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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:17:07 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:17:07 -0700 |
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diff --git a/1422-h/1422-h.htm b/1422-h/1422-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b973ad8 --- /dev/null +++ b/1422-h/1422-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,890 @@ +<!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>Going into Society</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">Going into Society, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Going into Society, 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: Going into Society + + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 4, 2005 [eBook #1422] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOING INTO SOCIETY*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of “Christmas +Stories” by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>GOING INTO SOCIETY</h1> +<p>At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation +of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the +parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore +no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy +to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had +lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable +were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. +At last, among the marsh lands near the river’s level, that lie +about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage +in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he +looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door +of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary +for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near +it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, +smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this +smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was +not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner.</p> +<p>On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, +Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name +was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman—which lawfully christened +Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was +nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion +of such—mention it!</p> +<p>There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, +some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to +say why he left it?</p> +<p>Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf.</p> +<p>Along of a Dwarf?</p> +<p>Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf.</p> +<p>Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman’s inclination and convenience +to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars?</p> +<p>Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars.</p> +<p>It was a long time ago, to begin with;—afore lotteries and +a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about +for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, “I’ll +have you, if you’re to be had. If money’ll get you, +I’ll have you.”</p> +<p>The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman +don’t know what they <i>would</i> have had. It was a lovely +thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter +of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the +heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole +on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, +there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing +her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there +was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin +a member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, +representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by two +Boa Constrictors—not that <i>we</i> never had no child, nor no +Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass, representin +the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies—not that <i>we</i> +never had no wild asses, nor wouldn’t have had ’em at a +gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the +Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such +a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn’t with his +utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House +was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn’t a spark of daylight +ever visible on that side. “MAGSMAN’S AMUSEMENTS,” +fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlour +winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. +A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability,—if +threepence ain’t respectable, what is?</p> +<p>But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth +the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL +BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE. Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, +and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned +it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called +Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if +he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.</p> +<p>He was a uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so +small as he was made out to be, but where <i>is</i> your Dwarf as is? +He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and +what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin +himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff +job for even him to do.</p> +<p>The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. +When he travelled with the Spotted Baby—though he knowed himself +to be a nat’ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby’s spots to be +put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You +never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He <i>did</i> allow +himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from +Norfolk; but that was an affair of the ’art; and when a man’s +’art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to +a Indian, he ain’t master of his actions.</p> +<p>He was always in love, of course; every human nat’ral phenomenon +is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed +the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to +keep ’em the Curiosities they are.</p> +<p>One sing’ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have +meant something, or it wouldn’t have been there. It was +always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never +would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by +the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite +a writing master <i>he</i> was, and taught scores in the line), but +Chops would have starved to death, afore he’d have gained a bit +of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious +to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except +his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, +painted and got up outside like a reg’lar six-roomer, that he +used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) +on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed +to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean +a Chaney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end +of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: “Ladies +and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, +and retire behind the curtain.” When he said anything important, +in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and +they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went +to bed.</p> +<p>He had what I consider a fine mind—a poetic mind. His +ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he +sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration +had run through him a little time, he would screech out, “Toby, +I feel my property coming—grind away! I’m counting +my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall +be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and +I’m swelling out into the Bank of England!” Such is +the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial +to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.</p> +<p>He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a +thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of +it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that +it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, “Toby, +my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards +the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don’t +signify to a low beast of a Indian; he an’t formed for Society. +This don’t signify to a Spotted Baby; <i>he</i> an’t formed +for Society.—I am.”</p> +<p>Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. +He had a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came +round, besides having the run of his teeth—and he was a Woodpecker +to eat—but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, +bringing him in so many halfpence that he’d carry ’em for +a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never +had money. And it couldn’t be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, +as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have +a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him +to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible +when he’s going through his War-Dance—it stands to reason +you wouldn’t under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support +that Indian in the lap of luxury.</p> +<p>Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. +The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little +bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his +shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door—for +he couldn’t be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and +the premises wouldn’t accommodate his legs—was snarlin, +“Here’s a precious Public for you; why the Devil don’t +they tumble up?” when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, +and cries out, “If there’s any person here as has got a +ticket, the Lottery’s just drawed, and the number as has come +up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, +forty-two!” I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for +calling off the Public’s attention—for the Public will turn +away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed +’em; and if you doubt it, get ’em together for any indiwidual +purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, +and see if the whole company an’t far more interested in takin +particular notice of them two than of you—I say, I wasn’t +best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn’t blessin him +in my own mind, when I see Chops’s little bell fly out of winder +at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole +secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to +me, “Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over +me or I’m a dead man, for I’ve come into my property!”</p> +<p>Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops’s winnins. +He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and +it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to +offer to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with +a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian +being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further.</p> +<p>Arter he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind, in short, +in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I +believe he would have bust—but we kep the organ from him—Mr. +Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He +then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance +and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father +havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort’nate +in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and +sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who +said his name was Normandy, which it wasn’t:</p> +<p>“Normandy, I’m a goin into Society. Will you go +with me?”</p> +<p>Says Normandy: “Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate +that the ’ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?”</p> +<p>“Correct,” says Mr. Chops. “And you shall +have a Princely allowance too.”</p> +<p>The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, +and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears:</p> +<blockquote><p>“My boat is on the shore,<br /> +And my bark is on the sea,<br /> +And I do not ask for more,<br /> +But I’ll Go:—along with thee.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. +They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.</p> +<p>In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the +autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white +cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening +appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. +Chops’s eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good +for him. There was three of ’em (in company, I mean), and +I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman +shirt, and a bishop’s mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played +the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.</p> +<p>This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: “Gentlemen, +this is a old friend of former days:” and Normandy looked at me +through a eye-glass, and said, “Magsman, glad to see you!”—which +I’ll take my oath he wasn’t. Mr. Chops, to git him +convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form +of George the Fourth’s in the canvass), but he hardly appeared +to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen +ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day—gorgeous!—And +as to Wine, they swam in all sorts.</p> +<p>I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done +it), and then mixed ’em all together (to say I had done it), and +then tried two of ’em as half-and-half, and then t’other +two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency +to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, +“Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the +wariety of foreign drains you have stood so ’ansome, I looks towards +you in red wine, and I takes my leave.” Mr. Chops replied, +“If you’ll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, +Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I’ll see you out.” +I said I couldn’t think of such a thing, but he would have it, +so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and +I couldn’t help thinking as I carried him down that it was like +carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a +good deal out of proportion.</p> +<p>When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him +by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:</p> +<p>“I ain’t ’appy, Magsman.”</p> +<p>“What’s on your mind, Mr. Chops?”</p> +<p>“They don’t use me well. They an’t grateful +to me. They puts me on the mantel-piece when I won’t have +in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won’t +give up my property.”</p> +<p>“Get rid of ’em, Mr. Chops.”</p> +<p>“I can’t. We’re in Society together, and +what would Society say?”</p> +<p>“Come out of Society!” says I.</p> +<p>“I can’t. You don’t know what you’re +talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn’t +come out of it.”</p> +<p>“Then if you’ll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,” +were my remark, shaking my head grave, “I think it’s a pity +you ever went in.”</p> +<p>Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped +it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought +were in him. Then, he says, “You’re a good fellow, +but you don’t understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, +the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire +behind the curtain.” The last I see of him on that occasion +was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up +the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They’d +have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn’t +be helped.</p> +<p>It warn’t long after that, that I read in the newspaper of +Mr. Chops’s being presented at court. It was printed, “It +will be recollected”—and I’ve noticed in my life, +that it is sure to be printed that it <i>will</i> be recollected, whenever +it won’t—“that Mr. Chops is the individual of small +stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted +so much attention.” Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! +He has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished +George the Fourth!</p> +<p>(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a +bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a +lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, +and buckles correct.)</p> +<p>I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries—though +not the honour of bein acquainted—and I run Magsman’s Amusements +in it thirteen months—sometimes one thing, sometimes another, +sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. +One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy +company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the +one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken +on for a month (though he never drawed—except on paper), and I +heard a kickin at the street door. “Halloa!” I says +to the young man, “what’s up!” He rubs his eyebrows +with his toes, and he says, “I can’t imagine, Mr. Magsman”—which +he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.</p> +<p>The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, +and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; +but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round +quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. +There was Mr. Chops!</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, “take me, on the old terms, +and you’ve got me; if it’s done, say done!”</p> +<p>I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.”</p> +<p>“Done to your done, and double done!” says he. +“Have you got a bit of supper in the house?”</p> +<p>Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we’d +guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages +and gin-and-water; but he took ’em both and took ’em free; +havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like +hold times. I, all of a maze all the while.</p> +<p>It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and +to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom +as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, “look upon me! You see +afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out.”</p> +<p>“O! You <i>are</i> out of it, Mr. Chops? How did +you get out, sir?”</p> +<p>“SOLD OUT!” says he. You never saw the like of +the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words.</p> +<p>“My friend Magsman, I’ll impart to you a discovery I’ve +made. It’s wallable; it’s cost twelve thousand five +hundred pound; it may do you good in life—The secret of this matter +is, that it ain’t so much that a person goes into Society, as +that Society goes into a person.”</p> +<p>Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a +deep look, and said, “You’re right there, Mr. Chops.”</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, twitchin me by the leg, “Society +has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property.”</p> +<p>I felt that I went pale, and though nat’rally a bold speaker, +I couldn’t hardly say, “Where’s Normandy?”</p> +<p>“Bolted. With the plate,” said Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>“And t’other one?” meaning him as formerly wore +the bishop’s mitre.</p> +<p>“Bolted. With the jewels,” said Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser +as he got hoarser; “Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. +At the court of St. James’s, they was all a doing my old business—all +a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. +Elsewheres, they was most of ’em ringin their little bells out +of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. +Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!”</p> +<p>I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, +and I felt for Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>“As to Fat Ladies,” he says, giving his head a tremendious +one agin the wall, “there’s lots of <i>them</i> in Society, +and worse than the original. <i>Hers</i> was a outrage upon Taste—simply +a outrage upon Taste—awakenin contempt—carryin its own punishment +in the form of a Indian.” Here he giv himself another tremendious +one. “But <i>theirs</i>, Magsman, <i>theirs</i> is mercenary +outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew ’em +and a lot of ’andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it +be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and +the Fat Ladies that don’t exhibit for so much down upon the drum, +will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever +you are. They’ll drill holes in your ’art, Magsman, +like a Cullender. And when you’ve no more left to give, +they’ll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your +bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies +that you deserve to be!” Here he giv himself the most tremendious +one of all, and dropped.</p> +<p>I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked +it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in +him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, +he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said +to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come:</p> +<p>“Magsman! The most material difference between the two +states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;” +he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the +moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, +but it is not in mortals to command success,—“the difference +this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. +When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer +the former, even if I wasn’t forced upon it. Give me out +through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow.”</p> +<p>Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been +iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions +was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got +wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, +awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it.</p> +<p>He took well, and pulled ’em in most excellent for nine weeks. +At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed +one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, +a wish to have a little music.</p> +<p>“Mr. Chops,” I said (I never dropped the “Mr.” +with him; the world might do it, but not me); “Mr. Chops, are +you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?”</p> +<p>His answer was this: “Toby, when next met with on the tramp, +I forgive her and the Indian. And I am.”</p> +<p>It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but +he sat like a lamb. I will be my belief to my dying day, that +I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his +thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off.</p> +<p>“Toby,” he says, with a quiet smile, “the little +man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind +the curtain.”</p> +<p>When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much +better Society than mine or Pall Mall’s. I giv Mr. Chops +as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, +and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of +a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv +it up, and took to the Wan again.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“I don’t triumph,” said Jarber, folding up the +second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. “I don’t +triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied +now?”</p> +<p>“How can he be anything else?” I said, answering for +Trottle, who sat obstinately silent. “This time, Jarber, +you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have +also answered the question about the House. Of course it stands +empty now. Who would think of taking it after it had been turned +into a caravan?” I looked at Trottle, as I said those last +words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction.</p> +<p>“Let this excellent person speak,” said Jarber. +“You were about to say, my good man?”—</p> +<p>“I only wished to ask, sir,” said Trottle doggedly, “if +you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that +last story?”</p> +<p>“A date!” repeated Jarber. “What does the +man want with dates!”</p> +<p>“I should be glad to know, with great respect,” persisted +Trottle, “if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who +lived in the House. It’s my opinion—if I may be excused +for giving it—that he most decidedly was not.”</p> +<p>With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room.</p> +<p>There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked +sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about +dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, +it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really +and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, +in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely +suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on +the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries +in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle’s +objection.</p> +<p>He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, +and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage +Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I suspected +he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions +to him.</p> +<p>On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came, +punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, +that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. +I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, +that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that +the reason of its emptiness was still to seek.</p> +<p>“What I have gone through,” said Jarber, “words +are not eloquent enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another +series of discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on +your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, +until you have heard Number Three.”</p> +<p>Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. +Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. +In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating +Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. +All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative +of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, +sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring +to events that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted +the proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address +on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be +given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when +she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem +had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.</p> +<p>Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to +have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. +To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had +stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest +possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping +out in the evening, without leave, meant—Philandering.</p> +<p>Controlling myself on my visitor’s account, I dismissed Peggy, +stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen +to Jarber.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOING INTO SOCIETY***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1422-h.htm or 1422-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/2/1422 + + + +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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