Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) A BAYARD FROM BENGAL [Illustration: EXHORTED HER, WITH AN ELOQUENCE THAT MOVED ALL PRESENT, TO ABANDON HER FRIVOLITIES AND LEVITIES (Frontispiece)] A BAYARD FROM BENGAL BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MAGNIFICENT AND SPANKING CAREER OF CHUNDER BINDABUN BHOSH, ESQ., B.A., CAMBRIDGE, BY HURRY BUNGSHO JABBERJEE, B.A., CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF "JOTTINGS AND TITTLINGS," ETC., ETC., TO WHICH IS APPENDED THE PARABLES AND PROVERBS OF PILJOSH, FREELY TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL STYPTIC BY ANOTHER HAND, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND APPENDIX BY THE ABOVE HURRY BUNGSHO JABBERJEE, B.A. THE WHOLE EDITED AND REVISED BY F. ANSTEY AUTHOR OF "VICE VERSA," ETC. ETC. WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON 1902 _Reprinted from_ "PUNCH" CONTENTS CHAP. I. FROM CALCUTTA TO CAMBRIDGE OVERSEA ROUTE II. HOW MR BHOSH DELIVERED A DAMSEL FROM A DEMENTED COW III. THE INVOLUNTARY FASCINATOR IV. A KICK FROM A FRIENDLY FOOt V. THE DUEL TO THE DEATH VI. LORD JOLLY IS SATISFIED VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNWIELDY GIFTHORSE VIII. A RIGHTABOUT FACER FOR MR BHOSH IX. THE DARK HORSE X. TRUST HER NOT! SHE IS FOOLING THEE! XI. STONE WALLS DO NOT MAKE A CAGE XII. A RACE AGAINST TIME XIII. A SENSATIONAL DERBY STRUGGLE XIV. A GRAND FINISH * * * * * THE PARABLES OF PILJOSH PRELIMINARY I have the honour humbly to inform my readers that, after prolonged consumption of midnight oil, I succeeded in completing this imposing society novel, which is now, by the indulgence of my friends and kind fathers, the honble publishers, laid at their feet. My inducement to this enterprise was the spectacle of very inferior rubbish palmed off by so-called popular novelists such as Honbles Kipling, Joshua Barrie, Antony Weyman, Stanley Hope, and the collaborative but feminine authoresses of "The Red Thumb in the Pottage," all of whom profess (very, very incorrectly) to give accurate reliable descriptions of Indian, English or Scotch episodes. The pity of it, that a magnificent and gullible British Public should be suckled like a babe on such spoonmeat and small beer! Would no one arise, inflamed by the pure enthusiasm of his _cacoethes scribendi_, and write a romance which shall secure the plerophory of British, American, Anglo-Indian, Colonial, and Continental readers by dint of its imaginary power and slavish fidelity to Nature? And since Echo answered that no one replied to this invitation, I (like a fool, as some will say) rushed in where angels were apprehensive of being too bulky to be borne.