Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 105, September 30th 1893

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Punch, or the London Charivari

Volume 105, September 30th 1893

_edited by Sir Francis Burnand_

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[Illustration: BETWEEN FRIENDS.

_Mr. Spooner, Q.C. (a Neophyte)._ "THIS IS MY BALL, I THINK?"

_Colonel Bunting (an Adept)._ "BY JOVE, THAT'S A JOLLY GOOD 'LIE'!"

_Mr. Spooner._ "REALLY, BUNTING, WE'RE VERY OLD FRIENDS, OF COURSE. BUT I DO THINK YOU MIGHT FIND A PLEASANTER WAY OF POINTING OUT A PERFECTLY UNINTENTIONAL MISTAKE!"]

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"DUE SOUTH!"

Concerning the houses on the East Cliff of "P'm'th" I cannot speak from residential experience. They appear to me to have been built with a view to using P'm'th as a winter resort only, and are consequently protected from the four winds of Heaven by fairly-grown firs, whose appearance is very suggestive of Christmas festivities on a gigantic scale, when they might be decorated with coloured lamps, flags, toys, and bonbons, all of which could be raffled for by the children at home for the holidays. Here in a still more sheltered spot, and standing, as the auctioneers and estate agents say, "in its own park-like grounds," of at least three acres and a half (more or less), is the Hot-and-Cold-Bath Hotel, which from its having entertained several crowned and half-crowned heads has fairly earned the right to the style and title "Royal" as a distinguishing prefix.

The interior of this excellent hostelrie is, as far as my experience goes, absolutely unique. It is crammed full of works of art of all sorts, sizes, and varieties, so that the stranger within the hotel gates may spend a happy day should it rain, as it sometimes does even at P'm'th, in walking through the galleries, into the various rooms (by permission of the occupiers), and if there be no catalogue (I do not remember to have seen one), then he might do worse than make the acquaintance of the amiable Bric-a-bracketing and Peculiarly Polite Proprietor, Mr. WYTE WESCOTES, who, if the occasion be opportune, will with pleasure become his _cicerone_, and show him all the treasures of this unique establishment. Or he may entrust himself to the other _genius loci_ of the place, represented by the acting manager rejoicing in a foreign name not to be mastered all at once by the sharpest British ear. To my mind, full of many early theatrical reminiscences, it is immediately associated with the name of a Chinese Princess in an ancient extravaganza entitled _The Willow-Pattern Plate_, where Her Royal Highness is thus mentioned in the prologue:--

"And this is the room of his daughter KOONG-SEE, Who's shut up, as she's found in the first scene to be, Whence she looks on the gardens and looks on the trees, That wibbledy wobbledy go in the breeze, Whose verdure and shade such a paradise made Of the house of the Mandarin HEE-SING."

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