THE MODERN TRAVELLER

BY H. B. and B. T. B.
Authors of “More Beasts (For Worse Children)”

EDWARD ARNOLD
37, Bedford Street, London
1898

BY THE SAME AUTHORS.

BAD CHILD’S BOOK OF BEASTS.
Fcap. 4to., 2s. 6d. nett.
ALDEN & CO., OXFORD.

MORE BEASTS (for Worse Children).
Demy 4to., 3s. 6d.
EDWARD ARNOLD, LONDON.

Table of Contents.

Forgive the litter in the room.

THE MODERN TRAVELLER.

I.

The Daily Menace, I presume?

Forgive the litter in the room.

I can’t explain to you

How out of place a man like me

Would be without the things you see,—

The Shields and Assegais and odds

And ends of little savage gods.

Be seated; take a pew.

(Excuse the phrase. I’m rather rough,

And—pardon me!—but have you got

A pencil? I’ve another here:

The one that you have brought, I fear,

Will not be long enough.)

And so the Public want to hear

About the expedition

From which I recently returned:

Of how the Fetish Tree was burned;

Of how we struggled to the coast,

And lost our ammunition;

How we retreated, side by side;

And how, like Englishmen, we died.

Well, as you know, I hate to boast,

And, what is more, I can’t abide

A popular position.

I told the Duke the other day

The way I felt about it.

He answered courteously—“Oh!”

An Editor (who had an air

Of what the Dutch call savoir faire)

Said, “Mr. Rooter, you are right,

And nobody can doubt it.”

The Duchess murmured, “Very true.”

Her comments may be brief and few,

But very seldom trite.

Still, representing as you do

A public and a point of view,

I’ll give you leave to jot

A few remarks,—a very few,—

But understand that this is not

A formal interview.

And, first of all, I will begin

By talking of Commander Sin.

II.

Poor Henry Sin from quite a child,

I fear, was always rather wild;

But all his faults were due

To something free and unrestrained,

That partly pleased and partly pained

The people whom he knew.

Untaught (for what our times require),

Lazy, and something of a liar,

He had a foolish way

Of always swearing (more or less);

And, lastly, let us say

A little slovenly in dress,

A trifle prone to drunkenness;

A gambler also to excess,

And never known to pay.

As for his clubs in London, he

Was pilled at ten, expelled from three.

A man Bohemian as could be—

But really vicious? Oh, no!

When these are mentioned, all is said.

And then—Commander Sin is dead:

De Mortuis cui bono?

Of course, the Public know I mean

To publish in the winter.

I mention the intention in

Connection with Commander Sin;

The book is with the Printer.

And here, among the proofs, I find

The very thing I had in mind—

The portrait upon page thirteen.

Pray pause awhile, and mark

The wiry limbs, the vigorous mien,

The tangled hair and dark;

The glance imperative and hot,

That takes a world by storm:

All these are in the plate, but what

You chiefly should observe is

The—Did you say his uniform

Betrayed a foreign service?

Of course, it does! He was not born

In little England! No!

Beyond the Cape, beyond the Horn,

Beyond Fernando Po,

In some far Isle he saw the light

That burns the torrid zone,

But where it lay was never quite

Indubitably known.

Himself inclined to Martinique,

His friends to Farralone.

But why of this discussion speak?

The Globe was all his own!

Oh! surely upon such a birth

No petty flag unfurled!

He was a citizen of earth,

A subject of the world!

As for the uniform he bore,

He won it in the recent war

Between Peru and Ecuador,

And thoroughly he earned it.

Alone of all who at the time

Were serving sentences for crime,

Sin, during his incarceration

Had studied works on navigation;

And when the people learned it,

They promptly let him out of jail,

But on condition he should sail.

It marked an epoch, and you may

Recall the action in

A place called Quaxipotle bay?

Yes, both the navies ran away;

And yet, if Ecuador can say

That on the whole she won the day,

The fact is due to Sin.

The Fleet was hardly ten weeks out,

When somebody descried

The enemy. Sin gave a shout,

The Helmsmen put the ship about;

For, upon either side,

Tactics demanded a retreat.

Due west retired the foreign fleet,

But Sin he steered due east;

He muttered, “They shall never meet.”

And when, towards the close of day,

The foemen were at least

Fifteen or twenty miles away,

He called his cabin-steward aft,

The boldest of his men;

He grasped them by the hand; he laughed

A fearless laugh, and then,

“Heaven help the right! Full steam a-head,

Fighting for fighting’s sake,” he said.

Due west the foe—due east he steered.

Ah, me! the very stokers cheered,

And faces black with coal

And fuzzy with a five days’ beard

Popped up, and yelled, and disappeared

Each in its little hole.

Long after they were out of sight,

Long after dark, throughout the night,

Throughout the following day,

He went on fighting all the time!

Not war, perhaps, but how sublime!

Just as he would have stepped ashore,

The President of Ecuador

Came on his quarter deck;

Embraced him twenty times or more,

And gave him stripes and things galore,

Crosses and medals by the score,

And handed him a cheque,—

And then a little speech he read.

“Of twenty years, your sentence said,

“That you should serve—another week

“(Alas! it shames me as I speak)

“Was owing when you quitted.

“In recognition of your nerve,

“It gives me pleasure to observe

“The time you still had got to serve

“Is totally remitted.

“Instead of which these friends of mine”—

(And here he pointed to a line

Of Colonels on the Quay)—

“Have changed your sentence to a fine

“Made payable to me.

“No—do not thank me—not a word!

“I am very glad to say

“This little cheque is quite a third

“Of what you have to pay.”

The crew they cheered and cheered again,

The simple-loyal-hearted men!

Such deeds could never fail to be

Renowned throughout the west.

It was our cousins over sea

That loved the Sailor best,—

Our Anglo-Saxon kith and kin,

They doted on Commander Sin,

And gave him a tremendous feast

The week before we started.

O’Hooligan, and Vonderbeast,

And Nicolazzi, and the rest,

Were simply broken-hearted.

They came and ate and cried, “God speed!”

The Bill was very large indeed,

And paid for by an Anglo-Saxon

Who bore the sterling name of Jackson.

On this occasion Sin was seen

Toasting McKinley and the Queen.

The speech was dull, but not an eye,

Not even the champagne was dry.

[1]

[1]

Observe the face of William Jackson,

How typical an Anglo-Saxon!

III.

Now William Blood, or, as I still

Affectionately call him, Bill,

Was of a different stamp;

One who, in other ages born

Had turned to strengthen and adorn

The Senate or the Camp.

But Fortune, jealous and austere,

Had marked him for a great career

Of more congenial kind—

A sort of modern Buccaneer,

Commercial and refined.

Like all great men, his chief affairs

Were buying stocks and selling shares.

He occupied his mind

In buying them by day from men

Who needed ready cash, and then

At evening selling them again

To those with whom he dined.

But such a task could never fill

His masterful ambition

That rapid glance, that iron will,

Disdained (and rightfully) to make

A profit here and there, or take

His two per cent. commission.

His soul with nobler stuff was fraught;

The love of country, as it ought,

Haunted his every act and thought.

To that he lent his mighty powers,

To that he gave his waking hours,

Of that he dreamed in troubled sleep,

Till, after many years, the deep

Imperial emotion,

That moves us like a martial strain,

Turned his Napoleonic brain

To company promotion.

He failed, and it was better so:

It made our expedition.

One day (it was a year ago)

He came on foot across the town,

And said his luck was rather down,

And would I lend him half-a-crown?

I did, but on condition

(Drawn up in proper legal shape,

Witnessed and sealed, and tied with tape,

And costing two pound two),

That, “If within the current year

He made a hundred thousand clear,”

He should accompany me in

A Project I had formed with Sin

To go to Timbuctoo.

Later, we had a tiff because

I introduced another clause,

Of which the general sense is,

That Blood, in the unlikely case

Of this adventure taking place,

Should pay the whole expenses.

Blood swore that he had never read

Or seen the clause. But Blood is dead.

Well, through a curious stroke of luck,

That very afternoon he struck

A new concern, in which,

By industry and honest ways,

He grew (to his eternal praise!)

In something less than sixty days

Inordinately rich.

Let me describe what he became

The day that he succeeded,—

Though, in the searching light that Fame

Has cast on that immortal name,

The task is hardly needed.

The world has very rarely seen

A deeper gulf than stood between

The men who were my friends.