Kitobni o'qish: «A Bayard From Bengal. Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh…»

CHAPTER I
FROM CALCUTTA TO CAMBRIDGE OVERSEA ROUTE

 
At sea the stoutest stomach jerks,
Far, far away from native soil,
When Ocean's heaving waterworks
Burst out in Brobdingnagian boil!
 

Stanza written at Sea, by H. B. J.

(unpublished).

THE waves of Neptune erected their seething and angry crests to incredible altitudes; overhead in fuliginous storm-clouds the thunder rumbled its terrific bellows, and from time to time the ghastly flare of lightning illuminated the entire neighbourhood. The tempest howled like a lost dog through the cordage of the good ship Rohilkund (Captain O. Williams), which lurched through the vasty deep as though overtaken by the drop too much.

At one moment her poop was pointed towards celestial regions; at another it aimed itself at the recesses of Davey Jones's locker; and such was the fury of the gale that only a paucity of the ship's passengers remained perpendicular, and Mr Chunder Bindabun Bhosh was recumbent on his beam end, prostrated by severe sickishness, and hourly expecting to become initiated in the Great Secret.

Bitterly did he lament his hard lines in venturing upon the Black Water, to be snipped off in the flower of his adolescence, and never again to behold the beloved visages of his relations!

So heartrending were his tears and groans that they moved all on board, and Honble Mr Commissioner Copsey, who was returning on leave, kindly came to inquire the cause of such vociferous lachrymation.

"What is the matter, Baboo?" began the Commissioner in paternal tones. "Why are you kicking up the shindy of such a deuce's own hullabaloo?"

"Because, honble Sir," responded Mr Bhosh, "I am in lively expectation that waters will rush in and extinguish my vital spark."

"Pooh!" said Mr Commissioner, genially. "This is only the moiety of a gale, and there is not the slightest danger."

Having received this assurance, Mr Bhosh's natural courage revived, and, coming up on deck, he braved the tempest with the cool composure of a cucumber, admonishing all his fellow-passengers that they were not to give way to panic, seeing that Death was the common lot of all, and, though everyone must die once, it was an experience that could not be repeated, with much philosophy of a similar kind which astonished many who had falsely supposed him to be a pusillanimous.

The remainder of the voyage was uneventful, and, soon after setting his feet on British territory, Mr Bhosh became an alumnus and undergraduate of the Alma Mater of Cambridge.

I shall not attempt to relate at any great length the history of his collegiate career, because, being myself a graduate of Calcutta University, I am not, of course, proficient in the customs and etiquettes of any rival seminaries, and should probably make one or two trivial slips which would instantly be pounced upon and held up for derision by carping critics.

So I shall content myself with mentioning a few leading facts and incidents. Mr Bhosh very soon wormed himself into the good graces of his fellow college boys, and his principal friend and fidus Achates was a young high-spirited aristocrat entitled Lord Jack Jolly, the only son of an earl who had lately been promoted to the dignity of a baronetcy.

Lord Jolly and Mr Bhosh were soon as inseparable as a Dæmon and Pythoness, and, though no nabob to wallow in filthy lucre, Mr Bhosh gave frequent entertainments to his friends, who were hugely delighted by the elegance of his hospitality and the garrulity of his conversation.

Unfortunately the fame of these Barmecide feasts soon penetrated the ears of the College gurus, and Mr Bhosh's Moolovee sent for him and severely reprimanded him for neglecting to study for his Littlego degree, and squandering his immense abilities and talents on mere guzzling.

Whereupon Mr Bhosh shed tears of contrition, embracing the feet of his senile tutor, and promising that, if only he was restored to favour he would become more diligent in future.

And honourably did he fulfil this nudum pactum, for he became a most exemplary bookworm, burning his midnight candle at both ends in the endeavour to cram his mind with belles lettres.

But he was assailed by a temptation which I cannot forbear to chronicle. One evening as he was poring over his learned tomes, who should arrive but a deputation of prominent Cambridge boatmen and athletics, to entreat him to accept a stroke oar of the University eight in the forthcoming race with Oxford College!

This, as all aquatics will agree, was no small compliment – particularly to one who was so totally unversed in wielding the flashing oar. But the authorities had beheld him propelling a punt boat with marvellous dexterity by dint of a paddle, and, taking the length of his foot on that occasion, they had divined a Hercules and ardently desired him as a confederate.

Mr Bhosh was profoundly moved: "College misters and friends," he said, "I welcome this invitation with a joyful and thankful heart, as an honour – not to this poor self, but to Young India. Nevertheless, I am compelled by Dira Necessitas to return the polite negative. Gladly I would help you to inflict crushing defeat upon our presumptuous foe, but 'I see a hand you cannot see that beckons me away; I hear a voice you cannot hear that wheezes "Not to-day!"' In other words, gentlemen, I am now actively engaged in the Titanic struggle to floor Littlego. It is glorious to obtain a victory over Oxonian rivals, but, misters, there is an enemy it is still more glorious to pulverize, and that enemy is – one's self!"

The deputation then withdrew with falling crests, though unable to refrain from admiring the firmness and fortitude which a mere Native student had nilled an invitation which to most European youths would have proved an irresistible attraction.

Nor did they cherish any resentment against Mr Bhosh, even when, in the famous inter-collegiate race of that year from Hammersmith to Putney, Cambridge was ingloriously bumped, and Oxford won in a common canter.

CHAPTER II
HOW MR BHOSH DELIVERED A DAMSEL FROM A DEMENTED COW

 
O Cow! in hours of mental ease
Thou chewest cuds beneath the trees;
But ah! when madness racks thy brow,
An awkward customer art thou!
 

Nature Poem furnished (to order)

by young English Friend.

MR Bhosh's diligence at his books was rewarded by getting through his Little-go with such éclat that he was admitted to become a baccalaureate, and further presented with the greatest distinction the Vice-Chancellor could bestow upon him, viz., the title of a Wooden Spoon!

But here I must not omit to narrate a somewhat startling catastrophe in which Mr Bhosh figured as the god out of machinery. It was on an afternoon before he went up to pass his Little-go exam, and, since all work and no play is apt to render any Jack a dull, he was recreating himself by a solitary promenade in some fields in the vicinity of Cambridge, when suddenly his startled ears were dumbfounded to perceive the blood-curdling sound of loud female vociferations!

On looking up from his reverie, he was horrified by the spectacle of a young and beauteous maiden being vehemently pursued by an irate cow, whose reasoning faculties were too obviously, in the words of Ophelia, "like sweet bells bangled," or, in other words, non compos mentis, and having rats in her upper story!

The young lady, possessing the start and also the advantage of superior juvenility, had the precedence of the cow by several yards, and attained the umbrageous shelter of a tree stem, behind which she tremulously awaited the arrival of her blood-thirsty antagonist.

As he noted her jewel-like eyes, profuse hair, and panting bosom, Mr Bhosh's triangle of flesh was instantaneously ignited by love at first sight (the intelligent reader will please understand that the foregoing refers to the maiden and not at all to the cow, which was of no excessive pulchritude – but I am not to be responsible for the ambiguities of the English language).

There was not a moment to be squandered; Mr Bhosh had just time to recommend her earnestly to remain in statu quo, before setting off to run ventre à terre in the direction whence he had come. The distracted animal, abandoning the female in distress, immediately commenced to hue-and-cry after our hero, who was compelled to cast behind him his collegiate cap, like tub to a whale.

The savage cow ruthlessly impaled the cap on one of its horns, and then resumed the chase.

Mr Bhosh scampered for his full value, but, with all his incredible activity, he had the misery of feeling his alternate heels scorched by the fiery snorts of the maniacal quadruped.

Then he stripped from his shoulders his student's robe, relinquishing it to the tender mercies of his ruthless persecutress while he nimbly surmounted a gate. The cow only delayed sufficiently to rend the garment into innumerable fragments, after which it cleared the gate with a single hop, and renewed the chase after Mr Bhosh's stern, till he was forced to discard his ivory-headed umbrella to the animal's destroying fury.

This enabled him to gain the walls of the town and reach the bazaar, where the whole population was in consternation at witnessing such a shuddering race for life, and made themselves conspicuous by their absence in back streets.

Mr Bhosh, however, ran on undauntedly, until, perceiving that the delirious creature was irrevocably bent on running him to earth, he took the flying leap into the shop of a cheese merchant, where he cleverly entrenched himself behind the receipt of custom.

With the headlong impetuosity of a distraught the cow followed, and charged the barrier with such insensate fury that her horns and appertaining head were inextricably imbedded in a large tub of margarine butter.

At this our hero, judging that the wings of his formidable foe were at last clipped, sallied boldly forth, and, summoning a police-officer, gave the animal into custody as a disturber of the peace.

By such coolness and savoir faire in a distressing emergency he acquired great kudos in the eyes of all his fellow-students, who regarded him as the conquering hero.

Alas and alack! when he repaired to the field to receive the thanks and praises of the maiden he had so fortunately delivered, he had the mortification to discover that she had vanished, and left not a wreck behind her! Nor with all his endeavours could he so much as learn her name, condition, or whereabouts, but the remembrance of her manifold charms rendered him moonstruck with the tender passion, and notwithstanding his success in flooring the most difficult exams, his bosom's lord sat tightly on its throne, and was not to jump until he should again (if ever) confront his mysterious fascinator.

Having emerged from the shell of his statu pupillari under the fostering warmth of his Alma Mater, Mr Bhosh next proceeded as a full-fledged B.A. to the Metropolis, and became a candidate for forensic honours at one of the legal temples, lodging under the elegant roof of a matron who regarded him as her beloved son for Rs. 21 per week, and attending lectures with such assiduity that he soon acquired a nodding acquaintance with every branch of jurisprudence.

And when he went up for Bar Exam., he displayed his phenomenal proficiency to such an extent that the Lord Chancellor begged him to accept one of the best seats on the Judges' bench, an honour which, to the best of this deponent's knowledge and belief, has seldom before been offered to a raw tyro, and never, certainly, to a young Indian student. However, with rare modesty Mr Bhosh declined the offer, not considering himself sufficiently ripe as yet to lay down laws, and also desirous of gathering roses while he might, and mixing himself in first-class English societies.

I am painfully aware that such incidents as the above will seem very mediocre and humdrum to most readers, but I shall request them to remember that no hero can achieve anything very striking while he is still a hobbardehoy, and that I cannot – like some popular novelists – insult their intelligences by concocting cock-and-bull occurrences which the smallest exercise of ordinary commonsense must show to be totally incredible.

By and bye, when I come to deal with Mr Bhosh's experiences in the upper tenth of London society, with which I may claim to have rather a profound familiarity, I will boldly undertake that there shall be no lack of excitement.

Therefore, have a little patience, indulgent Misters!