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diff --git a/1414-h/1414-h.htm b/1414-h/1414-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..160f38c --- /dev/null +++ b/1414-h/1414-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2270 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Somebody's Luggage</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Somebody's Luggage, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Somebody's Luggage, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Somebody's Luggage + + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 3, 2005 [eBook #1414] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories” +edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>SOMEBODY’S LUGGAGE</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I—HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR</h2> +<p>The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come +of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers +who are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, +would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first having +the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication +of the same unto <i>Joseph</i>, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam +Coffee-house, London, E.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving +of the name of man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, +whether considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, +do not exist.</p> +<p>In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open +to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by +the term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. +It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is +<i>not</i> a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand +as is called in extra, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, or the London, +or the Albion, or otherwise, is <i>not</i> a Waiter. Such hands +may be took on for Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them +by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away +the bottle ere yet it is half out); but such are <i>not</i> Waiters. +For you cannot lay down the tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, +or the green-grocering, or the pictorial-periodicalling, or the second-hand +wardrobe, or the small fancy businesses,—you cannot lay down those +lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, +and take up Waitering. You may suppose you can, but you cannot; +or you may go so far as to say you do, but you do not. Nor yet +can you lay down the gentleman’s-service when stimulated by prolonged +incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be remarked that +Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly found united), and take up +Waitering. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman will +sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjam +or any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference to be +drawn respecting true Waitering? You must be bred to it. +You must be born to it.</p> +<p>Would you know how born to it, Fair Reader,—if of the adorable +female sex? Then learn from the biographical experience of one +that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age.</p> +<p>You were conveyed,—ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise +developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside,—you were conveyed, +by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, +Civic and General Dining-Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful +sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female constitution. +Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) in +the profoundest secrecy; for a Waitress known to be married would ruin +the best of businesses,—it is the same as on the stage. +Hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that—to add to +the infliction—by an unwilling grandmother. Under the combined +influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and +malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling +grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called +and dropped you; your grandmother’s shawl ever ready to stifle +your natural complainings; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial +cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling +down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery +rhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. +Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food +assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking you till your system +curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. At length +she was no longer spared, and could have been thankfully spared much +sooner. When your brothers began to appear in succession, your +mother retired, left off her smart dressing (she had previously been +a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flowing), +and haunted your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through +all weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the +Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been so named by George the Fourth), +where your father was Head. But the Dust-Bin was going down then, +and your father took but little,—excepting from a liquid point +of view. Your mother’s object in those visits was of a house-keeping +character, and you was set on to whistle your father out. Sometimes +he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all +that part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering +was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a +close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close +secrets both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture +that you know your father, or that your father had any name than Dick +(which wasn’t his name, though he was never known by any other), +or that he had kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction +of this mystery, combined with your father’s having a damp compartment, +to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin,—a sort of +a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, +and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn’t match each other +or anything else, and no daylight,—caused your young mind to feel +convinced that you must grow up to be a Waiter too; but you did feel +convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. +Every one of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waitering. +At this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your +father came home to your mother in open broad daylight,—of itself +an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter,—and took to his bed +(leastwise, your mother and family’s bed), with the statement +that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in vain, +your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, +when gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, +“Two and two is five. And three is sixpence.” +Interred in the parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, +and accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters of long standing as +could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), +your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and you was +took on from motives of benevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical +and supper. Here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates +(which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed +in mustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely went +beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing, till +you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual +article in the coffee-room. Your couch being sawdust; your counterpane +being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under +the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or correctly speaking lower +down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge +from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling plate-washer, +and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box +partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when it was out +of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the Waiter that you find yourself.</p> +<p>I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the +calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest +in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood. +No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, +say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or +what might be termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself +what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous +family every member of which except you was always greedy, and in a +hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with +animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine p.m., +and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures +came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your +digestion was well on, to take a personal interest and sympathy in a +hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only +a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy +and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, +and dishes of that,—each of ’em going on as if him and you +and the bill of fare was alone in the world. Then look what you +are expected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think +you regularly attend everywhere. “What’s this, Christopher, +that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train? How are they doing +at the Italian Opera, Christopher?” “Christopher, +what are the real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank?” +Similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. +As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which +I have been brought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving +of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the +lies (white, I hope) that are forced upon us! Why must a sedentary-pursuited +Waiter be considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most +tremendous interest in horse-training and racing? Yet it would +be half our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn’t take +on to have those sporting tastes. It is the same (inconceivable +why!) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure that +so regular as the months of August, September, and October come round, +I am ashamed of myself in my own private bosom for the way in which +I make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing +(much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me, uncooked!), +and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether +the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. +Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by +the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out +and his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone +of voice, as if my happiness in life entirely depended on ’em.</p> +<p>I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreasonable +point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done +us! Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change +in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, +or whether it is human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is +meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich? How +did that fable get into circulation? Who first put it about, and +what are the facts to establish the unblushing statement? Come +forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the Waiter’s will +in Doctors’ Commons supporting thy malignant hiss! Yet this +is so commonly dwelt upon—especially by the screws who give Waiters +the least—that denial is vain; and we are obliged, for our credit’s +sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business, when of +the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was +formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer +had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant +staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest +height. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling +on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as +a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. +He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation +that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in Distilleries +and Breweries. “Well, Christopher,” he would say (having +grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), “looking +out for a House to open, eh? Can’t find a business to be +disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph?” +To such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken +wing, that the well-known and highly-respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent +at the West Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the +Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall into it through +so many years that his own wife (for he had an unbeknown old lady in +that capacity towards himself) believed it! And what was the consequence? +When he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six picked Waiters, +with six more for change, six more acting as pall-bearers, all keeping +step in a pouring shower without a dry eye visible, and a concourse +only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransacked +high and low for property, and none was found! How could it be +found, when, beyond his last monthly collection of walking-sticks, umbrellas, +and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to have been not yet disposed +of, though he had ever been through life punctual in clearing off his +collections by the month), there was no property existing? Such, +however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of Old +Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of the Cork-Cutters’ +Company, in Blue Anchor Road (identified sitting at the door of one +of ’em, in a clean cap and a Windsor arm-chair, only last Monday), +expects John’s hoarded wealth to be found hourly! Nay, ere +yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his portrait was painted +in oils life-size, by subscription of the frequenters of the West Country, +to hang over the coffee-room chimney-piece, there were not wanting those +who contended that what is termed the accessories of such a portrait +ought to be the Bank of England out of window, and a strong-box on the +table. And but for better-regulated minds contending for a bottle +and screw and the attitude of drawing,—and carrying their point,—it +would have been so handed down to posterity.</p> +<p>I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, +I hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as +I felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated +the seas, on the general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the +particular question.</p> +<p>At a momentous period of my life, when I was off, so far as concerned +notice given, with a House that shall be nameless,—for the question +on which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and +no House as commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more +than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,—I repeat, +at a momentous crisis, when I was off with a House too mean for mention, +and not yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of +being attached in the capacity of Head, <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +I was casting about what to do next. Then it were that proposals +were made to me on behalf of my present establishment. Stipulations +were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary on my part: in +the end, ratifications ensued on both sides, and I entered on a new +career.</p> +<p>We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not +a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, +when diners drop in, we know what to give ’em as will keep ’em +away another time. We are a Private Room or Family business also; +but Coffee-room principal. Me and the Directory and the Writing +Materials and cetrer occupy a place to ourselves—a place fended +of up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-room, in what I call the +good old-fashioned style. The good old-fashioned style is, that +whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent +on the Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born Child +into his hands. There is no other way in which a business untinged +with Continental Vice can be conducted. (It were bootless to add, +that if languages is required to be jabbered and English is not good +enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere else.)</p> +<p>When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted +House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle +off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap +of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course +of the day,</p> +<p>“What are them things in 24 B?”</p> +<p>To which she answered with a careless air, “Somebody’s +Luggage.”</p> +<p>Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, “Whose +Luggage?”</p> +<p>Evading my eye, she replied,</p> +<p>“Lor! How should <i>I</i> know!”</p> +<p>—Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, +though acquainted with her business.</p> +<p>A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one +extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the +waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him +to decide which of the extremities.</p> +<p>On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett +so distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as +towards myself, then and there, and for good. Let not inconsistency +be suspected on account of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as “Mrs.,” +and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. +Readers are respectfully requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was +not a waitress, but a chambermaid. Now a chambermaid <i>may</i> +be married; if Head, generally is married,—or says so. It +comes to the same thing as expressing what is customary. (N.B. +Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is “the Bush.”)</p> +<p>Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to +the future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself.</p> +<p>“For instance,” I says, to give her a little encouragement, +“who is Somebody?”</p> +<p>“I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher,” answers +Pratchett, “that I haven’t the faintest notion.”</p> +<p>But for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should +have doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be +discriminated from an affidavit.</p> +<p>“Then you never saw him?” I followed her up with.</p> +<p>“Nor yet,” said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and +making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference,—which +gave a remarkable force to her denial,—“nor yet any servant +in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within +five year, and Somebody left his Luggage here before then.”</p> +<p>Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A.1.) +“confirmation strong.” So it had really and truly +happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out +our bills; and though higher than I could wish considering her station, +is perfectly well-behaved.</p> +<p>Farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill +against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Luggage +had been lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year. The bedstead +is a four-poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as +I once said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs,—which I +remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time.</p> +<p>I don’t know why,—when DO we know why?—but this +Luggage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Somebody, +and what he had got and been up to. I couldn’t satisfy my +thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a bill. +For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and +the following were the items:—A black portmanteau, a black bag, +a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella +strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fluey. +I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out; and though +he habitually wallows in dust,—swims in it from morning to night, +and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for +the purpose,—it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that +hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp’s +draft.</p> +<p>The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put +back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth,—previous +to which it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought +it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to Lay,—I +say, instead of having it put back, I had it carried into one of my +places down-stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and +stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward +at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling +intoxication. When this had lasted weeks,—I may say months, +and not be far out,—I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for +the particulars of the Two sixteen six total. She was so obliging +as to extract it from the books,—it dating before her time,—and +here follows a true copy:</p> +<pre>Coffee-Room. +1856. No. 4. £ s. d. +Feb. 2d, Pen and Paper 0 0 6 + Port Negus 0 2 0 + Ditto 0 2 0 + Pen and paper 0 0 6 + Tumbler broken 0 2 6 + Brandy 0 2 0 + Pen and paper 0 0 6 + Anchovy toast 0 2 6 + Pen and paper 0 0 6 + Bed 0 3 0 +Feb. 3d, Pen and paper 0 0 6 + Breakfast 0 2 6 + Broiled ham 0 2 0 + Eggs 0 1 0 + Watercresses 0 1 0 + Shrimps 0 1 0 + Pen and paper 0 0 6 + Blotting-paper 0 0 6 + Messenger to Paternoster + Row and back 0 1 6 + Again, when No Answer 0 1 6 + Brandy 2s., Devilled + Pork chop 2s. 0 4 0 + Pens and paper 0 1 0 + Messenger to Albemarle + Street and back 0 1 0 + Again (detained), when + No Answer 0 1 6 + Salt-cellar broken 0 3 6 + Large Liquour-glass + Orange Brandy 0 1 6 + Dinner, Soup, Fish, + Joint, and bird 0 7 6 + Bottle old East India + Brown 0 8 0 + Pen and paper 0 0 6 + £2 16 6</pre> +<p>Mem.: January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing +luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared +to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid +halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that +the luggage had been advertised in the Master’s time as being +to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther +steps had been taken. (I may here remark, that the Mistress is +a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed of one of +those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns to Water, and +rises in the ill-starred Victim.)</p> +<p>My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes +with the Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up +to the Mistress’s saying to me,—whether at first in joke +or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not:</p> +<p>“Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.”</p> +<p>(If this should meet her eye,—a lovely blue,—may she +not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, +I would have done as much by her! That is, I would have made her +a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome +one.)</p> +<p>“Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.”</p> +<p>“Put a name to it, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody’s +Luggage. You’ve got it all by heart, I know.”</p> +<p>“A black portmanteau, ma’am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, +a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.”</p> +<p>“All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing +tampered with.”</p> +<p>“You are right, ma’am. All locked but the brown-paper +parcel, and that sealed.”</p> +<p>The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin’s desk at the bar-window, +and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk,—she has a +pretty-made hand to be sure,—and bobs her head over it and laughs.</p> +<p>“Come,” says she, “Christopher. Pay me Somebody’s +bill, and you shall have Somebody’s Luggage.”</p> +<p>I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but,</p> +<p>“It mayn’t be worth the money,” I objected, seeming +to hold back.</p> +<p>“That’s a Lottery,” says the Mistress, folding +her arms upon the book,—it ain’t her hands alone that’s +pretty made, the observation extends right up her arms. “Won’t +you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery? +Why, there’s no blanks!” says the Mistress; laughing and +bobbing her head again, “you <i>must</i> win. If you lose, +you must win! All prizes in this Lottery! Draw a blank, +and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, you’ll still be entitled to +a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of +brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick!”</p> +<p>To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett +come round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, +and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen +two instead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of +it. For what can you do when they do come round you?</p> +<p>So I paid the money—down—and such a laughing as there +was among ’em! But I turned the tables on ’em regularly, +when I said:</p> +<p>“My family-name is Blue-Beard. I’m going to open +Somebody’s Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a +female eye catches sight of the contents!”</p> +<p>Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don’t +signify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, was really +present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody’s +Luggage is the question at present: Nobody’s eyes, nor yet noses.</p> +<p>What I still look at most, in connection with that Luggage, is the +extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! And +not our paper neither,—not the paper charged in the bill, for +we know our paper,—so he must have been always at it. And +he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and +parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing-case, +writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing in his +hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whalebones of his umbrella.</p> +<p>His clothes wasn’t bad, what there was of ’em. +His dressing-case was poor,—not a particle of silver stopper,—bottle +apertures with nothing in ’em, like empty little dog-kennels,—and +a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, +as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions +in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a second-hand +dealer not far from St. Clement’s Danes, in the Strand,—him +as the officers in the Army mostly dispose of their uniforms to, when +hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from their coats and +epaulets diversifying the window with their backs towards the public. +The same party bought in one lot the portmanteau, the bag, the desk, +the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. +On my remarking that I should have thought those articles not quite +in his line, he said: “No more ith a man’th grandmother, +Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, +and offer her at a fair trifle below what the’ll feth with good +luck when the’th thcoured and turned—I’ll buy her!”</p> +<p>These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, +for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And +now there remained the writings; and the writings I particular wish +to bring under the candid attention of the reader.</p> +<p>I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That +is to say, namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:—Before I proceed +to recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence +of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a +statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling +in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the +ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings +themselves ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that +they now come next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down +my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen) until I take it up to trace the gloomy +sequel of a mind with something on it.</p> +<p>He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly +regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object—on +his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. +Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two +blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I +have given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February, +eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. +To whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated +those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal +deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly, +long afterwards, upon the pillow-case.</p> +<p>He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was +he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was <i>his</i> +Head when he took such things into it? In some cases, such as +his Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings; thereby involving +his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs,—and +no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded. +Here follows (not to give more specimens) what was found in</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II—HIS BOOTS</h2> +<p>“Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what +can I say? I assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman.”</p> +<p>“Pardon. But I think it is impossible,” said Monsieur +Mutuel,—a spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet +shoes and a cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching +to his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,—that +is to say, white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but +it toned down with the week.</p> +<p>“It is,” repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell +countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the +bright morning sunlight,—“it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, +I think, impossible!”</p> +<p>“Hey!” (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses +of her head.) “But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!” +retorted Madame Bouclet, a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. +“See then,—look there,—read! ‘On the second +floor Monsieur L’Anglais.’ Is it not so?”</p> +<p>“It is so,” said Monsieur Mutuel.</p> +<p>“Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!” +Madame Bouclet dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers.</p> +<p>The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that +the sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French town. +The manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; +an umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand; +a snuffbox in the other. Thus, with the shuffling gait of the +Elephant (who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed +by the Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to +Monsieur Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was +to be had—of course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at +his button-hole; for was he not an ancient Frenchman?</p> +<p>Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk +and get out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off +his cap at arm’s length with the hand that contained his snuffbox, +kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted from Madame +Bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out, like a man of gallantry +as he was.</p> +<p>The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred Monsieur +Mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth by her own +Nephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and posted up at +the side of her gateway, for the information of the Police: “Au +second, M. L’Anglais, Propriétaire.” On the +second floor, Mr. The Englishman, man of property. So it stood; +nothing could be plainer.</p> +<p>Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were +to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur Mutuel, +and so placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing +should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the Place +to glance up at the windows of Mr. The Englishman. That worthy +happening to be looking out of window at the moment, Madame Bouclet +gave him a graceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and +looked to the left to account to him for her being there, considered +for a moment, like one who accounted to herself for somebody she had +expected not being there, and reëntered her own gateway. +Madame Bouclet let all her house giving on the Place in furnished flats +or floors, and lived up the yard behind in company with Monsieur Bouclet +her husband (great at billiards), an inherited brewing business, several +fowls, two carts, a nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, +a counting-house, four horses, a married sister (with a share in the +brewing business), the husband and two children of the married sister, +a parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), +two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the +nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, +a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial +rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small fountain, +and half-a-dozen large sunflowers.</p> +<p>Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement,—or, as one might +say on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers,—had given +his name, correct to the letter, LANGLEY. But as he had a British +way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, +the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but L’Anglais. +So Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained.</p> +<p>“Never saw such a people!” muttered Mr. The Englishman, +as he now looked out of window. “Never did, in my life!”</p> +<p>This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own +country,—a right little island, a tight little island, a bright +little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all +sorts; but not the whole round world.</p> +<p>“These chaps,” said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as +his eye rolled over the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, +“are no more like soldiers—” Nothing being sufficiently +strong for the end of his sentence, he left it unended.</p> +<p>This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly +correct; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the +town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand Review and +Field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a +soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his +ill-fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by +straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless +in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, +bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at +anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, +from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to +making omelets, was all you would have found.</p> +<p>What a swarm! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The +Englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last conscription were +doing the goose-step—some members of those squads still as to +their bodies, in the chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only military +butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs—from the Great +Place, away outside the fortifications, and away for miles along the +dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. All day long, upon the grass-grown +ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and bugled; all +day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising soldiers drummed +and drummed. Every forenoon, soldiers burst out of the great barracks +into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, and flew over the wooden horse, +and hung on to flying ropes, and dangled upside-down between parallel +bars, and shot themselves off wooden platforms,—splashes, sparks, +coruscations, showers of soldiers. At every corner of the town-wall, +every guard-house, every gateway, every sentry-box, every drawbridge, +every reedy ditch, and rushy dike, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. +And the town being pretty well all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, +drawbridge, reedy ditch, and rushy dike, the town was pretty well all +soldiers.</p> +<p>What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing +that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its +echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all +rusty, and its ditches stagnant! From the days when VAUBAN engineered +it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked +on the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under +the shock of its incomprehensibility,—from the days when VAUBAN +made it the express incorporation of every substantive and adjective +in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it +and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under +here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, +covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, +squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying +dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or +four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among +the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root,—from those days to these +the town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on +its drowsy Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent +streets.</p> +<p>On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed. +On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones +of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls, +and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering +from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending +of colours,—white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables,—and +at last the Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in +earnest, and all the Vaubanois sprang up awake. And now, by long, +low-lying avenues of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and +on donkey-back, and in tumbril and wagon, and cart and cabriolet, and +afoot with barrow and burden,—and along the dikes and ditches +and canals, in little peak-prowed country boats,—came peasant-men +and women in flocks and crowds, bringing articles for sale. And +here you had boots and shoes, and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and +here (in the cool shade of the Town-hall) you had milk and cream and +butter and cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots, and +all things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and flowers +and protesting pigs, and here new shovels, axes, spades, and bill-hooks +for your farming work, and here huge mounds of bread, and here your +unground grain in sacks, and here your children’s dolls, and here +the cake-seller, announcing his wares by beat and roll of drum. +And hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into the Great Place, resplendent +in an open carriage, with four gorgeously-attired servitors up behind, +playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled “the Daughter of a Physician” +in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and blue-feathered hat, shaded +from the admiring sun by two immense umbrellas of artificial roses, +to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose +which had cured so many thousands! Toothache, earache, headache, +heartache, stomach-ache, debility, nervousness, fits, fainting, fever, +ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great +Physician’s great daughter! The process was this,—she, +the Daughter of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you +now admired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, +told you so: On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, +you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation +of indescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be +so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody +else; on the third day you would be entirely free from disorder, whatever +its nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the Physician’s +Daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her garment, +and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the sale +of all your few effects you could obtain; but she would be inaccessible,—gone +for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt,—and you would be (though cured) +reduced to despair! Thus would the Physician’s Daughter +drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling +and mingling of tongues and colours continue, until the changing sunlight, +leaving the Physician’s Daughter in the shadow of high roofs, +admonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam +and glitter on the splendid equipage and brazen blast. And now +the enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once +more, and down went the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished +the merchandise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and +tumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow scavengers +with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish, assisted +by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market days. +While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn sunset, +the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and double-ditch, +would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening +shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman +on her way home, showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow +dike between him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed +closed over the boat’s track, he might be comfortably sure that +its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until next market-day.</p> +<p>As it was not one of the Great Place’s days for getting out +of bed, when Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising +the goose-step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military +turn.</p> +<p>“These fellows are billeted everywhere about,” said he; +“and to see them lighting the people’s fires, boiling the +people’s pots, minding the people’s babies, rocking the +people’s cradles, washing the people’s greens, and making +themselves generally useful, in every sort of unmilitary way, is most +ridiculous! Never saw such a set of fellows,—never did in +my life!”</p> +<p>All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine in +that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and +nurse, in the family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la Cour,—cleaning +the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, +dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all +with equal readiness? Or, to put him aside, he being in loyal +attendance on his Chief, was there not Private Hyppolite, billeted at +the Perfumer’s two hundred yards off, who, when not on duty, volunteered +to keep shop while the fair Perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour +or so, and laughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him? +Was there not Emile, billeted at the Clock-maker’s, perpetually +turning to of an evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock? +Was there not Eugène, billeted at the Tinman’s, cultivating, +pipe in mouth, a garden four feet square, for the Tinman, in the little +court, behind the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the +same, on his knees, with the sweat of his brow? Not to multiply +examples, was there not Baptiste, billeted on the poor Water-carrier, +at that very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his +martial legs asunder, and one of the Water-carrier’s spare pails +between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the Water-carrier +coming across the Place from the fountain, yoked and burdened) he was +painting bright-green outside and bright-red within? Or, to go +no farther than the Barber’s at the very next door, was there +not Corporal Théophile—</p> +<p>“No,” said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber’s, +“he is not there at present. There’s the child, though.”</p> +<p>A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber’s shop, +looking across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed +in the close white linen cap which small French country children wear +(like the children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun blue, +that had no shape except where it was tied round her little fat throat. +So that, being naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, +as if she had been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head +neatly fitted on it.</p> +<p>“There’s the child, though.”</p> +<p>To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, +the eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. But +they seemed to be looking so intently across the Place, that the Englishman +looked in the same direction.</p> +<p>“O!” said he presently. “I thought as much. +The Corporal’s there.”</p> +<p>The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought +under the middle size, but very neatly made,—a sunburnt Corporal +with a brown peaked beard,—faced about at the moment, addressing +voluble words of instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was +amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe and nimble Corporal, +quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform +cap to his sparkling white gaiters. The very image and presentment +of a Corporal of his country’s army, in the line of his shoulders, +the line of his waist, the broadest line of his Bloomer trousers, and +their narrowest line at the calf of his leg.</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal +looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few +minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and +was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, “Look +here! By George!” And the Corporal, dancing towards +the Barber’s with his arms wide open, caught up the child, held +her over his head in a flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed +her, and made off with her into the Barber’s house.</p> +<p>Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient +and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. +Had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights +above his head as this child had flown above the Corporal’s?</p> +<p>“He’s a ”—National Participled—“fool!” +said the Englishman, and shut his window.</p> +<p>But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house +of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. +They fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed +up. Mr. The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven +the nails quite home. So he passed but a disturbed evening and +a worse night.</p> +<p>By nature a good-tempered man? No; very little gentleness, +confounding the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when +crossed? Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody? +Exceedingly so. Vindictive? Well; he had had scowling thoughts +that he would formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on +the stage. But remembering that the real Heaven is some paces +removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the Theatre, he +had given that up.</p> +<p>And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the +rest of his life. And here he was.</p> +<p>At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that +Mr. The Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Théophile +should be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber’s +shop. In an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, “Why, +confound the fellow, he is not her father!” There was a +sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly, and put him in +a worse mood. So he had National Participled the unconscious Corporal +with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his mind to think no more +about such a mountebank.</p> +<p>But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. +If he had known the most delicate fibres of the Englishman’s mind, +instead of knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been the +most obstinate Corporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of being +the most obliging, he could not have planted himself with more determined +immovability plump in the midst of all the Englishman’s thoughts. +Not only so, but he seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman +had but to look out of window, to look upon the Corporal with little +Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk, and there was the Corporal +walking with Bebelle. He had but to come home again, disgusted, +and the Corporal and Bebelle were at home before him. If he looked +out at his back windows early in the morning, the Corporal was in the +Barber’s back yard, washing and dressing and brushing Bebelle. +If he took refuge at his front windows, the Corporal brought his breakfast +out into the Place, and shared it there with Bebelle. Always Corporal +and always Bebelle. Never Corporal without Bebelle. Never +Bebelle without Corporal.</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French language +as a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. +It is with languages as with people,—when you only know them by +sight, you are apt to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before +you can be said to have established an acquaintance.</p> +<p>For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably +before he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with +Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle. +But Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, +that, O Heaven! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker +had not sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly +he was a lamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The +Englishman seized the occasion.</p> +<p>“Madame, that baby—”</p> +<p>“Pardon, monsieur. That lamp.”</p> +<p>“No, no, that little girl.”</p> +<p>“But, pardon!” said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, +“one cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired?”</p> +<p>“The little girl—at the house of the barber.”</p> +<p>“Ah-h-h!” cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the +idea with her delicate little line and rod. “Little Bebelle? +Yes, yes, yes! And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, +yes! So genteel of him,—is it not?”</p> +<p>“He is not—?”</p> +<p>“Not at all; not at all! He is not one of her relations. +Not at all!”</p> +<p>“Why, then, he—”</p> +<p>“Perfectly!” cried Madame Bouclet, “you are right, +monsieur. It is so genteel of him. The less relation, the +more genteel. As you say.”</p> +<p>“Is she—?”</p> +<p>“The child of the barber?” Madame Bouclet whisked up +her skilful little line and rod again. “Not at all, not +at all! She is the child of—in a word, of no one.”</p> +<p>“The wife of the barber, then—?”</p> +<p>“Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the barber +receives a small stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. +Eh, then! It is without doubt very little, for we are all poor +here.”</p> +<p>“You are not poor, madame.”</p> +<p>“As to my lodgers,” replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling +and a gracious bend of her head, “no. As to all things else, +so-so.”</p> +<p>“You flatter me, madame.”</p> +<p>“Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here.”</p> +<p>Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman’s part, denoting +that he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet +observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again +with triumphant success.</p> +<p>“O no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the barber +is not cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health +is delicate, and she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, +when the Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected.”</p> +<p>“It is a curious—” began Mr. The Englishman.</p> +<p>“Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. +But it is a playful name for Gabrielle.”</p> +<p>“And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal’s?” +said Mr. The Englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice.</p> +<p>“Eh, well!” returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading +shrug: “one must love something. Human nature is weak.”</p> +<p>(“Devilish weak,” muttered the Englishman, in his own +language.)</p> +<p>“And the Corporal,” pursued Madame Bouclet, “being +billeted at the barber’s,—where he will probably remain +a long time, for he is attached to the General,—and finding the +poor unowned child in need of being loved, and finding himself in need +of loving,—why, there you have it all, you see!”</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with +an indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, +when he was again alone: “I shouldn’t mind it so much, if +these people were not such a”—National Participled—“sentimental +people!”</p> +<p>There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the +reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he +took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some +wonderful things in it (from the Englishman’s point of view), +and of a certainty in all Britain you would have found nothing like +it. Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses +in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, making it look +very like a Firework-ground, where a most splendid pyrotechnic display +might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the graves, +embroidered, as it might be, “To my mother,” “To my +daughter,” “To my father,” “To my brother,” +“To my sister,” “To my friend,” and those many +wreaths were in so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath +of yesterday, all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last +year, a poor mouldering wisp of straw! There were so many little +gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants +and shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds +and ends! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, +not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round +waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing lines either a lady or a gentleman +with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in +a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, +on the most architectural and gorgeous urn! There were so many +surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of their deceased +husbands, with a blank for the date of their own departure from this +weary world; and there were so many surviving husbands who had rendered +the same homage to their deceased wives; and out of the number there +must have been so many who had long ago married again! In fine, +there was so much in the place that would have seemed more frippery +to a stranger, save for the consideration that the lightest paper flower +that lay upon the poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude +hand, but perished there, a sacred thing!</p> +<p>“Nothing of the solemnity of Death here,” Mr. The Englishman +had been going to say, when this last consideration touched him with +a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. +“But these people are,” he insisted, by way of compensation, +when he was well outside the gate, “they are so”—Participled—“sentimental!”</p> +<p>His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there +he passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing +themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory, by +means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying +a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin. And +there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably the Corporal’s +careful hands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying +the proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird.</p> +<p>“If that child was to die,” this was his reflection as +he turned his back and went his way,—“and it would almost +serve the fellow right for making such a fool of himself,—I suppose +we should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic +burying-ground.”</p> +<p>Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of +window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle +were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense +achievement), wished him Good-day.</p> +<p>“Good-day, monsieur.”</p> +<p>“This is a rather pretty child you have here,” said Mr. +The Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her +astonished blue eyes.</p> +<p>“Monsieur, she is a very pretty child,” returned the +Corporal, with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase.</p> +<p>“And good?” said the Englishman.</p> +<p>“And very good. Poor little thing!”</p> +<p>“Hah!” The Englishman stooped down and patted her +cheek, not without awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation. +“And what is this medal round your neck, my little one?”</p> +<p>Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, +the Corporal offered his services as interpreter.</p> +<p>“Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?”</p> +<p>“It is the Holy Virgin,” said Bebelle.</p> +<p>“And who gave it you?” asked the Englishman.</p> +<p>“Théophile.”</p> +<p>“And who is Théophile?”</p> +<p>Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped +her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of +the Place.</p> +<p>“He doesn’t know Théophile! Why, he doesn’t +know any one! He doesn’t know anything!” Then, +sensible of a small solecism in her manners, Bebelle twisted her right +hand in a leg of the Corporal’s Bloomer trousers, and, laying +her cheek against the place, kissed it.</p> +<p>“Monsieur Théophile, I believe?” said the Englishman +to the Corporal.</p> +<p>“It is I, monsieur.”</p> +<p>“Permit me.” Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily +by the hand and turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old +Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, +should pull off his cap to him with a look of pleased approval. +And he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, “Well, +walnut-shell! And what business is it of <i>yours</i>?”</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings +and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid windows +in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he had +very imperfectly nailed them up. Likewise, he went on for many +weeks daily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle. +That is to say, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the +hand, and offered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got +the length of changing pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. +But he did it all in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely +ill that Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he +did. Whenever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in +his own tongue, “There you are again, walnut-shell! What +business is it of yours?”</p> +<p>In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman’s +life to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old +Monsieur Mutuel’s looking after <i>him</i>. An occupation +only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing +of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the Englishman rendered +good service), and much beating of drums,—when all of a sudden +the Corporal disappeared.</p> +<p>Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared.</p> +<p>She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal,—sadly +deteriorated as to washing and brushing,—but she had not spoken +when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had +run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good. +And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.</p> +<p>In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no +question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched +from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at +the Barber’s shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling +and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon +when Monsieur Mutuel’s patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, +according to all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring +his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his +cap already in his hand twelve paces off!</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, +“What bu-si—” when he checked himself.</p> +<p>“Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Hélas, it is unhappy, +it is sad!” Thus old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.</p> +<p>“What busin—at least, I would say, what do you mean, +Monsieur Mutuel?”</p> +<p>“Our Corporal. Hélas, our dear Corporal!”</p> +<p>“What has happened to him?”</p> +<p>“You have not heard?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, +too brave, too ready!”</p> +<p>“May the Devil carry you away!” the Englishman broke +in impatiently; “I beg your pardon,—I mean me,—I am +not accustomed to speak French,—go on, will you?”</p> +<p>“And a falling beam—”</p> +<p>“Good God!” exclaimed the Englishman. “It +was a private soldier who was killed?”</p> +<p>“No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. +Beloved by all his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching,—penetrating. +Monsieur The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears.”</p> +<p>“What bu-si—”</p> +<p>“Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I +salute you with profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon +your noble heart.”</p> +<p>Monsieur Mutuel,—a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy +linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce +of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentleman’s +property,—Monsieur Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand.</p> +<p>“I little thought,” said the Englishman, after walking +for several minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, “when +I was looking round that cemetery—I’ll go there!”</p> +<p>Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused, +considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to +the grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, +and he thought, “I shall see something on it to know it by.”</p> +<p>In search of the Corporal’s grave he went softly on, up this +walk and down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns +and obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. It +troubled him now to think how many dead there were in the cemetery,—he +had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before,—and after +he had walked and sought for some time, he said to himself, as he struck +down a new vista of tombs, “I might suppose that every one was +dead but I.”</p> +<p>Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. +Truly he had found something on the Corporal’s grave to know it +by, and the something was Bebelle.</p> +<p>With such a loving will had the dead soldier’s comrades worked +at his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the +green turf of the garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching +it. A plain, unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the +turf, and her short arm embraced this little Cross, as it had many a +time embraced the Corporal’s neck. They had put a tiny flag +(the flag of France) at his head, and a laurel garland.</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent. +Then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly +roused the child.</p> +<p>“Bebelle! My little one!”</p> +<p>Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was +at first frightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take +her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him.</p> +<p>“You must not lie here, my little one. You must come +with me.”</p> +<p>“No, no. I can’t leave Théophile. +I want the good dear Théophile.”</p> +<p>“We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look +for him in England. We will go and look for him at my daughter’s, +Bebelle.”</p> +<p>“Shall we find him there?”</p> +<p>“We shall find the best part of him there. Come with +me, poor forlorn little one. Heaven is my witness,” said +the Englishman, in a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf +above the gentle Corporal’s breast, “that I thankfully accept +this trust!”</p> +<p>It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was +soon asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman’s +neck. He looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her +tired face, and believed that she had come there every day.</p> +<p>He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms, +when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at +the other graves around. “It is the innocent custom of the +people,” said Mr. The Englishman, with hesitation. “I +think I should like to do it. No one sees.”</p> +<p>Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge +where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths. +One, blue and white and glistening silver, “To my friend;” +one of a soberer red and black and yellow, “To my friend.” +With these he went back to the grave, and so down on one knee again. +Touching the child’s lips with the brighter wreath, he guided +her hand to hang it on the Cross; then hung his own wreath there. +After all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping with the little garden. +To my friend. To my friend.</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street +corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old +Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world +of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount +of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued +by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle’s +toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon +that work of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make +it, and having given her to eat and drink, laid her down on his own +bed. Then he slipped out into the barber’s shop, and after +a brief interview with the barber’s wife, and a brief recourse +to his purse and card-case, came back again with the whole of Bebelle’s +personal property in such a very little bundle that it was quite lost +under his arm.</p> +<p>As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that +he should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or +congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his +two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to +comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run away,—except, +indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and prepared a letter +to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a sufficient sum of money in +lieu of notice. A railway train would come through at midnight, +and by that train he would take away Bebelle to look for Théophile +in England and at his forgiven daughter’s.</p> +<p>At midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping +forth like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead of +a dagger. Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never-stirring +streets; closed the cafés; huddled together motionless their +billiard-balls; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there; +lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the Office +of Town-dues.</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets behind, +and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among +the military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As the shadow of +the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, +as the shadow of the second heavy arch and postern fell upon him and +was left behind, as his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded +by a gentler sound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was +succeeded by a gentler sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one +by one, and passed out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, +so the dark shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked +currents of his soul were vanquished and set free. See to it, +Vaubans of your own hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, +and with bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge,—raze those +fortifications, and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust, before +the night cometh when no hand can work!</p> +<p>All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train, +where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch, +and cover her from head to foot with his mantle. He had just drawn +himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back +in his own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became +aware of a curious appearance at the open carriage window,—a ghostly +little tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there.</p> +<p>He leaned forward, and put out his head. Down among the rails +and wheels and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all!</p> +<p>“Excuse me, Monsieur The Englishman,” said Monsieur Mutuel, +holding up his box at arm’s length, the carriage being so high +and he so low; “but I shall reverence the little box for ever, +if your so generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting.”</p> +<p>Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before complying, and—without +asking the old fellow what business it was of his—shook hands +and said, “Adieu! God bless you!”</p> +<p>“And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless <i>you</i>!” cried +Madame Bouclet, who was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. +“And God will bless you in the happiness of the protected child +now with you. And God will bless you in your own child at home. +And God will bless you in your own remembrances. And this from +me!”</p> +<p>He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train +was flying through the night. Round the paper that enfolded it +was bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an +Angel), “Homage to the friend of the friendless.”</p> +<p>“Not bad people, Bebelle!” said Mr. The Englishman, softly +drawing the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss +it, “though they are so—”</p> +<p>Too “sentimental” himself at the moment to be able to +get out that word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some +miles, through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III—HIS BROWN-PAPER PARCEL</h2> +<p>My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. +You have seen my works many a time, though it’s fifty thousand +to one if you have seen me. You say you don’t want to see +me? You say your interest is in my works, and not in me? +Don’t be too sure about that. Stop a bit.</p> +<p>Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that +there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this +is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature. +I am a young man in the Art line—in the Fine-Art line. You +have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about +me, and you think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never +have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. +I think that’s plainly put—and it’s what knocks me +over.</p> +<p>If there’s a blighted public character going, I am the party.</p> +<p>It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain,) philosopher, +that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have +put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might +have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently +go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don’t +win. There it is again in another form—and that’s +what knocks me over.</p> +<p>Not that it’s only myself that suffers from injustice, but +that I am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man’s. +Being, as I have mentioned, in the Fine-Art line, and not the Philanthropic +line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company +enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations? +The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside +down for life? Not you. You are really passing the Crammers +and Coaches. If your principle is right, why don’t you turn +out to-morrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, +your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to +the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come +out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of +all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets; the Public knows +much, truly, about the real doers of all that! Your Nobles and +Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so is a goose a +first-rate bird. But I’ll tell you this about the goose;—you’ll +find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing.</p> +<p>Perhaps I am soured by not being popular? But suppose I AM +popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose +that, whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, +they invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved +in some Collection? No, they are not; they are not preserved in +any Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. +Anyhow they must be somewhere? Wrong again, for they are often +nowhere.</p> +<p>Says you, “At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, +my friend.” My answer is, I have described myself as a public +character with a blight upon him—which fully accounts for the +curdling of the milk in <i>that</i> cocoa-nut.</p> +<p>Those that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality on +the Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, more generally, +the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London will also +be aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far +from that locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, +that I lie abed till it’s absolutely necessary to get up and earn +something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent it.</p> +<p>It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals, +that I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, one evening after +dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting +way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres, +and, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought +out in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular +work always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say.</p> +<p>“Tom,” he says, “what a mystery hangs over you!”</p> +<p>“Yes, Mr. Click”—the rest of the house generally +give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own +furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation—“yes, +Mr. Click, a mystery does hang over me.”</p> +<p>“Makes you low, you see, don’t it?” says he, eyeing +me sideways.</p> +<p>“Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with +it that have,” I yielded to a sigh, “a lowering effect.”</p> +<p>“Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don’t it?” +says he. “Well, I’ll tell you what. If I was +you, I’d shake it of.”</p> +<p>“If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you +wouldn’t.”</p> +<p>“Ah!” says he, “there’s something in that.”</p> +<p>When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching +me on the chest.</p> +<p>“You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet +who wrote the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow +there.”</p> +<p>“I have, Mr. Click.”</p> +<p>“I hope, Tom,” lowering his voice in a friendly way, +“it isn’t coining, or smashing?”</p> +<p>“No, Mr. Click. Don’t be uneasy.”</p> +<p>“Nor yet forg—” Mr. Click checked himself, +and added, “counterfeiting anything, for instance?”</p> +<p>“No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line—Fine-Art +line—but I can say no more.”</p> +<p>“Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant +spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging +away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out?” said +Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.</p> +<p>I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and +I thought he appeared rather proud of me.</p> +<p>Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater +part struggling for a front place from which to see something on the +pavement, which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks +on the pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. +The subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon’s head and shoulders, +supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger’s; +a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the +head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of +a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, +going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects +appeared to me to be exquisitely done.</p> +<p>On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest +appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn’t at all cold), +was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline +of the back of the hermit’s head with a bit of leather, and fattening +the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten +to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it +also—as it appeared to me—was exquisitely done. It +ran as follows, in fine round characters: “An honest man is the +noblest work of God. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. £ s. d. +Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour the Queen. +Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn. Chip chop, cherry +chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I +do this to support my family.”</p> +<p>Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance +went about among the crowd. The artist, having finished his touching +(and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement, with +his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle +in.</p> +<p>“A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain’t +it?” said one of the crowd to me.</p> +<p>“What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!” +said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.</p> +<p>“Why, he writes—alone—like the Lord Chancellor!” +said another man.</p> +<p>“Better,” said another. “I know his writing. +He couldn’t support his family this way.”</p> +<p>Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit’s +hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon’s +gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country +gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his +work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with +colours in ’em out of his pockets, and showed them. Then +a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if +the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a +sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, +a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, “Is +the Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother?” who was immediately +shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools +at his back.</p> +<p>At every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, +and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them +up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the +front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office to-morrow, +and get some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, +and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card +in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix +the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd +was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second +row with a gruff voice growled to the artist, “You’ve got +a chance in life now, ain’t you?” The artist answered +(sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), “I’m thankful +to hope so.” Upon which there was a general chorus of “You +are all right,” and the halfpence slackened very decidedly.</p> +<p>I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood alone +at the corner of the next crossing.</p> +<p>“Why, Tom,” said Mr. Click, “what a horrid expression +of face you’ve got!”</p> +<p>“Have I?” says I.</p> +<p>“Have you?” says Mr. Click. “Why, you looked +as if you would have his blood.”</p> +<p>“Whose blood?”</p> +<p>“The artist’s.”</p> +<p>“The artist’s?” I repeated. And I laughed, +frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am +sensible that I did. I know I did.</p> +<p>Mr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing +until we had walked a street’s length. He then stopped short, +and said, with excitement on the part of his forefinger:</p> +<p>“Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I +don’t like the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm +that’s pegging away at <i>your</i> vitals, and it’s envy, +Thomas.”</p> +<p>“Is it?” says I.</p> +<p>“Yes, it is,” says be. “Thomas, beware of +envy. It is the green-eyed monster which never did and never will +improve each shining hour, but quite the reverse. I dread the +envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious +man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated +the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival’s +praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that +card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. +Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine-Art line, +but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, +but I take my leave of you. And if you should ever got into trouble +through knifeing—or say, garotting—a brother artist, as +I believe you will, don’t call me to character, Thomas, or I shall +be forced to injure your case.”</p> +<p>Mr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our acquaintance.</p> +<p>I became enamoured. Her name was Henrietta. Contending +with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. +She also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly +hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union.</p> +<p>To say that Henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was woman. +To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to express the +taste which reigned predominant in her own.</p> +<p>She consented to walk with me. Let me do her the justice to +say that she did so upon trial. “I am not,” said Henrietta, +“as yet prepared to regard you, Thomas, in any other light than +as a friend; but as a friend I am willing to walk with you, on the understanding +that softer sentiments may flow.”</p> +<p>We walked.</p> +<p>Under the influence of Henrietta’s beguilements, I now got +out of bed daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before +unknown, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by +those most familiar with the streets of London, that there was a larger +supply. But hold! The time is not yet come!</p> +<p>One evening in October I was walking with Henrietta, enjoying the +cool breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow turns, +Henrietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of +excitement), and said, “Let’s go home by Grosvenor Place, +Piccadilly, and Waterloo”—localities, I may state for the +information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in London, +and the last a Bridge.</p> +<p>“No. Not by Piccadilly, Henrietta,” said I.</p> +<p>“And why not Piccadilly, for goodness’ sake?” said +Henrietta.</p> +<p>Could I tell her? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment +that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to her? +No.</p> +<p>“I don’t like Piccadilly, Henrietta.”</p> +<p>“But I do,” said she. “It’s dark now, +and the long rows of lamps in Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. +I <i>will</i> go to Piccadilly!”</p> +<p>Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were +numbers of people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not +too cold, and not damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best +of all nights—FOR THE PURPOSE.</p> +<p>As we passed the garden wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor +Place, Henrietta murmured:</p> +<p>“I wish I was a Queen!”</p> +<p>“Why so, Henrietta?”</p> +<p>“I would make <i>you</i> Something,” said she, and crossed +her two hands on my arm, and turned away her head.</p> +<p>Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had +begun to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus happily +we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. On +the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the +Green Park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement.</p> +<p>“Oh my!” cried Henrietta presently. “There’s +been an accident!”</p> +<p>I looked to the left, and said, “Where, Henrietta?”</p> +<p>“Not there, stupid!” said she. “Over by the +Park railings. Where the crowd is. Oh no, it’s not +an accident, it’s something else to look at! What’s +them lights?”</p> +<p>She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the +assemblage: two candles on the pavement.</p> +<p>“Oh, do come along!” cried Henrietta, skipping across +the road with me. I hung back, but in vain. “Do let’s +look!”</p> +<p>Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount +Vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, +severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton +attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of +proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment +a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. The whole, as +it appeared to me, exquisitely done.</p> +<p>The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, +shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole appearance +and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed +to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with +any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. +The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in +a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the following sentiments: +“The writer is poor, but not despondent. To a British 1 +2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Public he £ s. d. appeals. Honour to our +brave Army! And also 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to our gallant Navy. +BRITONS STRIKE the A B C D E F G writer in common chalks would be grateful +for any suitable employment HOME! HURRAH!” The whole +of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done.</p> +<p>But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard +at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really +fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the +loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder +of mutton. Though he did this with the greatest confidence, he +did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything +he touched, that when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney +of the distant cottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which +smoke was beautifully soft), I found myself saying aloud, without considering +of it:</p> +<p>“Let that alone, will you?”</p> +<p>“Halloa!” said the man next me in the crowd, jerking +me roughly from him with his elbow, “why didn’t you send +a telegram? If we had known you was coming, we’d have provided +something better for you. You understand the man’s work +better than he does himself, don’t you? Have you made your +will? You’re too clever to live long.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be hard upon the gentleman, sir,” said the +person in attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye +as he looked at me; “he may chance to be an artist himself. +If so, sir, he will have a fellow-feeling with me, sir, when I”—he +adapted his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap +of his hands between each touch, working himself all the time about +and about the composition—“when I lighten the bloom of my +grapes—shade off the orange in my rainbow—dot the i of my +Britons—throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-<i>ber</i>—insinuate +another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton—dart another +zigzag flash of lightning at my ship in distress!”</p> +<p>He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that +the halfpence came flying in.</p> +<p>“Thanks, generous public, thanks!” said the professor. +“You will stimulate me to further exertions. My name will +be found in the list of British Painters yet. I shall do better +than this, with encouragement. I shall indeed.”</p> +<p>“You never can do better than that bunch of grapes,” +said Henrietta. “Oh, Thomas, them grapes!”</p> +<p>“Not better than <i>that</i>, lady? I hope for the time +when I shall paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips equal +to life.”</p> +<p>“(Thomas, did you ever?) But it must take a long time, +sir,” said Henrietta, blushing, “to paint equal to that.”</p> +<p>“I was prenticed to it, miss,” said the young man, smartly +touching up the composition—“prenticed to it in the caves +of Spain and Portingale, ever so long and two year over.”</p> +<p>There was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself +in next me, said, “He’s a smart chap, too; ain’t he?”</p> +<p>“And what a eye!” exclaimed Henrietta softly.</p> +<p>“Ah! He need have a eye,” said the man.</p> +<p>“Ah! He just need,” was murmured among the crowd.</p> +<p>“He couldn’t come that ’ere burning mountain without +a eye,” said the man. He had got himself accepted as an +authority, somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed +out Vesuvius. “To come that effect in a general illumination +would require a eye; but to come it with two dips—why, it’s +enough to blind him!”</p> +<p>That impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked +to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight +was too much, and threw back his long hair—it was very long—as +if to cool his fevered brow. I was watching him doing it, when +Henrietta suddenly whispered, “Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look!” +and pulled me out by the arm.</p> +<p>Remembering Mr. Click’s words, I was confused when I retorted, +“What do you mean by horrid?”</p> +<p>“Oh gracious! Why, you looked,” said Henrietta, +“as if you would have his blood.”</p> +<p>I was going to answer, “So I would, for twopence—from +his nose,” when I checked myself and remained silent.</p> +<p>We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer +sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting +my conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm +drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her +such a cold good-night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of +truth when I characterise it as a Rasper.</p> +<p>In the course of the next day I received the following document:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Henrietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open +to you. I must ever wish you well, but walking and us is separated +by an unfarmable abyss. One so malignant to superiority—Oh +that look at him!—can never never conduct</p> +<p>HENRIETTA</p> +<p>P.S.—To the altar.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week, +after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London +was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, +I found that Henrietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly.</p> +<p>Did I say to the artist? What fell words were those, expressive +of what a galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery! I—I—I—am +the artist. I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real +artist of the Waterloo Road, I am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects +which daily and nightly arouse your admiration. I do ’em, +and I let ’em out. The man you behold with the papers of +chalks and the rubbers, touching up the down-strokes of the writing +and shading off the salmon, the man you give the credit to, the man +you give the money to, hires—yes! and I live to tell it!—hires +those works of art of me, and brings nothing to ’em but the candles.</p> +<p>Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the +shivering, I am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the wanting-employment-in-an-office +move; I am only up to originating and executing the work. In consequence +of which you never see me; you think you see me when you see somebody +else, and that somebody else is a mere Commercial character. The +one seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a +single word, and that I taught him, and it’s MULTIPLICATION—which +you may see him execute upside down, because he can’t do it the +natural way. The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park +railings can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with +his cuff and a rubber—if very hard put upon making a show—but +he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than +he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, +or any of my most celebrated effects.</p> +<p>To conclude as I began: if there’s a blighted public character +going, I am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and +will see, my Works, it’s fifty thousand to one if you’ll +ever see me, unless, when the candles are burnt down and the Commercial +character is gone, you should happen to notice a neglected young man +perseveringly rubbing out the last traces of the pictures, so that nobody +can renew the same. That’s me.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV—HIS WONDERFUL END</h2> +<p>It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings. +From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will, +ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader?) +that I sold them to One who never yet—<a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a></p> +<p>Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,—for, +in opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing +myself in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another, +{2,}—resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered +that peace of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time +had merely took the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within.</p> +<p>It were superfluous to veil it,—the brow to which I allude +is my own.</p> +<p>Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the +fabled bird, as—as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded +individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to +enter into particulars of him. The reflection that the writings +must now inevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet +with them, sat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form. The elasticity +of my spirits departed. Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine +or Medicine. I had recourse to both, and the effect of both upon +my system was witheringly lowering.</p> +<p>In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began +to revolve what could I ever say if He—the unknown—was to +appear in the Coffee-room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this +last November received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger +of Fate and Conscience, hand in hand. I was alone in the Coffee-room, +and had just poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back +to it, trying whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to +the Voice within, when a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, +though requiring his hair cut, stood before me.</p> +<p>“Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?”</p> +<p>“The same.”</p> +<p>The young man shook his hair out of his vision,—which it impeded,—to +a packet from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his +eye (or did I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, “THE +PROOFS.”</p> +<p>Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the +power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering +grasp, and repeated,—let me do him the justice to add, with civility:</p> +<p>“THE PROOFS. A. Y. R.”</p> +<p>With those words he departed.</p> +<p>A. Y. R.? And You Remember. Was that his meaning? +At Your Risk. Were the letters short for <i>that</i> reminder? +Anticipate Your Retribution. Did they stand for <i>that</i> warning? +Out-dacious Youth Repent? But no; for that, a O was happily wanting, +and the vowel here was a A.</p> +<p>I opened the packet, and found that its contents were the foregoing +writings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?) +peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper,—A.Y.R., +All the Year Round,—it could not cancel the Proofs. Too +appropriate name. The Proofs of my having sold the Writings.</p> +<p>My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk +I ran, and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, +and all was in print. Give up the money to be off the bargain +and prevent the publication, I could not. My family was down in +the world, Christmas was coming on, a brother in the hospital and a +sister in the rheumatics could not be entirely neglected. And +it was not only ins in the family that had told on the resources of +one unaided Waitering; outs were not wanting. A brother out of +a situation, and another brother out of money to meet an acceptance, +and another brother out of his mind, and another brother out at New +York (not the same, though it might appear so), had really and truly +brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I got worse +and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting “The Proofs,” +and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs were +published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He might +confront me in the Coffee-room, and in the face of day and his country +demand his rights.</p> +<p>The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly +pointed the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in +my first remarks now rapidly approaches.</p> +<p>It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long +ceased to reverberate. We was slack,—several joints under +our average mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. So slack +had we become at last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, having took +their six o’clock dinners, and dozed over their respective pints, +had drove away in their respective Hansoms for their respective Night +Mail-trains and left us empty.</p> +<p>I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table,—which is warm +and most to be preferred,—and, lost in the all-absorbing topics +of the day, had dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to consciousness +by the well-known intimation, “Waiter!” and replying, “Sir!” +found a gentleman standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I +add, the observant reader?) will please to notice the locality of the +gentleman,—<i>at No. 4 table</i>.</p> +<p>He had one of the newfangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which +I am against, for I don’t see why you shouldn’t collapse, +while you are about it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he +said:</p> +<p>“I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here to-night.”</p> +<p>“Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir?”</p> +<p>“Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint.”</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir.”</p> +<p>I rang the chambermaid’s bell; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, +according to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before +her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other members +of which was invisible.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right +in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece +(which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), +and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; +and when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all +fell in a dusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned +round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together +over his ears. This give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted +heath.</p> +<p>“O! The chambermaid. Ah!” He was turning +something in his mind. “To be sure. Yes. I won’t +go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. It will be enough for +the present to know my number.—Can you give me 24 B?”</p> +<p>(O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!)</p> +<p>Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. +He then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails.</p> +<p>“Waiter!” biting between the words, “give me,” +bite, “pen and paper; and in five minutes,” bite, “let +me have, if you please,” bite, “a”, bite, “Messenger.”</p> +<p>Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before +he touched his dinner. Three were City; three West-End. +The City letters were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon Street. +The West-End letters were to Great Marlborough Street, New Burlington +Street, and Piccadilly. Everybody was systematically denied at +every one of the six places, and there was not a vestige of any answer. +Our light porter whispered to me, when he came back with that report, +“All Booksellers.”</p> +<p>But before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of +wine. He now—mark the concurrence with the document formerly +given in full!—knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with +his agitated elber (but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water.</p> +<p>Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the utmost +freedom. When he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred +to, he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours +in producing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed. +He then went up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett +(who was aware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had +noticed his eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, +as if in search of his Luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the +door of 24 B, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing +himself bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application +of machinery.</p> +<p>The next day—I forbear the horrors of that night—was +a very foggy day in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary +to light the Coffee-room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish +words of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as +he sat at No. 4 table, increased by there being something wrong with +the meter.</p> +<p>Having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out for the +best part of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any of +the answers had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his +instant call was for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy.</p> +<p>Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that +I must be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he +took I would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on +him over the curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cayenne +Pepper, and Orange Brandy. And at a later period of the day, when +he again said, “Orange Brandy,” I said so too, in a lower +tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant (my First was absent on leave), +who acts between me and the bar.</p> +<p>Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room continually. +Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within, +too evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage. Half-past +six came, and I laid his cloth. He ordered a bottle of old Brown. +I likewise ordered a bottle of old Brown. He drank his. +I drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) glass for glass against +his. He topped with coffee and a small glass. I topped with +coffee and a small glass. He dozed. I dozed. At last, +“Waiter!”—and he ordered his bill. The moment +was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple.</p> +<p>Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other +words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It was, that +I would be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, +and would offer any gradual settlement within my power. He paid +his bill (doing what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about +him to the last for any tokens of his Luggage. One only time our +gaze then met, with the lustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in +imputing that character to it?) of the well-known Basilisk. The +decisive moment had arrived.</p> +<p>With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs +before him.</p> +<p>“Gracious Heavens!” he cries out, leaping up, and catching +hold of his hair. “What’s this? Print!”</p> +<p>“Sir,” I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, +“I humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. +But I hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, +and the innocence of my intentions—”</p> +<p>To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his +arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my +face (and particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation +from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon +hard.</p> +<p>“Ha, ha, ha!” he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, +and grasping my hand. “What is your name, my Benefactor?”</p> +<p>“My name, sir” (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him +out), “is Christopher; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you’ve +heard my ex—”</p> +<p>“In print!” he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over +and over as if he was bathing in them.—“In print!! +O Christopher! Philanthropist! Nothing can recompense you,—but +what sum of money would be acceptable to you?”</p> +<p>I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from +his buttons again.</p> +<p>“Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and—”</p> +<p>“No, no, Christopher! Don’t talk like that! +What sum of money would be acceptable to you, Christopher? Would +you find twenty pounds acceptable, Christopher?”</p> +<p>However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, “Sir, +I am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the +average amount of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds +acceptable. But—extremely obliged to you, sir, I’m +sure;” for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in +my hand in two bank-notes; “but I could wish to know, sir, if +not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?”</p> +<p>“Know then, my Christopher,” he says, “that from +boyhood’s hour I have unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured +to get into print. Know, Christopher, that all the Booksellers +alive—and several dead—have refused to put me into print. +Know, Christopher, that I have written unprinted Reams. But they +shall be read to you, my friend and brother. You sometimes have +a holiday?”</p> +<p>Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer, +“Never!” To make it more final, I added, “Never! +Not from the cradle to the grave.”</p> +<p>“Well,” says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling +at his proofs again. “But I am in print! The first +flight of ambition emanating from my father’s lowly cot is realised +at length! The golden bow”—he was getting on,—“struck +by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and perfect sound! When +did this happen, my Christopher?”</p> +<p>“Which happen, sir?”</p> +<p>“This,” he held it out at arms length to admire it,—“this +Per-rint.”</p> +<p>When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by +the hand again, and said:</p> +<p>“Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that +you are an instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you <i>are</i>.”</p> +<p>A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake +it, and to say, “Perhaps we all are.”</p> +<p>“I don’t mean that,” he answered; “I don’t +take that wide range; I confine myself to the special case. Observe +me well, my Christopher! Hopeless of getting rid, through any +effort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage,—all +of which, send them where I would, were always coming back to me,—it +is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desperate +chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts would come back +to me no more, or that some one less accursed than I might give them +to the world. You follow me, my Christopher?”</p> +<p>“Pretty well, sir.” I followed him so far as to +judge that he had a weak head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and +Old Brown combined was beginning to tell. (The Old Brown, being +heady, is best adapted to seasoned cases.)</p> +<p>“Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. +At length, Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, +Christopher, and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was +free!”</p> +<p>He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.</p> +<p>“But,” he reminded himself in a state of excitement, +“we must sit up all night, my Christopher. I must correct +these Proofs for the press. Fill all the inkstands, and bring +me several new pens.”</p> +<p>He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, +to that degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), +few could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was +blots. His last instructions was, that I should instantly run +and take his corrections to the office of the present Journal. +I did so. They most likely will not appear in print, for I noticed +a message being brought round from Beauford Printing House, while I +was a throwing this concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources +of that establishment was unable to make out what they meant. +Upon which a certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly +name,—but of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on +the broad basis of a wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the +light of,—<a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> +laughed, and put the corrections in the fire.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Its name +and address at length, with other full particulars, all editorially +struck out.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> The remainder +of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> The remainder +of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1414-h.htm or 1414-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/1414 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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