PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 100.

March 14, 1891.

SPECIMENS FROM MR. PUNCH'S SCAMP-ALBUM.

No. III.—THE BIOGRAPHER.

We will ask you, reader, this week, to compel your fancy to take a further flight, and kindly imagine yourself a worthy merchant, who has exchanged the turmoil of City-life for the elegant leisure of a suburban villa—let us say at Norwood. You are in your dining-room, examining the sky, and thinking that, if the weather holds up, you will take your big dog out presently for a run before lunch, when you are told that a gentleman is in the study who wishes to see you "on particular business." The very word excites you, not unpleasantly, nor do you care whether it is Churchwarden's business, or the District Board, or the County Council—it is enough that your experience and practical knowledge of affairs are in request—and, better still, it will give you something to do. So, after a delay due to your own importance, you march into your study, and find a brisk stranger, with red whiskers and a flexible mouth, absorbed in documents which he has brought with him in a black bag.

"Your Visitor has his Note-book out."

"I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. MARK LANE, I think?" he says. "Just so. Well, Mr. MARK LANE, I consider myself extremely fortunate in finding you at home, I assure you, and a very charming place you have here—abundant evidence of a refined and cultivated mind, excellent selection of our best-known writers, everything, if I may say so, elegant in the extreme—as was to be expected! Even from the cursory glimpse I have had, I can see that your interior would lend itself admirably to picturesque description—which brings me to the object of my visit. I have called upon you, Mr. LANE, in the hope of eliciting your sympathy and patronage for a work I am now compiling—a work which will, I am confident, commend itself to a gentleman of your wide culture and interest in literary matters." (Here you will look as judicial as you can, and harden your heart in advance against a new Encyclopædia, or an illustrated edition of SHAKSPEARE's works.) "The work I allude to, Mr. LANE, is entitled, Notable Nonentities of Norwood and its Neighbourhood." (Here you will nod gravely, rather taken by the title.) "It will be published very shortly, by subscription, Mr. LANE, in two handsome quarto volumes, got up in the most sumptuous style. It is a work which has been long wanted, and which, I venture to predict, will be very widely read. It is my ambition to make it a complete biographical compendium of every living celebrity of note residing at Norwood at the present date. It will be embellished with copious illustrations, printed by an entirely new process upon India and Japanese paper; everything—type, ink, paper, binding, will be of the best procurable; the publishers being determined to spare no expense in making it a book of reference superior to anything of the kind previously attempted!" (As he pauses fur breath, you will take occasion to observe, that no doubt such a work, as he contemplates, will be an excellent thing—but that, for your own part, you can dispense with any information respecting the Notabilities of Norwood, and, in short, that if he will excuse you—)

"You may have to wait."

"Pardon me, Mr. LANE," he interrupts, "you mistake my object. I should not dream of expecting you to subscribe to such a work. But, in my capacity of compiler, I naturally desire to leave nothing undone that care and research can effect to render the work complete—and it would be incomplete indeed, were it to include no reference to so distinguished a resident as yourself!" ("Oh, pooh—nonsense!" You will say at this—but you will sit down again) "Norwood is a singularly favoured locality. Sir; its charms have induced many of our foremost men to select it for their rus in urbe. Why, in this very road—May I ask, by the way, if you are acquainted with Alderman MINCING? Alderman MINCING has been good enough to furnish me with many interesting details of his personal career, a photo-gravured portrait of him will be included, with views of the interior and exterior of 'The Drudgeries,' and a bit from the back-garden." (You do know MINCING—and you cannot help inwardly wondering at the absurd vanity of the man—a mere nobody, away from the City!) "Between ourselves," says your interviewer, candidly, having possibly observed your expression, "I am by no means sure that I shall feel warranted in allotting Alderman MINCING as much space as I fear he will consider himself entitled to. Alderman MINCING, though a highly respectable man, does not appeal to the popular imagination as others I could mention do—he is just a little commonplace!" ("Shrewd follow, this!" you think to yourself—"Got MINCING's measure!") "But I should feel it an honour, indeed, if such a man as yourself, now, would give me all the personal information you think proper to make public, while, as a specimen of what Norwood can do in luxurious and artistic domestic fittings, this house, Sir, would be invaluable! I do trust that you will see your way to—" (At first, you suggest that you must talk it over with your Wife—but you presently see that if MINCING and men of that calibre are to be in this, you cannot, for your own sake, hold aloof, and so your Visitor soon has his note-book out.) "Any remarkable traits recorded of you as an infant, Mr. LANE? A strong aversion to porridge, and an antipathy to black-beetles—both of which you still retain? Thank you, very much. And you were educated? At Dulborough Grammar School? Just so! Never took to Latin, or learned Greek? Commercial aptitudes declaring themselves thus early—curious, indeed! Entered your father's office as clerk? Became a partner? Married your present lady—when? In 1860? Exactly!—and have offspring? Your subsequent life comparatively uneventful? That will do admirably—infinitely obliged to you, I am sure. It would be useless to ask you if you would care to have a copy of the work, when issued, forwarded to you—we can do it for you at the very nominal sum of two guineas, if paid in advance—a gratifying possession for your children after you have gone, Mr. LANE! I may put you down? Thank you. For two copies?" (On second thoughts, you do order two copies; you can send one out to your married Sister in Australia—it will amuse her.) "One, two, three, four guineas—quite correct, Mr. LANE, and you shall have an early opportunity of revising a proof, and we will send down a competent artist, in a day or two, to take the photographs. Quite an agreeable change in the weather, is it not? Good day!"

He is gone, leaving you to wait for the proof, and the photographer, and the appearance of that great work. Notable Nonentities of Norwood,—and it is not at all unlikely that you may have to wait a considerable time.

Iago on the Great Sermon Question.