PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 100.

January 10, 1891.

MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS.

No. X.—THE FONDMAN.

(By CALLED ABEL, Author of "The Teamster.")

[The eminent Author writes to us as follows:—"How's this for a Saga? Do you know what a Saga is? Nor do I, but this is one in spite of what anybody may say. History be blowed! Who cares about history? Mix up your dates and your incidents, and fill up with any amount of simple human passions. Then you'll get a Saga? After that you can write a Proem and an Epilogue. They must have absolutely nothing to do with the story, but you can put in some Northern legends, and a tale about MAHOMET (by the way, I've written a play about him) which are bound to tell, though, of course, you were not bound to tell them. Ha, ha! who talked about thunderstorms, and passions, and powers and emotions, and sulphur-mines, and heartless Governors, and wicked brothers? Read on, my bonny boy. Vous m'en direz des nouvelles, but don't call this a novel. It's a right-down regular Saga."—C.A.]

THE BOOK OF STIFFUN ORRORS.

CHAPTER I.

The Characters Personally-Conducted by the Author to Reykjavik.

STIFFUN ORRORS was a gigantic fair-haired man, whose muscles were like the great gnarled round heads of a beech-tree. When a man possesses that particular shape of muscle he is sure to be a hard nut to crack. And so poor PATRICKSEN found him, merely getting his own wretched back broken for his trouble. GORGON GORGONSEN Was Governor of Iceland, and lived at Reykjavik, the capital, which was not only little and hungry, but was also a creeping settlement with a face turned to America. It was a poor lame place, with its wooden feet in the sea. Altogether a strange capital. In the month of Althing GORGON took his daughter to Thingummy-vellir, where there were wrestling matches. It came to the turn of PATRICKSEN and STIFFUN. STIFFUN took him with one arm; then, curling one leg round his head and winding the other round his waist, he planted his head in his chest, and crushing his ribs with one hand he gave a mighty heave, and clasping the ground, as with the hoofs of an ox, he flung him some two hundred yards away, and went and married RACHEL the Governor's daughter. That night he broke PATRICKSEN's back, as if he had been a stick of sugar-candy. After this he took his wife home, and often beat her, or set his mother on her. But one day she happened to mention PATRICKSEN, so he fled, cowed, humiliated, cap in hand, to Manxland, but left to her her child, her liberator, her FASON, so that she might span her little world of shame and pain on the bridge of Hope's own rainbow. She did this every day, and no one in all Iceland, rugged, hungry, cold Iceland, knew how she did it. It was a pretty trick.

CHAPTER II.

This is the Isle of Man, the island of MATT MYLCHREEST, and NARY CROWE, but plenty of vultures, the island of Deemsters, and Keys, and Kirk Maughold, and Port y Vullin. Here at the Lague lived ADAM FATSISTER, the Deputy Governor, who had been selected for that post because he owned five hundred hungry acres, six hungrier sons, a face like an angel's in homespun, a flaccid figure, and a shrewd-faced wife, named RUTH. Hither came STIFFUN, to beg shelter. The footman opened the door to him, but would have closed it had not ADAM, with a lusty old oath, bidden him to let the man in. Hereupon STIFFUN's face softened, and the footman's dropped; but ORRORS, with an Icelander's inborn courtesy, picked it up, dusted it, and returned it to its owner. Shortly afterwards, STIFFUN became a bigamist and a wrecker, and had another son, whom, in honour of the Manxland Parliament, he christened MICHAEL MOONKEYS, and left him to be cared for by old ADAM, whose daughter's name was GREEBA. STIFFUN, as I have said, was a wrecker, a wrecker on strictly Homeric principles, but a wrecker, nevertheless. When storm-winds blew, he was a pitcher and tosser on the ocean, but, like other pitchers, he went to the bad once too often, and got broken on the rocks. Then came KANE WADE, and CHALSE, and MYLCHREEST, and they sang hymns to him.

"Ye've not lived a right life," said one. "Now, by me sowl, ye've got to die," sang another. "All flesh is as grass," roared a third. Suddenly FASON stood beside his bedside. "This," he thought, "is my father. I must kill him." But he restrained himself by a superhuman effort—and that was the end of ORRORS.

THE BOOK OF MICHAEL MOONKEYS.

CHAPTER III.

MICHAEL and FASON were both the sons of ORRORS. They were both Homeric, and both fell in love with GREEBA, who flirted outrageously with both. These coincidences are absolutely essential in a tale of simple human passions. But, to be short, GREEBA married MICHAEL, who had become First President of the second Icelandic Republic. Thus GREEBA and MICHAEL were at Reykjavik. FASON followed, spurred by a blind feeling of revenge. About this time Mrs. FATSISTER took a dislike to her husband.

"Crinkum, crankum!" she said, "you'd have me toil and moil while you pat your nose at the fire."

"RUTH," said ADAM.

"Hoity toity!" cried she. "The house is mine. Away with you!" So poor old ADAM also set out for Reykjavik, and the boatmen cried after him, "Dy banne jee oo!" and he immediately jeeooed, as you shall hear. Last, GREEBA's six brothers packed up, and left for Reykjavik; and now that we have got all our characters safely there, or on the way, we can get on with the story. It may be mentioned, however, that Mrs. ADAM found a fever in a neglected cattle-trough. Being a grasping woman, she caught it, and took it home—and it killed her.

CHAPTER IV.

RED FASON meant to kill MICHAEL. That was plain. So he was tried by a Bishop and nine of his neighbours an hour or so after the attempt. And although the time was so short, all the witnesses had been collected, and all formalities completed. And FASON was dumb, but great of heart, and the Bishop condemned him to the sulphur-mines, for which he soon afterwards started with his long stride, and his shorn head, and his pallid face. Upon this the six brothers of GREEBA arrived, spread calumnies, and were believed. Their names were ASHER, JACOB, JOHN, THURSTAN, STEAN, and ROSS, but they preferred addressing one another as JOBBERNOWL, WASTREL, GOMERSTANG, BLUBBERHEAD, NUMSKULL, and BLATHERSKITE. It saved time, and made things pleasant all round. MICHAEL quarrelled with his wife, and there is no knowing what might have happened, if GORGON GORGONSEN, at the head of some Danish soldiers, had not upset the Republic, and banished MICHAEL to the sulphur-mines to join his brother.

THE BOOK OF RED FASON.

CHAPTER V.

Poor ADAM arrived too late, yet he has his use in the tale, for his words to GORGON GORGONSEN were bitter words, such as the cruel old Governor liked not. And he harried him, and worried him, but without avail, for in Reykjavik money was justice, and ADAM had spent his. What availed it that a grey silt should come up out of the deposits of his memory? That was a totally unmarketable commodity in Reykjavik, as ADAM found to his cost. And in the end intending to shoot MICHAEL they shot FASON. And yet it is perfectly certain that the next chapter of this Saga, had there been a next, would have found all the characters once more in the Isle of Man. For nothing is more surely established than this: that a good (or a