QUEER STORIES.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 89, 27 May 1882, Page 168

QUEER STORIES.

A MATRIMONIAL CONSPIRACY,

By Me J. M. GteDDis,

CHAPTER I,

: Titus Tittlebat Was a draper's assistant of diminutive stature, smug appearane'e, amorous disposition, .and uncertain age. On this latter ' point he displayed all the studied reticence attributed to mature virgins who draw heavily upon the resources of art for the purpose of hiding the ravages of remorseless Time. To his friends he "was always somewhere in the immediate vicinity of 25, but spiteful people remarked that fully ten years had elapsed since he first hesitatingly owned to having negotiated the quarter of a century. These ten years covered his sojourn in the colonies, and, so far as he was concerned, they had brought very few changes in their train. They had neither added vigour nor imparted a deepening, colour to the scraggy, hirsute growth of vivid red which bordered the little man's cheeks and tinted his upper lip ; they had not j i < interfered with the cut and general style of his attire ; and tney had not seen any variation in the modest salary of £2 per week that he received from Messrs .Balderdash and Co. His habits and characteristics, too, had remained unaltered. As I have already remarked, he was under- < sized- and sanguine-hued, or, to put it vulgarly, red-haired. His most prominent facial feature "was a. long and aspiring nose of irregular outline, ■which, along with his name, he loved to quote as , proof of noble lineage. His head was large, and thinly covered with light, tawnycoloured hair, parted in the centre and artistically titivated up at the sides, ala Allan "West. He , had a dapper little figure, always arrayed in the neatest of slops ; and, though his legs were so thin as to suggest to idle vagabond boys a comparison with pi])e-shanks, yet his feet were small and well-formed. Of this fact he was fully } conscious, and consequently spared nothing to secure for his pedal extremities the best adornment that the shoemaker's art could devise. Titus boarded at Parnell, in the house of an aged couple named Ripstone, who, having won a modest competence in the grocery line during Auckland's experience of the advantages and drawbacks of garrison life, had, at the departure t pf the troops, withdrawn from business. They soon; / however, got tired of having nothing to do but eat, ..drink, and sleep j and so, after much cogitation", they advertised for two boarders, who should be quiet, respectable young men of the Methodist persuasion, who would consent to take their meals along with the heads of the household, and require no latchkeys. Titus, and a chemist's assistant of woe-hegone, aspect named Jonas Scroggins, answered the advertisement, and, having subscribed to the conditions and satisfied the pious scruples of the old people, were duly constituted members of the family. Jonas was tall and rather ungainly in figure, and phlegmatic to the verge of taciturnity in manner^ while his chief endowment was an exceedingly lively appetite, for the gratification of which he could be persuaded to do almost anything. Titus had discovered this weakness, and had turned it to account. Although an ardent admirer of the fair sex himself, yet, in the presence - of ladies, he was invariably overwhelmed with such excessive bashf ulness that he could hardly summon up courage to speak, and certainly had . none for extending the circle. of his acquaintances. He could only sigh, and look unutterable things. And yet he- frequented all the places wherein females most do like to congregate. Every teameeting that was held within a radius of ten .miles Becured his patronage; no church bazaar that was within reach went unvisited by him ; and he was an unfailing attendant at evangelistic meetings, GJ-ood Templar' and Sunday-school con: certs, and congregational picnics. Until the advent of the gastronomical Jonas,, he had always gone solus to v these affairs, and at their close had invariably crept home, disgusted and disappointed in his solitariness. But, once he found out the weak side of his fellow-boarder, he contrived to benefit by it. He made Jonas the close participant in all his nocturnal, pleasures, Titus bearing the expenses, and ■ Jonas obediently doing all that was desired of him. Soirees were their especial delight. Well supplied with conversation lozenges, they would sally out to them long before the hour for commencing, get themselves established in a good position, and give themselves up to unrestrained •enjoyment, Jonas finding his at the table and Titus obtaining his afterwards. The former was the bete noire of the matronly dames who dispense weak tea and soddened pastry on those j ■occasions. He had a liver impervious to all the insidious craft of the -pastry-cook, and an appetite ■ that, sharpened to activity by a day's abstinence, r was usually equal to the consumption of three or four cupf uls of tea and a large and varied assortment of tarts, cake, and sandwiches. In fact, Jonas seemed, to esteem it an incumbent duty to sample every plate upon the table — and he discharged it, too, with most exemplary thoroughness;quite unabashed by the significant looks of. i his neighbours, but very much stimulated by their sarcastic presentation of further supplies. He was. ever so completely impressed by the serious necessity of making the utmost use of the time .allowed for the discussion of the meal, as to be , oblivious to the levity that might be going on" around him. : . . After tea, he and Titus would hang about the -' r doors until the tables had been removed and the } seats rearranged, when they would ensconce ' themselves in some corner that offered immunity - -from- general observation, and which, at the same pjsime*, ' was likely to be in close proximity to the %&yjoung damsels of the fiock. Then Titus assumed ■-I;he direction of. affairs, and Jonas prepared to y6b^ey";and faithfully execute all his behests. As ■ , - - soon ; ;asj, the," first - prosy speaker would have • f upon the boundless ocean of verbose >' : <&mrnQnjp\&ce&, Titus, having made a careful ; V^selectjoji. 'gf. \ lozenges - of tender sentiment, would ''^■'^^^^■^^^^^OT^''^nSL- directions as tptheii 1 ;^l^|^ended\"des^na|ipnj and; ; the latter, with "un^ > V ferr^g :aini : . and placid countenance, would dis^

charge them at the heads and necks, or over the sboulders, of the maidens in , front. This preliminary cannonade was always one of an experi 4 mental character, designed for ascertaining who were .likely to respond to such delicate attentions;, and Who might be expected to disdain and repulse them. The former class were accustomed to manifest their satisfaction by much tittering and frequent sidelong glances, while the latter would either sit immovable, or else turn right round and' shoot a withering glance of scorn and rebuke upon the innocent and awfully-attentive Jonas. This experiment finished, Titus would ply his assistant with lozenges.— some bearing printed communications, and others pencilled ones — and Jonas, with a zeal worthy a better cause, would conscientiously project them in the required directions. Startled by the clatter of the falling missiles, the chairman would, at short intervals, get up to administer severe reproof to the disturbers of the peace ; but Jonas and Titus were always prepared for such emergencies, and were rarely caught in Jiagrante delicto. Titus con,- , fined himself on such occasions to furnishing the love messages, meeting with a reciprocal smile the backward looks of the girls in front, and receiving their replies ; while Jonas most energetically kept up the bombardment, warding off suspicion after each discharge by gazing upon the speaker in absorbed attention. Then, at the close of the meeting, Jonas would, in pursuance of instructions, humbly solicit for himself and friend the pleasure of seeing some young ladies home ; and this having, been cOnr ceded, Titus would emerge from his obscurity and play the role of the bashful gallant. By these means Mr Tittlebat gradually got rid of his timidity, and at the time at which our story opens he was actually contemplating the serious step of inviting a lady to a picnic. It was the 22nd of December, and Titus, having partaken of tea, was seated meditatively upon the verandah with the evening paper on his knee. He had been scanning the advt. columns, wherein the attractions of various Boxing Day excursions were set forth in all the glory of capital letters and notes of admiration, and he was now engaged in considering which he should patronise. He felt that the decision was one requiring great reflection, and fraught with much importance. It was the first time that he had ever mustered up hardihood sufiicient to invite a lady to accompany him on a pleasure trip, for Jonas could always be depended upon to make such arrangements 111 person, but at this particular juncture the invaluable Scroggins had been sent to the country by his master on business matters, and Mr Tittlebat felt that if he were not to have a "spoilt holiday he would be obliged to act for himself. After long and earnest deliberation, he resolved to throw in his lot with a Sunday-school excursion party, whose destination was the Tamaki, and, having also determined to forward his invite to a young and blushing damsel whose acquaintance he had made at a Presbyterian tea-meeting, he retired to write it out. The young lady lived with a maiden aunt who had been under the benign . influence of a devout and unctuous evangelist, and Mrs Tittlebat felt it necessary therefore that he should frame his epistle with due care and proper solemnity. He entered upon the task at eight o'clock with a light heart, and after spoiling two or three dozen envelopes and a quire of superfine scented note-paper, rose from it at eleven with the pleasing knowledge that he had wrestled with it successfully. It was duly posted, and late on the following day Mr, Tittlebat was gratified with the receipt of a dainty little note from Miss Jemima McSkimming, thanking him for his kind invitation, and informing him that she would only be too happy to accept it were she not reluctant to leave her poor, dear aunt alone for the whole day. Would it cause Mr Tittlebat any inconvenience if she brought her aunt with her? Of course, Titus hastened to reply that he would be delighted to have the company of Miss McSkimming and her amiable aunt, and so the affair was settled, Mrs Ripstone graciously undertaking to prepare the materials for the picnic.

CHAPTER II

The day of the picnic proved to be as fine as the most exacting of mortals could desire. The sky was just dappled here and there with a few fleecy cloudlets that served to relieve the blue expanse, and the dazzling, sunlight bathed everything in its brightest colours, while a refreshing southerly breeze moderated the temperature of the atmosphere. Titus, kept awake throughout the night by keen anticipations of the pleasure that awaited him on the following day, arose with the dawn, and devoted all the intervening' time till breakfast in the adornment of his little person. ' He brushed and perfumed his slender locks with the utmost care, devoted a full hour to coaxing the refractory -straggling hairs of his whiskers into something like order, polished his boots till they shone like a pair of mirrors,' elegantly curled his moustache, and, in short, performed with exceptional particularity all the numerous requirements of his toilette. Then, having donned his dustcoat and pugaree-encircled straw hat, he seized the baskest of provisions, bade Mrs Ripstone a cordial " G-ood day " and sallied forth in the direction of Miss McSkimming's domicile, canvassing in his mind the ideal he had of the aunt, whom he had not yet seen. _ • Arrived there, he found the blushing Jemima quite ready, and exceedingly' complaisant. The mysterious aunt, however, had not quite completed her preparations, and Titus, though eager, to be away, was obliged to make a virtue of and wait. . 1; At length, however, the aunt made her appearance, and put to flight all Titus's preconceived notions of her. She was a tall, broad-shouldered and terribly athletic, with an awe-inspiring cast of countenance, high cheek bones, a capacious mouth, and a protruding upper row of discoloured teeth, quite innocent of contact with dentifrice, while the nose which surmounted them was tip-tilted and decidedly purplish in its hue. Miss Margery McSki'mming was " got up " in the same style and fashion as her yjather comely niece, notwithstanding the disparity in their years. She was dressed in muslin, with a jaunty coquettish ', hat, upon ,her well-oiled corkscrew, ringlets,- while a gigantic "bustle" made itself noticeable in the generous contour of her figure. She advanced towards the tremulous Titus with a mimicing gait, an expansive smile at the. same-

-1 time extending the corners of her mouth arid dis- ; closing the erratic setting of her. teeth. Seizing him by the hand arid giving, it a squeeze th>t made, the unfortunate fellow's heart leap to Mb throat, she assured him in a strong Scottish dialect that she was " vera glad to mak' his acquaintance," and then, having put him through a searching cross-examination as to the kind of people who were to take part in the excursion, announced her readiness to go. Titus proved himself a model ladies' man. He carried the provender with delicate core, relieved both of his fair companions of their wraps, listened attentively to the garrulity of Miss Margery, and pretended to be interested by it also, while busied in stealing sly glances at the face and form of his younger inamorata. After a protracted struggle amid the crowd at the ticket-office on the wharf, he managed to get the necessary pieces of pasteboard entitling him to pass on to the steamer ; and once there, he proved successful in gaining sitting accommodation for his consorts upon the top of the cabin, behind the funnel. The vessel was crowded with family parties, consisting of authoritative fathers marshalling and ordering, about troops of children laden with kits, and red-faced and perspiring mothers quieting 'fractious and yelling infants, while the elder sons and daughters, contemptuously indifferent to all these family «ares, had paired off to more secluded stations. Titus pitched bis camp beside a group of matrons, and, after being squeezed between the Misses McSkimming for some time, he was fain -to give way to an unceremonious dame,. who edged in between himself and Jemima. He concluded then to stand.

(To he continued?)