My Days of Adventure | Page 7

war with Germany, during a part of which
my brother Edward acted as one of his orderly officers.
My father, being at the head of a prominent London newspaper, often
received tickets for one and another theatre. Thus, during my winter
holidays, I saw many of the old pantomimes at Drury Lane and
elsewhere. I also well remember Sothern's "Lord Dundreary," and a
play called "The Duke's Motto," which was based on Paul Féval's novel,
"Le Bossu." I frequently witnessed the entertainments given by the
German Reeds, Corney Grain, and Woodin, the clever quick-change
artist. I likewise remember Leotard the acrobat at the Alhambra, and
sundry performances at the old Pantheon, where I heard such popular
songs as "The Captain with the Whiskers" and "The Charming Young
Widow I met in the Train." Nigger ditties were often the "rage" during
my boyhood, and some of them, like "Dixie-land" and "So Early in the
Morning," still linger in my memory. Then, too, there were such songs
as "Billy Taylor," "I'm Afloat," "I'll hang my Harp on a Willow Tree,"
and an inane composition which contained the lines--

"When a lady elopes Down a ladder of ropes, She may go, she may go,
She may go to--Hongkong--for me!"
In those schoolboy days of mine, however, the song of songs, to my
thinking, was one which we invariably sang on breaking up for the
holidays. Whether it was peculiar to Eastbourne or had been derived
from some other school I cannot say. I only know that the last verse ran,
approximately, as follows:
"Magistrorum is a borum, Hic-haec-hoc has made his bow. Let us cry:
'O cockalorum!' That's the Latin for us now. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta,
Off to Greece, for we are free! Helter, skelter, melter, pelter, We're the
lads for mirth and spree!"
For "cockalorum," be it noted, we frequently substituted the name of
some particularly obnoxious master.
To return to the interesting sights of my boyhood, I have some
recollection of the Exhibition of 1862, but can recall more vividly a
visit to the Crystal Palace towards the end of the following year, when I
there saw the strange house-like oar of the "Giant" balloon in which
Nadar, the photographer and aeronaut, had lately made, with his wife
and others, a memorable and disastrous aerial voyage. Readers of Jules
Verne will remember that Nadar figures conspicuously in his "Journey
to the Moon." Quite a party of us went to the Palace to see the "Giant's"
car, and Nadar, standing over six feet high, with a great tangled mane
of frizzy flaxen hair, a ruddy moustache, and a red shirt à la Garibaldi,
took us inside it and showed us all the accommodation it contained for
eating, sleeping and photographic purposes. I could not follow what he
said, for I then knew only a few French words, and I certainly had no
idea that I should one day ascend into the air with him in a car of a very
different type, that of the captive balloon which, for purposes of
military observation, he installed on the Place Saint Pierre at
Montmartre, during the German siege of Paris.
A time came when my father disposed of his interest in the _Illustrated
Times_ and repaired to Paris to take up the position of Continental
representative of the Illustrated London News. My brother Edward, at

that time a student at the École des Beaux Arts, then became his
assistant, and a little later I was taken across the Channel with my
brother Arthur to join the rest of the family. We lived, first, at Auteuil,
and then at Passy, where I was placed in a day-school called the
Institution Nouissel, where lads were prepared for admission to the
State or municipal colleges. There had been some attempt to teach me
French at Eastbourne, but it had met with little success, partly, I think,
because I was prejudiced against the French generally, regarding them
as a mere race of frog-eaters whom we had deservedly whacked at
Waterloo. Eventually my prejudices were in a measure overcome by
what I heard from our drill-master, a retired non-commissioned officer,
who had served in the Crimea, and who told us some rousing anecdotes
about the gallantry of "our allies" at the Alma and elsewhere. In the
result, the old sergeant's converse gave me "furiously to think" that
there might be some good in the French after all.
At Nouissel's I acquired some knowledge of the language rapidly
enough, and I was afterwards placed in the charge of a tutor, a clever
scamp named Brossard, who prepared me for the Lycée Bonaparte
(now Condorcet), where I eventually became a pupil, Brossard still
continuing to coach me with a view to my passing various
examinations, and ultimately securing the usual baccalauréat, without