Stories about Omnibus passengers;
Sir John Grubbery, Algernon Bosanquet and Mrs Brisket,
Miss Fitz-Cholmoodley, Jack Spangle, Gus Chaucey,
Mr Jones and Mr Brown, Bob Carrol and The Driver.

Sir John Grubbery

Place for the cushion, who for many months has, unknown to its possessor, been the morning and evening confident of the little mind of great Sir John Grubbery, a man of thirty thousand pounds, but whose "pride, which apes humility", delights in riding his five miles for fourpence. He believes that the eyes of Clapham Rise and parts adjacent are continually upon him and that highlight would be hid in a brougham. It is pleasant to Sir John to observe from the corner of his eye the whispering and nudging that occur as he enters the "Favourite" and takes his reserved seat in the corner. It is quite evident that he is somebody, as the conductor ceases to whistle and only indulges in pantomime with his fellow-busman, when heretobefore his chaff has been the loudest.

Sir John speaks to no one. He reads his Times, and busies himself (after his acceptance of the morning offering to his importance) with calculations of gain upon rigging the markets or bulling or bearing the Stock Exchange. Cushion has blushed now and again when the great Sir John has contemplated doing a little dirty work to gain his ends, and has wished its pliant pile were hedgehogs bristles just to prick, let us say, the conscience of the backsliding jobber. Cushion has experienced the same sensations of an evening when Sir John was doing a long sum in mental arithmetic, in which some of the items were blurred and smudged as though with a dirty finger. Sometimes Cushion glowed like an autumn sunset at the discovery of a good effected, and by the largeness of a benevolence we will not pause to question.

Algernon Bosanquet and Mrs Brisket

Algernon Bosanquet has often made Cushion very angry by the exhibition of false pride, which deprived his fourpenny ride of all its pleasure. Algernon is the seventh cousin of a Nova Scotia Baronet, and consequently believes himself distinctly connected with the aristocracy. He is too lazy to walk, and too poor to take a cab, and accepts an omnibus as a terrible necessity when business take him to the City. He dives into the bowels of the vehicle, as though fearing detection and secures, if possible, the dark corner under the seat of the driver.

He pays as he gets out and hurries off, to the intense alarm of Mrs Brisket, the relict of the great Ham and Beef Establishment, and who has received her dividends at the Bank too late to deposit the money with the banker. It is not until Mrs B has elbowed her neighbours right and left in her endeavours to reach the depths of her dignity pocket (a thing unknown to you, miss, who are only twenty-two) and her satisfaction has declared itself in a profuse exhibition of small globules upon her spacious cheeks and forehead, that she pronounces Mr Algernon Bosanquet "Not guilty," in spite of his very mysterious departure. Nobody knows, so Mrs Brisket says, what she suffers on dividend days - the trepidation with which she joins the crowd at the Bank ranged in front of the bouncing B which guides her to her final destination - the said trepidation proceeding from a variety of causes, the principal being lest her vagabond nephew who once borrowed her gold watch and never returned it, should, by forging the name Abigail Brisket, have drawn out the savings of her dear departed Samuel.

For the five years of her widowhood she knows she has been watched to and fro by an Irish gentleman whose whiskers were worth a place in the Guards, but whether his intentions are wicked or charitable, whether he means to pick her pocket or offer her marriage, she has never been able to determine. One thing she does know, and that is, that when she arrives home she is sure she should go off again, if Morgan, her maid, did not give her a glass of - well - eau de cologne and water. At other times the omnibus would be well enough if particular parties who should ride in their own carriages did not object to the pile of small parcels with which she generally contrives to bother herself and them.

Miss Fitz-Cholmoodley

The most offensive of these particular parties is Miss Fitz - Cholmoodley, "aged" as they say on the racing cards. Miss F. had the misfortune thirty years ago to be presented at Court by an aunt who left her an annuity of £100 a year, just enough to keep her proud, and not enough to satisfy her necessary requirements. However, her pride stands her in good stead, for she always wears it as a holiday garment, which so gathers about her to avoid contact with the plebeians amongst whom fate has thrown her. Nevertheless, poor little soul! She always contrives to let her companions know the honour she has conferred on Queen Adelaide, or Queen Adelaide upon her, when her aunt, Lady Gawky, wore here ten thousand pound stomacher, and nearly blinded the Lord Chamberlain for the time being with its brilliancy.

Jack Spangle

But "Knifeboard" has a word to say about Jack Spangle, who is a clerk in an Assurance-office and Jack does credit to the concern by the amount he exhibits of the article in which the office is supposed to deal. Jack has several attachments at first-floor windows along the road, although his intimacy has never extended beyond kissing his hand from the roof of the "bus", or displaying the entire surface of his waistcoat as an exposition of his heartfelt passion for the subject of his impertinence. Jack would rather miss his dinner than his ride to and fro on the "bus". He is known to every cad and driver on the road, and he receives their salutes with as much dignity as a Field Marshall at inspection.

Gus Chaucey

He has a rival in Gus Chaucey, a sucking stockbroker, who is up in the "odds" and deeply read in the Racing Calendar. He is a great patron of the "bus" officials; bur condescends to drink "bitter" and toss "weeds" with more than one of the conductors. They call him "Gus Chaucey" and he descends to nicknames for them. "Ducklegs", "Tasmanian Joe" and "Braggadocio Thomas" are some of the appellatives he uses, much to the annoyances of...

Mr Jones and Mr Brown

Mr Jones, who is going to be married - some day - to his masters daughter, and, like Dick Whittington, be thrice Lord Mayor of London. His only pretension to this distinction that anyone has heard of is the possession of one fine tabby cat, that follows him to the gate every morning and receives him on the doorstop of an evening. He is the confidant of Mr Brown, a widower, and who is mean enough to say a marriage license is dear at the money.

Bob Carrol

Bob Carrol, who sings all the new opera airs much better than Mario or Ginglini (at least Bob thinks so), sent Brown inside for a fortnight by a discovery that he made. It was this. He found out that Brown had advertised six times for an eligible widow without incumbrance and with a settlement, that negotiations had been opened with five, but that Brown had been jilted for rivals with straight legs and one more eye than he could boast.

The Driver

The driver, though not exactly a connection of the "Knifeboard" must not be overlooked. He has had losses, and years ago, drove the last four coach horse coach to X______. He feels his present situation very much, and indulges in recollections of the past, which appear to be of the driest character by the quantity of liquid it requires to get through them. He has a morbid passion for "mushrooms" so he calls these delicious fungi, and never omits to inquire their price or narrate the "gallons of catchup his mother made in the year '9'.

But Cushion and Knifeboard love most to tell of holiday time, when such a happy load as Mr.___ has depicted in our illustration on our first page, makes even the sides of the "bus" shake with merriment, when even Sir John submits to be scrouged, as Mr Busbel calls it and Algernon Bosanquet fancies there are pretty faces worth even his admiration to be found in an omnibus. Jack Spangle, too, for once forsakes his place on the knifeboard, and, conscious how knowing he looks in his new wideawake, sets himself down before the prettiest widow that even Mr Brown, the great widowhunter, ever saw, and is only prevented making a declaration of a new-born passion by a request from the conductor to be "kind enough to go outside and make room for the lady".