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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, December 13, 1890 By: Various |
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OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 99. December 13, 1890.
MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS. NO. IX. THE CURSE OF COGNAC. ( By WATER DECANT, Author of "Chaplin off his Feet," "All
Sorts of Editions for Men," "The Nuns in Dilemma," "The
Cream he Tried," "Blue the Money Naughty boy," "The Silver
Gutter Snipe," "All for a Farden Fare," "The Roley Hose,"
"Caramel of Stickinesse," &c., &c., &c. ) [Of this story the Author writes to us as follows: "I can
honestly recommend it, as calculated to lower the exaggerated
cheerfulness which is apt to prevail at Christmas time. I
consider it, therefore, to be eminently suited for a Christmas
Annual. Families are advised to read it in detachments of four
or five at a time. Married men who owe their wives' mothers
a grudge should lock them into a bare room, with a guttering
candle and this story. Death will be certain and not painless.
I've got one or two rods in pickle for the publishers. You
wait and see. W.D."] CHAPTER I. [Illustration] GEORGE GINSLING was alone in his College rooms at Cambridge. His
friends had just left him. They were quite the tip top set in Christ's
College, and the ashes of the cigarettes they had been smoking lay
about the rich Axminster carpet. They had been talking about many
things, as is the wont of young men, and one of them had particularly
bothered GEORGE by asking him why he had refused a seat in the
University Trial Eights after rowing No. 5 in his College boat. GEORGE
had no answer ready, and had replied angrily. Now, he thought of
many answers. This made him nervous. He paced quickly up and down the
deserted room, sipping his seventh tumbler of brandy, as he walked. It
was his invariable custom to drink seven tumblers of neat brandy every
night to steady himself, and his College career had, in consequence,
been quite unexceptionable up to the present moment. He used playfully
to remind his Dean of PORSON's drunken epigram, and the good man
always accepted this as an excuse for any false quantities in GEORGE's
Greek Iambics. But to night, as I have said, GEORGE was nervous with a
strange nervousness, and he, therefore, went to bed, having previously
blown out his candle and placed his Waterbury watch under his pillow,
on the top of which sat a Devil wearing a thick jersey worked with
large green spots on a yellow ground. CHAPTER II. Now this Devil was a Water Devil of the most pronounced type. His
head quarters were on the Thames at Barking, where there is a sewage
outfall, and he had lately established a branch office on the Cam,
where he did a considerable business. Occasionally, he would run down to Cambridge himself, to consult
with his manager, and on these occasions he would indulge his
playful humour by going out at night and sitting on the pillows of
Undergraduates. This was one of his nights out, and he had chosen GEORGE GINSLING's
pillow as his seat. GEORGE woke up with a start. What was this feeling in his throat?
Had he swallowed his blanket, or his cocoa nut matting? No, they
were still in their respective places. He tore out his tongue and his
tonsils, and examined them. They were on fire. This puzzled him. He
replaced them. As he did so, a shower of red hot coppers fell from his
mouth on to his feet. The agony was awful. He howled, and danced about
the room. Then he dashed at the whiskey, but the bottle ducked as he
approached, and he failed to tackle it. Poor GEORGE, you see, was a
rowing man, not a football player. Then he knew what he wanted. In
his keeping room were six carafes , full of Cambridge water, and a
dozen bottles of Hunyádi Janos. He rushed in, and hurled himself upon
the bottles with all his weight. The crash was dreadful. The foreign
bottles, being poor, frail things, broke at once. He lapped up the
liquid like a thirsty dog. The carafes survived. He crammed them
with their awful contents, one after another, down his throat... Continue reading book >>
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Essay/Short nonfiction |
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