Frivolities
Copyright© 2025 by Richard Marsh
Outside!
Stacey-Lumpton wanted to go in a cab. I said that a ‘bus was good enough for me. He looked me up and down as if I were some inferior kind of animal.
“I’ll pay for the cab.”
That settled it. I told him that I could not think of allowing such a thing. He brushed a speck of dust off the silk facings of his frockcoat. Then, with his pocket-handkerchief, he brushed the top of one of the fingers of his lemon-coloured kid gloves--where it had touched his coat.
“But I’ve never travelled in an omnibus.”
“In that case it’ll be a new sensation, and a new sensation’s everything! Read the daily paper--it’s the salt of life.”
“But all sorts of extraordinary people travel in an omnibus!”
“I should rather think they do. Why, the very last time I was on one the Archbishop of Canterbury sat on the seat in front of me, the Duke of Devonshire was on my right, a person high in favour at Marlborough House was just behind, while there was no one below the rank of a baronet in sight.”
He looked at me, as he fumbled for his eyeglass, as if he thought I might be getting at him. Before he could make up his mind a “Walham Green” came lumbering towards us. Stopping it, I hustled Stacey-Lumpton into the road before he in the least understood what was happening.
“Now then, look alive! Here’s the very ‘bus we want! Jump up!”
I assisted him on to the step. He made as if to go inside. I twisted him towards the stairs. He remonstrated.
“My dear fellow, I really must beg of you to allow me to get inside this omnibus.”
“Nonsense. You’ll be crushed to death, besides being suffocated alive. There’s plenty of room outside. Up you toddle.”
I don’t know about toddling, but urged, no doubt, to an appreciable degree by the pressure which I exercised from behind, he did begin to mount the stairs gingerly one by one. I followed him. When he was near the top I sang out to the conductor.
“All right!” The conductor stamped his foot. The ‘bus started. Then, to Stacey-Lumpton, “Hold tight!”
He held tight just in time. He seemed surprised. “Good gracious! I almost tumbled! The omnibus has started! Tell him to stop at once, I’m falling!”
“Not you. The police won’t allow them to stop more than a certain time. They’re bound to keep on moving. Shove along.”
“This is most dangerous. I’m not used to this kind of thing. And the roof seems full.”
“There are two empty seats in front there, just behind the driver--move on.”
He moved on after a fashion of his own. He seemed to find the task of preserving his equilibrium, and at the same time of steering his way between the two rows of occupied garden seats, a little difficult. He struck one man upon the head. He seized a lady by her bonnet. He all but thrust the point of his umbrella into another person’s eye. He grabbed an old gentleman by the collar of his coat. This method of proceeding tended to make him popular.
“Driver!” exclaimed the old gentleman whom Stacey-Lumpton had grabbed, slightly mistaking the situation, “This person is drunk. He ought not to be allowed in such a condition on an omnibus.”
Stacey-Lumpton was too confused to remonstrate. He went floundering on. Presently he kicked against a box which a gentleman of the coster class had placed beside himself on the roof. In trying to recover himself he brought his hand down pretty heavily on its owner’s hat. Said owner lost no time in calling his attention to the thing which he had done.
“Where do you think you’re a-coming to? I shouldn’t be surprised but what you thought this ‘bus was made for you. You do that again and I’ll send you travelling, and don’t you seem to forget it neither.”
Stacey-Lumpton had reached a vacant seat at last. I sat beside him. Immediately behind us was the coster. He had taken off his hat and was lovingly examining it. It was an ancient billycock, which had been in somebody’s family for several generations. A friend accompanied him.
“If I was you, Jimmy,” observed his friend, “I should make that cove pay for your ‘at.”
“Make ‘im pay for it? He ain’t got no money. Do ‘e look as though ‘e ‘ad?”
“Well, I should make ‘im give yer ‘is ‘at for yourn. He’s bashed your ‘at in, ain’t ‘e?”
Jimmy acted on the hint. Leaning forward, he thrust his reminiscence of a head-covering under Stacey-Lumpton’s nose.
“I say, I don’t know if you know that you’ve bashed my ‘at in, guv’nor?”
Stacey-Lumpton raised his fingers to his nostrils.
“Take it away, sir--horribly smelling thing.”
“Wot are you calling a ‘orribly smelling thing? Wot would you say if I was to bash your ‘at in?”
“I should bash it in if I was you, Jimmy.”
“So I will if ‘e don’t look out, and so I tell ‘im.”
The gentleman whose coat had been grabbed still seemed unappeased, and still seemed labouring under a misapprehension.
“Persons who are in an intoxicated condition ought not to be allowed on public conveyances.” I turned to Stacey-Lumpton.
“I don’t know if you are aware that you almost pulled that gentleman’s coat off his back?”
The old gentleman’s observations, although addressed to no one in particular, had been audible to all. Twisting himself round in his seat, Stacey-Lumpton proceeded to explain.
“I hope, sir, I didn’t hurt you.”
The coster chose to take this remark as being addressed to him.
“But you ‘urt my ‘at! I give fourpence for that ‘at not three months ago. ‘Ow d’yer suppose I’m going to keep myself in ‘ats?”
“If I have been so unfortunate as to damage your hat, sir, I shall be happy to present you with the sum of fourpence with which to provide yourself with another.”
Jimmy’s friend highly approved of this suggestion. He immediately proceeded to embellish it with an addition of his own.
“That’s right. You give ‘im fourpence and you give me fourpence. That’s what I call be’aving like a gentleman.”
Stacey-Lumpton failed quite to follow the line of reasoning.
“Why should I give you fourpence?”
“Why? Because I asks for it. I suppose you can ‘ear me. You bashes in my friend’s ‘at, and I’m ‘is friend, and we shares and shares alike. As you treats ‘im you treats me. Ain’t that right, Jimmy?” Jimmy said it was.
“Quite right, ‘Enery--it’s quite right. If the gentleman is a gentleman ‘e’ll give us fourpence apiece--both the two of us. ‘E looks a gentleman, don’t ‘e? ‘Is ‘at wasn’t never bought for fourpence--no, nor for three fourpences neither.”
A feminine voice was heard in the rear. It was the lady Stacey-Lumpton had seized by the bonnet; she seemed to have been nursing a grievance.