MARRIED ON HER TENTH BIRTHDAY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 950, 9 June 1868, Page 3

MARRIED ON HER TENTH BIRTHDAY.

(From " London Society.") Wherever a few men arc thrown' to gether in very close .and constant .associa tion— as, for example, in the managemem of different departments of the same busr ness— they fall, as if by gravitation, intc certain definite and fixed relationships to> wards each other, which soon become sc well recognized and admitted that anj inversion of them would seem unnatural And in all such small societies, whatever types of character are missing, we may count with certainty on finding the wit and the butt. Indeed I undertake to say with confidence that the reader never knew any half-score of men, exclusively associated, one of whom was not recognized as the sayer of smart things, and another as the good-natured, stupid fellow on whom it was always safe to crack your joke. At the establishment of Tovey and Brother, in the Borough, these two characters were as well known as Tovey and Brother themselves, and I propose now to make them known to the reader. I take it for granted that he does already know Tovey and Brother, and is not one of those who make the gross mistake of calling that eminent firm Tovey Brothers. To speak of Tovey Brothers is, in fact, to be guilty of a very unjustifiable misrepresentation — as if the brothers were on an equal footing. Whereas the title Tovey and Brother explains itself, and enables any reflecting person to understand at once that Tovey is Tovey ' pure and simple— the head of the firm '; while Brother, although Tovey too, is only Tovey with a limitation. In the house itself the one is always known as Mr. Tovey, and the other as Mr. Charles ; and if the reader has any thought of opening an account with the firm, it may be useful to him to bear that in mind. Unless, however, he is himself in a considerable way of business, Tovey and Brother will not thank him for his account, they being only wholesale, and wholesale on the very largest scale. When you enter their place of business, you might wonder (if every one did not know already) what it is they deal in. A few scores of little bottles ranged on shelves, and filled with various coloured liquids and powders ; a few scores of little, polished mahogany cases, each with its printed Latin label ; this is all in the way of stock that meets the eye. But when you see the long array of well-bound ledgers, journals, cash-books, you need no further assurance that they do deal in something more than little bottles. When you see Mr. Tovey and Mr. Charles you do not need to be told that they are prosperoxis men, and that their rosy faces and portly shapes are those of men who have long known something about bigger bottles than any you see upon their shelves. ■ Ordinarily, however, you might go in without much chance of seeing either of them. To get to their private offices you have to go through the clerks' office first, and then through Mr. Splutter's. And unless your business is of very unusual importance, you will find it quite within the capacity of one of the clerks, or, they failing, then certainly within Mr. Splutter's, without interruption to the newspaper of either of the principals. I myself confess that I never in point of fact got beyond the clerks' office, and have always had a very considerable awe of Mr. Splutter, the great men's great man, and manager. Not that he was ever anything but very civil to me when he saw me ; but he had a singular inability sometimes to see me even when brushing close past me, and this used to so fill me with perplexity as to whether I should say " G-ood morning" or not, that before I could quite make up my mind he had usually gone. As for Mr. Tovey and Mr. Charles I don't think they ever did see me. It was to my father that my visits were paid. I used to call on my way from school, and generally had to wait a few minutes before he was ready to walk home with me. He was one of their young men in the clerks' office. There were, if I remember rightly, about ten of them, all of whom had been young men a very considerable time, and many of whom had younger men and women at home, their children. In the eyes of the house, however, any one was a young man under sixty. I remember that office as a model of staid decorum and gravity. Everything went on as if by machinery. There was a time for everything, and everything done in its time. A. place for everything, and everj'thing in its place. I could have found it easy to believe that the very height of each clerk's collar was regulated by office bye-law, and the style of each chain and seal by fixed specification. No starch has ever yet been made, however, so stiff that a man cannot laugh in it; and a good deal of quiet fun went on amidst the monotony of business. Manj^ a joke was passed round from stool to stool, and I think I never called there once without hearing some new witticism or some latest joke of Mr. Easper's. Boy as I was, I dare say most of these had to be diluted to suit my comprehension before they were told to me, aitd suffered in the dilution ; but even yet, as then, I think of Mr. Easper as a fellow of infinite mirth. I suppose his humour must have depended much on manner, tone, and little accidents of place which could not be rendered on paper ; for it was generally understood that Mr. Easper was an ill-used man in that he could never get any of his good things into print. But not the less, whether his wit were up to or below the standard of the comic papers, he served that office with fun enough, and poor Mr. Bog with more than enough. He did not often say ill-natured things; but every wit must have his butt, his anvil, on which to hammer and sharpen his darts, and Mr. Bog did duty in that capacity. Jester and jestee were as unlike in all respects as any two men well could be. Mr. Easper's work, and his way of doing it, wore like his conversation, lightand sprightly. He moved about with an elastic quick step as if he had a difficulty in refraining from dancing. He adorned his writing with flourishes till it was hardly legible. And. when Mr. Splutter tried to make him discontinue those embellishments he gave such whimsical reasons for their continuance that he always laughed the manager out of his attempt to find fault. Mr. Bog was heavy and solid. His handwriting was as regular as engraving. His ledger had not a blot in it from beginning to end. And when any figure in it had to be altered it was done so neatly as to be almost an improvement. He was a plodding, thoroughly reliable man ; as punctual as the clock, and as grave in all his ways ;— slow in all things, but happily above all things slow to anger. Mr. Bog had never been known by any one in the office to make a joke ; and had not often, they said, been made to comprehend one. Mr. Easper never made anything else, and saw them- where others intended no such thing. Mr. Bog made up, however, for his dulness by the frank

ness witfr which lie admitted it, and by his invariable good temper. It was quite impossible to put him out, and when the suspicion came across him, as it did now and then, that Easper had : been hammering at him for an hour or more, he bore no malice, . which was, indeed, a feeling into which he could not enter. There was, however, one matter in which I all in the office concurred that they had a right to find fault with Bog. He was un- ' married, and all the rest were married • men. ' . : > And on this shortcoming of his one and ! all were determined that he should have no peace. Not a day passed but some new ■ hypothesis was started as to the reason of hi a continuing a bachelor : not d day without some new name being suggested 1 to him as that of a lady with whom he 1 might yet have a chance. To all of Tvhich • suggestions Mr. Bog persistently and good-naturedly turned his deaf ear. " A respite came to him twice a year [ (which must have been very wefcome) \ from all this worrying. Twice a year Mr. Bog went on lis travels, for about a month at a time. For it was the custom of the house to lei their travelling be done by the clerks, instead of [ keeping travellers to do nothing elsj. In this way one or two of them were uways out, and all of them in turn lad a pleasant relief from the monotony o: office life. " Now, Bog," Mr. Easper wouh say, " you must really try and manage Si this journey. Eepresent your case once, more to that Leicester girl, and perhaps sli'U ' change her mind." It was one of Kr. ' Easper's friendly assumptions that IV*. Bog had been rejected in every town 1\ went to, and Leicester being in his rouni it was usually the Leicester girl who was recommended for a second trial. Mr. Bog would answer in his stolid way that if she really did relent he would let Easper know ; and so they would part, and though they all missed Bog when he was on his travels, no one missed him more than Easper, or was so glad as he to see him back again. And thus the joke was repeated year after year, until at last Mr. Bog's case came to be considered by all of them so thoroughly hopeless that if he had come down some morning in a pink vest and lemon-coloured tights no one would have thought it half so surprising as that he should really take Mr. Easper's advice. Mr. Bog indeed at forty-five was held by one and all to be utterly impervious to , female blandishments. Let the reader judge, therefore, for himself, with what effect this bomb-shell fell in the office four days after Mr. Bog was supposed to have started on one of his journeys. The missile came by post, in the shape of a newspaper addressed to Mr. Easper. It was a provincial paper, not from Leicester, but from a city in quite another quarter. Mr. Easper had unfolded it and looked it carelessly over, — had read several items of local news, town-council squabbles, workhouse board meetings, and other matters in which he took not the slightest interest, and was about to toss it into the waste basket, when his eye caught sight of a couple of crosses evidently made for the purpose of attracting attention. But even then he did not at once hit the right column. " Hunting fixtures for next week ;" what on earth do I care about them r " Hops two pounds a cwt. higher ;" well, if they don't raise, beer it doesn't matter to me. What does the old goose mean by marking these ? At last, however, he did find it, and was struck for a moment speechless. " Well, by Jove," he said at last, " this is something. But I don't believe it. Here's Bog gone and put a notice in the paper to make us believe he has got married. Listen, here it is." " Same day, at St. Ambrose in this city, by the Eev. Edward Wheeler, the rector, Mr. Thomas Frederick Bog, of Highbury, to Emily, only daughter of the late Theodore Phillips, Esq., of Kingston, Jamaica." And then, as if that were not enough, here's a note appended, editorial apparently." [" Unusual interest attached to this wedding from the fact of the bride being married — as we are permitted to state — on her tenth birthday."] "Very fair, indeed, Mr. Bog," said Easper, as he finished ; " very creditable for a first joke — only it's a little overdone. You'll do better next time. Now, my merry men, what do you think of it ?" Not one in the office believed a word of it of course. " Neither do I," said Easper ; " but it really is very fair for Bog. I must go and show it to Splutter." But at that moment Mr. Splutter came in, and on being tendered the newspaper waived the offer, and said, " Ah, ah, I know all about it. Bog's wedding, — that's what you want me to look at, isn't it? Bless you, I've known of it for more than a week. Bog told me and Mr. Charles, but made us promise to keep the secret till it was all over. He goes mooning with his bride for two or three weeks, and then he takes her with him on his round. You won't see him here again this six weeks. He was married the very morning after he left here. He asked me to be present, but I could not go. Now Mr. Easper, your occupation's gone. You will have nothing to chaff him about." And Mr. Splutter, chuckling very loudly, and rubbing his hands with glee, was retreating to his own apartment. "Oh, but stop a minute," cried Easper. " Do you know all about this, too ? " And he read him the editorial note about the " tenth birthday." It was Mr. Splutter's turn now to be surprised. " Nonsense ! " he said ; " let me see." And, taking the paper, he read it for himself. "It must be a mistake. It can't be true." " Late of Kingston, Jamaica. Who is she ? " asked Easper. "Some family connection, I understood him," said Mr. Splutter. "They do marryvery young, I have been told, in those hot climates. But in England — it is impossible ; it would not have been allowed. And Bog would not have done such a thing. It's all nonsense — nonsense ! " And he shut himself into his own room. And, in short, that was the conclusion to which all in the office came, namely, that this editorial note was a piece of very ridiculous fooling, which Bog had purposely had inserted for their mystification. Considering which Mr. Easper, who, so long as he had disbelieved the marriage itself, had pronounced the whole to be " pretty fair for Bog," said, — now that the marriage was an established fact, — that the joke about the bride's age was not only in bad taste, but as a joke was also quite inexcusable, though Bog's first. During the six following weeks of Mr. Bog's absence he furnished more conver- . sation to the office, and was the subject of more jokes on the part of Mr. Easper, . even than if ho had been present. Speculation exhausted itself as to the reality of this extraordinary editorial note. • But lam sorry to say that at last the conL vietion gradually established itself that • the fact was literally true ; that Bog, ha- ) ving married some mere child from a 3 boarding-school— having, in fact, probably 3 run off with her for the sake of her money, nd knowing that he coujd not possibly

conceal the fact of her being a child, had impudently; determined to brazen his misdeedoutin this way before them and the world. : And poor Mr. Bog accordingly fell not a little in the opinion of his fellow-clerks. They were agreed, one and all, that he had done -a thing which, in a man at his time of life, was unpardonable — positively immoral—a nd surely must also be illegal; a thing, in short, for which it would behove them all on Mr. Bog's return to give himihe cold shoulder and the cut. - " I'll tie bound he'll bring Her down to the office' in' a short frock," said Mr. Rasper, "arid carry her in on his arm." In anticipation, of which very remarkable advent I will, for a little while, leave Mr. Raspsr and the office. While jhis own character was thus sufferihg^and while his fellow-clerks were thus diseasing the chances of their finding in him onshis return any small remains of honour aid morality, Mr. Bog's travels with his Tjride were: drawing near to an end. , j. ; „ ■• The reader would, indeed, have been able to i_fer this much had we, without explanation comment, merely commenced this closin»,chapter with the following letter which mx, Bog wrote from one of his resting-plfces. "My diar Mr. Splutter, — I purpose being in. total again on Tuesday evening next,-- but ihall not .come back to business until the feginning of the following week. Will you iblige me and my wife by giving us your canpany on the Friday evening, and by imting for me all my confreres of the offi'e for the same evening. I hate the ceemony of carding, and calling, and sitting in state to receive visits from old friend, and so does my wife. If they will all t*e it, therefore, in this informal way thatwe shall be glad to see them — well, gk' we shall be ; and if they won't, we sbJl be 1 sorry. " Friday evening, at seven ; for yhatwe will call our ' small and early ;' oeing, in fact, for office people only. . "Tours ever, T.F..8." This letter, which came on Monday morning, was dealt with by Mr. Splutter in his usual prompt and business-like way. -1 - ■•••■•■■■• : — - He simply turned; up one corner of it, wrote on the back of that corner in red ink, " I shall go, and hope you all will," and sent it out to Mr. Rasper to be handed round. . The 'decision come to unanimously, in spite of the' sentence, of condemnation passed on poor Bog, was that they would go, all who could, if it were only for the sake of haying an early sight of the bride, and giving the bridegroom one chance of reinstating Himself in their good graces. WHen the evening came, therefore, they took a couple of cabs, and all went down together—Mr. Splutter, my father, Rasper, Gibbs, and all the rest of them. — they having .agreed, on a convenient point of meeting before they left the office. It was Bog himself who received his company in his cosy, well-furnished draw-ing-room up-stairs, for he was a man of some little means, and had every thing very comfortable about him. " Well, Rasper," he said, after the first hand-shakings, "your constant dropping has worn away the stone at last. I could not stand it any longer, you see. Is it to be peace between us now, or war ?" " I "don't quite know," said Rasper, laughing ; "we shall see." " You Had better not make it war," said Mr. Splutter, " for Bog's holiday seems to have put him in rare fighting order : better say peace." Whereupon Bog, in his clumsy way, sparred at Rasper on the hearth-rug, as if to demonstrate with what ease he could double him up. " I shall think about it," said Rasper ; " and before deciding should like to see the teterrima, caaisa belli, if that is what my old Latin grammar used to call another fair one." " Here,", said Mr. Bog, "in good time she comes. Friends, allow me. My wife, Mrs. Bog, and her cousin, Miss Wheeler." Arid in came the two ladies as he spoke. One was of middle age, or apparently somewhat over the middle age, wearing spectacles, with a matronly look and a good-tempered face that was very pleasant to look upon. " The cousin," said Mr. .Rasper,," who comes to. keep House till the child- wife is of age. Just as I thought.". "■'■-■.: , The other was a merry, laughing young girl seemingly of sixteen or seventeen, though possibly she might be younger. ' Rasper shook his head and looked grave at sight of her. \ "Exactly as we predicted," he said to his neighbour ; " she's quite a child. Really this is a bad business; but it's always so when men put off too long. Ah, : Bog, Bog, she'll be a handsome young widow, my old friend, when you and I are gone." He went over, nevertheless, and made small talk to the young girl by the piano. " Been long in England ? he asked her, among other things. " No," she said ;" only about a month before the wedding." " Known Mr. Bog before P" Mr. Rasper supposed. " No ; she had only seen him for the first time when she was up in London with her cousin about a fortnight before the wedding. Her cousin had. known him many years." " You will find England very different, I suppose," went on Mr. Rasper, "from Jamaica r " Jamaica ?" she said, laughing ; " I dare say I should- if I had ever been there. I'm only from Edinbro'." " Oh, indeed," he replied,; " I beg your pardon; Then I suppose the late Mir;- " " I say, Rasper," called out Mr. Bog from the other side of the room, "are you likely to finish spooning with Rosy soon P Because I want you to 'come and say something clever to my wife." "Your wife!" exclaimed the startled Rasper, " I thought I was——" "Not talking to her?" said Mr. Bog. " Don't say, now, that you thought I married little Rosy," and he went off into a fit of laughter of long duration. "Rasper," he said, on getting his breath again, "you really did riot think that—oh, oh, oh," and then went off into a longer laugh than ever, in which we all joined him. "Then what on ■ earth," said Rasper, brought to bay, " what on earth was the meaning- of that newspaper note ?" " Ehi what ? No P Now you really don't mean to say you've never guessed what that nteant P You don't mean to say that when yqu : read "sftme day at" so and sOj . you never carried your eye up to loot what day that was ?" " No, ■ "said Mr. Rasper ; "but what matter could that make ? ' "All the matterj" said Mr. Bog. "We were married on the twenty-ninth of February;" that is my wife's birthday, and you know it only comes once in foui years."" '"- - ••< '■'".";■ .'■ •-•■_ .■-■ . -"j " Welli Bog, upon my word I nevei .tfipught of that ;' and I have been nursing ; alVmannfer of Wrath against you." >, spleridid ! '■' said Bog, " I did ..^ptftjnrik it possible ; t6 swindle the swin- ; diei ;'sjp/ f; coin:pletely. ;; The longest life I -f. HQiiedr-^pYfiaj^q^e'iyr&B'a.-life of about five 'l^n^ut^sjr<aiid'in^H^ hdp^e of that I got \ ';)^my^^M^lied^r to print me ; that one V ;^'?P^ v o^l^^&^' :^%--'a ; - note' speciajlj

" Oil ! then Mrs. Bog's age is not proclaimed to all the world," said Rasper. " Not exactly," said Bog,j> "though for that matter she would not in the least have cared if it had been." "Not at all," said Mrs. Bog; "I'm long past caring who knows how old I am." That is the story of how Mr. Bog married his wife on her tenth birthday. "Really, Rasper," said Mr. Splutter, : as they walked home together, " that was very good indeed for Bog." And Rasper admitted unreservedly that it really was very clever indeed, considered as Bog's first. Robeet Hudson. i The following advertisement is cut , from the Times : — " Education, — Wanted, ■ by a father, a school where his son may '* receive an education to fit him for a manly i and. useful life, without any humbug as to nations dead and buried thousands of years ago.— Address, stating terms, A., at . De. Johnson was observed by a musi- . cal friend of his to be very inattentive at a concert while a celebrated solo player was giving an extraordinary performance upon is violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, ■ told Mm how extremely difficult it was. I " Difficult, do you call it, sir?" replied the ' doctor ; " I wish it were impossible." ; Negho Ageiculttjeal Intelligence. , —"I say, Sambo, does you know what ? makes the corn grow so fast when you > put the manure upon it P" — " No, I don't, . hardly." "Now, I'll just tell ye. When I. de corn begins to smell de manure, it I don't like the fumery, so hurries out of ' the ground, and sits up as high as possible, , so as not to breath de bad air." 1 Manufacture of Glue. — We (HiwZhorougJi Express) have two fellmongers resi- ' dent and busily employed in our midst, and yet have to import glue, for the purpose of making size. The consequence _is a high price, which all but prohibits its use, except for the very best paid work, 1 and the result is seen in loose paper hangings on the walls of dwellings, &c. The process of glue manufacture from the offal of the butchers and fellmongers is so sim- • pie, that we wonder no one has attempted it in this district.