VICE VERSA.* Mn. ANSTEY deserves the thanks of everybody for
showing that there is still a little fun left in this world ; and the world is grateful to him, as the rapid success of his little book, now in its fifth edition, shows. It is long since we have read anything more truly humorous than this attempt to show how a rather pompous father would feel and act, if suddenly transformed into the outward shape of his son, and sent to school with five shillings of pocket-money and a box full of surreptitious jam, toffee, and other such vanities ; and how a boy of thirteen or so would feel and act, if sud- denly transformed into the outward shape of his pom- pous father, and placed at the head of a household and an office of bewildering clerks. Mr. Anstey dwells chiefly on the former subject, intending his admirable little farce, as he tells us, to be "a lesson to fathers," and not for the instruction of sons. But we are not sure whether the better picture of the two is not the glimpse given us of the demeanour of the school-boy in the outward form of the pompons old papa, romping with his sisters and little brother, calling on the office-boy to help him manufacture hardbake, trying to tempt imposing mercantile gentlemen into the usual schoolboy trap of calling themselves bad names which they had never dreamt of applying to themselves, wasting his father's substance in child- ren's parties, and hardly able to refrain from betraying to his old schoolfellows that it is he who really knows them as they are, and not the unfortunate old. gentleman who is so unlucky as to wear his son's outward form. However, no one can deny that both pictures are extremely clever, and full of true comedy. One criticism, however, we may make, — that Mr. Anstey is hardly fair to the wisdom of experience, when he makes the old gentleman in boy's form so extremely helpless and so disastrously impolitic in his conduct, both to the masters and to the other boys. We grant that Mr. Bultitude is not meant to be a very wise old man. We grant that it is quite possible that in the first confusion of such a transformation scene, he might well render himself universally unpleasant, and rush into the very thick of a bed of nettles. But we do trust that experi- ence is worth a little more than it suits Mr. Anstey's object to represent, and that an old gentleman with enough knowledge of the world to carry on a tolerably successful business, would, so soon as he had really seized the position, manoeuvre a little more skilfully than Mr. Bultitude, and especially, would cease to feed himself on the vain dream of hoping to persuade a common- place English schoolmaster that he was the victim of a stroke of magic. Even Mr. Anstey gives him credit for as much know- ledge of the world as this at the end of the book, for when his brother-in-law threatens to expose what has happened to the world, he scornfully gives a hearty assent to the attempt, and asks who will believe such a story as that. That being Mr. Bultitude's true state of mind, we do not know why Mr. Anstey is always crediting him with the absurd hope of getting the schoolmaster to understand what has really happened, instead of scheming to be sent home, and to get at least a few allies in the school, while that scheme is maturing. Bad as Mr. Bultitude's case was, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Anstey has made it worse than it ought to have been, by crediting him with all the stiffness and helplessness of his actual age, without any of its knowledge of the world. As soon as Mr. Bultitude had found out that he must play, for a few days at all events, the part of a boarder at a private school, he would, we think, if he had had any of the wisdom of age, have taken some pains to remove the bad impression he had created by his denunciation of the peppermint lozenges, and to win the confidence of some at least of his companions, as well as to obtain advances from home which would soon have enabled him to win confidence more effectually. Knowing his boy as he did, he might very well have counted on getting out of his generosity what he had failed to extort from his fears, and by a judicious application for money, to have rescued himself still earlier from the difficulties which the present of a little money at last removed. However, such a treatment of the subject might have rendered the situation somewhat less comic, and Mr. Anstey is quite right in making it as amusing as he possibly could. We cannot imagine anything much better than the following description of Mr. Bultitude's sufferings in the draw- ing room, when he is requested to dance the hornpipe, at which his son had been so great a proficient :—
* Vico VorM, a Loma for .I"Vfiere. By R. Anstey. Third Edition. London : smith, Elder, end 0o. " There was another sound outside, as of fiddlestrings being twanged by the finger, and, as the boys hastily formed up in two lines down the centre of the room and the Miss Matlows and Dulcie prepared themselves for the curtsy of state, there came in a little fat man, with mutton-chop whiskers and a white face, upon which was written an unalterable conviction that his manners and deportment were perfection itself. The two rows of boys bent themselves stiffly from the back, and Mr. Burdekin returned the compliment by an in- clusive and stately inclination. Good afternoon, madam. Young ladies, I trust I find you well (The curtsy just a loetie lower, Miss Mutlow—the right foot less drawn back. Beautiful ! Feet closer at the recovery. Perfect !) Young gentlemen, good evening. Take your usual places, please, all of you, for our preliminary exercises. Now, the chaasde round the room. Will you lead off, please, Master Dummer ; the hands just lightly touching the shoulders, the head thrown negligently back to balance the figure ; the whole deport- ment easy, but not careless. Now, please !' And, talking all the time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. 'If my clerks were to see me now !' he thought. After some minutes of this, Mr. Burdekin stopped them, and directed sets to be formed for The Lancers." Master Bulti- tude,' said Mr. Burdekin, you will take Miss Mutlow, please.'— ' Thank you,' said Paul, but—ah----I don't dance.'—' Nonsense, non- sense, sir, you are one of my most promising pupils. You mustn't tell me that. Not another word ! Come, select your partners.' Paul had no option. He was paired off with the tall and rather angular young lady mentioned, while Dulcie looked on pouting, and snubbed Tipping, who humbly asked for the pleasure of dancing with her, by declaring that she meant to dance with Tom. The dance began to a sort of rhythmical accompaniment by Mr. Burdekin, who intoned
Tops advance, retire, and cross. Balance at corners. (Very nice, Miss Grimstone !) More abandon, Master Chawner ! Lift the feet more from the floor. Not so high as that ! Oh, dear me ! that last figure over again. And slide the feet, oh, slide the feet ! (Master Bultitude, you're leaving out all the steps !') Paul was dragged, un- willing but unresisting, through it all by his partner, who jerked and pushed him into his place without a word, being apparently under strict orders from the governess not on any account to speak to the boys. After the dance the couples promenaded in a stiff but stately manner round the room to a dirge-like march scraped upon the violin, the boys taking the parts of ladies, jibbing away from their partners in a highly unlady-like fashion, and the boy burdened with the companionship of the younger Miss Mutlow walking along in a
very agony of bashfulness. I suppose' ' thought Paul, as he led the way with Miss Mary Mutlow, 'if Dick were over to boar of this, he'd think it funny. Oh, if I over get the upper hand of him again How much longer, I wonder, shall I have to play the fool to this infernal fiddle !' But, if this was bad, worse was to come. There was another pause, in which Mr. Burdekin said blandly, 'I wonder now if we have forgotten our Scotch hornpipe. Perhaps Master Bultitude will prove the contrary. If I remember right, he used to perform it with singular correctness. And, let me tell you, there are a great number of spurious hornpipe steps in circulation. Come, air, oblige me by dancing it alone !' This was the final straw. It was not to be supposed for one moment that Mr. Bultitude would lower his dignity in such a preposterous manner. Besides, be did not know how to dance the hornpipe. So he said, 'I shall do nothing of the sort. I've have had quite enough of this —ah—tomfoolery That is a very impolite manner of declining, Master Bultitude; highly discourteous and unpolished. I must insist now—really, as a personal matter—upon your going through the sailor's hornpipe. Come, you won't make a scene, I'm sure. You'll oblige me, as a gentleman ?'—' I tell you I can't !' said Mr. Bultitude,
'I never did such a thing in my life ; it would be enough to kill me, at my age This is untrue, sir. Do you mean to say you will not dance the hornpipe f'—‘ No,' said Paul, be d—d
if I do !' There was unfortunately no possible doubt about the nature of the word used—he said it so very distinctly. The governess screamed and called her charges to her, Bulcie hid her face, and some of the boys tittered. Mr. Burdekin turned pink. 'After that disgraceful language, sir, in the presence of the fairer sex, I have no more to do with you. You will have the goodness to stand in the centre of that form. Gentlemen, select your partners for the High- land schottische Mr. Bultitude, by no means sorry to be freed from the irksome necessity of dancing with a heart ill-attuned for enjoy- ment, got up on the form and stood looking, sullenly enough, upon the proceedings. The governess glowered at him now and then as a monster of youthful depravity ; the Miss Mutlows glanced up at him as they tripped past, with curiosity not unmixed with admiration, but Dulcie steadily avoided looking in his direction. Paul was just congratulating himself upon his escape, when the door opened wide; and the Doctor marched slowly and imposingly into the room. He did this occasionally, partly to superintend matters, and partly as an encouraging mark of approbation. He looked round the class at first with benignant toleration, until his glance took in the bench upon which Mr. Bultitude was set up. Then his eye slowly travelled up to the level of Paul's bead, his expression changing meanwhile to a petrifying glare. It was not, as Paul instinctively felt, exactly the position ip which a gentleman who wished to stand well with those in authority over him would prefer to be found. He felt his heart turn to water within him, and stared limp and helpless at the Doctor. There was an awful silence (Dr. Grimstone was addicted to awful silences ; and, indeed, if seldom strictly 'golden,' silence may often be called 'iron'), but at last he inquired, And pray what may you be doing up there sir F'—' Upon my soul, I can't say,' said Mr. Bultitude, feebly. 'Ask gentleman there with the fiddle—he knows.' Mr. Burdekin was a good-natured, easy-tempered little man, and had already forgotten the affront to his dignity. He was anxious not to get the boy into more trouble. Master Bultitude was a little in- attentive and, I may say, wanting in respect, Dr. Grimstone,' he said, putting it as mildly as he could with any accuracy ; so I ven- tured to place him there as a punishment.'—' Quite right, Mr. Burde- kin,' said the Doctor ; quite right. I am sorry that any boy of mine should have caused you to do so. You are again beginning your career of disorder and rebellion, are you, sir P Go up into the school- room at once, and write a dozen copies before tea-time! A. very little more eccentricity and insubordination from you, Bultitude, and you will reap a full reward,--a full reward, sir !' "
Still more comic, perhaps, is the account which the poor trans- formed papa overhears as to enormities committed. by his son in the sacred precincts of the counting-house itself :— "'Yes,' the speaker continued ; be was never, according to what I hear, a man of any extraordinary capacity, but he was always spoken of as a man of standing in the City, doing a safe business, not a risky one, and so on, you know. So, of course, his manner, when I called,
shocked me all the more.'—' said the other. Was he violent or insulting, then P'—` No, not I can only describe his con- duct as eccentric—what one might call reprehensibly eccentric and extravagant. I didn't call exactly in the way of business, but about a poor young fellow in my house, who is, I fear, rather far gone in consumption, and, knowing he was a Life Governor, y'know, I thought he might give me a letter for the hospital. Well, when I got up to Mincing Lane—' Paul started. It was as he had feared, then ; they were speaking of him ! When I got there, I sent in my card with a message that, if he was engaged or anything, I would take the liberty of calling at his private holm, and so on. But they said he would see me. The clerk who showed me in said : "You'll find him a good deal changed, if you knew him, sir. We're very uneasy about him here," which prepared me for something out of the common. Well, I went into a sort of inner room, and there he was, in his shirt-sleeves, busy over some abomination he was cooking at the stove, with the office-boy, helping him! I never was so taken aback in my life. I said something about calling another time, but Bultitude—' Paul groaned. The blow had fallen. Well, it was better to be prepared, and know the worst, 'Bultitude says, just ilk° a great awkward schoolboy, y'know, "What's your name ? How cl'ye do P Have some hardbake,—it's just done P" Fancy finding a man in his position cooking toffee in the middle of the day, and offer- ing it to a perfect stranger !'—' Softening of the brain—must be,' said the other. 'I fear so. Well, he asked what I wanted, and I told him, and he actually said he never did any business now, except sign his name where his clerks told him. He'd worked hard all his life, he said, and he was tired of it. Business was, I understood him to say, all rot." Then he wouldn't promise me votes, or give me a letter, or anything, without consulting his head clerk ; he seemed to know nothing whatever about it himself, and when that was over, he asked me a quantity of frivolous questions which appeared to have a sort a catch in them, as far as I could gather, and he was exceedingly angry when I wouldn't humour him.'—' What kind of questions P'— 1 Well, really, I hardly know. I believe he wanted to know whether I had rather be a bigger fool than I looked, or look a bigger fool than I was, and he pressed me quite earnestly to repeat some foolishness after him, about "being a gold key," when be said "he was a gold look." I was very glad tp get away from him, it was so distressing.' —` They tell me he has begun to speculate, too, lately,' said the other. You see his name about in some very queer things. It's a very pitiful affair altogether.' Paul writhed under his seat with shame. How could he, even if he monocled in ousting Dick and getting back his old self, how could he ever hold up his head again after this P" It can hardly be that a writer with so genuine and hearty a fund of laughter-making ingenuity in him will not produce something more that is even better than this delicious jou d'e8Prit. In the meantime, we must admit that we have not laughed so heartily over anything for some years back as we have over this "Lesson for Fathers." Mr. Anstey—if that be his real name—is full of genuine humour, as well as of know- ledge of the world. His remark, for instance, on the paradigms of verbs "irregular, almost to the verge of impropriety," is the remark of a genuine humourist.
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