LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 152, 28 November 1874, Page 4

LITERATURE.

TOM BKIMS'S INDIAN" PRINCES. In Two Chapters. (From Chambers's Journal.) (Continued.) I could not help turning about to look tip at the hotel windows, in wonder, thinking of these eastern potentates, rolling in diamonds, yet sitting there in the midst of great, noisy, heedless London, starving on account of a religious scruple. What suggestion was it possible for anybody to make in such a case as that ? Tom, speaking in sepulchral tones, said : ' Let us hope something will turn up at Manchester to keep them alive. You must get leave of absence from Fenchureh street; they will never stand in the way of your making a little fortune in a few weeks. I'll push the figures up high enough for it to be worth your while whatever happens.' Tom Brims, after this unburdening of his mind, quickly recovered his spirits. It was no fault of his, he said, that the princes were such fanatics. When I parted from him, I went home, and dreamt all night, in slightly varying forms, that the wealth of India was mine, but that there was not a cook to be had, and that I had nothing but unboiled diamonds to eat. Chapter 11. I got a letter from Brims on the Wednesday after this stating that the princes had assented to his request, and had duly made my appointment. He added a sentence which alone rendered the other news of much value. ' Their Highnesses,' he wrote. got something to eat in Manchester.' It would not have been of any great avail to receive an appointment from men who were to expire of inanition five minutes afterwards. The firm in Fenchureh street, on my representing my case to them, said they would not stand in the way of my making a fortune much faster than they had any hope of doing. I might take some weeks' absence, short as was the time since my last holiday. The junior partner satirically remarked, "that he only feared they should lose my valuable services altogether, owing to the Bank of England wishing to make me a governor on my return to town a millionare,' I put the sneer into my pocket, into which I hoped soon to put something else far more valuable. It was in one of the great Yorkshire towns that I came up with Tom Brims and the distinguished oriental visitors. «We have turned aside here before going on to Liverpool,' explained Brims, ' because the princes want forty thousand caps, or hats, you would call them, of a peculiarly light fabric, for their people at home, and it is only here they can get them.' ' Forty thousand ! I could not help repeating it. Everything with them seemed to be on the scale of the "Arabian Nights." 'Yes,'he ill-tempcrcdly continued, 'they are going on in the way of ordering just as they did at Paris and in London. In Manchester they bought calico right and left; enough for all India, you would think. They are like big children, they want to buy everything they see. Even nabobs can't afford to keep up this style of thing. But it is of no use my trying to check it. The only thing to be said on the other side is, that their living won't cost them much. They are on short commons again since leaving Manchester. I could have got a make-shift cook for them there, but some of their highcaste nonsense came in ; they would neither consent to it, nor see any of the Hindus in the place. They are feeding on their pipes, and little or nothing else. At Liverpool they may be able to beg another mouthful or two.' The great rank of the Hindus had not been specially promulgated, but our presence made some stir among the inhabitants. Whenever we left the hotel we were accompanied by a group of women and children, the faces of the former peeping out of shawls thrown over their heads, in lieu of bonnets. They all clattered along in clogs, like the Lancashire people. The men in the streets stopped to grin at the unfamiliar procession we made. It was a relief to think that the broad vernacular they spoke was not intelligible to the scimitar-bearing potentates before us, for some of the criticisms offered upon their appearance were not complimentary. The Yorkshiremen seemed to think it was preposterous and ludicrous that they did not wear good broadcloth and chimney-pot hats, like other male creatures, having the money to buy them. The town officials and the leading manfacturers better appreciated foreign peculiarities, and the advantages of cultivating amity with possible customers. Invitations to visit the leading mills and other places of interest were kindly pressed upon the princes? A number of these were accepted. For men living upon smoke, they got through an astonishing amount of work of this kind, Late in the afternoon their

Highnesses went to inspect a large handsome hall used for public purposes. I staid a few minutes behind at the last warehouse visited, in order to see to the right directing of some patterns which had been presented to the princes as specimens of Yorkshire manufactures. Just as I reached the building whither they had gone, a series of most fearful yells resounded within. I hastened through a doorway into a large room, where I instantly saw, from the long lines of snowy tables, duly set out with glittering glass and flashing cutlery, a public dinner was pending. But all my powers of observation were speedily concentrated on the frantic gestures of a blackcoated, white-neckerchiefed waiter, who was wildly flourishing his napkin, as also his arms and legs in front of the chief crosstable. At the other side of the table sat the youngest of the three princes, _ his dark blazing eye resting on the waiter, as he silently went on helping himself from the principal dishes. ' Help, help !' the waiter was shouting, among his inarticulate yelling. •We shall all be ruined. There is only one apricot left for the high-sheriff. Hoo! that is gone now. Help, help! Roger, Willie, Sarah, where are you ? We shall never get over this disgrace.' Hurrying up, I put my hand on his shoulder, trying to control him by a whisper that it was one of their Highnesses. He was in such a fury that he either would not or could not listen. 1 Now he has spoiled the best sweetmeat there is. I shall certainly be discharged; we shall all lose our characters for ever. His Highness, keeping his glittering eye upon his vituperator, and taking no heed of me, had greatly altered the look of a very ornate piece of confectionery. Attacking it with his fingers, he was carrying it to his mouth by the handful. «See how he eats with his paws !' roared the waiter. There were loud voices, and a noise advancing behind us. Several under-waiters and women-assistants came rushing up the hall. Behind them, stepping in from the doorway, I was relieved to see Tom Brims's tall form, the other princes with their servants being visible in the background. The head-waiter had caught sight of them. He lost all vestige of control. ' There is more of 'em,' he yelled. Here is a Christy Minstrel has come and sat in the chairman's chair, and eaten the high-sheriff's apricots ; and the rest o' the gang is coming to finish us up. Police ! Where are the police ?' Not waiting for the arrival of the police, he got fast hold of his Highness's robe, and to it he clung, lying across the table. It was with the greatest difficulty that Tom Brims and myself, even with the aid of three gentlemen accompanying the party, who ran to our help, could extricate his Highness from the waiter's clutch. So soon as wc did, the prince's hand went to the hilt of his scimitar. But we restrained him. His nostrils dilating from anger, he, Avith a dignified strut, joined the other excited Hindus, wiping upon his capacious sleeve the traces of the fruit and sweetmeats. It was in vain the gentlemen with us tried to explain matters. 'We shall be ruined in the eyes o' the public,' persisted the head-waiter, letting his head emerge from the recovered napkin, in which he had wrapped it. ' The newspapers will be clown on us without mercy, as they alius is. Didn't they say the last time as the dinner wasn't worth sneezing at, becos we was unterhanded, which I don't say wasn't in part true. But this time we have got twelve more helps, and now the reporters 'll say we served nothing for dessert up to the high sheriff's table but raw potatoes.' He danced round and round on the floor in a fury, and again wrapped his head in the napkin, to hide his grief and shame. The last words I heard him utter, as we were passing out, the princes walking as statelily as ever, were these: ' Not Christy's Minstrels ? No ; their manners are worse !' This was a great scandal. It appeared that the youngest prince, the promptings of whose appetite must have become irresistible at sight of the banquet spread out, unobserved, quitted the gallery where the party were having shown to them a great organ, which was one of the local marvels. Going down below, he had proceeded some way in helping himself to the fruits and other dainties before he was noticed by any one, with the result of very considerably disfiguring the arrangements of the sheriff's table. The matter was made the best of by those immediately concerned, Large presents of fruit were sent to their Highnesses hotel by some of the leading townsmen, by way of vindicating English hospitality. But Tom Brims himself, I think, was not sorry when, early the next day, we got got ready to quit the town for Liverpool. One last pang of humiliation we had to endure at the railway station. It had, somehow, got to be known that their Highnesses were leaving, and a large and miscellaneous crowd was in and about the station, which was adjacent to the hotel. So soon as the princes had passed each successive group of shawl-huddled women and broad-grinning men, loud laughter rang forth, while apples and oranges, some of them having deep, wide marks of bites already in them, were conspicuously held aloft. From every quarter their Highnesses were asked in the broadest dialect, if they'd ' like a boite.' It was a great relief when the train glided out of the dingy, squalid-looking town into the pleasant scenery of the country, and we were on our way to Liverpool —although, if I had then known what awaited us there, that certainly would not have been my feeling. Fortunately, at Liverpool an Indian cook was obtained. The princes took tip their quarters at one of the leading hotels, but their presence did not attract much attention in the great port. Foreigners have about as much novelty there as they have in London. Some compliments were offered them by the authorities, but their Highnesses kept much aloof. It was only in _ reference to the shipping that they availed themselves of the courtesies. They paid repeated visits to the docks and piers, seemingly, in their own gloomy way, much interested in the splendid river and the busy scenes it shows. To he continued.