[ Smith / "The Picnic Party" ]
Horace (Horatio) Smith (1779 – 1849) was a successful English stockbroker who devoted much of his energy to literature, writing poems, novels, and essays, many of them mildly satiric.
I cannot find the first date of publication of this short story, which is a light-hearted account of a picnic gone wrong; the text is taken from Stories of Comedy, edited by Rossiter Johnson (1840 – 1931), an American writer and editor, and published in 1914 (New York: Houghton Mifflin).
This story's Newfoundland is named "Carlo," surely influenced by the popularity of Francis Reynolds hugely popular play The Caravan (1803), which features a Newfoundland named Carlo. In Smith's short story, the Newfoundland shows up just as the group of picnickers is about to set out, via boat, for their picnic.
Just as they were pushing off, their attention was attracted by a loud howling. It proceeded from a large Newfoundland dog which was standing at the water's edge.
"Confound it!" cried Richards, "that's my Carlo! He has followed me, unperceived, all the way from home — I would not lose him for fifty pounds. I must take him back — pray put me ashore. This is very provoking — though he is a very quiet dog!"
There was no mistaking this hint. Already were there two nuisances on board, — Master Charles and the Dutch pug: but as they were to choose between Jack Richards with his dog, or no Jack Richards (or in other words, no life and soul of the party), it was presently decided that Carlo should be invited to a seat on the hampers, which were stowed at the head of the boat, — Uncle John having first extracted from Mr. Richards an assurance that their new guest would lie there as still as a mouse.
Carlo is mentioned again when one of the picnickers attempts to play an eolina (an upscale version of a melodica, a small keyboard instrument into which the musician blows), doing such a horrible job that Carlo and the pug begin howling and barking:
The German eolina was of itself bad enough, but these congregated noises were intolerable. Uncle John aimed a desperate blow with a large apple, which he was just about to bite, at the head of Carlo, who, in order to give his lungs fair play, was standing on all fours on the hampers. The apple missed the dog, and went some distance beyond him into the water. Mr. Carlo, attributing to Uncle John a kinder feeling than that which actually prompted the proceeding, looked upon it as a good-natured expedient to afford him an opportunity of adding his mite to the amusements of the day, by displaying a specimen of his training. Without waiting for a second hit, he plunged into the river, seized the apple, and, paddling up the side
of the boat with the prize triumphantly exhibited in his jaws, to the consternation of the whole party, he scrambled in between Uncle John and his master, dropped the apple upon the floor, distributed a copious supply of Thames water amongst the affrighted beholders, squeezed his way through them as best he could, and, with an air of infinite self-satisfaction, resumed his place on the hampers.
Had Mr. Jack Richards, the owner of the dog, been at the bottom of the Thames a week before this delightful 24th, not one of the party, Mr. Richards himself excepted, would have felt in the slightest degree concerned; but since, with a common regard to politeness, they could not explicitly tell him so, they contented themselves with bestowing upon Mr. Carlo every term of opprobrium, every form of execration, which good manners will allow,—leaving it to the sagacity of "the life and soul of the company" to apply them to himself, if so it might be agreeable to him. Poor fellow! he felt the awkwardness of his situation, and figuratively, as well as literally speaking, this exploit of his dog threw a damp upon him, as it had done upon every one else.
"Come, what's done can't be helped; but, upon my soul! I am sorry at being the innocent cause of throwing cold water on the party."
"Cold water, indeed! look at me, sir," said Miss Snubbleston, with tears in her eyes, and exhibiting her ci-devant shoulder-of-mutton sleeves, which, but half an hour before as stiff and stately as starch could make them, were now hanging loose and flabby about her skinny arms.
"Too bad, Jack," said Uncle John, "to bring that cursed Carlo of yours!"
Carlo, perceiving that he was the subject of conversation, was instantly on his legs, his eye steadily fixed upon Uncle John, evidently expecting a signal for a second plunge. The alarm was general, and every tongue joined in the scream of "Lie down, sir! lie down!"
Carlo adds to the party's woes when it is discovered that his weight, as he lay on the hamper containing picnic supplies, had a very unfortunate effect of those supplies. (Carlo, I feel compelled to add, is innocent: he was, after all, laying where he had been told to lay.)
When the packages were first stowed in the boat, the pigeon-pie was inadvertently placed at the bottom, and everything else, finishing with the large heavy hamper of crockery, with Carlo on that, upon it; so that when it was taken up it appeared a chaotic mass of pie-crust, broken china, pigeons, brown paper, beefsteak, eggs, and straw!
Debating what to do with the smashed pigeon pies, the party of picknickers is spared having to make a decision by Carlo:
But the good genius of Mr. Carlo prevailed; and the truth of the adage, "'tis an ill wind that blows nobody good," was confirmed in his mind as he found himself busily employed in the ingenious operation of separating pigeon from porcelain. It was, doubtless, extremely ill-bred in one dog not to invite another, and Cupid [the pug] expressed his sense of the slight by a long-continued yell, which drew down upon him, from the equally disappointed bipeds of the company, sundry wishes, the positive accomplishment of which would not have tended much to his personal happiness.
Having found that almost all the food had been destroyed, or had not been cooked, or had been left behind, the picknickers find themselves in a foul mood, bickering with each other: "As we have said, they now resolved to make the worst of everything; the grass was damp, the gnats were troublesome, Carlo's nose was in everybody's face, Cupid's teeth at everybody's calves..." Then the rain began to fall, "in torrents. Master Charles grew frightened and screamed. Cupid yelped, and Carlo howled. Accompanied the rest of the way by these pleasing sounds, at one in the morning (two hours and a half later than they intended) they arrived at Westminster stairs, dull, dreary, drowsy, discontented, and drenched."