Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3820/The Silvern Tongue
It was his vest-slip which chained my eye. Spats and the lesser niceties are common among the altruists who strive to set us to rights just by the Marble Arch, but a vest-slip was a new note.
His voice was like his hair, in that it was thin, undecided, not really assertive enough to be impressive... Ah, now I had the range of him.
"You may call 'im a beneffercent despot. I don't. You may 'ave a tiste for aristocrercy, plootocrercy, ortocrercy. I 'aren't. You may prefer to 'ave a iron-shod 'eel ground on your fices. I don't.
"There was a professor at Kimebridge, some years ago, who said to me, when I 'come-up,' as they say, after tikin' my degree, 'My boy,' 'e says, 'when you git out into the world, when you desert these 'ere cloistered 'alls, these shidy lawns, these venerable cryp's, never you eat no dirt! Not for nobody, my boy! Remember your ol' collidge, think of your awmer-miter, think of 'istoric Trinity 'All, an' the pelloocid Isis, and never eat no dirt!'
"Yes, gents, they was 'is larst words to me, one of 'is fivourite pupils, if I may say so; 'is Pawthian shots. An' if that there estimable ol' man could look down on me now, as I stand 'ere fice to fice in front of you, 'e would candidly admit that I 'ave always bore in mind 'is fawtherly adjuritions.
"I'll tell you what it is, gents. If you was to walk quietly into Buckin'am Pellis at this moment, an' ave a friendly word with 'Is Mejisty, do you kid yourselves 'e would igspress any what I may call cuzzen-like feelin' for this—this perisite? Do you fan your ducks, in vulgar pawlence, that if the King's 'ands was free 'e would not 'asten to be the first to pluck the bauble from 'is cuzzen's fat 'ead?
"If there are any Germans present, is there one among them who will 'ave the 'ardi'ood to step forward now and say a word, one little word, gentlemen, one single bloomin' 'Och!' on be'alf of 'im? Naow, gents, naow! Ten thousing times naow!
"'Eaven forbid that I should talk above your 'eads, my friends, but I say, an' I maintain, that this insolent upstawt, this pestilenshul braggadosho, this blood-suckin', fire-eatin', spark-spittin', sausage-guzzlin', beer-swillin' ranter, this imitashun eagle, with a cawdboard beak an' a tin 'elmet, this 'ypercritical 'umbug, 'as forfeited the larst shred of the respec' of any but the mos' sooperfishul stoodent of international affairs, or welt-politik, as the French would put it.
"I know what I'm talkin' abaout, gents. I can call for my seven-course dinner, my little 'alf-bottle, my Larranaga or Corona, my corfy, my lickewer an' my tooth-pick, in the language of every capital in Europe.
"Well, gents, where did I get my information, my insight, my instinc', on these things? 'Ow came it to be that I can walk into the private offices of the biggest bankers in Europe, knowin' full well what they would understand if I so much as suggested a pinch of snuff, or said it looked like rain, or asked if they 'ad seen the Shaw of Persha litely?
"You don't suppose I got my intimercy with questions what 'ave brought a Continent, ay, an' alf a world, to grips, by 'angin' round Embassies an' Consulites, and Chawncelleries, do you?
"There is always somethink sub-rowsa, somethink be'ind the scenes, somethink suttle, some unsuspected inflooence, what the outer world 'ardly ever 'ears of.
"An' what is it, in 'undreds of cises? Gents all, I will tell you, in the words of the gallant defenders of Leege—Shurshy-lar-fam! That little phrise, gents, in cise you may 'ave forgot your French or Belgian, as the cise may be, means 'Look for the woman,' gents.
"I may not look it now, my frien's, an' you may larf with scorn to 'ear an ol' feller speak the words, but there was a time, shortly arfter I come-up from the Varsity, an' just before I took my commishun in the dear ol' Tin-Bellies, when there was no man more popular than me in the salongs of Europe.
"Take my word for it, gents! Young, wealthy, not undistinguished in the matter of learnin', well-bred, nurchured in the lap of luxury, tolerably good-lookin', if not actually 'andsome, my way was easy, gents. It was child's play for me to get at the inside of things, to get under the surface, to see what was agitatin' the boorses of 'alf the Continent, to understand why big financiers was orderin'-in 'ams by the 'alf-'undred, religious scruples not-withstandin'. Why, if I was to sit down an' put pen to piper I could sell my memo'rs of them days for a fabulous sum—if the biggest publishers in the land was not too bloomin' chicken-'earted to publish anythink so 'ot, gentlemen!
"Your ears would wag, my friends, if I told you one 'alf of the spells what some of them Continental society sirens wielded, an' but for my mastery over their 'earts what might we not have igsperienced years agow? An' this, gentlemen, at the biddin' or the innuendoes of vile bein's not fit to 'arthstone the door-step of the po'rest workin'-man what plods 'is 'eart-broken way acrost this Pawk to-night!
"You 'ave no idear, I assure you, gents, what might not 'ave 'appened, what cruel, what damn..."
B2471, who had gradually edged toward the stool on which he stood, stepped up to him and spoke softly. "That's bloomin' well torn it, matey," said B2471. "You 've 'ad a good time all to your little self, but we 'ave to dror the line. You'll 'ave to 'op it, old sport!"
And, just as we were getting into his confidence, he of the vest-slip 'opped it, and we were left behind, without further clues to Shurshy-lar-fam.
The woman still remains a mystery.