212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 195
" You are a dreadful man, and you gave her a dreadful name,
Captain Woolcomb!" says mamma.
" It wasn't me. It was the surgeon, you know, Miss Agnes :
a doosid funny and witty fellow, Nixon is—and sent a thing once
to Punchy Nixon did. I heard him make the riddle in Albany
Barracks and it riled Foker so ! You've no idea how it riled Foker,
for he's in it !"
" In it ?" asks Agnes, with the gentle smile, the candid blue eyes
—the same eyes, expression, lips, that smile and sparkle at Philip.
" Here it is ! Capital ! Took it down ! Wrote it into my
pocket-book at once as Nixon made it. 'All doctors like my
first, that's clear !' Dr. Firmin does that. Old Parr Street party !
Don't you see, Miss Agnes ! FEE ! Don't you see ?"
"Fee! Oh, you droll thing!" cries Agnes, smiling, radiant,
very much puzzled.
"' My second,'" goes on the young officer—"' My second gives
us Foker's beer !' "
" ' My whole's the shortest month in all the year !' Don't you
see, Mrs. Twysden? FEE-BREWERY, DON'T YOU SEE ? February!
A doosid good one, isn't it now ? and I wonder Punch never put it
in. And, upon my word, I used to spell it Febuary before, I did ;
and I daresay ever so many fellows do still. And I know the right
way now, and all from that riddle which Nixon made."
The ladies declare he is a droll man, and full of fun He rattles
on, artlessly telling his little stories of sport, drink, adventure, in
which the dusky little man himself is a prominent figure. Not
honey-mouthed Plato would bo listened to more kindly by those
three ladies. A bland frank smile shines over Talbot Twysden's
noble face, as he comes in from his office, and finds the Creole
prattling. " What ! you here, Woolcomb ? Hey ! Glad to see
you !" And the gallant hand goes out and meets and grasps Woolcomb's
tiny kid glove.
" He has been so amusing, papa ! He has been making us die with
laughing ! Tell papa that riddle you made, Captain Woolcomb."
" That riddle I made 1 That riddle Nixon, our surgeon, made
' All doctors like my first, that's clear,'" &c.
And da capo. And the family, as he expounds this admirable
rebus, gather round the young officer in a group, and the curtain
drops.
As in a theatre booth at a fair there are two or three performances
in a day, so in Beaunash Street a little genteel comedy is
played twice:—at four o'clock with Mr. Firmin, at five o'clock
with Mr. Woolcomb; and for both young gentlemen, same smiles,
same eyes, same voice, same welcome. Ah, bravo ! ah, encore 1