LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2241, 4 May 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HEARTHRUG FARCES. MIS trumpet's tklescope, [From " London Soolety."] Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet was a widowfat, fair, and fifty. Had you ransacked the English language for a word to describe hf r you could have found one only that wonld do her jantico. Mrs urfainwaringT'Umpet was prodigious, She was prodigiously rich,prodigiously atout, prodigiously active,' prodigiously versatile, prodigiously talkative, and most prodigiously self-important. She was good humoured, too ; stout people always are ; the adipos a substance produces that gortd quality of itself. We may be sure there is more good-nature lying potentially in a tub of Dorset butter than the most vigorous disciple of philosophy could evolve by the efforts of his righteous will in a twelvemonth. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet was, therefore, good-humoured of necessity ; she was far too fat to be anything else. And this noisy, buttery good hum .ur of hers so lubricated her failings that she was tolerable and even agreeable in society. It is true she did not bustle abou% and put you down or thrußt you out of sight; but her voice was so rich, and her smile so sunny, and she was on such unmistakably good terms with herself, that you foigave her. That is, if you were not of her particular sex you forgave ber. But if you were or are of her partioular sex, you never did and never do forgive a drawing room snub Is it not so, gentle reader ? Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet went in for ' the world.' She loved races, and would bet gloves, and eat lobster-salads, and drink champagne. She was crazy about balls, and 'would dance un'.il, for her siz* and weight, she was as great a wonder as the sua on Easterday. She frequented the opera, and could hum you all the new tunes the uext day, getting a little out now and then, but still you knew what she meant. If any questionable play was on the stage, Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet | would be in a side-box, giggling and blushing and exploding behind her fan in such a very honest and absurd way, that she half ruined the piece for the people who wish to enjoy their vice seriously like, rational creatures. ' Have you read it ? ' she would ask, when any fashionable novelist came out with something more shocking than usual. ' Have you read it ? Because I have 1 ' in one of her stage whispers that yon could hear across a hayticld. And she would drop behind her fan, allowing her great rolling eyes to appear, that she might telegraph at you, and hiding the rest of her face, while her big jolly laughter sounded like a river underground. She was the best hand at croquet in three counties. She took np lawn-tennis and played so splendidly, that one day in the bishop's garden she sant her winning-stroke right into the study window, covering the prelate with fragments like a working glazier, and eo confounded him that for a few seconds he really thought the end of the world had come. She applied herself to linking with equal enthusiasm, and got the thing np in two hours, after which she went round and round at an awful pace, like a seventy-foar gun ship In a high wind, until she came into ooUision with tall Mr Index, who had eome out as senior wrangler, and was trying if a little exercise with his legs would not be nice for a ohange and useful for purposes of health. Him she drove to earth with a velocity which by itself was the hint of a problem ; and upon his prostrate frame her own descended with a crash so terrific, that amidst the rain of his faculties Index conld scarcely collect reason to register a solemn vow that if his life were only spared he would renounce all athletic sports for evermore.

Thus did Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet move through life's various scenes like a catapult, a battering ram, an eighty-one ton gnn, a thunderbolt, or any thins; that is the embodiment of all-conquering foroe. She was, we said, a widow. Fifteen years ago she had been Mies Mainwaring, with plenty of good blood in her veins, but no money in her purse. Benjamin Thursby Trumpet, Esquire, a Bristol me-chant sprung from the gutter, and worth a heap of money, "came" and "saw" Miss Mainwaring, and was "conquered." He proposed for ber ; she accepted his money. In three weeks' time she was Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet. She became rich, and rare were the gems she wore ; but O, that vnlgar husband ! With all her eccentricities she was a lady; and O, that husband! Mrs Mainwariug Trumpet learned the lesson that others have learnt before her—that you cannot sell yourself and have yourself at the same time. Well, she fetched a handsome price, and, to do her justice, she did not grumble mnch. Benjamin Thursby Trumpet like Mr Bounderby in " Hard Times"—loved to talk of hi 3 origin, and how he rose from nothing, leaving the audience to infer what a clever hard-headed fellow he must be.

But he grew too fond of this practice, and one day, when he had been riding hiß hobby rather hard, a wag, upon hia leaving the room, canght up his visiting-card, and reading his initials aloud—' B. T. Trumpet ' — called him on the spot Mr Blow the Trumpet. The name stuck. Two months after she was married, a loving friend said to the bride :

* Do you know they nickname your husband Mr Blow the Trumpet ? ' The bride broke into a laugh ; the shaft of such a malice could not harm her. She rather enjoyed it, and the friend had to search her quiver for another arrow. ' And they do say—you don't mind, of course, dear—that he has met his match, and that you are Mrs Blow the Trumpet. Horridly low, I call it, dear. Don't you ? ' The bride nearly fainted with indignation, and for the first and only time in her life needed smelling salts. She was not half so exoited on the memorable night when her husband was found sitting in his diningroom over his port, quite dead. She pronounced it apoplexy at a glance, sent for the doctor, and flew about the house with brandy and basins and mustard-poultices and hot flannels, reminding all who saw her in some inexplicable way of a fire-engine making Hs way to sn exciting conflagration. But she did not faint, and never asked for so much as a whiff out of a smelling-bottle. Thus did Miss Mainwaring beoome Mrs Mainwaring Tiumpet, widow, with a large fortune all her own. The vulgar husband was gone —' mercifully released, my dear,' the widow would say ; though whit it was from (except herself), no one could have told.

And yet Mrs Mainwaring Trnmpet was not happy. Who ia ? She wanted to get rid of this dreadful name Mrs Blow the Trumpet. How should she manage it ? Apply to the Queen for a patent ? Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet bethought her of an easier, a mora agreeable, and a more economical way. The rector of her p arieh was a widower, tall, lank, gloomy, and always waaring a comforter An ordinary hedgestake, neatly dressed in a clerical attire, with a whitewoollen wrapping at the other end, sur mounted by a black hat, have passed for the Eev. Arthur A rrowsmith at a very short distance. Mr Arrowsmith was a powe'ful preacher, and in common life grave, yet apt at times tj be seized with a kind of grim humor, of which the sign would be a series of violent inhalation?. in an ordinary being, would have denoted the onset of a tit. but with. Mr Arrowsmith otly meant that his fancy wan tickled. He had been twice married His first wi r e had ten thousand pounds, and the lived ttn years He became trebly gloomy for the space of eighteen months, and a'lways had an allusion in his sermons to the grave where oao's heart was lying. Suddenly he cheered up. and married another lady, this time with twenty tl.cu aand ponuds. and his sermons begsn to alhme to the possibilities of comfort which are provided for even the greatest sorrows. The second Mrs Arrowsmith, however, held out better than her predecessor, i nd it was twenty years before her relict found himself raking up his old allusions to the quiet grave, and the people who are there. And now Mrs Arrowsmith the second had been dead for eighteen months clear, and Mr Arrowemith, thinking once more of contortion, fixed his eyes on Mrs Mainwaring Tinmpet. His eyes were not much to look at. being deep set and no-colored ; but they told their tale to Mrs Malnwaring Trnmpet as clearly as if they had been azure or jetty

orbs, signalling from the most delicate environment of hair and cheek. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet saw that the Bsv. Arthur A rrowsmith had fallen in love with her. To show her appreciation of his taste and hor reciprocity, she bounded Into love with him —took a kind of header into the sentiment, and immersed herself with an amazing splash. They were engaged two days after. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet talked about the affair everywhere. She laughed over it, cried over it, grew crimson about it, published it on the housetop, swore hor friends to secrecy about it, and generally behaved like Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet gone mad outright, which may be taken to denote mania of sevenfold power. She courted Mr Arrowemith at the Sun-day-school, and stood so closs to him when he came to visit her class that one morning she trod on his corn and made him jump three paces <;lear>, with a squeak that frightened the whole room. She ogled him from her front seat in the gallery with such directness and power, that several times he lost his place and spoiled his best sentences. She ran after him In the street, coming up to him—sly, solemn, and cadaverous as he wbb all breathleasness and heat, which, at her time of life, did very well for blushes. She sent him presents of slippers that he could not wear becausethey were too small, and worsted jackets for the cold weather that hung about him in vast loose foldp, because, in her headlong way, she had taken the measure of her own frame for the pattern. Sbe never lost an opportunity of talking about him, dragging him forward, and linking him with herself. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet vowed and declared that every night of her life she dreamed of Mr Arrowsmith without ceasing, and awoke calling upon his beloved name. In fact, her love was a perfect cataract, always going on, and making a most tremendous noiee in the meantime. At last a grand idea struck her, in pursuit of which she started for London by the early express, getting to Paddington at ten o'clock. She gave a porter half-a-crown to catch her the very first cab. She told the cabman that she would give him. balf-a-sovereit;n if he drove her to Dollond s In twenty - five minutes. She sprang from her cab and rushed into the shop panting, and demanded to see the very [best telescope manufactured for field ÜBB. She saw one with stand complete for forty pounds, tried it In fct Paul's Churchyard, bought it, paid for it in five pound notes, got her discount for cash, was in her cab and rattling back to Paddington again exactly in ten minutes and a half. She caught the express and was home again before lunch, having travelled between two and three hundred miles, and transacted all her business. Her lunch was a pheasant, and she ate the bird to the bones, and then set about completing her design. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet's boudoir-win-dow looked straight across to the rectory, at a distance of about one mile. In her boudoir window she erected her telescope, aimed full at the dining-room and study of thereotory. She adjusted the focus, and, scarcely breathing with excitement, applied her eye to the glass. A long silence ensued. Adams, the maid, who stood by, with a serious expression carefully spread over a derisive grin, began to think that the experiment had failed, when, after a long interval, Mrs Mainwaring Trnmpet sprang to her feet with a violence whie'i upset the telescope, stand and all. ' I saw him,' she cried triumphantly, ' as plainly as if he were in this room ! ' With trembling fingers she set up the glass again, and now, in a more composed frame of mind, began to explore anew. Another long silence followed; and then Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet, never taking her eye from the gliss, called out in a grave voice, like an astronomer who discovers m comet, but who, having expected it, is not amazed, only gravely elated. 'Adams, he is at his dinner.' ' Lawk, ma'am 1' Adams said, because that committed her to nothing. 'At his soup, Adams,' she continued, fixed in her posture. ' I see the ladle quite plainly.* * Lawk, ma'am, how clever!' Adams said, feeling the ground better under her feet. Hereupon, for many minutes, nothing was said. ' Adam*,' Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet Bald at last, ' he has had three helps of soup.' Adams scarcely knew how she was to take this. • You see, ma'am,' she said diffidently, ' he is a very thin gentleman.' ' I don't *ee what that has got to do with It, Adams,'the mistress said, returning to her telescope, 'here comes the fish.' (To ie continued.)