her.

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 McAlpine, 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 KrishnageeDr. 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.