Part 2 — TIT FOR TAT.

So long as men are what they are, those who can hit will give blow for blow, literally or metaphorically as the case may be, and standers-by will delight in the passage-at-arms.

Certainly it is pleasant to hear a sayer of ill-natured things put down by an intended victim of his cynical tongue. 'The great assembly,' as Manningham terms it, must have greatly enjoyed the discomfiture of a certain Lord Paget, who, oblivious of his own mean origin, thought to extol his superiority by asking Sir Thomas White what he thought of the quality of the cloak he wore. 'Truly,' replied the worthy alderman, 'it seems to be a very good cloth; but I remember when I was a young beginner, selling your lordship's father a far better, to make him a gown when he was sergeant to the Lord Mayor; and he was a very honest sergeant.'

Nor did those behind the scenes at a certain theatre fail to appreciate the situation when a prosperous equestrian's daughter observed to a retired actress: 'After all, you were only a circus artist; my father recollects you well;' and the elder lady retorted: 'I daresay he does, my dear; he used to chalk my shoes.'

When Lincoln and Douglas stumped Illinois as rival candidates, the latter in one of his speeches declared he remembered his opponent when he served liquor behind a bar. 'That's so,' said Lincoln; 'but the judge has forgotten to mention that while I was serving the liquor on one side of the bar, he was drinking it on the other.' A mild bit of retaliation compared with that inflicted by Brougham upon his fellow-actor Burton. In reply to the first-named asking if he had read the last number of the Lantern, a comic paper in which Brougham was personally interested, Burton said he never read the thing unless he was tipsy; a compliment his questioner acknowledged with a bow and, 'Then, Mr Burton, I am sure of one constant reader!'

It is well not to shew contempt for a book to its author's face, as newly made Sergeant Murphy learned when dining in company with the author of Ten Thousand a Year. He called out across the table: 'Warren, I never had patience to finish that book of yours; tell me what was the end of Gammon?' 'Oh,' said Warren to the lawyer, 'they made him a sergeant, and he was never heard of after.'

Charles Dickens turning over the leaves of a literary lady's album, came upon a page bearing the autographs of Daniel O'Connell and Joseph Bonaparte, and over against them read, in Southey's handwriting:

Underneath the Laureate's lines the novelist wrote:

a reflection upon the poet's political inconstancy, that called forth a quid pro quo from one of Southey's admirers, who thought a man had as much right to change his opinions as to alter his style:

Seeing that men of all sorts delight in girding at the professors of law and physic, it is strange that instead of making common cause together, lawyers and doctors rather cherish a mutual antipathy, which finds vent in an amusing interchange of asperities. Cross-examining Dr Warren, a New York counsel declared that a doctor ought to be able to give an opinion of a disease without making mistakes.

'They make fewer mistakes than the lawyers,' responded the physician.

'That's not so,' said the counsellor; 'but doctors' mistakes are buried six feet under ground; a lawyer's are not.'

'No,' replied Warren; 'but they are sometimes hung as many feet above ground.' The advantage was with the doctor.

It was on the other side when, disputing as to the comparative merits of their professions, Sir Henry Holland said to Bobus Smith, ex-advocate-general: 'You must admit that your profession does not make angels of men?' and the lawyer replied: 'There you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the best chance.'

Said a pompous man of money to Professor Agassiz: 'I once took some interest in natural science; but I became a banker, and I am what I am!' 'Ah!' replied Agassiz, 'my father procured a place for me in a bank; but I begged for one more year of study, then for a second, then for a third. That fixed my fate, sir. If it had not been for that little firmness of mine, I should now have been myself nothing but a banker.'

The money-dealer must have felt as small as the American judge who, finding his enforced bed-fellow by no means overwhelmed by the company of a person of his dignity, observed: 'Pat, you would have remained a long time in the old country before you could say you had slept with a judge.' 'True for you,' said Pat; 'and yer Honour would have been a long time in the ould counthry, I'm thinking, before ye'd been a judge!'

Joseph Hume, the economical reformer, having occasion to visit Brussels when Sir Robert Adair was our representative there, mindful of the minister's repute as a host, lost no time in leaving his name at the legation. Remembering Hume's constant attempts to cut down official salaries, Sir Robert was inclined to ignore the hint; but taking second thought, invited the troublesome economist to dine with him. Hume put his legs under the ambassador's mahogany in the expectation of tasting the choicest viands and the most exquisite wines, but had to content himself with poor soup and poorer sherry, roast mutton and light Bordeaux, a chicken and a salad; supplemented with Adair's apologetical observation when the banquet was over: 'You see, sir, what these confounded Radicals have brought us to with their reductions. By-and-by, I daresay we shall come to prison diet, with pudding perhaps on Sundays.'

Scribe the dramatist met his match in a nobleman ambitious of gaining a literary reputation by proxy; from whom he received the following curious epistle: 'Sir—I have the honour to propose to you to associate yourself with me in the composition of a drama. Your name will figure by the side of mine; you alone composing the play, and I alone defraying all the expenses of the first representation. You shall have all the profits, for I work only for glory.'

Scribe replied: 'Sir—I have never been accustomed to harness together in my carriage a horse and an ass; I am therefore unable to accept your very kind offer.'

The nobleman closed the correspondence with: 'Monsieur Scribe—I received your note of refusal to unite our literary labours. You are at liberty not to understand your own interest, but not to allow yourself to call me a horse.'

Would-be wits are apt to have the tables turned upon them. At a dinner in honour of Nick Denton, one of the staff of the Illinois Central Railway, his friend Jack Wallace, intrusted with the toast of the evening, proposed it in this wise: 'The two Nicks—Old Nick and Nick Denton!' Denton rose to respond, saying he appreciated the honour conferred upon him by connecting him with Mr Wallace's most intimate friend, and scarcely knew how to requite the compliment; but as one good turn deserves another, he would give 'The two Jacks—Jack Wallace and Jackass!'

Cham the caricaturist turning into a restaurant, chanced to take possession of the favourite seat of a stock-broker. Upon coming in and seeing how things were, the latter called the proprietor aside and inquired if he were aware that the tall thin stranger occupying his usual place was the executioner. The horrified man hurried to Cham and entreated him to go away, saying M. Heldenrich need not pay for what he had eaten if he would only leave at once. 'Who told you I was the headsman?' asked Cham, without displaying any surprise at what he had heard. The landlord pointed out his informant. 'Ah,' said Cham, as he rose to depart, 'he ought to know me; I flogged and branded him at Toulon not two years ago.'

Hood once took a proper revenge upon some practical jokers who upset a boat before he could get out of it, giving him a thorough ducking. Directly he was safe on land he began to complain of cramps and stitches, and at last went indoors. His friends, rather ashamed of their rough fun, persuaded him to go to bed, which he immediately did. His groans and complaints increased so alarmingly that they were at their wits' end what to do. Mrs Hood had received a quiet hint from the sufferer, and was therefore only amused at the terrified efforts and prescriptions of the repentant jokers. There was no doctor come-at-able; and all sorts of queer remedies were suggested and tried; the poet shaking with laughter, while they thought he was shaking with ague or fever. One rushed up-stairs with a kettle of boiling water, another tottered in under a tin bath, and a third brought a quantity of mustard. Hood then gave out in a sepulchral voice his belief that he was dying; and proceeded to give the most absurd instructions for his will, which his hearers could not see the fun of, for their fright. They begged him to forgive them for their unfortunate joke, and beseeched him to believe in their remorse; till unable to keep up the farce any longer, Hood burst into a perfect shout of laughter, which they thought at first was delirious frenzy, but which ultimately betrayed that the biters were bit.

General Charretie, known some thirty years ago as a capital talker, clever versifier, skilful musician, bold bettor, daring horseman, and dead-shot, was as cool as the proverbial cucumber. He once hired a Hertfordshire manor for the shooting-season, and in following his game was not particular about trespassing on the adjoining estate, belonging to a lord of high degree. The latter's keeper out with his master one morning, heard the General blazing away in an adjoining cover, and calling attention to the intruder's proceedings, was instructed to go and shoot one of the General's dogs and turn him off the ground. 'You had better take my pony; you will get back quicker,' said his lordship; and the keeper cantered away on a perfect treasure of a pony, that its owner would not have parted with for any amount. Upon reaching the spot where Charretie was blazing away at the pheasants, the keeper told him to get off the ground or, by his master's orders, he should shoot one of his dogs.

'Very well,' said the General; 'shoot the old one; but if you do, I shoot your pony; and as I am not sure where my manor ends, I shan't stir.'

The old dog dropped at a shot from the keeper; and before the man could turn round, the pony he bestrode was as dead as the dog.

'Now, my man,' said Charretie in the mildest of tones, 'if you shoot again, the next barrel is for yourself!'

The keeper took to his heels, told the doleful story to his master, who had not made up his mind how to act ere he received a challenge from the General for insulting him by ordering his servant to shoot his setter. Seeing the sort of customer he had to deal with, the nobleman thought it best to come to an amicable arrangement and accept the defeat.

The editor of the Terre Haute Journal had the impudence to write: 'The reason why Lafayette doesn't build a rink is this. The ladies of that city have such big feet that no more than four or five could skate in a rink at one time; therefore the concern wouldn't pay.' Whereupon the Lafayette Journal retorted: 'It is a number eleven lie. The Lafayette ladies are celebrated for their pretty feet. All's well, you know, that ends well, and the Terre Haute editor, afflicted with the daily exhibition of agricultural hoofs, is dying of envy. Goodwin of our city once made a pair of twenty-eights for a Terre Haute belle. He built them in the back-yard on a sort of marine railway, and launched them. If ever an old woman lived in a shoe, it was down at Terre Haute.'

Ladies know how to give tit for tat, as a politician learned when, piqued by a fair listener noticing a pet dog while he was holding forth to her on the Eastern Question, he asked how a woman of her intelligence could be so fond of a dog. 'Because he never talks politics,' was the significant reply.

An Englishman attached to the Washington Commission incautiously remarked to his pretty American partner at a ball, that although he had seen many beautiful women, he had not come across a handsome man in the States. 'I suppose there are plenty of handsome men in England?' she observed. 'O yes, lots,' said he; provoking the poser: 'Then why didn't Queen Victoria send some over here?'