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+Project Gutenberg's The Christmas Books, by William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+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: The Christmas Books
+
+Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2731]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS
+
+of
+
+MR. M. A. TITMARSH
+
+by William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHRISTMAS STORIES.
+
+Mrs. Perkins's Ball
+
+Our Street
+
+Dr. Birch and his Young Friends
+
+The Kickleburys on the Rhine
+
+The Rose and the Ring; or, The History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo
+
+
+
+
+MRS. PERKINS'S BALL.
+
+THE MULLIGAN (OF BALLYMULLIGAN), AND HOW WE WENT TO MRS. PERKINS'S BALL.
+
+
+I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did.
+Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a
+look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of "Saxon curiawsitee" in a
+tone of such evident displeasure, that, as after all it can matter very
+little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I
+have never pressed the inquiry any farther.
+
+I don't know even the Mulligan's town residence. One night, as he bade
+us adieu in Oxford Street,--"I live THERE," says he, pointing down
+towards Oxbridge, with the big stick he carries--so his abode is in that
+direction at any rate. He has his letters addressed to several of
+his friends' houses, and his parcels, &c. are left for him at various
+taverns which he frequents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you
+see him attired, he did me the favor of ordering from my own tailor,
+who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the wearer. In
+like manner my hatter asked me, "Oo was the Hirish gent as 'ad ordered
+four 'ats and a sable boar to be sent to my lodgings?" As I did not
+know (however I might guess) the articles have never been sent, and the
+Mulligan has withdrawn his custom from the "infernal four-and-nine-penny
+scoundthrel," as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop in
+consequence.
+
+I became acquainted with the Mulligan through a distinguished countryman
+of his, who, strange to say, did not know the chieftain himself. But
+dining with my friend Fred Clancy, of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the
+Mulligan came up, "inthrojuiced" himself to Clancy as he said, claimed
+relationship with him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair
+to our table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking
+to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a visit: since
+which period often and often on coming to breakfast in the morning I
+have found him in my sitting-room on the sofa engaged with the rolls
+and morning papers: and many a time, on returning home at night for an
+evening's quiet reading, I have discovered this honest fellow in the
+arm-chair before the fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars and
+trying the quality of such liquors as might be found on the sideboard.
+The way in which he pokes fun at Betsy, the maid of the lodgings, is
+prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes; if he calls her a
+duck, a divvle, a darlin', it is all one. He is just as much a master
+of the premises as the individual who rents them at fifteen shillings a
+week; and as for handkerchiefs, shirt-collars, and the like articles of
+fugitive haberdashery, the loss since I have known him is unaccountable.
+I suspect he is like the cat in some houses: for, suppose the whiskey,
+the cigars, the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other groceries
+disappear, all is laid upon that edax-rerum of a Mulligan.
+
+The greatest offence that can be offered to him is to call him MR.
+Mulligan. "Would you deprive me, sir," says he, "of the title which was
+bawrun be me princelee ancestors in a hundred thousand battles? In
+our own green valleys and fawrests, in the American savannahs, in the
+sierras of Speen and the flats of Flandthers, the Saxon has quailed
+before me war-cry of MULLIGAN ABOO! MR. Mulligan! I'll pitch anybody out
+of the window who calls me MR. Mulligan." He said this, and uttered the
+slogan of the Mulligans with a shriek so terrific, that my uncle (the
+Rev. W. Gruels, of the Independent Congregation, Bungay), who had
+happened to address him in the above obnoxious manner, while sitting at
+my apartments drinking tea after the May meetings, instantly quitted the
+room, and has never taken the least notice of me since, except to state
+to the rest of the family that I am doomed irrevocably to perdition.
+
+Well, one day last season, I had received from my kind and most
+estimable friend, MRS. PERKINS OF POCKLINGTON SQUARE (to whose amiable
+family I have had the honor of giving lessons in drawing, French, and
+the German flute), an invitation couched in the usual terms, on satin
+gilt-edged note-paper, to her evening-party; or, as I call it, "Ball."
+
+Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind patroness had
+addressed me privately as follows:--
+
+
+MY DEAR MR. TITMARSH,--If you know any VERY eligible young man, we give
+you leave to bring him. You GENTLEMEN love your CLUBS so much now, and
+care so little for DANCING, that it is really quite A SCANDAL. Come
+early, and before EVERYBODY, and give us the benefit of all your taste
+and CONTINENTAL SKILL.
+
+"Your sincere
+
+"EMILY PERKINS."
+
+
+"Whom shall I bring?" mused I, highly flattered by this mark of
+confidence; and I thought of Bob Trippett; and little Fred Spring, of
+the Navy Pay Office; Hulker, who is rich, and I knew took lessons
+in Paris; and a half-score of other bachelor friends, who might be
+considered as VERY ELIGIBLE--when I was roused from my meditation by the
+slap of a hand on my shoulder; and looking up, there was the Mulligan,
+who began, as usual, reading the papers on my desk.
+
+"Hwhat's this?" says he. "Who's Perkins? Is it a supper-ball, or only a
+tay-ball?"
+
+"The Perkinses of Pocklington Square, Mulligan, are tiptop people,"
+says I, with a tone of dignity. "Mr. Perkins's sister is married to a
+baronet, Sir Giles Bacon, of Hogwash, Norfolk. Mr. Perkins's uncle was
+Lord Mayor of London; and he was himself in Parliament, and MAY BE again
+any day. The family are my most particular friends. A tay-ball indeed!
+why, Gunter . . ." Here I stopped: I felt I was committing myself.
+
+"Gunter!" says the Mulligan, with another confounded slap on the
+shoulder. "Don't say another word: I'LL go widg you, my boy."
+
+"YOU go, Mulligan?" says I: "why, really--I--it's not my party."
+
+"Your hwhawt? hwhat's this letter? a'n't I an eligible young man?--Is
+the descendant of a thousand kings unfit company for a miserable
+tallow-chandthlering cockney? Are ye joking wid me? for, let me tell ye,
+I don't like them jokes. D'ye suppose I'm not as well bawrun and bred as
+yourself, or any Saxon friend ye ever had?"
+
+"I never said you weren't, Mulligan," says I.
+
+"Ye don't mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit company for a
+Perkins?"
+
+"My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult you?" says I.
+"Well, then," says he, "that's a matter settled, and we go."
+
+What the deuce was I to do? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins; and that kind
+lady replied, that she would receive the Mulligan, or any other of my
+friends, with the greatest cordiality. "Fancy a party, all Mulligans!"
+thought I, with a secret terror.
+
+
+MR. AND MRS. PERKINS, THEIR HOUSE, AND THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE.
+
+
+Following Mrs. Perkins's orders, the present writer made his appearance
+very early at Pocklington Square: where the tastiness of all the
+decorations elicited my warmest admiration. Supper of course was in
+the dining-loom, superbly arranged by Messrs. Grigs and Spooner, the
+confectioners of the neighborhood. I assisted my respected friend Mr.
+Perkins and his butler in decanting the sherry, and saw, not without
+satisfaction, a large bath for wine under the sideboard, in which were
+already placed very many bottles of champagne.
+
+The BACK DINING-ROOM, Mr. P.'s study (where the venerable man goes to
+sleep after dinner), was arranged on this occasion as a tea-room, Mrs.
+Flouncey (Miss Fanny's maid) officiating in a cap and pink ribbons,
+which became her exceedingly. Long, long before the arrival of the
+company, I remarked Master Thomas Perkins and Master Giles Bacon, his
+cousin (son of Sir Giles Bacon, Bart.), in this apartment, busy among
+the macaroons.
+
+Mr. Gregory the butler, besides John the footman and Sir Giles's
+large man in the Bacon livery, and honest Grundsell, carpet-beater and
+green-grocer, of Little Pocklington Buildings, had at least half a
+dozen of aides-de-camp in black with white neck-cloths, like doctors of
+divinity.
+
+The BACK DRAWING-ROOM door on the landing being taken off the hinges
+(and placed up stairs under Mr. Perkins's bed), the orifice was covered
+with muslin, and festooned with elegant wreaths of flowers. This was
+the Dancing Saloon. A linen was spread over the carpet; and a
+band--consisting of Mr. Clapperton, piano, Mr. Pinch, harp, and
+Herr Spoff, cornet-a-piston arrived at a pretty early hour, and were
+accommodated with some comfortable negus in the tea-room, previous to
+the commencement of their delightful labors. The boudoir to the left
+was fitted up as a card-room; the drawing-room was of course for the
+reception of the company,--the chandeliers and yellow damask
+being displayed this night in all their splendor; and the charming
+conservatory over the landing was ornamented by a few moon-like lamps,
+and the flowers arranged so that it had the appearance of a fairy bower.
+And Miss Perkins (as I took the liberty of stating to her mamma) looked
+like the fairy of that bower. It is this young creature's first year
+in PUBLIC LIFE: she has been educated, regardless of expense, at
+Hammersmith; and a simple white muslin dress and blue ceinture set off
+charms of which I beg to speak with respectful admiration.
+
+My distinguished friend the Mulligan of Ballymulligan was good enough
+to come the very first of the party. By the way, how awkward it is to be
+the first of the party! and yet you know somebody must; but for my part,
+being timid, I always wait at the corner of the street in the cab, and
+watch until some other carriage comes up.
+
+Well, as we were arranging the sherry in the decanters down the
+supper-tables, my friend arrived: "Hwhares me friend Mr. Titmarsh?" I
+heard him bawling out to Gregory in the passage, and presently he rushed
+into the supper-room, where Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and myself were, and
+as the waiter was announcing "Mr. Mulligan," "THE Mulligan of
+Ballymulligan, ye blackguard!" roared he, and stalked into the
+apartment, "apologoizing," as he said, for introducing himself.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Perkins did not perhaps wish to be seen in this room, which
+was for the present only lighted by a couple of candles; but HE was not
+at all abashed by the circumstance, and grasping them both warmly by
+the hands, he instantly made himself at home. "As friends of my dear
+and talented friend Mick," so he is pleased to call me, "I'm deloighted,
+madam, to be made known to ye. Don't consider me in the light of a mere
+acquaintance! As for you, my dear madam, you put me so much in moind
+of my own blessed mother, now resoiding at Ballymulligan Castle, that I
+begin to love ye at first soight." At which speech Mr. Perkins getting
+rather alarmed, asked the Mulligan whether he would take some wine, or
+go up stairs.
+
+"Faix," says Mulligan "it's never too soon for good dhrink." And
+(although he smelt very much of whiskey already) he drank a tumbler of
+wine "to the improvement of an acqueentence which comminces in a manner
+so deloightful."
+
+"Let's go up stairs, Mulligan," says I, and led the noble Irishman to
+the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not
+being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the
+twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she
+danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at
+first; but how she started when the Mulligan loomed upon her.
+
+"Heavenlee enchanthress!" says Mulligan, "don't floy at the approach of
+the humblest of your sleeves! Reshewm your pleece at that insthrument,
+which weeps harmonious, or smoils melojious, as you charrum it! Are you
+acqueented with the Oirish Melodies? Can ye play, 'Who fears to talk of
+Nointy-eight?' the 'Shan Van Voght?' or the 'Dirge of Ollam Fodhlah?'"
+
+"Who's this mad chap that Titmarsh has brought?" I heard Master Bacon
+exclaim to Master Perkins. "Look! how frightened Fanny looks!"
+
+"O poo! gals are ALWAYS frightened," Fanny's brother replied; but Giles
+Bacon, more violent, said, "I'll tell you what, Tom: if this goes on,
+we must pitch into him." And so I have no doubt they would, when another
+thundering knock coming, Gregory rushed into the room and began lighting
+all the candles, so as to produce an amazing brilliancy, Miss Fanny
+sprang up and ran to her mamma, and the young gentlemen slid down the
+banisters to receive the company in the hall.
+
+
+EVERYBODY BEGINS TO COME, BUT ESPECIALLY MR. MINCHIN.
+
+
+"It's only me and my sisters," Master Bacon said; though "only" meant
+eight in this instance. All the young ladies had fresh cheeks and purple
+elbows; all had white frocks, with hair more or less auburn: and so a
+party was already made of this blooming and numerous family, before the
+rest of the company began to arrive. The three Miss Meggots next came in
+their fly: Mr. Blades and his niece from 19 in the square: Captain and
+Mrs. Struther, and Miss Struther: Doctor Toddy's two daughters and their
+mamma: but where were the gentlemen? The Mulligan, great and active as
+he was, could not suffice among so many beauties. At last came a brisk
+neat little knock, and looking into the hall, I saw a gentleman taking
+off his clogs there, whilst Sir Giles Bacon's big footman was looking on
+with rather a contemptuous air.
+
+"What name shall I enounce?" says he, with a wink at Gregory on the
+stair.
+
+The gentleman in clogs said, with quiet dignity,--
+
+
+MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN.
+
+
+"Pump Court, Temple," is printed on his cards in very small type: and he
+is a rising barrister of the Western Circuit. He is to be found at home
+of mornings: afterwards "at Westminster," as you read on his back door.
+"Binks and Minchin's Reports" are probably known to my legal friends:
+this is the Minchin in question.
+
+He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the balls of the
+Judges' and Serjeants' ladies: for he dances irreproachably, and goes
+out to dinner as much as ever he can.
+
+He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which you can
+easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and
+his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a gentleman.
+He is rather of a literary turn; still makes Latin verses with some
+neatness; and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute.
+
+When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to
+the Club, to dress; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trousers,
+so that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this,
+he will have new gloves; otherwise Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly
+employed in cleaning them with India-rubber.
+
+He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and the
+University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at dinner; and
+has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune of
+five thousand pounds; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in
+Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and
+says he is a most excellent and highly principled young man.
+
+Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin had popped his
+clogs into the umbrella-stand; and the rank of that respected person,
+and the dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all
+sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear.
+
+
+THE BALL-ROOM DOOR.
+
+
+A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin's: in half an hour Messrs.
+Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their music, and Mulligan, with
+one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing majestically in the first quadrille.
+My young friends Giles and Tom prefer the landing-place to the
+drawing-rooms, where they stop all night, robbing the refreshment-trays
+as they come up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices: he will have a
+dreadful stomach-ache to-morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, but he has had
+four more glasses of negus than Giles. Grundsell, the occasional waiter,
+from whom Master Tom buys quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny
+him nothing. That is Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile
+direct your attention to the three gentlemen at the door: they are
+conversing.
+
+1st Gent.--Who's the man of the house--the bald man?
+
+2nd Gent.--Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He's a
+stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me.
+
+1st Gent.--Have you been to the tea-room? There's a pretty girl in the
+tea-room; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing.
+
+2nd Gent.--Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders?
+Gad! I do wish somebody would smack 'em.
+
+3rd Gent.--Sir--that young lady is my niece, sir,--my niece--my name is
+Blades, sir.
+
+2nd Gent.--Well, Blades! smack your niece's shoulders: she deserves it,
+begad! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses.--Hullo!
+here's an old country acquaintance--Lady Bacon, as I live! with all the
+piglings; she never goes out without the whole litter. (Exeunt 1st and
+2nd Gents.)
+
+
+LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM.
+
+
+Lady B.--Leonora! Maria! Amelia! here is the gentleman we met at Sir
+John Porkington's.
+
+[The MISSES BACON, expecting to be asked to dance, smile simultaneously,
+and begin to smooth their tuckers.]
+
+Mr. Flam.--Lady Bacon! I couldn't be mistaken in YOU! Won't you dance,
+Lady Bacon?
+
+Lady B.--Go away, you droll creature!
+
+Mr. Flam.--And these are your ladyship's seven lovely sisters, to judge
+from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon?
+
+Lady B.--My sisters, he! he! my DAUGHTERS, Mr. Flam, and THEY dance,
+don't you, girls?
+
+The Misses Bacon.--O yes!
+
+Mr. Flam.--Gad! how I wish I was a dancing man!
+
+[Exit FLAM.
+
+
+MR. LARKINS.
+
+
+I have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could do that) to my
+respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture; but Larkins's portrait
+is considered very like. Adolphus Larkins has been long connected with
+Mr. Perkins's City establishment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice
+per annum. Evening-parties are the great enjoyment of this simple youth,
+who, after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street, and passed
+twelve hours in severe labor there, and walked back again to Kentish
+Town, finds no greater pleasure than to attire his lean person in that
+elegant evening costume which you see, to walk into town again, and to
+dance at anybody's house who will invite him. Islington, Pentonville,
+Somers Town, are the scenes of many of his exploits; and I have seen
+this good-natured fellow performing figure-dances at Notting-hill, at
+a house where I am ashamed to say there was no supper, no negus even
+to speak of, nothing but the bare merits of the polka in which Adolphus
+revels. To describe this gentleman's infatuation for dancing, let me
+say, in a word, that he will even frequent boarding-house hops, rather
+than not go.
+
+He has clogs, too, like Minchin: but nobody laughs at HIM. He gives
+himself no airs; but walks into a house with a knock and a demeanor so
+tremulous and humble, that the servants rather patronize him. He does
+not speak, or have any particular opinions, but when the time comes,
+begins to dance. He bleats out a word or two to his partner during this
+operation, seems very weak and sad during the whole performance, and, of
+course, is set to dance with the ugliest women everywhere.
+
+The gentle, kind spirit! when I think of him night after night, hopping
+and jigging, and trudging off to Kentish Town, so gently, through the
+fogs, and mud, and darkness: I do not know whether I ought to admire
+him, because his enjoyments are so simple, and his dispositions so
+kindly; or laugh at him, because he draws his life so exquisitely mild.
+Well, well, we can't be all roaring lions in this world; there must be
+SOME lambs, and harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating
+and shearing. See! even good-natured Mrs. Perkins is leading up the
+trembling Larkins to the tremendous Miss Bunion!
+
+
+MISS BUNION.
+
+
+The Poetess, author of "Heartstrings," "The Deadly Nightshade," "Passion
+Flowers," &c. Though her poems breathe only of love, Miss B. has never
+been married. She is nearly six feet high; she loves waltzing beyond
+even poesy; and I think lobster-salad as much as either. She confesses
+to twenty-eight; in which case her first volume, "The Orphan of Gozo,"
+(cut up by Mr. Rigby, in the Quarterly, with his usual kindness,) must
+have been published when she was three years old.
+
+For a woman all soul, she certainly eats as much as any woman I ever
+saw. The sufferings she has had to endure, are, she says, beyond
+compare; the poems which she writes breathe a withering passion, a
+smouldering despair, an agony of spirit that would melt the soul of a
+drayman, were he to read them. Well, it is a comfort to see that she
+can dance of nights, and to know (for the habits of illustrious literary
+persons are always worth knowing) that she eats a hot mutton-chop for
+breakfast every morning of her blighted existence.
+
+She lives in a boardinghouse at Brompton, and comes to the party in a
+fly.
+
+
+MR. HICKS.
+
+
+It is worth twopence to see Miss Bunion and Poseidon Hicks, the great
+poet, conversing with one another, and to talk of one to the other
+afterwards. How they hate each other! I (in my wicked way) have sent
+Hicks almost raving mad, by praising Bunion to him in confidence; and
+you can drive Bunion out of the room by a few judicious panegyrics of
+Hicks.
+
+Hicks first burst upon the astonished world with poems, in the Byronic
+manner: "The Death-Shriek," "The Bastard of Lara," "The Atabal," "The
+Fire-Ship of Botzaris," and other works. His "Love Lays," in Mr. Moore's
+early style, were pronounced to be wonderfully precocious for a young
+gentleman then only thirteen, and in a commercial academy, at Tooting.
+
+Subsequently, this great bard became less passionate and more
+thoughtful; and, at the age of twenty, wrote "Idiosyncracy" (in forty
+books, 4to.): "Ararat," "a stupendous epic," as the reviews said;
+and "The Megatheria," "a magnificent contribution to our pre-Adamite
+literature," according to the same authorities. Not having read these
+works, it would ill become me to judge them; but I know that poor
+Jingle, the publisher, always attributed his insolvency to the latter
+epic, which was magnificently printed in elephant folio.
+
+Hicks has now taken a classical turn, and has brought out "Poseidon,"
+"Iacchus," "Hephaestus," and I dare say is going through the mythology.
+But I should not like to try him at a passage of the Greek Delectus,
+any more than twenty thousand others of us who have had a "classical
+education."
+
+Hicks was taken in an inspired attitude regarding the chandelier, and
+pretending he didn't know that Miss Pettifer was looking at him.
+
+Her name is Anna Maria (daughter of Higgs and Pettifer, solicitors,
+Bedford Row); but Hicks calls her "Ianthe" in his album verses, and is
+himself an eminent drysalter in the city.
+
+
+MISS MEGGOT.
+
+
+Poor Miss Meggot is not so lucky as Miss Bunion. Nobody comes to dance
+with HER, though she has a new frock on, as she calls it, and rather a
+pretty foot, which she always manages to stick out.
+
+She is forty-seven, the youngest of three sisters, who live a mouldy old
+house, near Middlesex Hospital, where they have lived for I don't know
+how many score of years; but this is certain: the eldest Miss Meggot saw
+the Gordon Riots out of that same parlor window, and tells the story
+how her father (physician to George III.) was robbed of his queue in the
+streets on that occasion. The two old ladies have taken the brevet rank,
+and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy: one of them is at whist
+in the back drawing-room. But the youngest is still called Miss Nancy,
+and is considered quite a baby by her sisters.
+
+She was going to be married once to a brave young officer, Ensign Angus
+Macquirk, of the Whistlebinkie Fencibles; but he fell at Quatre Bras,
+by the side of the gallant Snuffmull, his commander. Deeply, deeply did
+Miss Nancy deplore him.
+
+But time has cicatrized the wounded heart. She is gay now, and would
+sing or dance, ay, or marry if anybody asked her.
+
+Do go, my dear friend--I don't mean to ask her to marry, but to ask her
+to dance.--Never mind the looks of the thing. It will make her happy;
+and what does it cost you? Ah, my dear fellow! take this counsel: always
+dance with the old ladies--always dance with the governesses. It is
+a comfort to the poor things when they get up in their garret that
+somebody has had mercy on them. And such a handsome fellow as YOU too!
+
+
+MISS RANVILLE, REV. MR. TOOP, MISS MULLINS, MR. WINTER.
+
+
+Mr. W. Miss Mullins, look at Miss Ranville: what a picture of good
+humor.
+
+Miss M.--Oh, you satirical creature!
+
+Mr. W.--Do you know why she is so angry? she expected to dance with
+Captain Grig, and by some mistake, the Cambridge Professor got hold of
+her: isn't he a handsome man?
+
+Miss M.--Oh, you droll wretch!
+
+Mr. W.--Yes, he's a fellow of college--fellows mayn't marry, Miss
+Mullins--poor fellows, ay, Miss Mullins?
+
+Miss M.--La!
+
+Mr. W.--And Professor of Phlebotomy in the University. He flatters
+himself he is a man of the world, Miss Mullins, and always dances in the
+long vacation.
+
+Miss M.--You malicious, wicked monster!
+
+Mr. W.--Do you know Lady Jane Ranville? Miss Ranville's mamma. A ball
+once a year; footmen in canary-colored livery: Baker Street; six dinners
+in the season; starves all the year round; pride and poverty, you know;
+I've been to her ball ONCE. Ranville Ranville's her brother, and between
+you and me--but this, dear Miss Mullins, is a profound secret,--I think
+he's a greater fool than his sister.
+
+Miss M.--Oh, you satirical, droll, malicious, wicked thing you!
+
+Mr. W.--You do me injustice, Miss Mullins, indeed you do.
+
+[Chaine Anglaise.]
+
+
+MISS JOY, MR. AND MRS. JOY, MR. BOTTER.
+
+
+Mr. B.--What spirits that girl has, Mrs. Joy!
+
+Mr. J.--She's a sunshine in a house, Botter, a regular sunshine. When
+Mrs. J. here's in a bad humor, I . . .
+
+Mrs. J.--Don't talk nonsense, Mr. Joy.
+
+Mrs. B.--There's a hop, skip, and jump for you! Why, it beats Ellsler!
+Upon my conscience it does! It's her fourteenth quadrille too. There she
+goes! She's a jewel of a girl, though I say it that shouldn't.
+
+Mrs. J. (laughing).--Why don't you marry her, Botter? Shall I speak to
+her? I dare say she'd have you. You're not so VERY old.
+
+Mr. B.--Don't aggravate me, Mrs. J. You know when I lost my heart in
+the year 1817, at the opening of Waterloo Bridge, to a young lady who
+wouldn't have me, and left me to die in despair, and married Joy, of the
+Stock Exchange.
+
+Mrs. J. Get away, you foolish old creature.
+
+[MR. JOY looks on in ecstasies at Miss Joy's agility. LADY JANE
+RANVILLE, of Baker Street, pronounces her to be an exceedingly forward
+person. CAPTAIN DOBBS likes a girl who has plenty of go in her; and as
+for FRED SPARKS, he is over head and ears in love with her.]
+
+
+MR. RANVILLE RANVILLE AND JACK HUBBARD.
+
+
+This is Miss Ranville Ranville's brother, Mr. Ranville Ranville, of the
+Foreign Office, faithfully designed as he was playing at whist in the
+card-room. Talleyrand used to play at whist at the "Travellers'," that
+is why Ranville Ranville indulges in that diplomatic recreation. It is
+not his fault if he be not the greatest man in the room.
+
+If you speak to him, he smiles sternly, and answers in monosyllables he
+would rather die than commit himself. He never has committed himself in
+his life. He was the first at school, and distinguished at Oxford. He is
+growing prematurely bald now, like Canning, and is quite proud of it. He
+rides in St. James's Park of a morning before breakfast. He dockets his
+tailor's bills, and nicks off his dinner-notes in diplomatic paragraphs,
+and keeps precis of them all. If he ever makes a joke, it is a quotation
+from Horace, like Sir Robert Peel. The only relaxation he permits
+himself, is to read Thucydides in the holidays.
+
+Everybody asks him out to dinner, on account of his brass-buttons with
+the Queen's cipher, and to have the air of being well with the Foreign
+Office. "Where I dine," he says solemnly, "I think it is my duty to
+go to evening-parties." That is why he is here. He never dances, never
+sups, never drinks. He has gruel when he goes home to bed. I think it is
+in his brains.
+
+He is such an ass and so respectable, that one wonders he has not
+succeeded in the world; and yet somehow they laugh at him; and you and I
+shall be Ministers as soon as he will.
+
+Yonder, making believe to look over the print-books, is that merry
+rogue, Jack Hubbard.
+
+See how jovial he looks! He is the life and soul of every party, and
+his impromptu singing after supper will make you die of laughing. He is
+meditating an impromptu now, and at the same time thinking about a bill
+that is coming due next Thursday. Happy dog!
+
+
+MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, LORD METHUSELAH.
+
+
+Dear Emma Trotter has been silent and rather ill-humored all the evening
+until now her pretty face lights up with smiles. Cannot you guess why?
+Pity the simple and affectionate creature! Lord Methuselah has not
+arrived until this moment: and see how the artless girl steps forward to
+greet him!
+
+In the midst of all the selfishness and turmoil of the world, how
+charming it is to find virgin hearts quite unsullied, and to look on
+at little romantic pictures of mutual love! Lord Methuselah, though you
+know his age by the peerage--though he is old, wigged, gouty, rouged,
+wicked, has lighted up a pure flame in that gentle bosom. There was a
+talk about Tom Willoughby last year; and then, for a time, young Hawbuck
+(Sir John Hawbuck's youngest son) seemed the favored man; but Emma never
+knew her mind until she met the dear creature before you in a Rhine
+steamboat. "Why are you so late, Edward?" says she. Dear artless child!
+
+Her mother looks on with tender satisfaction. One can appreciate the
+joys of such an admirable parent!
+
+"Look at them!" says Miss Toady. "I vow and protest they're the
+handsomest couple in the room!"
+
+Methuselah's grandchildren are rather jealous and angry, and
+Mademoiselle Ariane, of the French theatre, is furious. But there's no
+accounting for the mercenary envy of some people; and it is impossible
+to satisfy everybody.
+
+
+MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS.
+
+
+Those three young men are described in a twinkling: Captain Grig of the
+Heavies; Mr. Beaumoris, the handsome young man; Tom Flinders (Flynders
+Flynders he now calls himself), the fat gentleman who dresses after
+Beaumoris.
+
+Beaumoris is in the Treasury: he has a salary of eighty pounds a year,
+on which he maintains the best cab and horses of the season; and out of
+which he pays seventy guineas merely for his subscriptions to clubs. He
+hunts in Leicestershire, where great men mount him; he is a prodigious
+favorite behind the scenes at the theatres; you may get glimpses of him
+at Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets; and he is the sworn friend
+of half the most famous roues about town, such as Old Methuselah, Lord
+Billygoat, Lord Tarquin, and the rest: a respectable race. It is to
+oblige the former that the good-natured young fellow is here to-night;
+though it must not be imagined that he gives himself any airs of
+superiority. Dandy as he is, he is quite affable, and would borrow ten
+guineas from any man in the room, in the most jovial way possible.
+
+It is neither Beau's birth, which is doubtful; nor his money, which
+is entirely negative; nor his honesty, which goes along with his
+money-qualification; nor his wit, for he can barely spell,--which
+recommend him to the fashionable world: but a sort of Grand Seigneur
+splendor and dandified je ne scais quoi, which make the man he is of
+him. The way in which his boots and gloves fit him is a wonder which no
+other man can achieve; and though he has not an atom of principle, it
+must be confessed that he invented the Taglioni shirt.
+
+When I see these magnificent dandies yawning out of "White's," or
+caracoling in the Park on shining chargers, I like to think that
+Brummell was the greatest of them all, and that Brummell's father was a
+footman.
+
+Flynders is Beaumoris's toady: lends him money: buys horses through his
+recommendation; dresses after him; clings to him in Pall Mall, and on
+the steps of the club; and talks about 'Bo' in all societies. It is his
+drag which carries down Bo's friends to the Derby, and his cheques pay
+for dinners to the pink bonnets. I don't believe the Perkinses know
+what a rogue it is, but fancy him a decent, reputable City man, like his
+father before him.
+
+As for Captain Grig, what is there to tell about him? He performs the
+duties of his calling with perfect gravity. He is faultless on parade;
+excellent across country; amiable when drunk, rather slow when sober. He
+has not two ideas, and is a most good-natured, irreproachable, gallant,
+and stupid young officer.
+
+
+CAVALIER SEUL.
+
+
+This is my friend Bob Hely, performing the Cavalier seul in a quadrille.
+Remark the good-humored pleasure depicted in his countenance. Has he any
+secret grief? Has he a pain anywhere? No, dear Miss Jones, he is dancing
+like a true Briton, and with all the charming gayety and abandon of our
+race.
+
+When Canaillard performs that Cavalier seul operation, does HE flinch?
+No: he puts on his most vainqueur look, he sticks his thumbs into the
+armholes of his waistcoat, and advances, retreats, pirouettes, and
+otherwise gambadoes, as though to say, "Regarde moi, O monde! Venez, O
+femmes, venez voir danser Canaillard!"
+
+When De Bobwitz executes the same measure, he does it with smiling
+agility, and graceful ease.
+
+But poor Hely, if he were advancing to a dentist, his face would not be
+more cheerful. All the eyes of the room are upon him, he thinks; and he
+thinks he looks like a fool.
+
+Upon my word, if you press the point with me, dear Miss Jones, I think
+he is not very far from right. I think that while Frenchmen and Germans
+may dance, as it is their nature to do, there is a natural dignity about
+us Britons, which debars us from that enjoyment. I am rather of the
+Turkish opinion, that this should be done for us. I think . . .
+
+"Good-by, you envious old fox-and-the-grapes," says Miss Jones, and the
+next moment I see her whirling by in a polka with Tom Tozer, at a pace
+which makes me shrink back with terror into the little boudoir.
+
+
+M. CANAILLARD, CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR.
+
+LIEUTENANT BARON DE BOBWITZ.
+
+
+Canaillard. Oh, ces Anglais! quels hommes, mon Dieu! Comme ils sont
+habilles, comme ils dansent!
+
+Bobwitz.--Ce sont de beaux hommes bourtant; point de tenue militaire,
+mais de grands gaillards; si je les avais dans ma compagnie de la Garde,
+j'en ferai de bons soldats.
+
+Canaillard.--Est-il bete, cet Allemand! Les grands hommes ne font pas
+toujours de bons soldats, Monsieur. Il me semble que les soldats de
+France qui sont de ma taille, Monsieur, valent un peu mieux . . .
+
+Bobwitz.--Vous croyez?
+
+Canaillard.--Comment! je le crois, Monsieur? J'en suis sur! Il me
+semble, Monsieur, que nous l'avons prouve.
+
+Bobwitz (impatiently).--Je m'en vais danser la Bolka. Serviteur,
+Monsieur.
+
+Canaillard.--Butor! (He goes and looks at himself in the glass, when he
+is seized by Mrs. Perkins for the Polka.)
+
+
+THE BOUDOIR.
+
+MR. SMITH, MR. BROWN, MISS BUSTLETON.
+
+
+Mr. Brown.--You polk, Miss Bustleton? I'm SO delaighted.
+
+Miss Bustleton.--[Smiles and prepares to rise.]
+
+Mr. Smith.--D--- puppy.
+
+(Poor Smith don't polk.)
+
+
+GRAND POLKA.
+
+
+Though a quadrille seems to me as dreary as a funeral, yet to look at a
+polka, I own, is pleasant. See! Brown and Emily Bustleton are whirling
+round as light as two pigeons over a dovecot; Tozer, with that wicked
+whisking little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep; Miss
+Joy is the partner of the happy Fred Sparks; and even Miss Ranville
+is pleased, for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her.
+Beaumoris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss Trotter,
+at which Lord Methuseleh's wrinkled chops quiver uneasily. See! how the
+big Baron de Bobwitz spins lightly, and gravely, and gracefully round;
+and lo! the Frenchman staggering under the weight of Miss Bunion, who
+tramps and kicks like a young cart-horse.
+
+But the most awful sight which met my view in this dance was the
+unfortunate Miss Little, to whom fate had assigned THE MULLIGAN as a
+partner. Like a pavid kid in the talons of an eagle, that young creature
+trembled in his huge Milesian grasp. Disdaining the recognized form of
+the dance, the Irish chieftain accommodated the music to the dance of
+his own green land, and performed a double shuffle jig, carrying Miss
+Little along with him. Miss Ranville and her Captain shrank back
+amazed; Miss Trotter skirried out of his way into the protection of the
+astonished Lord Methuselah; Fred Sparks could hardly move for laughing;
+while, on the contrary, Miss Joy was quite in pain for poor Sophy
+Little. As Canaillard and the Poetess came up, The Mulligan, in the
+height of his enthusiasm, lunged out a kick which sent Miss Bunion
+howling; and concluded with a tremendous Hurroo!--a war-cry which caused
+every Saxon heart to shudder and quail.
+
+"Oh that the earth would open and kindly take me in!" I exclaimed
+mentally; and slunk off into the lower regions, where by this time half
+the company were at supper.
+
+
+THE SUPPER.
+
+
+The supper is going on behind the screen. There is no need to draw
+the supper. We all know that sort of transaction: the squabbling, and
+gobbling, and popping of champagne; the smell of musk and lobster-salad;
+the dowagers chumping away at plates of raised pie; the young lassies
+nibbling at little titbits, which the dexterous young gentlemen procure.
+Three large men, like doctors of divinity, wait behind the table, and
+furnish everything that appetite can ask for. I never, for my part, can
+eat any supper for wondering at those men. I believe if you were to
+ask them for mashed turnips, or a slice of crocodile, those astonishing
+people would serve you. What a contempt they must have for the guttling
+crowd to whom they minister--those solemn pastry-cook's men! How they
+must hate jellies, and game-pies, and champagne, in their hearts! How
+they must scorn my poor friend Grundsell behind the screen, who is
+sucking at a bottle!
+
+This disguised green-grocer is a very well-known character in the
+neighborhood of Pocklington Square. He waits at the parties of the
+gentry in the neighborhood, and though, of course, despised in families
+where a footman is kept, is a person of much importance in female
+establishments.
+
+Miss Jonas always employs him at her parties, and says to her page,
+"Vincent, send the butler, or send Desborough to me;" by which name she
+chooses to designate G. G.
+
+When the Miss Frumps have post-horses to their carriage, and pay visits,
+Grundsell always goes behind. Those ladies have the greatest confidence
+in him, have been godmothers to fourteen of his children, and leave
+their house in his charge when they go to Bognor for the summer. He
+attended those ladies when they were presented at the last drawing-room
+of her Majesty Queen Charlotte.
+
+                             GEORGE GRUNDSELL,
+
+                         GREEN-GROCER AND SALESMAN,
+
+                      9, LITTLE POCKLINGTON BUILDINGS,
+
+                  LATE CONFIDENTIAL SERVANT IN THE FAMILY OF
+
+                          THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.
+
+
+     Carpets Beat.--Knives and Boots cleaned per contract.--Errands
+     faithfully performed--G. G. attends Ball and Dinner parties,
+     and from his knowledge of the most distinguished Families in
+     London, confidently recommends his services to the
+     distinguished neighbourhood of Pocklington Square.
+
+Mr. Grundsell's state costume is a blue coat and copper buttons, a white
+waistcoat, and an immense frill and shirt-collar. He was for many years
+a private watchman, and once canvassed for the office of parish clerk
+of St. Peter's Pocklington. He can be intrusted with untold spoons; with
+anything, in fact, but liquor; and it was he who brought round the cards
+for MRS. PERKINS'S BALL.
+
+
+AFTER SUPPER.
+
+
+I do not intend to say any more about it. After the people had supped,
+they went back and danced. Some supped again. I gave Miss Bunion,
+with my own hands, four bumpers of champagne: and such a quantity
+of goose-liver and truffles, that I don't wonder she took a glass of
+cherry-brandy afterwards. The gray morning was in Pocklington Square as
+she drove away in her fly. So did the other people go away. How green
+and sallow some of the girls looked, and how awfully clear Mrs. Colonel
+Bludyer's rouge was! Lady Jane Ranville's great coach had roared away
+down the streets long before. Fred Minchin pattered off in his clogs:
+it was I who covered up Miss Meggot, and conducted her, with her two
+old sisters, to the carriage. Good old souls! They have shown their
+gratitude by asking me to tea next Tuesday. Methuselah is gone to finish
+the night at the club. "Mind to-morrow," Miss Trotter says, kissing
+her hand out of the carriage. Canaillard departs, asking the way to
+"Lesterre Squar." They all go away--life goes away.
+
+Look at Miss Martin and young Ward! How tenderly the rogue is wrapping
+her up! how kindly she looks at him! The old folks are whispering behind
+as they wait for their carriage. What is their talk, think you? and when
+shall that pair make a match? When you see those pretty little creatures
+with their smiles and their blushes, and their pretty ways, would you
+like to be the Grand Bashaw?
+
+"Mind and send me a large piece of cake," I go up and whisper archly to
+old Mr. Ward: and we look on rather sentimentally at the couple, almost
+the last in the rooms (there, I declare, go the musicians, and the clock
+is at five)--when Grundsell, with an air effare, rushes up to me and
+says, "For e'v'n sake, sir, go into the supper-room: there's that Hirish
+gent a-pitchin' into Mr. P."
+
+
+THE MULLIGAN AND MR. PERKINS.
+
+
+It was too true. I had taken him away after supper (he ran after Miss
+Little's carriage, who was dying in love with him as he fancied), but
+the brute had come back again. The doctors of divinity were putting up
+their condiments: everybody was gone; but the abominable Mulligan sat
+swinging his legs at the lonely supper-table!
+
+Perkins was opposite, gasping at him.
+
+The Mulligan.--I tell ye, ye are the butler, ye big fat man. Go get me
+some more champagne: it's good at this house.
+
+Mr. Perkins (with dignity).--It IS good at this house; but--
+
+The Mulligan.--Bht hwhat, ye goggling, bow-windowed jackass? Go get the
+wine, and we'll dthrink it together, my old buck.
+
+Mr. Perkins.--My name, sir, is PERKINS.
+
+The Mulligan.--Well, that rhymes with jerkins, my man of firkins; so
+don't let us have any more shirkings and lurkings, Mr. Perkins.
+
+Mr. Perkins (with apoplectic energy).--Sir, I am the master of this
+house; and I order you to quit it. I'll not be insulted, sir. I'll send
+for a policeman, sir. What do you mean, Mr. Titmarsh, sir, by bringing
+this--this beast into my house, sir?
+
+At this, with a scream like that of a Hyrcanian tiger, Mulligan of the
+hundred battles sprang forward at his prey; but we were beforehand with
+him. Mr. Gregory, Mr. Grundsell, Sir Giles Bacon's large man, the young
+gentlemen, and myself, rushed simultaneously upon the tipsy chieftain,
+and confined him. The doctors of divinity looked on with perfect
+indifference. That Mr. Perkins did not go off in a fit is a wonder. He
+was led away heaving and snorting frightfully.
+
+Somebody smashed Mulligan's hat over his eyes, and I led him forth into
+the silent morning. The chirrup of the birds, the freshness of the rosy
+air, and a penn'orth of coffee that I got for him at a stall in the
+Regent Circus, revived him somewhat. When I quitted him, he was not
+angry but sad. He was desirous, it is true, of avenging the wrongs of
+Erin in battle line; he wished also to share the grave of Sarsfield and
+Hugh O'Neill; but he was sure that Miss Perkins, as well as Miss Little,
+was desperately in love with him; and I left him on a doorstep in tears.
+
+
+"Is it best to be laughing-mad, or crying-mad, in the world?" says I
+moodily, coming into my street. Betsy the maid was already up and at
+work, on her knees, scouring the steps, and cheerfully beginning her
+honest daily labor.
+
+
+
+
+OUR STREET
+
+BY MR. M. A TITMARSH.
+
+
+Our street, from the little nook which I occupy in it, and whence I
+and a fellow-lodger and friend of mine cynically observe it, presents a
+strange motley scene. We are in a state of transition. We are not as yet
+in the town, and we have left the country, where we were when I came
+to lodge with Mrs. Cammysole, my excellent landlady. I then took
+second-floor apartments at No. 17, Waddilove Street, and since, although
+I have never moved (having various little comforts about me), I find
+myself living at No. 46A, Pocklington Gardens.
+
+Why is this? Why am I to pay eighteen shillings instead of fifteen? I
+was quite as happy in Waddilove Street; but the fact is, a great
+portion of that venerable old district has passed away, and we are being
+absorbed into the splendid new white-stuccoed Doric-porticoed genteel
+Pocklington quarter. Sir Thomas Gibbs Pocklington, M. P. for the borough
+of Lathanplaster, is the founder of the district and his own fortune.
+The Pocklington Estate Office is in the Square, on a line with
+Waddil--with Pocklington Gardens I mean. The old inn, the "Ram and
+Magpie," where the market-gardeners used to bait, came out this year
+with a new white face and title, the shield, &c. of the "Pocklington
+Arms." Such a shield it is! Such quarterings! Howard, Cavendish, De Ros,
+De la Zouche, all mingled together.
+
+Even our house, 46A, which Mrs. Cammysole has had painted white in
+compliment to the Gardens of which it now forms part, is a sort of
+impostor, and has no business to be called Gardens at all. Mr. Gibbs,
+Sir Thomas's agent and nephew, is furious at our daring to take the
+title which belongs to our betters. The very next door (No. 46, the
+Honorable Mrs. Mountnoddy,) is a house of five stories, shooting up
+proudly into the air, thirty feet above our old high-roofed low-roomed
+old tenement. Our house belongs to Captain Bragg, not only the landlord
+but the son-in-law of Mrs. Cammysole, who lives a couple of hundred
+yards down the street, at "The Bungalow." He was the commander of the
+"Ram Chunder" East Indiaman, and has quarrelled with the Pocklingtons
+ever since he bought houses in the parish.
+
+He it is who will not sell or alter his houses to suit the spirit of the
+times. He it is who, though he made the widow Cammysole change the name
+of her street, will not pull down the house next door, nor the baker's
+next, nor the iron-bedstead and feather warehouse ensuing, nor the
+little barber's with the pole, nor, I am ashamed to say, the tripe-shop,
+still standing. The barber powders the heads of the great footmen from
+Pocklington Gardens; they are so big that they can scarcely sit in his
+little premises. And the old tavern, the "East Indiaman," is kept by
+Bragg's ship-steward, and protests against the "Pocklington Arms."
+
+Down the road is Pocklington Chapel, Rev. Oldham Slocum--in brick, with
+arched windows and a wooden belfry: sober, dingy, and hideous. In the
+centre of Pocklington Gardens rises St. Waltheof's, the Rev. Cyril
+Thuryfer and assistants--a splendid Anglo-Norman edifice, vast, rich,
+elaborate, bran new, and intensely old. Down Avemary Lane you may hear
+the clink of the little Romish chapel bell. And hard by is a large
+broad-shouldered Ebenezer (Rev. Jonas Gronow), out of the windows of
+which the hymns come booming all Sunday long.
+
+Going westward along the line, we come presently to Comandine House (on
+a part of the gardens of which Comandine Gardens is about to be erected
+by his lordship); farther on, "The Pineries," Mr. and Lady Mary Mango:
+and so we get into the country, and out of Our Street altogether, as I
+may say. But in the half-mile, over which it may be said to extend, we
+find all sorts and conditions of people--from the Right Honorable Lord
+Comandine down to the present topographer; who being of no rank as it
+were, has the fortune to be treated on almost friendly footing by all,
+from his lordship down to the tradesman.
+
+
+OUR HOUSE IN OUR STREET
+
+
+We must begin our little descriptions where they say charity should
+begin--at home. Mrs. Cammysole, my landlady, will be rather surprised
+when she reads this, and finds that a good-natured tenant, who has never
+complained of her impositions for fifteen years, understands every one
+of her tricks, and treats them, not with anger, but with scorn--with
+silent scorn.
+
+On the 18th of December, 1837, for instance, coming gently down stairs,
+and before my usual wont, I saw you seated in my arm-chair, peeping into
+a letter that came from my aunt in the country, just as if it had been
+addressed to you, and not to "M. A. Titmarsh, Esq." Did I make any
+disturbance? far from it; I slunk back to my bedroom (being enabled to
+walk silently in the beautiful pair of worsted slippers Miss Penelope
+J--s worked for me: they are worn out now, dear Penelope!) and then
+rattling open the door with a great noise, descending the stairs,
+singing "Son vergin vezzosa" at the top of my voice. You were not in my
+sitting-room, Mrs. Cammysole, when I entered that apartment.
+
+You have been reading all my letters, papers, manuscripts, brouillons
+of verses, inchoate articles for the Morning Post and Morning Chronicle,
+invitations to dinner and tea--all my family letters, all Eliza
+Townley's letters, from the first, in which she declared that to be the
+bride of her beloved Michelagnolo was the fondest wish of her maiden
+heart, to the last, in which she announced that her Thomas was the
+best of husbands, and signed herself "Eliza Slogger;" all Mary
+Farmer's letters, all Emily Delamere's; all that poor foolish old Miss
+MacWhirter's, whom I would as soon marry as ----: in a word, I know
+that you, you hawk-beaked, keen-eyed, sleepless, indefatigable old Mrs.
+Cammysole, have read all my papers for these fifteen years.
+
+I know that you cast your curious old eyes over all the manuscripts
+which you find in my coat-pockets and those of my pantaloons, as they
+hang in a drapery over the door-handle of my bedroom.
+
+I know that you count the money in my green and gold purse, which Lucy
+Netterville gave me, and speculate on the manner in which I have laid
+out the difference between to-day and yesterday.
+
+I know that you have an understanding with the laundress (to whom you
+say that you are all-powerful with me), threatening to take away my
+practice from her, unless she gets up gratis some of your fine linen.
+
+I know that we both have a pennyworth of cream for breakfast, which is
+brought in in the same little can; and I know who has the most for her
+share.
+
+I know how many lumps of sugar you take from each pound as it arrives.
+I have counted the lumps, you old thief, and for years have never said
+a word, except to Miss Clapperclaw, the first-floor lodger. Once I put
+a bottle of pale brandy into that cupboard, of which you and I only have
+keys, and the liquor wasted and wasted away until it was all gone. You
+drank the whole of it, you wicked old woman. You a lady, indeed!
+
+I know your rage when they did me the honor to elect me a member of the
+"Poluphloisboiothalasses Club," and I ceased consequently to dine at
+home. When I DID dine at home,--on a beefsteak let us say,--I should
+like to know what you had for supper. You first amputated portions of
+the meat when raw; you abstracted more when cooked. Do you think I was
+taken in by your flimsy pretences? I wonder how you could dare to do
+such things before your maids (you a clergyman's daughter and widow,
+indeed), whom you yourself were always charging with roguery.
+
+Yes, the insolence of the old woman is unbearable, and I must break out
+at last. If she goes off in a fit at reading this, I am sure I shan't
+mind. She has two unhappy wenches, against whom her old tongue is
+clacking from morning till night: she pounces on them at all hours. It
+was but this morning at eight, when poor Molly was brooming the steps,
+and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, that my
+landlady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, and sent the poor
+girl whimpering into the kitchen.
+
+Were it but for her conduct to her maids I was determined publicly
+to denounce her. These poor wretches she causes to lead the lives of
+demons; and not content with bullying them all day, she sleeps at
+night in the same room with them, so that she may have them up before
+daybreak, and scold them while they are dressing.
+
+Certain it is, that between her and Miss Clapperclaw, on the first
+floor, the poor wenches lead a dismal life.
+
+It is to you that I owe most of my knowledge of our neighbors; from you
+it is that most of the facts and observations contained in these brief
+pages are taken. Many a night, over our tea, have we talked amiably
+about our neighbors and their little failings; and as I know that you
+speak of mine pretty freely, why, let me say, my dear Bessy, that if we
+have not built up Our Street between us, at least we have pulled it to
+pieces.
+
+
+THE BUNGALOW--CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG.
+
+
+Long, long ago, when Our Street was the country--a stagecoach between us
+and London passing four times a day--I do not care to own that it was a
+sight of Flora Cammysole's face, under the card of her mamma's "Lodgings
+to Let," which first caused me to become a tenant of Our Street. A fine
+good-humored lass she was then; and I gave her lessons (part out of the
+rent) in French and flower-painting. She has made a fine rich marriage
+since, although her eyes have often seemed to me to say, "Ah, Mr. T.,
+why didn't you, when there was yet time, and we both of us were free,
+propose--you know what?" "Psha! Where was the money, my dear madam?"
+
+Captain Bragg, then occupied in building Bungalow Lodge--Bragg, I say,
+living on the first floor, and entertaining sea-captains, merchants, and
+East Indian friends with his grand ship's plate, being disappointed in a
+project of marrying a director's daughter, who was also a second
+cousin once removed of a peer,--sent in a fury for Mrs. Cammysole, his
+landlady, and proposed to marry Flora off-hand, and settle four
+hundred a year upon her. Flora was ordered from the back-parlor (the
+ground-floor occupies the second-floor bedroom), and was on the spot
+made acquainted with the splendid offer which the first-floor had made
+her. She has been Mrs. Captain Bragg these twelve years.
+
+Bragg to this day wears anchor-buttons, and has a dress-coat with a gold
+strap for epaulets, in case he should have a fancy to sport them. His
+house is covered with portraits, busts, and miniatures of himself. His
+wife is made to wear one of the latter. On his sideboard are pieces
+of plate, presented by the passengers of the "Ram Chunder" to Captain
+Bragg: "The 'Ram Chunder' East Indiaman, in a gale, off Table Bay;"
+"The Outward-bound Fleet, under convoy of her Majesty's frigate
+'Loblollyboy,' Captain Gutch, beating off the French squadron, under
+Commodore Leloup (the 'Ram Chunder,' S.E. by E., is represented engaged
+with the 'Mirliton' corvette);" "The 'Ram Chunder' standing into the
+Hooghly, with Captain Bragg, his telescope and speaking-trumpet, on the
+poop;" "Captain Bragg presenting the Officers of the 'Ram Chunder' to
+General Bonaparte at St. Helena--TITMARSH" (this fine piece was painted
+by me when I was in favor with Bragg); in a word, Bragg and the "Ram
+Chunder" are all over the house.
+
+Although I have eaten scores of dinners at Captain Bragg's charge,
+yet his hospitality is so insolent, that none of us who frequent his
+mahogany feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer.
+
+After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always takes an
+opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how many bottles of
+wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make his guests tipsy, and to
+tell everybody how and when the period of inebriation arose. And Miss
+Clapperclaw tells me that he often comes over laughing and giggling
+to her, and pretending that he has brought ME into this condition--a
+calumny which I fling contemptuously in his face.
+
+He scarcely gives any but men's parties, and invites the whole club home
+to dinner. What is the compliment of being asked, when the whole club is
+asked too, I should like to know? Men's parties are only good for boys.
+I hate a dinner where there are no women. Bragg sits at the head of his
+table, and bullies the solitary Mrs. Bragg.
+
+He entertains us with stories of storms which he, Bragg, encountered--of
+dinners which he, Bragg, has received from the Governor-General of
+India--of jokes which he, Bragg, has heard; and however stale or odious
+they may be, poor Mrs. B. is always expected to laugh.
+
+Woe be to her if she doesn't, or if she laughs at anybody else's jokes.
+I have seen Bragg go up to her and squeeze her arm with a savage grind
+of his teeth, and say, with an oath, "Hang it, madam, how dare you laugh
+when any man but your husband speaks to you? I forbid you to grin in
+that way. I forbid you to look sulky. I forbid you to look happy, or to
+look up, or to keep your eyes down to the ground. I desire you will not
+be trapesing through the rooms. I order you not to sit as still as
+a stone." He curses her if the wine is corked, or if the dinner is
+spoiled, or if she comes a minute too soon to the club for him, or
+arrives a minute too late. He forbids her to walk, except upon his arm.
+And the consequence of his ill treatment is, that Mrs. Cammysole and
+Mrs. Bragg respect him beyond measure, and think him the first of human
+beings.
+
+"I never knew a woman who was constantly bullied by her husband who did
+not like him the better for it," Miss Clapperclaw says. And though this
+speech has some of Clapp's usual sardonic humor in it, I can't but think
+there is some truth in the remark.
+
+
+LEVANT HOUSE CHAMBERS.
+
+MR. RUMBOLD, A.R.A., AND MISS RUMBOLD.
+
+
+When Lord Levant quitted the country and this neighborhood, in which the
+tradesmen still deplore him, No. 56, known as Levantine House, was let
+to the "Pococurante Club," which was speedily bankrupt (for we are
+too far from the centre of town to support a club of our own); it was
+subsequently hired by the West Diddlesex Railroad; and is now divided
+into sets of chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, and
+by a porter in a sham livery: whom, if you don't find him at the door,
+you may as well seek at the "Grapes" public-house, in the little lane
+round the corner. He varnishes the japan-boots of the dandy lodgers;
+reads Mr. Pinkney's Morning Post before he lets him have it; and
+neglects the letters of the inmates of the chambers generally.
+
+The great rooms, which were occupied as the salons of the noble Levant,
+the coffee-rooms of the "Pococurante" (a club where the play was
+furious, as I am told), and the board-room and manager's-room of the
+West Diddlesex, are tenanted now by a couple of artists: young Pinkney
+the miniaturist, and George Rumbold the historical painter. Miss
+Rumbold, his sister lives with him, by the way; but with that young lady
+of course we have nothing to do.
+
+I knew both these gentlemen at Rome, where George wore a velvet doublet
+and a beard down to his chest, and used to talk about high art at the
+"Caffe Greco." How it smelled of smoke, that velveteen doublet of his,
+with which his stringy red beard was likewise perfumed! It was in his
+studio that I had the honor to be introduced to his sister, the fair
+Miss Clara: she had a large casque with a red horse-hair plume (I
+thought it had been a wisp of her brother's beard at first), and held a
+tin-headed spear in her hand, representing a Roman warrior in the great
+picture of "Caractacus" George was painting--a piece sixty-four feet by
+eighteen. The Roman warrior blushed to be discovered in that attitude:
+the tin-headed spear trembled in the whitest arm in the world. So she
+put it down, and taking off the helmet also, went and sat in a far
+corner of the studio, mending George's stockings; whilst we smoked a
+couple of pipes, and talked about Raphael being a good deal overrated.
+
+I think he is; and have never disguised my opinion about the
+"Transfiguration.". And all the time we talked, there were Clara's
+eyes looking lucidly out from the dark corner in which she was sitting,
+working away at the stockings. The lucky fellow! They were in a dreadful
+state of bad repair when she came out to him at Rome, after the death of
+their father, the Reverend Miles Rumbold.
+
+George, while at Rome, painted "Caractacus;" a picture of "Non Angli
+sed Angeli" of course; a picture of "Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage,"
+seventy-two feet by forty-eight--(an idea of the gigantic size and
+Michel-Angelesque proportions of this picture may be formed, when I
+state that the mere muffin, of which the outcast king is spoiling the
+baking, is two feet three in diameter) and the deaths of Socrates, of
+Remus, and of the Christians under Nero respectively. I shall never
+forget how lovely Clara looked in white muslin, with her hair down,
+in this latter picture, giving herself up to a ferocious Carnifex (for
+which Bob Gaunter the architect sat), and refusing to listen to the
+mild suggestions of an insinuating Flamen: which character was a gross
+caricature of myself.
+
+None of George's pictures sold. He has enough to tapestry Trafalgar
+Square. He has painted, since he came back to England, "The Flaying of
+Marsyas," "The Smothering of the Little Boys in the Tower," "A Plague
+Scene during the Great Pestilence," "Ugolino on the Seventh Day after
+he was deprived of Victuals," &c. For although these pictures have
+great merit, and the writhings of Marsyas, the convulsions of the little
+prince, the look of agony of St. Lawrence on the gridiron, &c. are quite
+true to nature, yet the subjects somehow are not agreeable; and if he
+hadn't a small patrimony, my friend George would starve.
+
+Fondness for art leads me a great deal to his studio. George is a
+gentleman, and has very good friends, and good pluck too. When we were
+at Rome, there was a great row between him and young Heeltap,
+Lord Boxmoor's son, who was uncivil to Miss Rumbold; (the young
+scoundrel--had I been a fighting man, I should like to have shot him
+myself!). Lady Betty Bulbul is very fond of Clara; and Tom Bulbul, who
+took George's message to Heeltap, is always hanging about the studio.
+At least I know that I find the young jackanapes there almost every day,
+bringing a new novel, or some poisonous French poetry, or a basket of
+flowers, or grapes, with Lady Betty's love to her dear Clara--a young
+rascal with white kids, and his hair curled every morning. What business
+has HE to be dangling about George Rumbold's premises, and sticking up
+his ugly pug-face as a model for all George's pictures?
+
+Miss Clapperclaw says Bulbul is evidently smitten, and Clara too. What!
+would she put up with such a little fribble as that, when there is a
+man of intellect and taste who--but I won't believe it. It is all the
+jealousy of women.
+
+
+SOME OF THE SERVANTS IN OUR STREET.
+
+
+These gentlemen have two clubs in our quarter--for the butlers at the
+"Indiaman," and for the gents in livery at the "Pocklington Arms"--of
+either of which societies I should like to be a member. I am sure they
+could not be so dull as our club at the "Poluphloisboio," where one
+meets the same neat, clean, respectable old fogies every day.
+
+But with the best wishes, it is impossible for the present writer to
+join either the "Plate Club" or the "Uniform Club" (as these reunions
+are designated); for one could not shake hands with a friend who was
+standing behind your chair, or nod a How-d'ye-do? to the butler who was
+pouring you out a glass of wine;--so that what I know about the gents in
+our neighborhood is from mere casual observation. For instance, I have a
+slight acquaintance with (1) Thomas Spavin, who commonly wears an air of
+injured innocence, and is groom to Mr. Joseph Green, of Our Street.
+"I tell why the brougham 'oss is out of condition, and why Desperation
+broke out all in a lather! 'Osses will, this 'eavy weather; and
+Desperation was always the most mystest hoss I ever see.--I take him out
+with Mr. Anderson's 'ounds--I'm above it. I allis was too timid to ride
+to 'ounds by natur; and Colonel Sprigs' groom as says he saw me, is a
+liar," &c. &c.
+
+Such is the tenor of Mr. Spavin's remarks to his master. Whereas all the
+world in Our Street knows that Mr. Spavin spends at least a hundred a
+year in beer; that he keeps a betting-book; that he has lent Mr. Green's
+black brougham horse to the omnibus driver; and, at a time when Mr.
+G. supposed him at the veterinary surgeon's, has lent him to a livery
+stable, which has let him out to that gentleman himself, and actually
+driven him to dinner behind his own horse.
+
+This conduct I can understand, but I cannot excuse--Mr. Spavin may; and
+I leave the matter to be settled betwixt himself and Mr. Green.
+
+The second is Monsieur Sinbad, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's man, whom we all
+hate Clarence for keeping.
+
+Mr. Sinbad is a foreigner, speaking no known language, but a mixture
+of every European dialect--so that he may be an Italian brigand, or a
+Tyrolese minstrel, or a Spanish smuggler, for what we know. I have heard
+say that he is neither of these, but an Irish Jew.
+
+He wears studs, hair-oil, jewellery, and linen shirt-fronts, very finely
+embroidered, but not particular for whiteness. He generally appears in
+faded velvet waistcoats of a morning, and is always perfumed with stale
+tobacco. He wears large rings on his hands, which look as if he kept
+them up the chimney.
+
+He does not appear to do anything earthly for Clarence Bulbul, except
+to smoke his cigars, and to practise on his guitar. He will not answer
+a bell, nor fetch a glass of water, nor go of an errand on which,
+au reste, Clarence dares not send him, being entirely afraid of his
+servant, and not daring to use him, or to abuse him, or to send him
+away.
+
+3. Adams--Mr. Champignon's man--a good old man in an old livery coat
+with old worsted lace--so very old, deaf, surly, and faithful, that you
+wonder how he should have got into the family at all; who never kept a
+footman till last year, when they came into the street.
+
+Miss Clapperclaw says she believes Adams to be Mrs. Champignon's father,
+and he certainly has a look of that lady; as Miss C. pointed out to me
+at dinner one night, whilst old Adams was blundering about amongst the
+hired men from Gunter's, and falling over the silver dishes.
+
+4. Fipps, the buttoniest page in all the street: walks behind Mrs.
+Grimsby with her prayer-book, and protects her.
+
+"If that woman wants a protector" (a female acquaintance remarks),
+"heaven be good to us! She is as big as an ogress, and has an upper lip
+which many a cornet of the Lifeguards might envy. Her poor dear husband
+was a big man, and she could beat him easily; and did too. Mrs. Grimsby
+indeed! Why, my dear Mr. Titmarsh, it is Glumdalca walking with Tom
+Thumb."
+
+This observation of Miss C.'s is very true, and Mrs. Grimsby might carry
+her prayer-book to church herself. But Miss Clapperclaw, who is pretty
+well able to take care of herself too, was glad enough to have the
+protection of the page when she went out in the fly to pay visits, and
+before Mrs. Grimsby and she quarrelled at whist at Lady Pocklington's.
+
+After this merely parenthetic observation, we come to 5, one of her
+ladyship's large men, Mr. Jeames--a gentleman of vast stature and
+proportions, who is almost nose to nose with us as we pass her
+ladyship's door on the outside of the omnibus. I think Jeames has a
+contempt for a man whom he witnesses in that position. I have fancied
+something like that feeling showed itself (as far as it may in a
+well-bred gentleman accustomed to society) in his behavior, while
+waiting behind my chair at dinner.
+
+But I take Jeames to be, like most giants, good-natured, lazy, stupid,
+soft-hearted, and extremely fond of drink. One night, his lady being
+engaged to dinner at Nightingale House, I saw Mr. Jeames resting himself
+on a bench at the "Pocklington Arms:" where, as he had no liquor before
+him, he had probably exhausted his credit.
+
+Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul's boy, the wickedest little varlet
+that ever hung on to a cab, was "chaffing" Mr. Jeames, holding up to his
+face a pot of porter almost as big as the young potifer himself.
+
+"Vill you now, Big'un, or von't you?" Spitfire said. "If you're thirsty,
+vy don't you say so and squench it, old boy?"
+
+"Don't ago on making fun of me--I can't abear chaffin'," was the reply
+of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his fine eyes as he looked at
+the porter and the screeching little imp before him.
+
+Spitfire (real name unknown) gave him some of the drink: I am happy to
+say Jeames's face wore quite a different look when it rose gasping out
+of the porter; and I judge of his dispositions from the above trivial
+incident.
+
+The last boy in the sketch, 6, need scarcely be particularized. Doctor's
+boy; was a charity-boy; stripes evidently added on to a pair of the
+doctor's clothes of last year--Miss Clapperclaw pointed this out to me
+with a giggle. Nothing escapes that old woman.
+
+As we were walking in Kensington Gardens, she pointed me out Mrs.
+Bragg's nursery-maid, who sings so loud at church, engaged with a
+Lifeguardsman, whom she was trying to convert probably. My virtuous
+friend rose indignant at the sight.
+
+"That's why these minxes like Kensington Gardens," she cried. "Look at
+the woman: she leaves the baby on the grass, for the giant to trample
+upon; and that little wretch of a Hastings Bragg is riding on the
+monster's cane."
+
+Miss C. flew up and seized the infant, waking it out of its sleep, and
+causing all the gardens to echo with its squalling. "I'll teach you to
+be impudent to me," she said to the nursery-maid, with whom my vivacious
+old friend, I suppose, has had a difference; and she would not release
+the infant until she had rung the bell of Bungalow Lodge, where she gave
+it up to the footman.
+
+The giant in scarlet had slunk down towards Knightsbridge meanwhile. The
+big rogues are always crossing the Park and the Gardens, and hankering
+about Our Street.
+
+
+WHAT SOMETIMES HAPPENS IN OUR STREET.
+
+
+It was before old Hunkington's house that the mutes were standing, as I
+passed and saw this group at the door. The charity-boy with the hoop is
+the son of the jolly-looking mute; he admires his father, who admires
+himself too, in those bran-new sables. The other infants are the spawn
+of the alleys about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever
+visit those mysterious haunts, which lie crouched about our splendid
+houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives.
+
+Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to the annoyance
+of the beadles, and the horror of a number of good people in the street.
+They will bring up the rear of the procession anon, when the grand
+omnibus with the feathers, and the line coaches with the long-tailed
+black horses, and the gentleman's private carriages with the shutters
+up, pass along to Saint Waltheof's.
+
+You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine already,
+mingling with the crowing of "Punch," who is passing down the street
+with his show; and the two musics make a queer medley.
+
+Not near so many people, I remark, engage "Punch" now as in the good old
+times. I suppose our quarter is growing too genteel for him.
+
+Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate's daughter in Wales, comes into all
+Hunkington's property, and will take his name, as I am told. Nobody
+ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother
+Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been
+heard of to the present day.
+
+But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty
+by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month
+that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service
+of plate; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense
+from Hobbs and Dobbs's, in which the old gentleman went out only once.
+
+"It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons," Miss Clapperclaw remarks:
+"upon those people who have been always living beyond their little
+incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them,
+and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and
+he did not want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so
+disappointed."
+
+"Think of giving him plate," Miss C. justly says, "who had chests-full;
+and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And
+everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the
+things back?" Miss Clapperclaw asks. "I wouldn't."
+
+And indeed I don't think Miss Clapperclaw would.
+
+
+SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS.
+
+
+That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, was lately
+occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bonnet, a short silk
+dress, sustained by a crinoline, and a light blue mantle, or over-jacket
+(Miss C. is not here to tell me the name of the garment); or else a
+black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, and a white bonnet; or else--but
+never mind the dress, which seemed to be of the handsomest sort money
+could buy--and who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly
+brilliant complexion,--No. 96, Pocklington Square, I say, was lately
+occupied by a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Molyneux.
+
+The very first day on which an intimate and valued female friend of mine
+saw Mrs. Stafford Molyneux stepping into a brougham, with a splendid bay
+horse, and without a footman, (mark, if you please, that delicate sign
+of respectability,) and after a moment's examination of Mrs. S. M.'s
+toilette, her manners, little dog, carnation-colored parasol, &c., Miss
+Elizabeth Clapperclaw clapped to the opera-glass with which she had been
+regarding the new inhabitant of Our Street, came away from the window
+in a great flurry, and began poking her fire in a fit of virtuous
+indignation.
+
+"She's very pretty," said I, who had been looking over Miss C.'s
+shoulder at the widow with the flashing eyes and drooping ringlets.
+
+"Hold your tongue, sir," said Miss Clapperclaw, tossing up her virgin
+head with an indignant blush on her nose. "It's a sin and a shame that
+such a creature should be riding in her carriage, forsooth, when honest
+people must go on foot."
+
+Subsequent observations confirmed my revered fellow-lodger's anger and
+opinion. We have watched Hansom cabs standing before that lady's house
+for hours; we have seen broughams, with great flaring eyes,
+keeping watch there in the darkness; we have seen the vans from the
+comestible-shops drive up and discharge loads of wines, groceries,
+French plums, and other articles of luxurious horror. We have seen Count
+Wowski's drag, Lord Martingale's carriage, Mr. Deuceace's cab drive up
+there time after time; and (having remarked previously the pastry-cook's
+men arrive with the trays and entrees), we have known that this widow
+was giving dinners at the little house in Pocklington Square--dinners
+such as decent people could not hope to enjoy.
+
+My excellent friend has been in a perfect fury when Mrs. Stafford
+Molyneux, in a black velvet riding-habit, with a hat and feather, has
+come out and mounted an odious gray horse, and has cantered down the
+street, followed by her groom upon a bay.
+
+"It won't last long--it must end in shame and humiliation," my dear Miss
+C. has remarked, disappointed that the tiles and chimney-pots did not
+fall down upon Mrs. Stafford Molyneux's head, and crush that cantering,
+audacious woman.
+
+But it was a consolation to see her when she walked out with a French
+maid, a couple of children, and a little dog hanging on to her by a blue
+ribbon. She always held down her head then--her head with the drooping
+black ringlets. The virtuous and well-disposed avoided her. I have
+seen the Square-keeper himself look puzzled as she passed; and Lady
+Kicklebury walking by with Miss K., her daughter, turn away from Mrs.
+Stafford Molyneux, and fling back at her a ruthless Parthian glance that
+ought to have killed any woman of decent sensibility.
+
+That wretched woman, meanwhile, with her rouged cheeks (for rouge it
+IS, Miss Clapperclaw swears, and who is a better judge?) has walked on
+conscious, and yet somehow braving out the Street. You could read pride
+of her beauty, pride of her fine clothes, shame of her position, in her
+downcast black eyes.
+
+As for Mademoiselle Trampoline, her French maid, she would stare the sun
+itself out of countenance. One day she tossed up her head as she passed
+under our windows with a look of scorn that drove Miss Clapperclaw back
+to the fireplace again.
+
+It was Mrs. Stafford Molyneux's children, however, whom I pitied the
+most. Once her boy, in a flaring tartan, went up to speak to Master
+Roderick Lacy, whose maid was engaged ogling a policeman; and the
+children were going to make friends, being united with a hoop which
+Master Molyneux had, when Master Roderick's maid, rushing up, clutched
+her charge to her arms, and hurried away, leaving little Molyneux sad
+and wondering.
+
+"Why won't he play with me, mamma?" Master Molyneux asked--and his
+mother's face blushed purple as she walked away.
+
+"Ah--heaven help us and forgive us!" said I; but Miss C. can never
+forgive the mother or child; and she clapped her hands for joy one day
+when we saw the shutters up, bills in the windows, a carpet hanging out
+over the balcony, and a crowd of shabby Jews about the steps--giving
+token that the reign of Mrs. Stafford Molyneux was over. The
+pastry-cooks and their trays, the bay and the gray, the brougham and the
+groom, the noblemen and their cabs, were all gone; and the tradesmen in
+the neighborhood were crying out that they were done.
+
+"Serve the odious minx right!" says Miss C.; and she played at piquet
+that night with more vigor than I have known her manifest for these last
+ten years.
+
+What is it that makes certain old ladies so savage upon certain
+subjects? Miss C. is a good woman; pays her rent and her tradesmen;
+gives plenty to the poor; is brisk with her tongue--kind-hearted in the
+main; but if Mrs. Stafford Molyneux and her children were plunged into
+a caldron of boiling vinegar, I think my revered friend would not take
+them out.
+
+
+THE MAN IN POSSESSION.
+
+
+For another misfortune which occurred in Our Street we were much more
+compassionate. We liked Danby Dixon, and his wife Fanny Dixon still
+more. Miss C. had a paper of biscuits and a box of preserved apricots
+always in the cupboard, ready for Dixon's children--provisions by
+the way which she locked up under Mrs. Cammysole's nose, so that our
+landlady could by no possibility lay a hand on them.
+
+Dixon and his wife had the neatest little house possible, (No. 16,
+opposite 96,) and were liked and respected by the whole street. He was
+called Dandy Dixon when he was in the dragoons, and was a light weight,
+and rather famous as a gentleman rider. On his marriage, he sold out and
+got fat: and was indeed a florid, contented, and jovial gentleman.
+
+His little wife was charming--to see her in pink with some miniature
+Dixons, in pink too, round about her, or in that beautiful gray dress,
+with the deep black lace flounces, which she wore at my Lord Comandine's
+on the night of the private theatricals, would have done any man
+good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, "Knowest Thou the
+Willow-tree?" for instance, or "The Rose upon my Balcony," or "The
+Humming of the Honey-bee," (far superior in MY judgment, and in that
+of SOME GOOD JUDGES likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul's
+ballads,)--to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small
+Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping
+bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle such a
+tender plumage.
+
+Well, never mind about sentiment. Danby Dixon, the owner of this little
+treasure, an ex-captain of Dragoons, and having nothing to do, and
+a small income, wisely thought he would employ his spare time, and
+increase his revenue. He became a director of the Cornaro Life Insurance
+Company, of the Tregulpho tin-mines, and of four or five railroad
+companies. It was amusing to see him swaggering about the City in his
+clinking boots, and with his high and mighty dragoon manners. For a time
+his talk about shares after dinner was perfectly intolerable; and I for
+one was always glad to leave him in the company of sundry very dubious
+capitalists who frequented his house, and walk up to hear Mrs. Fanny
+warbling at the piano with her little children about her knees.
+
+It was only last season that they set up a carriage--the modestest
+little vehicle conceivable--driven by Kirby, who had been in Dixon's
+troop in the regiment, and had followed him into private life as
+coachman, footman, and page.
+
+One day lately I went into Dixon's house, hearing that some calamities
+had befallen him, the particulars of which Miss Clapperclaw was desirous
+to know. The creditors of the Tregulpho Mines had got a verdict against
+him as one of the directors of that company; the engineer of the
+Little Diddlesex Junction had sued him for two thousand three hundred
+pounds--the charges of that scientific man for six weeks' labor in
+surveying the line. His brother directors were to be discovered nowhere:
+Windham, Dodgin, Mizzlington, and the rest, were all gone long ago.
+
+When I entered, the door was open: there was a smell of smoke in the
+dining-room, where a gentleman at noonday was seated with a pipe and
+a pot of beer: a man in possession indeed, in that comfortable pretty
+parlor, by that snug round table where I have so often seen Fanny
+Dixon's smiling face.
+
+Kirby, the ex-dragoon, was scowling at the fellow, who lay upon a little
+settee reading the newspaper, with an evident desire to kill him. Mrs.
+Kirby, his wife, held little Danby, poor Dixon's son and heir. Dixon's
+portrait smiled over the sideboard still, and his wife was up stairs
+in an agony of fear, with the poor little daughters of this bankrupt,
+broken family.
+
+This poor soul had actually come down and paid a visit to the man in
+possession. She had sent wine and dinner to "the gentleman down stairs,"
+as she called him in her terror. She had tried to move his heart, by
+representing to him how innocent Captain Dixon was, and how he had
+always paid, and always remained at home when everybody else had fled.
+As if her tears and simple tales and entreaties could move that man
+in possession out of the house, or induce him to pay the costs of the
+action which her husband had lost.
+
+Danby meanwhile was at Boulogne, sickening after his wife and children.
+They sold everything in his house--all his smart furniture and neat
+little stock of plate; his wardrobe and his linen, "the property of a
+gentleman gone abroad;" his carriage by the best maker; and his wine
+selected without regard to expense. His house was shut up as completely
+as his opposite neighbor's; and a new tenant is just having it fresh
+painted inside and out, as if poor Dixon had left an infection behind.
+
+Kirby and his wife went across the water with the children and Mrs.
+Fanny--she has a small settlement; and I am bound to say that our mutual
+friend Miss Elizabeth C. went down with Mrs. Dixon in the fly to the
+Tower Stairs, and stopped in Lombard Street by the way.
+
+So it is that the world wags: that honest men and knaves alike are
+always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we are perpetually
+changing tenants in Our Street.
+
+
+THE LION OF THE STREET.
+
+
+What people can find in Clarence Bulbul, who has lately taken upon
+himself the rank and dignity of Lion of Our Street, I have always been
+at a loss to conjecture.
+
+"He has written an Eastern book of considerable merit," Miss Clapperclaw
+says; but hang it, has not everybody written an Eastern book? I should
+like to meet anybody in society now who has not been up to the second
+cataract. An Eastern book forsooth! My Lord Castleroyal has done one--an
+honest one; my Lord Youngent another--an amusing one; my Lord Woolsey
+another--a pious one; there is "The Cutlet and the Cabob"--a sentimental
+one; "Timbuctoothen"--a humorous one, all ludicrously overrated, in my
+opinion: not including my own little book, of which a copy or two is
+still to be had, by the way.
+
+Well, then, Clarence Bulbul, because he has made part of the little tour
+that all of us know, comes back and gives himself airs, forsooth, and
+howls as if he were just out of the great Libyan desert.
+
+When we go and see him, that Irish Jew courier, whom I have before had
+the honor to describe, looks up from the novel which he is reading
+in the ante-room, and says, "Mon maitre est au divan," or, "Monsieur
+trouvera Monsieur dans son serail," and relapses into the Comte de
+Montecristo again.
+
+Yes, the impudent wretch has actually a room in his apartments on the
+ground-floor of his mother's house, which he calls his harem. When Lady
+Betty Bulbul (they are of the Nightingale family) or Miss Blanche
+comes down to visit him, their slippers are placed at the door, and he
+receives them on an ottoman, and these infatuated women will actually
+light his pipe for him.
+
+Little Spitfire, the groom, hangs about the drawing-room, outside the
+harem forsooth! so that he may be ready when Clarence Bulbul claps hands
+for him to bring the pipes and coffee.
+
+He has coffee and pipes for everybody. I should like you to have
+seen the face of old Bowly, his college-tutor, called upon to sit
+cross-legged on a divan, a little cup of bitter black Mocha put into his
+hand, and a large amber-muzzled pipe stuck into his mouth by Spitfire,
+before he could so much as say it was a fine day. Bowly almost thought
+he had compromised his principles by consenting so far to this Turkish
+manner.
+
+Bulbul's dinners are, I own, very good; his pilaffs and curries
+excellent. He tried to make us eat rice with our fingers, it is true;
+but he scalded his own hands in the business, and invariably bedizened
+his shirt; so he has left off the Turkish practice, for dinner at least,
+and uses a fork like a Christian.
+
+But it is in society that he is most remarkable; and here he would, I
+own, be odious, but he becomes delightful, because all the men hate him
+so. A perfect chorus of abuse is raised round about him. "Confounded
+impostor," says one; "Impudent jackass," says another; "Miserable
+puppy," cries a third; "I'd like to wring his neck," says Bruff,
+scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks,
+smiles, and patronizes them all with the easiest good-humor. He is a
+fellow who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke on the
+shoulder, as coolly as he would address you and me.
+
+I saw him the other night at Mrs. Bumpsher's grand let-off. He flung
+himself down cross-legged on a pink satin sofa, so that you could see
+Mrs. Bumpsher quiver with rage in the distance, Bruff growl with fury
+from the further room, and Miss Pim, on whose frock Bulbul's feet
+rested, look up like a timid fawn.
+
+"Fan me, Miss Pim," said he of the cushion. "You look like a perfect
+Peri to-night. You remind me of a girl I once knew in Circassia--Ameena,
+the sister of Schamyl Bey. Do you know, Miss Pim, that you would fetch
+twenty thousand piastres in the market at Constantinople?"
+
+"Law, Mr. Bulbul!" is all Miss Pim can ejaculate; and having talked over
+Miss Pim, Clarence goes off to another houri, whom he fascinates in a
+similar manner. He charmed Mrs. Waddy by telling her that she was the
+exact figure of the Pasha of Egypt's second wife. He gave Miss Tokely
+a piece of the sack in which Zuleika was drowned; and he actually
+persuaded that poor little silly Miss Vain to turn Mahometan, and sent
+her up to the Turkish ambassador's to look out for a mufti.
+
+
+THE DOVE OF OUR STREET.
+
+
+If Bulbul is our Lion, Young Oriel may be described as The Dove of our
+colony. He is almost as great a pasha among the ladies as Bulbul. They
+crowd in flocks to see him at Saint Waltheof's, where the immense height
+of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, the twang with
+which he intones the service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his
+sermons, have turned all the dear girls' heads for some time past.
+While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry's, whose daughters are
+following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which made me revoke
+by the way) going on, in what was formerly called the young ladies'
+room, but is now styled the Oratory:--
+
+
+THE ORATORY.
+
+MISS CHAUNTRY. MISS ISABEL CHAUNTRY.
+
+MISS DE L'AISLE. MISS PYX.
+
+REV. L. ORIEL. REV. O. SLOCUM--[In the further room.]
+
+
+Miss Chauntry (sighing).--Is it wrong to be in the Guards, dear Mr.
+Oriel?
+
+Miss Pyx.--She will make Frank de Boots sell out when he marries.
+
+Mr. Oriel.--To be in the Guards, dear sister? The church has always
+encouraged the army. Saint Martin of Tours was in the army; Saint
+Louis was in the army; Saint Waltheof, our patron, Saint Witikind of
+Aldermanbury, Saint Wamba, and Saint Walloff were in the army. Saint
+Wapshot was captain of the guard of Queen Boadicea; and Saint Werewolf
+was a major in the Danish cavalry. The holy Saint Ignatius of Loyola
+carried a pike, as we know; and--
+
+Miss De l'Aisle.--Will you take some tea, dear Mr. Oriel?
+
+Oriel.--This is not one of MY feast days, Sister Emma. It is the feast
+of Saint Wagstatf of Walthamstow.
+
+The Young Ladies.--And we must not even take tea?
+
+Oriel.--Dear sisters, I said not so. YOU may do as you list; but I am
+strong (with a heart-broken sigh); don't ply me (he reels). I took a
+little water and a parched pea after matins. To-morrow is a flesh day,
+and--and I shall be better then.
+
+Rev. O. Slocum (from within).--Madam, I take your heart with my small
+trump.
+
+Oriel.--Yes, better! dear sister; it is only a passing--a--weakness.
+
+Miss I. Chauntry.--He's dying of fever.
+
+Miss Chauntry.--I'm so glad De Boots need not leave the Blues.
+
+Miss Pyx.--He wears sackcloth and cinders inside his waistcoat.
+
+Miss De l'Aisle.--He's told me to-night he's going to--to--Ro-o-ome.
+[Miss De l'Aisle bursts into tears.]
+
+Rev. O. Slocum.--My lord, I have the highest club, which gives the trick
+and two by honors.
+
+
+Thus, you see, we have a variety of clergymen in Our Street. Mr. Oriel
+is of the pointed Gothic school, while old Slocum is of the good old
+tawny port-wine school: and it must be confessed that Mr. Gronow, at
+Ebenezer, has a hearty abhorrence for both.
+
+As for Gronow, I pity him, if his future lot should fall where Mr. Oriel
+supposes that it will.
+
+And as for Oriel, he has not even the benefit of purgatory, which he
+would accord to his neighbor Ebenezer; while old Slocum pronounces both
+to be a couple of humbugs; and Mr. Mole, the demure little beetle-browed
+chaplain of the little church of Avemary Lane, keeps his sly eyes down
+to the ground when he passes any one of his black-coated brethren.
+
+There is only one point on which, my friends, they seem agreed. Slocum
+likes port, but who ever heard that he neglected his poor? Gronow, if
+he comminates his neighbor's congregation, is the affectionate father
+of his own. Oriel, if he loves pointed Gothic and parched peas for
+breakfast, has a prodigious soup-kitchen for his poor; and as for little
+Father Mole, who never lifts his eyes from the ground, ask our doctor
+at what bedsides he finds him, and how he soothes poverty, and braves
+misery and infection.
+
+
+THE BUMPSHERS.
+
+
+No. 6, Pocklington Gardens, (the house with the quantity of flowers
+in the windows, and the awning over the entrance,) George Bumpsher,
+Esquire, M.P. for Humborough (and the Beanstalks, Kent).
+
+For some time after this gorgeous family came into our quarter, I
+mistook a bald-headed, stout person, whom I used to see looking through
+the flowers on the upper windows, for Bumpsher himself, or for the
+butler of the family; whereas it was no other than Mrs. Bumpsher,
+without her chestnut wig, and who is at least three times the size of
+her husband.
+
+The Bumpshers and the house of Mango at the Pineries vie together in
+their desire to dominate over the neighborhood; and each votes the other
+a vulgar and purse-proud family. The fact is, both are City people.
+Bumpsher, in his mercantile capacity, is a wholesale stationer in Thames
+Street; and his wife was the daughter of an eminent bill-broking firm,
+not a thousand miles from Lombard Street.
+
+He does not sport a coronet and supporters upon his London plate and
+carriages; but his country-house is emblazoned all over with those
+heraldic decorations. He puts on an order when he goes abroad, and is
+Count Bumpsher of the Roman States--which title he purchased from the
+late Pope (through Prince Polonia the banker) for a couple of thousand
+scudi.
+
+It is as good as a coronation to see him and Mrs. Bumpsher go to Court.
+I wonder the carriage can hold them both. On those days Mrs. Bumpsher
+holds her own drawing-room before her Majesty's; and we are invited to
+come and see her sitting in state, upon the largest sofa in her rooms.
+She has need of a stout one, I promise you. Her very feathers must weigh
+something considerable. The diamonds on her stomacher would embroider a
+full-sized carpet-bag. She has rubies, ribbons, cameos, emeralds, gold
+serpents, opals, and Valenciennes lace, as if she were an immense sample
+out of Howell and James's shop.
+
+She took up with little Pinkney at Rome, where he made a charming
+picture of her, representing her as about eighteen, with a cherub in her
+lap, who has some liking to Bryanstone Bumpsher, her enormous, vulgar
+son; now a cornet in the Blues, and anything but a cherub, as those
+would say who saw him in his uniform jacket.
+
+I remember Pinkney when he was painting the picture, Bryanstone being
+then a youth in what they call a skeleton suit (as if such a pig of a
+child could ever have been dressed in anything resembling a skeleton)--I
+remember, I say, Mrs. B. sitting to Pinkney in a sort of Egerian
+costume, her boy by her side, whose head the artist turned round and
+directed it towards a piece of gingerbread, which he was to have at the
+end of the sitting.
+
+Pinkney, indeed, a painter!--a contemptible little humbug, a parasite
+of the great! He has painted Mrs. Bumpsher younger every year for these
+last ten years--and you see in the advertisements of all her parties
+his odious little name stuck in at the end of the list. I'm sure, for my
+part, I'd scorn to enter her doors, or be the toady of any woman.
+
+
+JOLLY NEWBOY, ESQ., M.P.
+
+
+How different it is with the Newboys, now, where I have an entree
+(having indeed had the honor in former days to give lessons to both the
+ladies)--and where such a quack as Pinkney would never be allowed to
+enter! A merrier house the whole quarter cannot furnish. It is there
+you meet people of all ranks and degrees, not only from our quarter,
+but from the rest of the town. It is there that our great man, the Right
+Honorable Lord Comandine, came up and spoke to me in so encouraging
+a manner that I hope to be invited to one of his lordship's excellent
+dinners (of which I shall not fail to give a very flattering
+description) before the season is over. It is there you find yourself
+talking to statesmen, poets, and artists--not sham poets like Bulbul, or
+quack artists like that Pinkney--but to the best members of all society.
+It is there I made this sketch, while Miss Chesterforth was singing a
+deep-toned tragic ballad, and her mother scowling behind her. What a
+buzz and clack and chatter there was in the room to be sure! When Miss
+Chesterforth sings, everybody begins to talk. Hicks and old Fogy were on
+Ireland: Bass was roaring into old Pump's ears (or into his horn rather)
+about the Navigation Laws; I was engaged talking to the charming Mrs.
+Short; while Charley Bonham (a mere prig, in whom I am surprised that
+the women can see anything,) was pouring out his fulsome rhapsodies in
+the ears of Diana White. Lovely, lovely Diana White! were it not for
+three or four other engagements, I know a heart that would suit you to a
+T.
+
+Newboy's I pronounce to be the jolliest house in the street. He has only
+of late had a rush of prosperity, and turned Parliament man; for his
+distant cousin, of the ancient house of Newboy of ----shire, dying,
+Fred--then making believe to practise at the bar, and living with the
+utmost modesty in Gray's Inn Road--found himself master of a fortune,
+and a great house in the country; of which getting tired, as in the
+course of nature he should, he came up to London, and took that fine
+mansion in our Gardens. He represents Mumborough in Parliament, a seat
+which has been time out of mind occupied by a Newboy.
+
+Though he does not speak, being a great deal too rich, sensible, and
+lazy, he somehow occupies himself with reading blue-books, and indeed
+talks a great deal too much good sense of late over his dinner-table,
+where there is always a cover for the present writer.
+
+He falls asleep pretty assiduously too after that meal--a practice
+which I can well pardon in him--for, between ourselves, his wife, Maria
+Newboy, and his sister, Clarissa, are the loveliest and kindest of their
+sex, and I would rather hear their innocent prattle, and lively talk
+about their neighbors, than the best wisdom from the wisest man that
+ever wore a beard.
+
+Like a wise and good man, he leaves the question of his household
+entirely to the women. They like going to the play. They like going to
+Greenwich. They like coming to a party at Bachelor's hall. They are up
+to all sorts of fun, in a word; in which taste the good-natured Newboy
+acquiesces, provided he is left to follow his own.
+
+It was only on the 17th of the month, that, having had the honor to dine
+at the house, when, after dinner, which took place at eight, we left
+Newboy to his blue-books, and went up stairs and sang a little to the
+guitar afterwards--it was only on the 17th December, the night of Lady
+Sowerby's party, that the following dialogue took place in the boudoir,
+whither Newboy, blue-books in hand, had ascended.
+
+He was curled up with his House of Commons boots on his wife's
+arm-chair, reading his eternal blue-books, when Mrs. N. entered from her
+apartment, dressed for the evening.
+
+Mrs. N.--Frederick, won't you come?
+
+Mr. N.--Where?
+
+Mrs. N.--To Lady Sowerby's.
+
+Mr. N.--I'd rather go to the Black Hole in Calcutta. Besides, this
+Sanitary Report is really the most interesting--[he begins to read.]
+
+Mrs. N.--(piqued)--Well, Mr. Titmarsh will go with us.
+
+Mr. N.--Will he? I wish him joy.
+
+At this juncture Miss Clarissa Newboy enters in a pink paletot, trimmed
+with swansdown--looking like an angel--and we exchange glances of--what
+shall I say?--of sympathy on both parts, and consummate rapture on mine.
+But this is by-play.
+
+Mrs. N.--Good night, Frederick. I think we shall be late.
+
+Mr. N.--You won't wake me, I dare say; and you don't expect a public man
+to sit up.
+
+Mrs. N.--It's not you, it's the servants. Cocker sleeps very heavily.
+The maids are best in bed, and are all ill with the influenza. I say,
+Frederick dear, don't you think you had better give me YOUR CHUBB KEY?
+
+This astonishing proposal, which violates every recognized law of
+society--this demand which alters all the existing state of things--this
+fact of a woman asking for a door-key, struck me with a terror which I
+cannot describe, and impressed me with the fact of the vast progress of
+Our Street. The door-key! What would our grandmothers, who dwelt in
+this place when it was a rustic suburb, think of its condition now, when
+husbands stay at home, and wives go abroad with the latchkey?
+
+The evening at Lady Sowerby's was the most delicious we have spent for
+long, long days.
+
+Thus it will be seen that everybody of any consideration in Our Street
+takes a line. Mrs. Minimy (34) takes the homoeopathic line, and has
+soirees of doctors of that faith. Lady Pocklington takes the capitalist
+line; and those stupid and splendid dinners of hers are devoured by
+loan-contractors and railroad princes. Mrs. Trimmer (38) comes out in
+the scientific line, and indulges us in rational evenings, where history
+is the lightest subject admitted, and geology and the sanitary condition
+of the metropolis form the general themes of conversation. Mrs. Brumby
+plays finely on the bassoon, and has evenings dedicated to Sebastian
+Bach, and enlivened with Handel. At Mrs. Maskleyn's they are mad for
+charades and theatricals.
+
+They performed last Christmas in a French piece, by Alexandre Dumas, I
+believe--"La Duchesse de Montefiasco," of which I forget the plot, but
+everybody was in love with everybody else's wife, except the hero, Don
+Alonzo, who was ardently attached to the Duchess, who turned out to be
+his grandmother. The piece was translated by Lord Fiddle-faddle, Tom
+Bulbul being the Don Alonzo; and Mrs. Roland Calidore (who never misses
+an opportunity of acting in a piece in which she can let down her hair)
+was the Duchess.
+
+
+ALONZO.
+
+You know how well he loves you, and you wonder To see Alonzo suffer,
+Cunegunda?--Ask if the chamois suffer when they feel Plunged in their
+panting sides the hunter's steel? Or when the soaring heron or eagle
+proud, Pierced by my shaft, comes tumbling from the cloud, Ask if the
+royal birds no anguish know, The victims of Alonzo's twanging bow? Then
+ask him if he suffers--him who dies, Pierced by the poisoned glance that
+glitters from your eyes!  [He staggers from the effect of the poison.
+
+THE DUCHESS.
+
+Alonzo loves--Alonzo loves! and whom? His grandmother! Oh, hide me,
+gracious tomb!  [Her Grace faints away.
+
+
+Such acting as Tom Bulbul's I never saw. Tom lisps atrociously, and
+uttered the passage, "You athk me if I thuffer," in the most absurd way.
+Miss Clapperclaw says he acted pretty well, and that I only joke about
+him because I am envious, and wanted to act a part myself.--I envious
+indeed!
+
+But of all the assemblies, feastings, junketings, dejeunes, soirees,
+conversaziones, dinner-parties, in Our Street, I know of none pleasanter
+than the banquets at Tom Fairfax's; one of which this enormous
+provision-consumer gives seven times a week. He lives in one of the
+little houses of the old Waddilove Street quarter, built long before
+Pocklington Square and Pocklington Gardens and the Pocklington family
+itself had made their appearance in this world.
+
+Tom, though he has a small income, and lives in a small house, yet sits
+down one of a party of twelve to dinner every day of his life; these
+twelve consisting of Mrs. Fairfax, the nine Misses Fairfax, and Master
+Thomas Fairfax--the son and heir to twopence halfpenny a year.
+
+It is awkward just now to go and beg pot-luck from such a family as
+this; because, though a guest is always welcome, we are thirteen at
+table--an unlucky number, it is said. This evil is only temporary, and
+will be remedied presently, when the family will be thirteen WITHOUT the
+occasional guest, to judge from all appearances.
+
+Early in the morning Mrs. Fairfax rises, and cuts bread and butter from
+six o'clock till eight; during which time the nursery operations upon
+the nine little graces are going on. If his wife has to rise early to
+cut the bread and butter, I warrant Fairfax must be up betimes to earn
+it. He is a clerk in a Government office; to which duty he trudges
+daily, refusing even twopenny omnibuses. Every time he goes to the
+shoemaker's he has to order eleven pairs of shoes, and so can't afford
+to spare his own. He teaches the children Latin every morning, and is
+already thinking when Tom shall be inducted into that language. He
+works in his garden for an hour before breakfast. His work over by three
+o'clock, he tramps home at four, and exchanges his dapper coat for his
+dressing-gown--a ragged but honorable garment.
+
+Which is the best, his old coat or Sir John's bran-new one? Which is the
+most comfortable and becoming, Mrs. Fairfax's black velvet gown (which
+she has worn at the Pocklington Square parties these twelve years, and
+in which I protest she looks like a queen), or that new robe which the
+milliner has just brought home to Mrs. Bumpsher's, and into which she
+will squeeze herself on Christmas-day?
+
+Miss Clapperclaw says that we are all so charmingly contented with
+ourselves that not one of us would change with his neighbor; and so,
+rich and poor, high and low, one person is about as happy as another in
+Our Street.
+
+
+
+
+DOCTOR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS
+
+by MR. M. A. TITMARSH
+
+
+THE DOCTOR AND HIS STAFF.
+
+
+There is no need to say why I became assistant-master and professor of
+the English and French languages, flower-painting, and the German flute,
+in Doctor Birch's Academy, at Rodwell Regis. Good folks may depend on
+this, that it was not for CHOICE that I left lodgings near London, and
+a genteel society, for an under-master's desk in that old school.
+I promise you the fare at the usher's table, the getting up at five
+o'clock in the morning, the walking out with little boys in the fields,
+(who used to play me tricks, and never could be got to respect my awful
+and responsible character as teacher in the school,) Miss Birch's vulgar
+insolence, Jack Birch's glum condescension, and the poor old Doctor's
+patronage, were not matters in themselves pleasurable: and that that
+patronage and those dinners were sometimes cruel hard to swallow. Never
+mind--my connection with the place is over now, and I hope they have got
+a more efficient under-master.
+
+Jack Birch (Rev. J. Birch, of St. Neot's Hall, Oxford,) is partner with
+his father the Doctor, and takes some of the classes. About his Greek
+I can't say much; but I will construe him in Latin any day. A more
+supercilious little prig, (giving himself airs, too, about his cousin,
+Miss Raby, who lives with the Doctor,) a more empty, pompous little
+coxcomb I never saw. His white neck-cloth looked as if it choked him. He
+used to try and look over that starch upon me and Prince the assistant,
+as if he were a couple of footmen. He didn't do much business in the
+school; but occupied his time in writing sanctified letters to the boys'
+parents, and in composing dreary sermons to preach to them.
+
+The real master of the school is Prince; an Oxford man too: shy,
+haughty, and learned; crammed with Greek and a quantity of useless
+learning; uncommonly kind to the small boys; pitiless with the fools
+and the braggarts; respected of all for his honesty, his learning, his
+bravery, (for he hit out once in a boat-row in a way which astonished
+the boys and the bargemen,) and for a latent power about him, which all
+saw and confessed somehow. Jack Birch could never look him in the face.
+Old Miss Z. dared not put off any of HER airs upon him. Miss Rosa made
+him the lowest of curtsies. Miss Raby said she was afraid of him.
+Good old Prince! we have sat many a night smoking in the Doctor's
+harness-room, whither we retired when our boys were gone to bed, and our
+cares and canes put by.
+
+After Jack Birch had taken his degree at Oxford--a process which he
+effected with great difficulty--this place, which used to be called
+"Birch's," "Dr. Birch's Academy," and what not, became suddenly
+"Archbishop Wigsby's College of Rodwell Regis." They took down the old
+blue board with the gold letters, which has been used to mend the pigsty
+since. Birch had a large school-room run up in the Gothic taste, with
+statuettes, and a little belfry, and a bust of Archbishop Wigsby in the
+middle of the school. He put the six senior boys into caps and gowns,
+which had rather a good effect as the lads sauntered down the street of
+the town, but which certainly provoked the contempt and hostility of
+the bargemen; and so great was his rage for academic costumes and
+ordinances, that he would have put me myself into a lay gown, with
+red knots and fringes, but that I flatly resisted, and said that a
+writing-master had no business with such paraphernalia.
+
+By the way, I have forgotten to mention the Doctor himself. And what
+shall I say of him? Well, he has a very crisp gown and bands, a solemn
+aspect, a tremendous loud voice, and a grand air with the boys' parents;
+whom he receives in a study covered round with the best-bound books,
+which imposes upon many--upon the women especially--and makes them fancy
+that this is a Doctor indeed. But law bless you! He never reads the
+books, or opens one of them; except that in which he keeps his bands--a
+Dugdale's "Monasticon," which looks like a book, but is in reality a
+cupboard, where he has his port, almond-cakes, and decanter of wine.
+He gets up his classics with translations, or what the boys call cribs;
+they pass wicked tricks upon him when he hears the forms. The elder wags
+go to his study and ask him to help them in hard bits of Herodotus or
+Thucydides: he says he will look over the passage, and flies for refuge
+to Mr. Prince, or to the crib.
+
+He keeps the flogging department in his own hands; finding that his
+son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big voice. But his roar
+frightens nobody. It is only a lion's skin; or, so to say, a muff.
+
+Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like a well-known
+domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed for the caricature.
+The Doctor discovered him in the fact, and was in a flaming rage, and
+threatened whipping at first; but in the course of the day an opportune
+basket of game arriving from Mordant's father, the Doctor became
+mollified, and has burnt the picture with the ears. However, I have one
+wafered up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal.
+
+
+THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL.
+
+
+I am growing an old fellow, and have seen many great folks in the course
+of my travels and time: Louis Philippe coming out of the Tuileries; his
+Majesty the King of Prussia and the Reichsverweser accolading each other
+at Cologne at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus
+once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late
+benevolent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this
+world--the whom whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and
+tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear and trembling with which a
+modest spirit salutes a GREAT MAN.
+
+Well, I have seen generals capering on horseback at the head of their
+crimson battalions; bishops sailing down cathedral aisles, with downcast
+eyes, pressing their trencher caps to their hearts with their fat white
+hands; college heads when her Majesty is on a visit; the doctor in all
+his glory at the head of his school on speech-day: a great sight and all
+great men these. I have never met the late Mr. Thomas Cribb, but I have
+no doubt should have regarded him with the same feeling of awe with
+which I look every day at George Champion, the Cock of Dr. Birch's
+school.
+
+When, I say, I reflect as I go up and set him a sum, that he could whop
+me in two minutes, double up Prince and the other assistant, and pitch
+the Doctor out of window, I can't but think how great, how generous, how
+magnanimous a creature this is, that sits quite quiet and good-natured,
+and works his equation, and ponders through his Greek play. He might
+take the school-room pillars and pull the house down if he liked. He
+might close the door, and demolish every one of us, like Antar the lover
+or Ibla; but he lets us live. He never thrashes anybody without a cause;
+when woe betide the tyrant or the sneak!
+
+I think that to be strong, and able to whop everybody--(not to do
+it, mind you, but to feel that you were able to do it,)--would be the
+greatest of all gifts. There is a serene good humor which plays about
+George Champion's broad face, which shows the consciousness of this
+power, and lights up his honest blue eyes with a magnanimous calm.
+
+He is invictus. Even when a cub there was no beating this lion. Six
+years ago the undaunted little warrior actually stood up to Frank
+Davison,--(the Indian officer now--poor little Charley's brother, whom
+Miss Raby nursed so affectionately,)--then seventeen years old, and the
+Cock of Birch's. They were obliged to drag off the boy, and Frank, with
+admiration and regard for him, prophesied the great things he would do.
+Legends of combats are preserved fondly in schools; they have stories of
+such at Rodwell Regis, performed in the old Doctor's time, forty years
+ago.
+
+Champion's affair with the Young Tutbury Pet, who was down here in
+training,--with Black the bargeman,--with the three head boys of Doctor
+Wapshot's academy, whom he caught maltreating an outlying day-boy
+of ours, &c.,--are known to all the Rodwell Regis men. He was always
+victorious. He is modest and kind, like all great men. He has a good,
+brave, honest understanding. He cannot make verses like young Pinder,
+or read Greek like Wells the Prefect, who is a perfect young abyss of
+learning, and knows enough, Prince says, to furnish any six first-class
+men; but he does his work in a sound downright way, and he is made to be
+the bravest of soldiers, the best of country parsons, an honest English
+gentleman wherever he may go.
+
+Old Champion's chief friend and attendant is Young Jack Hall, whom he
+saved, when drowning, out of the Miller's Pool. The attachment of the
+two is curious to witness. The smaller lad gambolling, playing tricks
+round the bigger one, and perpetually making fun of his protector. They
+are never far apart, and of holidays you may meet them miles away from
+the school,--George sauntering heavily down the lanes with his
+big stick, and little Jack larking with the pretty girls in the
+cottage-windows.
+
+George has a boat on the river, in which, however, he commonly lies
+smoking, whilst Jack sculls him. He does not play at cricket, except
+when the school plays the county, or at Lord's in the holidays. The boys
+can't stand his bowling, and when he hits, it is like trying to catch a
+cannon-ball. I have seen him at tennis. It is a splendid sight to behold
+the young fellow bounding over the court with streaming yellow hair,
+like young Apollo in a flannel jacket.
+
+The other head boys are Lawrence the captain, Bunce, famous chiefly for
+his magnificent appetite, and Pitman, surnamed Roscius, for his love of
+the drama. Add to these Swanky, called Macassar, from his partiality
+to that condiment, and who has varnished boots, wears white gloves on
+Sundays, and looks out for Miss Pinkerton's school (transferred from
+Chiswick to Rodwell Regis, and conducted by the nieces of the late
+Miss Barbara Pinkerton, the friend of our great lexicographer, upon the
+principles approved by him, and practised by that admirable woman,) as
+it passes into church.
+
+Representations have been made concerning Mr. Horace Swanky's
+behavior; rumors have been uttered about notes in verse, conveyed in
+three-cornered puffs, by Mrs. Ruggles, who serves Miss Pinkerton's young
+ladies on Fridays,--and how Miss Didow, to whom the tart and enclosure
+were addressed, tried to make away with herself by swallowing a ball of
+cotton. But I pass over these absurd reports, as likely to affect the
+reputation of an admirable seminary conducted by irreproachable females.
+As they go into church Miss P. driving in her flock of lambkins with
+the crook of her parasol, how can it be helped if her forces and ours
+sometimes collide, as the boys are on their way up to the organ-loft?
+And I don't believe a word about the three-cornered puff, but rather
+that it was the invention of that jealous Miss Birch, who is jealous of
+Miss Raby, jealous of everybody who is good and handsome, and who has
+HER OWN ENDS in view, or I am very much in error.
+
+
+THE DEAR BROTHERS.
+
+A MELODRAMA IN SEVERAL ROUNDS.
+
+
+THE DOCTOR.
+
+MR. TIPPER, Uncle to the Masters Boxall.
+
+BOXALL MAJOR, BOXALL MINOR, BROWN, JONES, SMITH, ROBINSON, TIFFIN
+MINIMUS.
+
+
+B. Go it, old Boxall!
+
+J. Give it him, young Boxall!
+
+R. Pitch into him, old Boxall!
+
+S. Two to one on young Boxall!
+
+[Enter TIFFIN MINIMUS, running.
+
+Tiffin Minimus.--Boxalls! you're wanted. (The Doctor to Mr.
+Tipper.)--Every boy in the school loves them, my dear sir; your nephews
+are a credit to my establishment. They are orderly, well-conducted,
+gentlemanlike boys. Let us enter and find them at their studies.
+
+[Enter The DOCTOR and Mr. TIPPER.
+
+GRAND TABLEAU.
+
+
+THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM.
+
+
+What they call the little school-room is a small room at the other end
+of the great school; through which you go to the Doctor's private house,
+and where Miss Raby sits with her pupils. She has a half-dozen very
+small ones over whom she presides and teaches them in her simple way,
+until they are big or learned enough to face the great school-room. Many
+of them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little simpletons,
+and know no more than their elders when they are well off.
+
+She keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends the linen,
+and sews on the general shirt-buttons. Think of having such a woman
+at home to sew on one's shirt-buttons! But peace, peace, thou foolish
+heart!
+
+Miss Raby is the Doctor's niece. Her mother was a beauty (quite unlike
+old Zoe therefore); and she married a pupil in the old Doctor's time who
+was killed afterwards, a captain in the East India service, at the siege
+of Bhurtpore. Hence a number of Indian children come to the Doctor's;
+for Raby was very much liked, and the uncle's kind reception of the
+orphan has been a good speculation for the school-keeper.
+
+It is wonderful how brightly and gayly that little quick creature
+does her duty. She is the first to rise, and the last to sleep, if any
+business is to be done. She sees the other two women go off to parties
+in the town without even so much as wishing to join them. It is
+Cinderella, only contented to stay at home--content to bear Zoe's scorn
+and to admit Rosa's superior charms,--and to do her utmost to repay her
+uncle for his great kindness in housing her.
+
+So you see she works as much as three maid-servants for the wages of
+one. She is as thankful when the Doctor gives her a new gown, as if
+he had presented her with a fortune; laughs at his stories most
+good-humoredly, listens to Zoe's scolding most meekly, admires Rosa with
+all her heart, and only goes out of the way when Jack Birch shows his
+sallow face: for she can't bear him, and always finds work when he comes
+near.
+
+How different she is when some folks approach her! I won't be
+presumptuous; but I think, I think, I have made a not unfavorable
+impression in some quarters. However, let us be mum on this subject. I
+like to see her, because she always looks good-humored; because she is
+always kind, because she is always modest, because she is fond of those
+poor little brats,--orphans some of them--because she is rather pretty,
+I dare say, or because I think so, which comes to the same thing.
+
+Though she is kind to all, it must be owned she shows the most gross
+favoritism towards the amiable children. She brings them cakes from
+dessert, and regales them with Zoe's preserves; spends many of her
+little shillings in presents for her favorites, and will tell them
+stories by the hour. She has one very sad story about a little boy, who
+died long ago: the younger children are never weary of hearing about
+him; and Miss Raby has shown to one of them a lock of the little chap's
+hair, which she keeps in her work-box to this day.
+
+
+A HOPELESS CASE.
+
+
+Let us, people who are so uncommonly clever and learned, have a great
+tenderness and pity for the poor folks who are not endowed with the
+prodigious talents which we have. I have always had a regard for
+dunces;--those of my own school-days were amongst the pleasantest of the
+fellows, and have turned out by no means the dullest in life; whereas
+many a youth who could turn off Latin hexameters by the yard, and
+construe Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with
+not a pennyworth more brains than were in his head before his beard
+grew.
+
+Those poor dunces! Talk of being the last man, ah! what a pang it must
+be to be the last boy--huge, misshapen, fourteen years of age, and
+"taken up" by a chap who is but six years old, and can't speak quite
+plain yet!
+
+Master Hulker is in that condition at Birch's. He is the most honest,
+kind, active, plucky, generous creature. He can do many things better
+than most boys. He can go up a tree, pump, play at cricket, dive and
+swim perfectly--he can eat twice as much as almost any lady (as Miss
+Birch well knows), he has a pretty talent at carving figures with his
+hack-knife, he makes and paints little coaches, he can take a watch to
+pieces and put it together again. He can do everything but learn his
+lesson; and then he sticks at the bottom of the school hopeless. As the
+little boys are drafted in from Miss Raby's class, (it is true she is
+one of the best instructresses in the world,) they enter and hop over
+poor Hulker. He would be handed over to the governess, only he is too
+big. Sometimes, I used to think that this desperate stupidity was a
+stratagem of the poor rascal's, and that he shammed dulness, so that he
+might be degraded into Miss Raby's class--if she would teach ME, I know,
+before George, I would put on a pinafore and a little jacket--but no, it
+is a natural incapacity for the Latin Grammar.
+
+If you could see his grammar, it is a perfect curiosity of dog's ears.
+The leaves and cover are all curled and ragged. Many of the pages are
+worn away with the rubbing of his elbows as he sits poring over the
+hopeless volume, with the blows of his fists as he thumps it madly, or
+with the poor fellow's tears. You see him wiping them away with the back
+of his hand, as he tries and tries, and can't do it.
+
+When I think of that Latin Grammar, and that infernal As in praesenti,
+and of other things which I was made to learn in my youth; upon my
+conscience, I am surprised that we ever survived it. When one thinks
+of the boys who have been caned because they could not master that
+intolerable jargon! Good Lord, what a pitiful chorus these poor little
+creatures send up! Be gentle with them, ye schoolmasters, and only whop
+those who WON'T learn.
+
+The Doctor has operated upon Hulker (between ourselves), but the boy was
+so little affected you would have thought he had taken chloroform. Birch
+is weary of whipping now, and leaves the boy to go his own gait. Prince,
+when he hears the lesson, and who cannot help making fun of a fool,
+adopts the sarcastic manner with Master Hulker, and says, "Mr. Hulker,
+may I take the liberty to inquire if your brilliant intellect has
+enabled you to perceive the difference between those words which
+grammarians have defined as substantive and adjective nouns?--if not,
+perhaps Mr. Ferdinand Timmins will instruct you." And Timmins hops over
+Hulker's head.
+
+I wish Prince would leave off girding at the poor lad. He is a boy, and
+his mother is a widow woman, who loves him with all her might. There is
+a famous sneer about the suckling of fools and the chronicling of small
+beer; but remember it was a rascal who uttered it.
+
+
+A WORD ABOUT MISS BIRCH.
+
+
+"The gentlemen, and especially the younger and more tender of these
+pupils, will have the advantage of the constant superintendence and
+affectionate care of Miss Zoe Birch, sister of the principal: whose
+clearest aim will be to supply (as far as may be) the absent maternal
+friend."--Prospectus of Rodwell Regis School.
+
+This is all very well in the Doctor's prospectus, and Miss Zoe Birch--(a
+pretty blossom it is, fifty-five years old, during two score of which
+she has dosed herself with pills; with a nose as red and a face as sour
+as a crab-apple)--this is all mighty well in a prospectus. But I should
+like to know who would take Miss Zoe for a mother, or would have her for
+one?
+
+The only persons in the house who are not afraid of her are Miss Rosa
+and I--no, I am afraid of her, though I DO know the story about the
+French usher in 1830--but all the rest tremble before the woman, from
+the Doctor down to poor Francis the knife-boy, whom she bullies into his
+miserable blacking-hole.
+
+The Doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man--but inwardly weak
+and easy; loving a joke and a glass of port-wine. I get on with him,
+therefore, much better than Mr. Prince, who scorns him for an ass,
+and under whose keen eyes the worthy Doctor writhes like a convicted
+impostor; and many a sunshiny afternoon would he have said, "Mr. T.,
+sir, shall we try another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you
+seem to like?" (and which he likes even better than I do,) had not the
+old harridan of a Zoe been down upon us, and insisted on turning me
+out with her abominable weak coffee. She a mother indeed! A sour-milk
+generation she would have nursed. She is always croaking, scolding,
+bullying--yowling at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing
+after the little boys, barking after the big ones. She knows how much
+every boy eats to an ounce; and her delight is to ply with fat the
+little ones who can't bear it, and with raw meat those who hate
+underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor to be eaten out three times;
+and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his
+flogging Goliath Longman.
+
+The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to
+the little boys' dormitories with a cup of hot Epsom salts, and a sippet
+of bread. Boo!--the very notion makes me quiver. She stands over them.
+I saw her do it to young Byles only a few days since; and her presence
+makes the abomination doubly abominable.
+
+As for attending them in real illness, do you suppose that she would
+watch a single night for any one of them? Not she. When poor little
+Charley Davison (that child a lock of whose soft hair I have said how
+Miss Raby still keeps) lay ill of scarlet fever in the holidays--for the
+Colonel, the father of these boys, was in India--it was Anne Raby who
+tended the child, who watched him all through the fever, who never left
+him while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were
+never to brighten or moisten more. Anny watched and deplored him; but it
+was Miss Birch who wrote the letter announcing his demise, and got the
+gold chain and locket which the Colonel ordered as a memento of his
+gratitude. It was through a row with Miss Birch that Frank Davison ran
+away. I promise you that after he joined his regiment in India, the
+Ahmednuggur Irregulars, which his gallant father commands, there came
+over no more annual shawls and presents to Dr. and Miss Birch; and that
+if she fancied the Colonel was coming home to marry her (on account of
+her tenderness to his motherless children, which he was always writing
+about), THAT notion was very soon given up. But these affairs are
+of early date, seven years back, and I only heard of them in a very
+confused manner from Miss Raby, who was a girl, and had just come to
+Rodwell Regis. She is always very much moved when she speaks about those
+boys; which is but seldom. I take it the death of the little one still
+grieves her tender heart.
+
+Yes, it is Miss Birch, who has turned away seventeen ushers and
+second-masters in eleven years, and half as many French masters, I
+suppose, since the departure of her FAVORITE, M. Grinche, with her gold
+watch, &c.; but this is only surmise--that is, from hearsay, and from
+Miss Rosa taunting her aunt, as she does sometimes, in her graceful way:
+but besides this, I have another way of keeping her in order.
+
+Whenever she is particularly odious or insolent to Miss Raby, I have but
+to introduce raspberry jam into the conversation, and the woman holds
+her tongue. She will understand me. I need not say more.
+
+NOTE, 12th December. I MAY speak now. I have left the place and
+don't mind. I say then at once, and without caring twopence for the
+consequences, that I saw this woman, this MOTHER of the boys, EATING JAM
+WITH A SPOON OUT OF MASTER WIGGINS'S TRUNK IN THE BOX-ROOM: and of this
+I am ready to take an affidavit any day.
+
+
+A TRAGEDY.
+
+THE DRAMA OUGHT TO BE REPRESENTED IN ABOUT SIX ACTS.
+
+
+[The school is hushed. LAWRENCE the Prefect, and Custos of the rods, is
+marching after the DOCTOR into the operating-room. MASTER BACKHOUSE is
+about to follow.]
+
+
+Master Backhouse.--It's all very well, but you see if I don't pay you
+out after school--you sneak you!
+
+Master Lurcher.--If you do I'll tell again.  [Exit BACKHOUSE.
+
+[The rod is heard from the adjoining apartment.
+Hwish--hwish--hwish--hwish--hwish--hwish--hwish!  [Re-enter BACKHOUSE.
+
+
+BRIGGS IN LUCK.
+
+
+Enter the Knife-boy.--Hamper for Briggses! Master Brown.--Hurray, Tom
+Briggs! I'll lend you my knife.
+
+
+If this story does not carry its own moral, what fable does, I wonder?
+Before the arrival of that hamper, Master Briggs was in no better repute
+than any other young gentleman of the lower school; and in fact I had
+occasion myself, only lately, to correct Master Brown for kicking his
+friend's shins during the writing-lesson. But how this basket, directed
+by his mother's housekeeper and marked "Glass with care," (whence I
+conclude that it contains some jam and some bottles of wine, probably,
+as well as the usual cake and game-pie, and half a sovereign for the
+elder Master B., and five new shillings for Master Decimus Briggs)--how,
+I say, the arrival of this basket alters all Master Briggs's
+circumstances in life, and the estimation in which many persons regard
+him!
+
+If he is a good-hearted boy, as I have reason to think, the very first
+thing he will do, before inspecting the contents of the hamper, or
+cutting into them with the knife which Master Brown has so considerately
+lent him, will be to read over the letter from home which lies on the
+top of the parcel. He does so, as I remark to Miss Raby (for whom I
+happened to be mending pens when the little circumstance arose), with a
+flushed face and winking eyes. Look how the other boys are peering into
+the basket as he reads.--I say to her, "Isn't it a pretty picture?" Part
+of the letter is in a very large hand. This is from his little sister.
+And I would wager that she netted the little purse which he has just
+taken out of it, and which Master Lynx is eying.
+
+"You are a droll man, and remark all sorts of queer things," Miss Raby
+says, smiling, and plying her swift needle and fingers as quick as
+possible.
+
+"I am glad we are both on the spot, and that the little fellow lies
+under our guns as it were, and so is protected from some such brutal
+school-pirate as young Duval for instance, who would rob him, probably,
+of some of those good things; good in themselves, and better because
+fresh from home. See, there is a pie as I said, and which I dare say is
+better than those which are served at our table (but you never take any
+notice of such kind of things, Miss Raby), a cake of course, a bottle
+of currant-wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the straw. With their
+money little Briggs will be able to pay the tick which that imprudent
+child has run up with Mrs. Ruggles; and I shall let Briggs Major pay for
+the pencil-case which Bullock sold to him.--It will be a lesson to the
+young prodigal for the future. But, I say, what a change there will be
+in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth
+is spent! The boys who bully him will mollify towards him, and accept
+his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bedroom; and that
+wine will taste more delicious to them than the best out of the Doctor's
+cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his
+most dreadful story and sing his best song for a slice of that pie. What
+a jolly night they will have! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince
+and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs's room,
+so that the boys may have time to put the light out, to push the things
+away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry may be put in requisition the
+next morning."
+
+"Nonsense! you absurd creature," cries out Miss Raby, laughing; and I
+lay down the twelfth pen very nicely mended.
+
+"Yes; after luxury comes the doctor, I say; after extravagance a hole
+in the breeches pocket. To judge from his disposition, Briggs Major will
+not be much better off a couple of days hence than he is now; and, if
+I am not mistaken, will end life a poor man. Brown will be kicking his
+shins before a week is over, depend upon it. There are boys and men of
+all sorts, Miss R.--There are selfish sneaks who hoard until the store
+they daren't use grows mouldy--there are spendthrifts who fling away,
+parasites who flatter and lick its shoes, and snarling curs who hate and
+envy, good fortune."
+
+I put down the last of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips
+from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind, wondering face. I
+brushed them away, clicked the penknife into my pocket, made her a bow,
+and walked off--for the bell was ringing for school.
+
+
+A YOUNG FELLOW WHO IS PRETTY SURE TO SUCCEED.
+
+
+If Master Briggs is destined in all probability to be a poor man, the
+chances are that Mr. Bullock will have a very different lot, he is a son
+of a partner of the eminent banking firm of Bullock and Hulker, Lombard
+street, and very high in the upper school--quite out of my jurisdiction,
+consequently.
+
+He writes the most beautiful current-hand ever seen; and the way in
+which he mastered arithmetic (going away into recondite and wonderful
+rules in the Tutor's Assistant, which some masters even dare not
+approach,) is described by the Doctor in terms of admiration. He is
+Mr. Prince's best algebra pupil; and a very fair classic, too; doing
+everything well for which he has a mind.
+
+He does not busy himself with the sports of his comrades, and holds a
+cricket-bat no better than Miss Raby would. He employs the play-hours
+in improving his mind, and reading the newspaper; he is a profound
+politician, and, it must be owned, on the liberal side. The elder boys
+despise him rather; and when champion Major passes, he turns his head,
+and looks down. I don't like the expression of Bullock's narrow green
+eyes, as they follow the elder Champion, who does not seem to know or
+care how much the other hates him.
+
+No. Mr. Bullock, though perhaps the cleverest and most accomplished boy
+in the school, associates with the quite little boys when he is minded
+for society. To these he is quite affable, courteous, and winning.
+He never fagged or thrashed one of them. He has done the verses and
+corrected the exercises of many, and many is the little lad to whom he
+has lent a little money.
+
+It is true he charges at the rate of a penny a week for every sixpence
+lent out; but many a fellow to whom tarts are a present necessity is
+happy to pay this interest for the loan. These transactions are kept
+secret. Mr. Bullock, in rather a whining tone, when he takes Master
+Green aside and does the requisite business for him, says, "You know
+you'll go and talk about it everywhere. I don't want to lend you the
+money, I want to buy something with it. It's only to oblige you; and yet
+I am sure you will go and make fun of me." Whereon, of course, Green,
+eager for the money, vows solemnly that the transaction shall be
+confidential, and only speaks when the payment of the interest becomes
+oppressive.
+
+Thus it is that Mr. Bullock's practices are at all known. At a very
+early period, indeed, his commercial genius manifested itself: and
+by happy speculations in toffey; by composing a sweet drink made of
+stick-liquorice and brown sugar, and selling it at a profit to the
+younger children; by purchasing a series of novels, which he let out
+at an adequate remuneration; by doing boys' exercises for a penny,
+and other processes, he showed the bent of his mind. At the end of the
+half-year he always went home richer than when he arrived at school,
+with his purse full of money.
+
+Nobody knows how much he brought: but the accounts are fabulous. Twenty,
+thirty, fifty--it is impossible to say how many sovereigns. When joked
+about his money, he turns pale and swears he has not a shilling: whereas
+he has had a banker's account ever since he was thirteen.
+
+At the present moment he is employed in negotiating the sale of a knife
+with Master Green, and is pointing out to the latter the beauty of the
+six blades, and that he need not pay until after the holidays.
+
+Champion Major has sworn that he will break every bone in his skin the
+next time that he cheats a little boy, and is bearing down upon him.
+Let us come away. It is frightful to see that big peaceful clever coward
+moaning under well-deserved blows and whining for mercy.
+
+
+DUVAL THE PIRATE.
+
+
+JONES MINIMUS passes, laden with tarts.
+
+Duval.--Hullo! you small boy with the tarts! Come here, sir. Jones
+Minimus.--Please, Duval, they ain't mine. Duval.--Oh, you abominable
+young story-teller.  [He confiscates the goods.
+
+
+I think I like young Duval's mode of levying contributions better than
+Bullock's. The former's, at least, has the merit of more candor. Duval
+is the pirate of Birch's, and lies in wait for small boys laden with
+money or provender. He scents plunder from afar off: and pounces out on
+it. Woe betide the little fellow when Duval boards him!
+
+There was a youth here whose money I used to keep, as he was of
+an extravagant and weak taste; and I doled it out to him in weekly
+shillings, sufficient for the purchase of the necessary tarts. This boy
+came to me one day for half a sovereign, for a very particular purpose,
+he said. I afterwards found he wanted to lend the money to Duval.
+
+The young ogre burst out laughing, when in a great wrath and fury I
+ordered him to refund to the little boy: and proposed a bill of exchange
+at three months. It is true Duval's father does not pay the Doctor, and
+the lad never has a shilling, save that which he levies; and though he
+is always bragging about the splendor of Freenystown, Co. Cork, and
+the fox-hounds his father keeps, and the claret they drink there--there
+comes no remittance from Castle Freeny in these bad times to the honest
+Doctor; who is a kindly man enough, and never yet turned an insolvent
+boy out of doors.
+
+
+THE DORMITORIES.
+
+
+MASTER HEWLETT AND MASTER NIGHTINGALE
+
+(Rather a cold winter night.)
+
+Hewlett (flinging a shoe at Master Nightingale's bed, with which he hits
+that young gentleman).--Hullo, you! Get up and bring me that shoe!
+
+Nightingale.--Yes, Hewlett. (He gets up.)
+
+Hewlett.--Don't drop it, and be very careful of it, sir.
+
+Nightingale.--Yes, Hewlett.
+
+Hewlett.--Silence in the dormitory! Any boy who opens his mouth, I'll
+murder him. Now, sir, are not you the boy what can sing?
+
+Nightingale.--Yes, Hewlett.
+
+Hewlett.--Chant, then, till I go to sleep, and if I wake when you stop,
+you'll have this at your head.
+
+[Master HEWLETT lays his Bluchers on the bed, ready to shy at Master
+Nightingale's head in the case contemplated.]
+
+Nightingale (timidly).--Please, Hewlett?
+
+Hewlett.--Well, sir?
+
+Nightingale.--May I put on my trousers, please?
+
+Hewlett.--No, sir. Go on, or I'll--
+
+Nightingale.--
+
+ "Through pleasures and palaces
+
+ Though we may roam,
+
+ Be it ever so humble
+
+ There's no place like home."
+
+
+A CAPTURE AND A RESCUE.
+
+
+My young friend, Patrick Champion, George's younger brother, is a late
+arrival among us; has much of the family quality and good nature; is not
+in the least a tyrant to the small boys, but is as eager as Amadis to
+fight. He is boxing his way up the school, emulating his great brother.
+He fixes his eye on a boy above him in strength or size, and you hear
+somehow that a difference has arisen between them at football, and they
+have their coats off presently. He has thrashed himself over the heads
+of many youths in this manner: for instance, if Champion can lick
+Dobson, who can thrash Hobson, how much more, then, can he thrash
+Hobson? Thus he works up and establishes his position in the school. Nor
+does Mr. Prince think it advisable that we ushers should walk much in
+the way when these little differences are being settled, unless there is
+some gross disparity, or danger is apprehended.
+
+For instance, I own to having seen this row as I was shaving at my
+bedroom window. I did not hasten down to prevent its consequences. Fogle
+had confiscated a top, the property of Snivins; the which, as the little
+wretch was always pegging it at my toes, I did not regret. Snivins
+whimpered; and young Champion came up, lusting for battle. Directly he
+made out Fogle, he steered for him, pulling up his coat-sleeves, and
+clearing for action.
+
+"Who spoke to YOU, young Champion?" Fogle said, and he flung down the
+top to Master Snivins. I knew there would be no fight; and perhaps
+Champion, too, was disappointed.
+
+
+THE GARDEN,
+
+WHERE THE PARLOR-BOARDERS GO.
+
+
+Noblemen have been rather scarce at Birch's--but the heir of a great
+Prince has been living with the Doctor for some years.--He is Lord
+George Gaunt's eldest son, the noble Plantagenet Gaunt Gaunt, and nephew
+of the Most Honorable the Marquis of Steyne.
+
+They are very proud of him at the Doctor's--and the two Misses and Papa,
+whenever a stranger comes down whom they want to dazzle, are pretty sure
+to bring Lord Steyne into the conversation, mention the last party at
+Gaunt House, and cursorily to remark that they have with them a young
+friend who will be, in all human probability, Marquis of Steyne and Earl
+of Gaunt, &c.
+
+Plantagenet does not care much about these future honors: provided he
+can get some brown sugar on his bread-and-butter, or sit with three
+chairs and play at coach-and-horses quite quietly by himself, he is
+tolerably happy. He saunters in and out of school when he likes, and
+looks at the masters and other boys with a listless grin. He used to be
+taken to church, but he laughed and talked in odd places, so they are
+forced to leave him at home now. He will sit with a bit of string and
+play cat's-cradle for many hours. He likes to go and join the very small
+children at their games. Some are frightened at him; but they soon cease
+to fear, and order him about. I have seen him go and fetch tarts from
+Mrs. Ruggles for a boy of eight years old; and cry bitterly if he did
+not get a piece. He cannot speak quite plain, but very nearly; and is
+not more, I suppose, than three-and-twenty.
+
+Of course at home they know his age, though they never come and see him.
+But they forget that Miss Rosa Birch is no longer a young chit as
+she was ten years ago, when Gaunt was brought to the school. On the
+contrary, she has had no small experience in the tender passion, and is
+at this moment smitten with a disinterested affection for Plantagenet
+Gaunt.
+
+Next to a little doll with a burnt nose, which he hides away in cunning
+places, Mr. Gaunt is very fond of Miss Rosa too. What a pretty match
+it would make! and how pleased they would be at Gaunt House, if the
+grandson and heir of the great Marquis of Steyne, the descendant of a
+hundred Gaunts and Tudors, should marry Miss Birch, the schoolmaster's
+daughter! It is true she has the sense on her side, and poor Plantagenet
+is only an idiot: but there he is, a zany, with such expectations and
+such a pedigree!
+
+If Miss Rosa would run away with Mr. Gaunt, she would leave off bullying
+her cousin, Miss Anny Raby. Shall I put her up to the notion, and offer
+to lend her the money to run away? Mr. Gaunt is not allowed money. He
+had some once, but Bullock took him into a corner, and got it from him.
+He has a moderate tick opened at a tart-woman's. He stops at Rodwell
+Regis through the year: school-time and holiday-time, it is all the same
+to him. Nobody asks about him, or thinks about him, save twice a year,
+when the Doctor goes to Gaunt House, and gets the amount of his bills,
+and a glass of wine in the steward's room.
+
+And yet you see somehow that he is a gentleman. His manner is different
+to that of the owners of that coarse table and parlor at which he is
+a boarder (I do not speak of Miss R. of course, for HER manners are
+as good as those of a duchess). When he caught Miss Rosa boxing
+little Fiddes's ears, his face grew red, and he broke into a fierce
+inarticulate rage. After that, and for some days, he used to shrink
+from her; but they are reconciled now. I saw them this afternoon in the
+garden where only the parlor-boarders walk. He was playful, and touched
+her with his stick. She raised her handsome eyes in surprise, and smiled
+on him very kindly.
+
+The thing was so clear, that I thought it my duty to speak to old Zoe
+about it. The wicked old catamaran told me she wished that some people
+would mind their own business, and hold their tongues--that some persons
+were paid to teach writing, and not to tell tales and make mischief:
+and I have since been thinking whether I ought to communicate with the
+Doctor.
+
+
+THE OLD PUPIL.
+
+
+As I came into the playgrounds this morning, I saw a dashing young
+fellow, with a tanned face and a blond moustache, who was walking up and
+down the green arm-in-arm with Champion Major, and followed by a little
+crowd of boys.
+
+They were talking of old times evidently. "What had become of Irvine and
+Smith?"--"Where was Bill Harris and Jones: not Squinny Jones, but Cocky
+Jones?"--and so forth. The gentleman was no stranger; he was an old
+pupil evidently, come to see if any of his old comrades remained, and
+revisit the cari luoghi of his youth.
+
+Champion was evidently proud of his arm-fellow, he espied his brother,
+young Champion, and introduced him. "Come here, sir," he called. "The
+young 'un wasn't here in your time, Davison." "Pat, sir," said he, "this
+is Captain Davison, one of Birch's boys. Ask him who was among the first
+in the lines at Sobraon?"
+
+Pat's face kindled up as he looked Davison full in the face, and held
+out his hand. Old Champion and Davison both blushed. The infantry set up
+a "Hurray, hurray, hurray," Champion leading, and waving his wide-awake.
+I protest that the scene did one good to witness. Here was the hero and
+cock of the school come back to see his old haunts and cronies. He had
+always remembered them. Since he had seen them last, he had faced death
+and achieved honor. But for my dignity I would have shied up my hat too.
+
+With a resolute step, and his arm still linked in Champion's, Captain
+Davison now advanced, followed by a wake of little boys, to that corner
+of the green where Mrs. Ruggles has her tart stand.
+
+"Hullo, Mother Ruggles! don't you remember me?" he said, and shook her
+by the hand.
+
+"Lor, if it ain't Davison Major!" she said. "Well, Davison Major, you
+owe me fourpence for two sausage-rolls from when you went away."
+
+Davison laughed, and all the little crew of boys set up a similar
+chorus.
+
+"I buy the whole shop," he said. "Now, young 'uns--eat away!"
+
+Then there was such a "Hurray! hurray!" as surpassed the former cheer in
+loudness. Everybody engaged in it except Piggy Duff, who made an instant
+dash at the three-cornered puffs, but was stopped by Champion, who
+said there should be a fair distribution. And so there was, and no
+one lacked, neither of raspberry, open tarts, nor of mellifluous
+bulls'-eyes, nor of polonies, beautiful to the sight and taste.
+
+The hurraying brought out the old Doctor himself, who put his hand up to
+his spectacles and started when he saw the old pupil. Each blushed when
+he recognized the other; for seven years ago they had parted not good
+friends.
+
+"What--Davison?" the Doctor said, with a tremulous voice. "God bless
+you, my dear fellow!"--and they shook hands. "A half holiday, of course,
+boys," he added, and there was another hurray: there was to be no end to
+the cheering that day.
+
+"How's--how's the family, sir?" Captain Davison asked.
+
+"Come in and see. Rosa's grown quite a lady. Dine with us, of course.
+Champion Major, come to dinner at five. Mr. Titmarsh, the pleasure of
+your company?" The Doctor swung open the garden gate: the old master and
+pupil entered the house reconciled.
+
+I thought I would first peep into Miss Raby's room, and tell her of
+this event. She was working away at her linen there, as usual quiet and
+cheerful.
+
+"You should put up," I said with a smile; "the Doctor has given us a
+half-holiday."
+
+"I never have holidays," Miss Raby replied.
+
+Then I told her of the scene I had just witnessed, of the arrival of the
+old pupil, the purchase of the tarts, the proclamation of the holiday,
+and the shouts of the boys of "Hurray, Davison!"
+
+"WHO is it?" cried out Miss Raby, starting and turning as white as a
+sheet.
+
+I told her it was Captain Davison from India; and described the
+appearance and behavior of the Captain. When I had finished speaking,
+she asked me to go and get her a glass of water; she felt unwell. But
+she was gone when I came back with the water.
+
+
+I know all now. After sitting for a quarter of an hour with the Doctor,
+who attributed his guest's uneasiness no doubt to his desire to see Miss
+Rosa Birch, Davison started up and said he wanted to see Miss Raby. "You
+remember, sir, how kind she was to my little brother, sir?" he said.
+Whereupon the Doctor, with a look of surprise, that anybody should want
+to see Miss Raby, said she was in the little school-room; whither the
+Captain went, knowing the way from old times.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, Miss B. and Miss Z. returned from a drive
+with Plantagenet Gaunt in their one-horse fly, and being informed of
+Davison's arrival, and that he was closeted with Miss Raby in the little
+school-room, of course made for that apartment at once. I was coming
+into it from the other door. I wanted to know whether she had drunk the
+water.
+
+This is what both parties saw. The two were in this very attitude.
+"Well, upon my word!" cries out Miss Zoe; but Davison did not let go his
+hold; and Miss Raby's head only sank down on his hand.
+
+"You must get another governess, sir, for the little boys," Frank
+Davison said to the Doctor. "Anny Raby has promised to come with me."
+
+You may suppose I shut to the door on my side. And when I returned to
+the little school-room, it was black and empty. Everybody was gone. I
+could hear the boys shouting at play in the green outside. The glass
+of water was on the table where I had placed it. I took it and drank
+it myself, to the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a
+choker.
+
+But of course I wasn't going to stop on at Birch's. When his young
+friends reassemble on the 1st of February next, they will have two new
+masters. Prince resigned too, and is at present living with me at my
+old lodgings at Mrs. Cammysole's. If any nobleman or gentleman wants a
+private tutor for his son, a note to the Rev. F. Prince will find him
+there.
+
+Miss Clapperclaw says we are both a couple of old fools; and that she
+knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, after meeting the two
+young ladies at a party at General Champion's house in our street, that
+I was going on a goose's errand. I shall dine there on Christmas-day;
+and so I wish a merry Christmas to all young and old boys.
+
+     EPILOGUE.
+
+
+     The play is done; the curtain drops,
+     Slow falling, to the prompter's bell:
+     A moment yet the actor stops,
+     And looks around, to say farewell.
+     It is an irksome word and task;
+     And when he's laughed and said his say,
+     He shows, as he removes the mask,
+     A face that's anything but gay.
+
+     One word, ere yet the evening ends,
+     Let's close it with a parting rhyme,
+     And pledge a hand to all young friends,
+     As fits the merry Christmas time.
+     On life's wide scene you, too, have parts,
+     That Fate ere long shall bid you play;
+     Good night! with honest gentle hearts
+     A kindly greeting go alway!
+
+     Good night!  I'd say the griefs, the joys,
+     Just hinted in this mimic page,
+     The triumphs and defeats of boys,
+     Are but repeated in our age.
+     I'd say, your woes were not less keen,
+     Your hopes more vain, than those of men,
+     Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen,
+     At forty-five played o'er again.
+
+     I'd say, we suffer and we strive
+     Not less nor more as men than boys;
+     With grizzled beards at forty-five,
+     As erst at twelve, in corduroys.
+     And if, in time of sacred youth,
+     We learned at home to love and pray,
+     Pray heaven, that early love and truth
+     May never wholly pass away.
+
+     And in the world, as in the school,
+     I'd say, how fate may change and shift;
+     The prize be sometimes with the fool,
+     The race not always to the swift.
+     The strong may yield, the good may fall,
+     The great man be a vulgar clown,
+     The knave be lifted over all,
+     The kind cast pitilessly down.
+
+     Who knows the inscrutable design?
+     Blessed be He who took and gave:
+     Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,
+     Be weeping at her darling's grave?*
+     We bow to heaven that will'd it so,
+     That darkly rules the fate of all,
+     That sends the respite or the blow,
+     That's free to give or to recall.
+
+     This crowns his feast with wine and wit:
+     Who brought him to that mirth and state?
+     His betters, see, below him sit,
+     Or hunger hopeless at the gate.
+     Who bade the mud from Dives' Wheel
+     To spurn the rags of Lazarus?
+     Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel,
+     Confessing heaven that ruled it thus.
+
+     So each shall mourn in life's advance,
+     Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed;
+     Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance,
+     A longing passion unfulfilled.
+     Amen: whatever Fate be sent,--Pray God the heart may kindly glow,
+     Although the head with cares be bent,
+     And whitened with the winter snow.
+
+     Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
+     Let young and old accept their part,
+     And bow before the Awful Will,
+     And bear it with an honest heart.
+     Who misses, or who wins the prize?
+     Go, lose or conquer as you can.
+     But if you fail, or if you rise,
+     Be each, pray God, a gentleman,
+
+     A gentleman, or old or young:
+     (Bear kindly with my humble lays,)
+     The sacred chorus first was sung
+     Upon the first of Christmas days.
+     The shepherds heard it overhead--The joyful angels raised it then:
+     Glory to heaven on high, it said,
+     And peace on earth to gentle men.
+
+     My song, save this, is little worth;
+     I lay the weary pen aside,
+     And wish you health, and love, and mirth,
+     As fits the solemn Christmas tide.
+     As fits the holy Christmas birth,
+     Be this, good friends, our carol still--Be peace on earth, be
+          peace on earth,
+     To men of gentle will.
+
+
+     * C. B., ob. Dec. 1843, aet. 42.
+
+
+
+
+THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE.
+
+BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION:
+
+BEING AN ESSAY ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER.
+
+
+Any reader who may have a fancy to purchase a copy of this present
+edition of the "History of the Kickleburys Abroad," had best be warned
+in time, that the Times newspaper does not approve of the work, and has
+but a bad opinion both of the author and his readers. Nothing can be
+fairer than this statement: if you happen to take up the poor little
+volume at a railroad station, and read this sentence, lay the book down,
+and buy something else. You are warned. What more can the author say? If
+after this you WILL buy,--amen! pay your money, take your book, and
+fall to. Between ourselves, honest reader, it is no very strong potation
+which the present purveyor offers to you. It will not trouble your head
+much in the drinking. It was intended for that sort of negus which
+is offered at Christmas parties and of which ladies and children may
+partake with refreshment and cheerfulness. Last year I tried a brew
+which was old, bitter, and strong; and scarce any one would drink it.
+This year we send round a milder tap, and it is liked by customers:
+though the critics (who like strong ale, the rogues!) turn up their
+noses. In heaven's name, Mr. Smith, serve round the liquor to the
+gentle-folks. Pray, dear madam, another glass; it is Christmas time,
+it will do you no harm. It is not intended to keep long, this sort of
+drink. (Come, froth up, Mr. Publisher, and pass quickly round!) And as
+for the professional gentlemen, we must get a stronger sort for THEM
+some day.
+
+The Times' gentleman (a very difficult gent to please) is the
+loudest and noisiest of all, and has made more hideous faces over
+the refreshment offered to him than any other critic. There is no use
+shirking this statement! when a man has been abused in the Times, he
+can't hide it, any more than he could hide the knowledge of his having
+been committed to prison by Mr. Henry, or publicly caned in Pall Mall.
+You see it in your friends' eyes when they meet you. They know it. They
+have chuckled over it to a man. They whisper about it at the club, and
+look over the paper at you. My next-door neighbor came to see me this
+morning, and I saw by his face that he had the whole story pat. "Hem!"
+says he, "well, I HAVE heard of it; and the fact is, they were
+talking about you at dinner last night, and mentioning that the Times
+had--ahem!--'walked into you.'"
+
+"My good M----" I say--and M---- will corroborate, if need be, the
+statement I make here--"here is the Times' article, dated January
+4th, which states so and so, and here is a letter from the publisher,
+likewise dated January 4th, and which says:--
+
+
+"MY DEAR Sir,--Having this day sold the last copy of the first edition
+(of x thousand) of the 'Kickleburys Abroad,' and having orders for more,
+had we not better proceed to a second edition? and will you permit me to
+enclose an order on," &c. &c.?
+
+
+Singular coincidence! And if every author who was so abused by a critic
+had a similar note from a publisher, good Lord! how easily would we take
+the critic's censure!
+
+"Yes, yes," you say; "it is all very well for a writer to affect to be
+indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a
+flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag as if
+you liked it."
+
+Let us have truth before all. I would rather have a good word than a bad
+one from any person: but if a critic abuses me from a high place, and
+it is worth my while, I will appeal. If I can show that the judge who
+is delivering sentence against me, and laying down the law and making
+a pretence of learning, has no learning and no law, and is neither
+more nor less than a pompous noodle, who ought not to be heard in any
+respectable court, I will do so; and then, dear friends, perhaps you
+will have something to laugh at in this book.--
+
+
+"THE KICKLEBURYS ABROAD.
+
+"It has been customary, of late years, for the purveyors of amusing
+literature--the popular authors of the day--to put forth certain
+opuscules, denominated 'Christmas Books,' with the ostensible intention
+of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions,
+incident upon the exodus of the old and the inauguration of the new
+year. We have said that their ostensible intention was such, because
+there is another motive for these productions, locked up (as the popular
+author deems) in his own breast, but which betrays itself, in the
+quality of the work, as his principal incentive. Oh! that any muse
+should be set upon a high stool to cast up accounts and balance a
+ledger! Yet so it is; and the popular author finds it convenient to
+fill up the declared deficit, and place himself in a position the
+more effectually to encounter those liabilities which sternly assert
+themselves contemporaneously and in contrast with the careless and
+free-handed tendencies of the season by the emission of Christmas
+books--a kind of literary assignats, representing to the emitter
+expunged debts, to the receiver an investment of enigmatical value. For
+the most part bearing the stamp of their origin in the vacuity of
+the writer's exchequer rather than in the fulness of his genius, they
+suggest by their feeble flavor the rinsings of a void brain after the
+more important concoctions of the expired year. Indeed, we should as
+little think of taking these compositions as examples of the merits of
+their authors as we should think of measuring the valuable services of
+Mr. Walker, the postman, or Mr. Bell, the dust-collector, by the copy of
+verses they leave at our doors as a provocative of the expected annual
+gratuity--effusions with which they may fairly be classed for their
+intrinsic worth no less than their ultimate purport.
+
+"In the Christmas book presently under notice, the author appears (under
+the thin disguise of Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh) in 'propria persona'
+as the popular author, the contributor to Punch, the remorseless pursuer
+of unconscious vulgarity and feeble-mindedness, launched upon a tour
+of relaxation to the Rhine. But though exercising, as is the wont of
+popular authors in their moments of leisure, a plentiful reserve of
+those higher qualities to which they are indebted for their fame, his
+professional instincts are not altogether in abeyance. From the moment
+his eye lights upon a luckless family group embarked on the same steamer
+with himself, the sight of his accustomed quarry--vulgarity, imbecility,
+and affectation--reanimates his relaxed sinews, and, playfully fastening
+his satiric fangs upon the familiar prey, he dallies with it in mimic
+ferocity like a satiated mouser.
+
+"Though faintly and carelessly indicated, the characters are those
+with which the author loves to surround himself. A tuft-hunting county
+baronet's widow, an inane captain of dragoons, a graceless young
+baronet, a lady with groundless pretensions to feeble health and poesy,
+an obsequious nonentity her husband, and a flimsy and artificial young
+lady, are the personages in whom we are expected to find amusement.
+Two individuals alone form an exception to the above category, and are
+offered to the respectful admiration of the reader,--the one, a shadowy
+serjeant-at-law, Mr. Titmarsh's travelling companion, who escapes with
+a few side puffs of flattery, which the author struggles not to render
+ironical, and a mysterious countess, spoken of in a tone of religious
+reverence, and apparently introduced that we may learn by what delicate
+discriminations our adoration of rank should be regulated.
+
+"To those who love to hug themselves in a sense of superiority by
+admeasurement with the most worthless of their species, in their most
+worthless aspects, the Kickleburys on the Rhine will afford an agreeable
+treat, especially as the purveyor of the feast offers his own moments of
+human weakness as a modest entree in this banquet of erring mortality.
+To our own, perhaps unphilosophical, taste the aspirations towards
+sentimental perfection of another popular author are infinitely
+preferable to these sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose
+lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster. Much, in the
+present instance, perhaps all, the disagreeable effect of his subject is
+no doubt attributable to the absence of Mr. Thackeray's usual brilliancy
+of style. A few flashes, however, occur, such as the description of M.
+Lenoir's gaming establishment, with the momentous crisis to which it was
+subjected, and the quaint and imaginative sallies evoked by the
+whole town of Rougetnoirbourg and its lawful prince. These, with the
+illustrations, which are spirited enough, redeem the book from an
+absolute ban. Mr. Thackeray's pencil is more congenial than his pen. He
+cannot draw his men and women with their skins off, and, therefore, the
+effigies of his characters are pleasanter to contemplate than the flayed
+anatomies of the letter-press."
+
+
+There is the whole article. And the reader will see (in the paragraph
+preceding that memorable one which winds up with the diseased oyster)
+that he must be a worthless creature for daring to like the book, as he
+could only do so from a desire to hug himself in a sense of superiority
+by admeasurement with the most worthless of his fellow-creatures!
+
+The reader is worthless for liking a book of which all the characters
+are worthless, except two, which are offered to his respectful
+admiration; and of these two the author does not respect one, but
+struggles not to laugh in his face; whilst he apparently speaks
+of another in a tone of religious reverence, because the lady is a
+countess, and because he (the author) is a sneak. So reader, author,
+characters, are rogues all. Be there any honest men left, Hal? About
+Printing-house Square, mayhap you may light on an honest man, a
+squeamish man, a proper moral man, a man that shall talk you Latin by
+the half-column if you will but hear him.
+
+And what a style it is, that great man's! What hoighth of foine language
+entoirely! How he can discoorse you in English for all the world as
+if it was Latin! For instance, suppose you and I had to announce the
+important news that some writers published what are called Christmas
+books; that Christmas books are so called because they are published
+at Christmas: and that the purpose of the authors is to try and amuse
+people. Suppose, I say, we had, by the sheer force of intellect, or
+by other means of observation or information, discovered these great
+truths, we should have announced them in so many words. And there it is
+that the difference lies between a great writer and a poor one; and we
+may see how an inferior man may fling a chance away. How does my friend
+of the Times put these propositions? "It has been customary," says he,
+"of late years for the purveyors of amusing literature to put forth
+certain opuscules, denominated Christmas books, with the ostensible
+intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive
+emotions, incident upon the exodus of the old or the inauguration of the
+new year." That is something like a sentence; not a word scarcely but's
+in Latin, and the longest and handsomest out of the whole dictionary.
+That is proper economy--as you see a buck from Holywell Street put
+every pinchbeck pin, ring, and chain which he possesses about his shirt,
+hands, and waistcoat, and then go and cut a dash in the Park, or swagger
+with his order to the theatre. It costs him no more to wear all his
+ornaments about his distinguished person than to leave them at home. If
+you can be a swell at a cheap rate, why not? And I protest, for my
+part, I had no idea what I was really about in writing and submitting
+my little book for sale, until my friend the critic, looking at the
+article, and examining it with the eyes of a connoisseur, pronounced
+that what I had fancied simply to be a book was in fact "an opuscule
+denominated so-and-so, and ostensibly intended to swell the tide of
+expansive emotion incident upon the inauguration of the new year." I can
+hardly believe as much even now--so little do we know what we really are
+after, until men of genius come and interpret.
+
+And besides the ostensible intention, the reader will perceive that my
+judge has discovered another latent motive, which I had "locked up in my
+own breast." The sly rogue! (if we may so speak of the court.) There is
+no keeping anything from him; and this truth, like the rest, has come
+out, and is all over England by this time. Oh, that all England, which
+has bought the judge's charge, would purchase the prisoner's plea in
+mitigation! "Oh, that any muse should be set on a high stool," says the
+bench, "to cast up accounts and balance a ledger! Yet so it is; and the
+popular author finds it convenient to fill up the declared deficit by
+the emission of Christmas books--a kind of assignats that bear the stamp
+of their origin in the vacuity of the writer's exchequer." There is
+a trope for you! You rascal, you wrote because you wanted money! His
+lordship has found out what you were at, and that there is a deficit in
+your till. But he goes on to say that we poor devils are to be pitied
+in our necessity; and that these compositions are no more to be taken as
+examples of our merits than the verses which the dustman leaves at his
+lordship's door, "as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity,"
+are to be considered as measuring his, the scavenger's, valuable
+services--nevertheless the author's and the scavenger's "effusions
+may fairly be classed, for their intrinsic worth, no less than their
+ultimate purport."
+
+Heaven bless his lordship on the bench--What a gentle manlike badinage
+he has, and what a charming and playful wit always at hand! What a sense
+he has for a simile, or what Mrs. Malaprop calls an odorous comparison,
+and how gracefully he conducts it to "its ultimate purport." A gentleman
+writing a poor little book is a scavenger asking for a Christmas-box!
+
+
+As I try this small beer which has called down such a deal of thunder, I
+can't help thinking that it is not Jove who has interfered (the case was
+scarce worthy of his divine vindictiveness); but the Thunderer's man,
+Jupiter Jeames, taking his master's place, adopting his manner, and
+trying to dazzle and roar like his awful employer. That figure of the
+dustman has hardly been flung from heaven: that "ultimate purport" is a
+subject which the Immortal would hardly handle. Well, well; let us allow
+that the book is not worthy of such a polite critic--that the beer is
+not strong enough for a gentleman who has taste and experience in beer.
+
+That opinion no man can ask his honor to alter; but (the beer being the
+question), why make unpleasant allusions to the Gazette, and hint at the
+probable bankruptcy of the brewer? Why twit me with my poverty; and what
+can the Times' critic know about the vacuity of my exchequer? Did he
+ever lend me any money? Does he not himself write for money? (and who
+would grudge it to such a polite and generous and learned author?) If he
+finds no disgrace in being paid, why should I? If he has ever been poor,
+why should he joke at my empty exchequer? Of course such a genius is
+paid for his work: with such neat logic, such a pure style, such a
+charming poetical turn of phrase, of course a critic gets money. Why, a
+man who can say of a Christmas book that "it is an opuscule denominated
+so-and-so, and ostensibly intended to swell the tide of expansive
+emotion incident upon the exodus of the old year," must evidently have
+had immense sums and care expended on his early education, and deserves
+a splendid return. You can't go into the market, and get scholarship
+like THAT, without paying for it: even the flogging that such a writer
+must have had in early youth (if he was at a public school where the
+rods were paid for), must have cost his parents a good sum. Where would
+you find any but an accomplished classical scholar to compare the books
+of the present (or indeed any other) writer to "sardonic divings after
+the pearl of truth, whose lustre is eclipsed in the display of the
+diseased oyster;" mere Billingsgate doesn't turn out oysters like these;
+they are of the Lucrine lake:--this satirist has pickled his rods in
+Latin brine. Fancy, not merely a diver, but a sardonic diver: and the
+expression of his confounded countenance on discovering not only a
+pearl, but an eclipsed pearl, which was in a diseased oyster! I say
+it is only by an uncommon and happy combination of taste, genius, and
+industry, that a man can arrive at uttering such sentiments in such fine
+language,--that such a man ought to be well paid, as I have no doubt
+he is, and that he is worthily employed to write literary articles,
+in large type, in the leading journal of Europe. Don't we want men of
+eminence and polite learning to sit on the literary bench, and to direct
+the public opinion?
+
+But when this profound scholar compares me to a scavenger who leaves a
+copy of verses at his door and begs for a Christmas-box, I must again
+cry out and say, "My dear sir, it is true your simile is offensive, but
+can you make it out? Are you not hasty in your figures and illusions?"
+If I might give a hint to so consummate a rhetorician, you should be
+more careful in making your figures figures, and your similes like: for
+instance, when you talk of a book "swelling the tide of exhilaration
+incident to the inauguration of the new year," or of a book "bearing the
+stamp of its origin in vacuity," &c.,--or of a man diving sardonically;
+or of a pearl eclipsed in the display of a diseased oyster--there are
+some people who will not apprehend your meaning: some will doubt whether
+you had a meaning: some even will question your great powers, and say,
+"Is this man to be a critic in a newspaper, which knows what English,
+and Latin too, and what sense and scholarship, are?" I don't quarrel
+with you--I take for granted your wit and learning, your modesty
+and benevolence--but why scavenger--Jupiter Jeames--why scavenger? A
+gentleman, whose biography the Examiner was fond of quoting before it
+took its present serious and orthodox turn, was pursued by an outraged
+wife to the very last stage of his existence with an appeal almost as
+pathetic--Ah, sir, why scavenger?
+
+How can I be like a dustman that rings for a Christmas-box at your
+hall-door? I never was there in my life. I never left at your door a
+copy of verses provocative of an annual gratuity, as your noble honor
+styles it. Who are you? If you are the man I take you to be, it must
+have been you who asked the publisher for my book, and not I who sent
+it in, and begged a gratuity of your worship. You abused me out of the
+Times' window; but if ever your noble honor sent me a gratuity out of
+your own door, may I never drive another dust-cart. "Provocative of a
+gratuity!" O splendid swell! How much was it your worship sent out to
+me by the footman? Every farthing you have paid I will restore to your
+lordship, and I swear I shall not be a halfpenny the poorer.
+
+As before, and on similar seasons and occasions, I have compared myself
+to a person following a not dissimilar calling: let me suppose now, for
+a minute, that I am a writer of a Christmas farce, who sits in the
+pit, and sees the performance of his own piece. There comes applause,
+hissing, yawning, laughter, as may be: but the loudest critic of all
+is our friend the cheap buck, who sits yonder and makes his remarks, so
+that all the audience may hear. "THIS a farce!" says Beau Tibbs: "demmy!
+it's the work of a poor devil who writes for money,--confound his
+vulgarity! This a farce! Why isn't it a tragedy, or a comedy, or an epic
+poem, stap my vitals? This a farce indeed! It's a feller as sends round
+his 'at, and appeals to charity. Let's 'ave our money back again,
+I say." And he swaggers off;--and you find the fellow came with an
+author's order.
+
+But if, in spite of Tibbs, our "kyind friends," &c. &c. &c.--if the
+little farce, which was meant to amuse Christmas (or what my classical
+friend calls Exodus), is asked for, even up to Twelfth Night,--shall the
+publisher stop because Tibbs is dissatisfied? Whenever that capitalist
+calls to get his money back, he may see the letter from the respected
+publisher, informing the author that all the copies are sold, and that
+there are demands for a new edition. Up with the curtain, then! Vivat
+Regina! and no money returned, except the Times "gratuity!"
+
+M. A. TITMARSH.
+
+January 5, 1851.
+
+
+
+THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE.
+
+
+The cabman, when he brought us to the wharf, and made his usual charge
+of six times his legal fare, before the settlement of which he pretended
+to refuse the privilege of an exeat regno to our luggage, glared like a
+disappointed fiend when Lankin, calling up the faithful Hutchison, his
+clerk, who was in attendance, said to him, "Hutchison, you will pay this
+man. My name is Serjeant Lankin, my chambers are in Pump Court. My clerk
+will settle with you, sir." The cabman trembled; we stepped on board;
+our lightsome luggage was speedily whisked away by the crew; our berths
+had been secured by the previous agency of Hutchison; and a couple of
+tickets, on which were written, "Mr. Serjeant Lankin," "Mr. Titmarsh,"
+(Lankin's, by the way, incomparably the best and comfortablest sleeping
+place,) were pinned on to two of the curtains of the beds in a side
+cabin when we descended.
+
+Who was on board? There were Jews, with Sunday papers and fruit; there
+were couriers and servants straggling about; there were those bearded
+foreign visitors of England, who always seem to decline to shave or
+wash themselves on the day of a voyage, and, on the eve of quitting our
+country, appear inclined to carry away as much as possible of its soil
+on their hands and linen: there were parties already cozily established
+on deck under the awning; and steady-going travellers for'ard, smoking
+already the pleasant morning cigar, and watching the phenomena of
+departure.
+
+The bell rings: they leave off bawling, "Anybody else for the shore?"
+The last grape and Bell's Life merchant has scuffled over the plank: the
+Johns of the departing nobility and gentry line the brink of the quay,
+and touch their hats: Hutchison touches his hat to me--to ME, heaven
+bless him! I turn round inexpressibly affected and delighted, and whom
+do I see but Captain Hicks!
+
+"Hallo! YOU here?" says Hicks, in a tone which seems to mean, "Confound
+you, you are everywhere."
+
+Hicks is one of those young men who seem to be everywhere a great deal
+too often.
+
+How are they always getting leave from their regiments? If they are
+not wanted in this country, (as wanted they cannot be, for you see them
+sprawling over the railing in Rotten Row all day, and shaking their
+heels at every ball in town,)--if they are not wanted in this country, I
+say, why the deuce are they not sent off to India, or to Demerara, or to
+Sierra Leone, by Jove?--the farther the better; and I should wish a good
+unwholesome climate to try 'em, and make 'em hardy. Here is this Hicks,
+then--Captain Launcelot Hicks, if you please--whose life is nothing but
+breakfast, smoking, riding-school, billiards, mess, polking, billiards,
+and smoking again, and da capo--pulling down his moustaches, and going
+to take a tour after the immense labors of the season.
+
+"How do you do, Captain Hicks?" I say. "Where are you going?"
+
+"Oh, I am going to the Whine," says Hicks; "evewybody goes to the
+Whine." The WHINE indeed! I dare say he can no more spell properly than
+he can speak.
+
+"Who is on board--anybody?" I ask, with the air of a man of fashion.
+"To whom does that immense pile of luggage belong--under charge of the
+lady's-maid, the courier, and the British footman? A large white K is
+painted on all the boxes."
+
+"How the deuce should I know?" says Hicks, looking, as I fancy, both red
+and angry, and strutting off with his great cavalry lurch and swagger:
+whilst my friend the Serjeant looks at him lost in admiration, and
+surveys his shining little boots, his chains and breloques, his whiskers
+and ambrosial moustaches, his gloves and other dandifications, with a
+pleased wonder; as the ladies of the Sultan's harem surveyed the great
+Lady from Park Lane who paid them a visit; or the simple subjects of
+Montezuma looked at one of Cortes's heavy dragoons.
+
+"That must be a marquis at least," whispers Lankin, who consults me
+on points of society, and is pleased to have a great opinion of my
+experience.
+
+I burst out in a scornful laugh. "THAT!" I say; "he is a captain of
+dragoons, and his father an attorney in Bedford Row. The whiskers of a
+roturier, my good Lankin, grow as long as the beard of a Plantagenet. It
+don't require much noble blood to learn the polka. If you were younger,
+Lankin, we might go for a shilling a night, and dance every evening at
+M. Laurent's Casino, and skip about in a little time as well as that
+fellow. Only we despise the kind of thing you know,--only we're too
+grave, and too steady."
+
+"And too fat," whispers Lankin, with a laugh.
+
+"Speak for yourself, you maypole," says I. "If you can't dance yourself,
+people can dance round you--put a wreath of flowers upon your old poll,
+stick you up in a village green, and so make use of you."
+
+"I should gladly be turned into anything so pleasant," Lankin answers;
+"and so, at least, get a chance of seeing a pretty girl now and then.
+They don't show in Pump Court, or at the University Club, where I dine.
+You are a lucky fellow, Titmarsh, and go about in the world. As for me,
+I never--"
+
+"And the judges' wives, you rogue?" I say. "Well, no man is satisfied;
+and the only reason I have to be angry with the captain yonder is,
+that, the other night, at Mrs. Perkins's, being in conversation with a
+charming young creature--who knows all my favorite passages in Tennyson,
+and takes a most delightful little line of opposition in the Church
+controversy--just as we were in the very closest, dearest, pleasantest
+part of the talk, comes up young Hotspur yonder, and whisks her away in
+a polka. What have you and I to do with polkas, Lankin? He took her down
+to supper--what have you and I to do with suppers?"
+
+"Our duty is to leave them alone," said the philosophical Serjeant.
+"And now about breakfast--shall we have some?" And as he spoke, a
+savory little procession of stewards and stewards' boys, with drab tin
+dish-covers, passed from the caboose, and descended the stairs to the
+cabin. The vessel had passed Greenwich by this time, and had worked its
+way out of the mast-forest which guards the approaches of our city.
+
+
+The owners of those innumerable boxes, bags, oil-skins, guitar-cases,
+whereon the letter K was engraven, appeared to be three ladies, with a
+slim gentleman of two or three and thirty, who was probably the husband
+of one of them. He had numberless shawls under his arm and guardianship.
+He had a strap full of Murray's Handbooks and Continental Guides in
+his keeping; and a little collection of parasols and umbrellas, bound
+together, and to be carried in state before the chief of the party, like
+the lictor's fasces before the consul.
+
+The chief of the party was evidently the stout lady. One parasol being
+left free, she waved it about, and commanded the luggage and the menials
+to and fro. "Horace, we will sit there," she exclaimed, pointing to a
+comfortable place on the deck. Horace went and placed the shawls and
+the Guidebooks. "Hirsch, avy vou conty les bagages? tront sett morso ong
+too?" The German courier said, "Oui, miladi," and bowed a rather sulky
+assent. "Bowman, you will see that Finch is comfortable, and send her to
+me." The gigantic Bowman, a gentleman in an undress uniform, with very
+large and splendid armorial buttons, and with traces of the powder of
+the season still lingering in his hair, bows, and speeds upon my lady's
+errand.
+
+I recognize Hirsch, a well-known face upon the European high-road, where
+he has travelled with many acquaintances. With whom is he making the
+tour now?--Mr. Hirsch is acting as courier to Mr. and Mrs. Horace
+Milliken. They have not been married many months, and they are
+travelling, Hirsch says, with a contraction of his bushy eyebrows, with
+miladi, Mrs. Milliken's mamma. "And who is her ladyship?" Hirsch's brow
+contracts into deeper furrows. "It is Miladi Gigglebury," he says, "Mr.
+Didmarsh. Berhabs you know her." He scowls round at her, as she calls
+out loudly, "Hirsch, Hirsch!" and obeys that summons.
+
+
+It is the great Lady Kicklebury of Pocklington Square, about whom I
+remember Mrs. Perkins made so much ado at her last ball; and whom old
+Perkins conducted to supper. When Sir Thomas Kicklebury died (he was one
+of the first tenants of the Square), who does not remember the scutcheon
+with the coronet with two balls, that flamed over No. 36? Her son was at
+Eton then, and has subsequently taken an honorary degree at Oxford, and
+been an ornament of Platt's and the "Oswestry Club." He fled into St.
+James's from the great house in Pocklington Square, and from St. James's
+to Italy and the Mediterranean, where he has been for some time in a
+wholesome exile. Her eldest daughter's marriage with Lord Roughhead was
+talked about last year; but Lord Roughhead, it is known, married Miss
+Brent; and Horace Milliken, very much to his surprise, found himself the
+affianced husband of Miss Lavinia Kicklebury, after an agitating evening
+at Lady Polkimore's, when Miss Lavinia, feeling herself faint, went out
+on to the leads (the terrace, Lady Polkimore WILL call it), on the arm
+of Mr. Milliken. They were married in January: it's not a bad match for
+Miss K. Lady Kicklebury goes and stops for six months of the year at
+Pigeoncot with her daughter and son-in-law; and now that they are come
+abroad, she comes too. She must be with Lavinia, under the present
+circumstances.
+
+When I am arm-in-arm, I tell this story glibly off to Lankin, who is
+astonished at my knowledge of the world, and says, "Why, Titmarsh, you
+know everything."
+
+"I DO know a few things, Lankin my boy," is my answer. "A man don't live
+in society, and PRETTY GOOD society, let me tell you, for nothing."
+
+The fact is, that all the above details are known to almost any man in
+our neighborhood. Lady Kicklebury does not meet with US much, and has
+greater folks than we can pretend to be at her parties. But we know
+about THEM. She'll condescend to come to Perkins's, WITH WHOSE FIRM SHE
+BANKS; and she MAY overdraw HER ACCOUNT: but of that, of course, I know
+nothing.
+
+When Lankin and I go down stairs to breakfast, we find, if not the best,
+at least the most conspicuous places in occupation of Lady Kicklebury's
+party, and the hulking London footman making a darkness in the cabin, as
+he stoops through it bearing cups and plates to his employers.
+
+
+[Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the
+tea generally taste of boiled boots? Why is the milk scarce and thin?
+And why do they have those bleeding legs of boiled mutton for dinner?
+I ask why? In the steamers of other nations you are well fed. Is it
+impossible that Britannia, who confessedly rules the waves, should
+attend to the victuals a little, and that meat should be well cooked
+under a Union Jack? I just put in this question, this most interesting
+question, in a momentous parenthesis, and resume the tale.]
+
+
+When Lankin and I descend to the cabin, then, the tables are full of
+gobbling people; and, though there DO seem to be a couple of places near
+Lady Kicklebury, immediately she sees our eyes directed to the inviting
+gap, she slides out, and with her ample robe covers even more than that
+large space to which by art and nature she is entitled, and calling out,
+"Horace, Horace!" and nodding, and winking, and pointing, she causes her
+son-in-law to extend the wing on his side. We are cut of THAT chance
+of a breakfast. We shall have the tea at its third water, and those two
+damp black mutton-chops, which nobody else will take, will fall to our
+cold share.
+
+At this minute a voice, clear and sweet, from a tall lady in a black
+veil, says, "Mr. Titmarsh," and I start and murmur an ejaculation of
+respectful surprise, as I recognize no less a person than the Right
+Honorable the Countess of Knightsbridge, taking her tea, breaking
+up little bits of toast with her slim fingers, and sitting between a
+Belgian horse-dealer and a German violoncello-player who has a conge
+after the opera--like any other mortal.
+
+I whisper her ladyship's name to Lankin. The Serjeant looks towards her
+with curiosity and awe. Even he, in his Pump Court solitudes, has heard
+of that star of fashion--that admired amongst men, and even women--that
+Diana severe yet simple, the accomplished Aurelia of Knightsbridge. Her
+husband has but a small share of HER qualities. How should he? The
+turf and the fox-chase are his delights--the smoking-room at the
+"Travellers'"--nay, shall we say it?--the illuminated arcades
+of "Vauxhall," and the gambols of the dishevelled Terpsichore.
+Knightsbridge has his faults--ah! even the peerage of England is not
+exempt from them. With Diana for his wife, he flies the halls where
+she sits severe and serene, and is to be found (shrouded in smoke,
+'tis true,) in those caves where the contrite chimney-sweep sings his
+terrible death chant, or the Bacchanalian judge administers a satiric
+law. Lord Knightsbridge has his faults, then; but he has the gout at
+Rougetnoirbourg, near the Rhine, and thither his wife is hastening to
+minister to him.
+
+"I have done," says Lady Knightsbridge, with a gentle bow, as she rises;
+"you may have this place, Mr. Titmarsh; and I am sorry my breakfast is
+over: I should have prolonged it had I thought that YOU were coming to
+sit by me. Thank you--my glove." (Such an absurd little glove, by the
+way). "We shall meet on the deck when you have done."
+
+And she moves away with an august curtsy. I can't tell how it is, or
+what it is, in that lady; but she says, "How do you do?" as nobody else
+knows how to say it. In all her actions, motions, thoughts, I would
+wager there is the same calm grace and harmony. She is not very
+handsome, being very thin, and rather sad-looking. She is not very
+witty, being only up to the conversation, whatever it may be; and yet,
+if she were in black serge, I think one could not help seeing that she
+was a Princess, and Serene Highness; and if she were a hundred years
+old, she could not be but beautiful. I saw her performing her devotions
+in Antwerp Cathedral, and forgot to look at anything else there;--so
+calm and pure, such a sainted figure hers seemed.
+
+When this great lady did the present writer the honor to shake his hand
+(I had the honor to teach writing and the rudiments of Latin to the
+young and intelligent Lord Viscount Pimlico), there seemed to be a
+commotion in the Kicklebury party--heads were nodded together, and
+turned towards Lady Knightsbridge: in whose honor, when Lady Kicklebury
+had sufficiently reconnoitred her with her eye-glass, the baronet's lady
+rose and swept a reverential curtsy, backing until she fell up against
+the cushions at the stern of the boat. Lady Knightsbridge did not see
+this salute, for she did not acknowledge it, but walked away slimly (she
+seems to glide in and out of the room), and disappeared up the stair to
+the deck.
+
+Lankin and I took our places, the horse-dealer making room for us; and
+I could not help looking, with a little air of triumph, over to the
+Kicklebury faction, as much as to say, "You fine folks, with your large
+footman and supercilious airs, see what WE can do."
+
+As I looked--smiling, and nodding, and laughing at me, in a knowing,
+pretty way, and then leaning to mamma as if in explanation, what face
+should I see but that of the young lady at Mrs. Perkins's, with whom
+I had had that pleasant conversation which had been interrupted by the
+demand of Captain Hicks for a dance? So, then, that was Miss Kicklebury,
+about whom Miss Perkins, my young friend, has so often spoken to me: the
+young ladies were in conversation when I had the happiness of joining
+them; and Miss P. went away presently, to look to her guests--that is
+Miss Fanny Kicklebury.
+
+A sudden pang shot athwart my bosom--Lankin might have perceived it, but
+the honest Serjeant was so awe-stricken by his late interview with the
+Countess of Knightsbridge, that his mind was unfit to grapple with
+other subjects--a pang of feeling (which I concealed under the grin and
+graceful bow wherewith Miss Fanny's salutations were acknowledged) tore
+my heart-strings--as I thought of--I need not say--of HICKS.
+
+He had danced with her, he had supped with her--he was here, on board
+the boat. Where was that dragoon? I looked round for him. In quite a
+far corner,--but so that he could command the Kicklebury party, I
+thought,--he was eating his breakfast, the great healthy oaf, and
+consuming one broiled egg after another.
+
+In the course of the afternoon, all parties, as it may be supposed,
+emerged upon deck again, and Miss Fanny and her mamma began walking the
+quarter-deck with a quick pace, like a couple of post-captains. When
+Miss Fanny saw me, she stopped and smiled, and recognized the gentleman
+who had amused her so at Mrs. Perkins's. What a dear sweet creature
+Eliza Perkins was! They had been at school together. She was going to
+write to Eliza everything that happened on the voyage.
+
+"EVERYTHING?" I said, in my particularly sarcastic manner.
+
+"Well, everything that was worth telling. There was a great number
+of things that were very stupid, and of people that were very stupid.
+Everything that YOU say, Mr. Titmarsh, I am sure I may put down. You
+have seen Mr. Titmarsh's funny books, mamma?"
+
+Mamma said she had heard--she had no doubt they were very amusing. "Was
+not that--ahem--Lady Knightsbridge, to whom I saw you speaking, sir?"
+
+"Yes; she is going to nurse Lord Knightsbridge, who has the gout at
+Rougetnoirbourg."
+
+"Indeed! how very fortunate! what an extraordinary coincidence! We are
+going too," said Lady Kicklebury.
+
+I remarked "that everybody was going to Rougetnoirbourg this year; and I
+heard of two gentlemen--Count Carambole and Colonel Cannon--who had been
+obliged to sleep there on a billiard-table for want of a bed."
+
+"My son Kicklebury--are you acquainted with Sir Thomas Kicklebury?" her
+ladyship said, with great stateliness--"is at Noirbourg, and will
+take lodgings for us. The springs are particularly recommended for my
+daughter, Mrs. Milliken and, at great personal sacrifice, I am going
+thither myself: but what will not a mother do, Mr. Titmarsh? Did I
+understand you to say that you have the--the entree at Knightsbridge
+House? The parties are not what they used to be, I am told. Not that
+I have any knowledge. I am but a poor country baronet's widow, Mr.
+Titmarsh; though the Kickleburys date from Henry III., and MY family is
+not of the most modern in the country. You have heard of General Guff,
+my father, perhaps? aide-de-camp to the Duke of York, and wounded by his
+Royal Highness's side at the bombardment of Valenciennes. WE move IN OUR
+OWN SPHERE."
+
+"Mrs. Perkins is a very kind creature," I said, "and it was a very
+pleasant ball. Did you not think so, Miss Kicklebury?"
+
+"I thought it odious," said Miss Fanny. "I mean, it WAS pleasant until
+that--that stupid man--what was his name?--came and took me away to
+dance with him."
+
+"What! don't you care for a red coat and moustaches?" I asked.
+
+"I adore genius, Mr. Titmarsh," said the young lady, with a most killing
+look of her beautiful blue eyes, "and I have every one of your works by
+heart--all, except the last, which I can't endure. I think it's wicked,
+positively wicked--My darling Scott--how can you? And are you going to
+make a Christmas-book this year?"
+
+"Shall I tell you about it?"
+
+"Oh, do tell us about it," said the lively, charming creature, clapping
+her hands: and we began to talk, being near Lavinia (Mrs. Milliken)
+and her husband, who was ceaselessly occupied in fetching and carrying
+books, biscuits, pillows and cloaks, scent-bottles, the Italian
+greyhound, and the thousand and one necessities of the pale and
+interesting bride. Oh, how she did fidget! how she did grumble! how she
+altered and twisted her position! and how she did make poor Milliken
+trot!
+
+After Miss Fanny and I had talked, and I had told her my plan, which she
+pronounced to be delightful, she continued:--"I never was so provoked in
+my life, Mr. Titmarsh, as when that odious man came and interrupted that
+dear delightful conversation."
+
+"On your word? The odious man is on board the boat: I see him smoking
+just by the funnel yonder, look! and looking at us."
+
+"He is very stupid," said Fanny; "and all that I adore is intellect,
+dear Mr. Titmarsh."
+
+"But why is he on board?" said I, with a fin sourire.
+
+"Why is he on board? Why is everybody on board? How do we meet? (and oh,
+how glad I am to meet you again!) You don't suppose that I know how the
+horrid man came here?"
+
+"Eh! he may be fascinated by a pair of blue eyes, Miss Fanny! Others
+have been so," I said.
+
+"Don't be cruel to a poor girl, you wicked, satirical creature," she
+said. "I think Captain Hicks odious--there! and I was quite angry when I
+saw him on the boat. Mamma does not know him, and she was so angry
+with me for dancing with him that night: though there was nobody of any
+particular mark at poor dear Mrs. Perkins's--that is, except YOU, Mr.
+Titmarsh."
+
+"And I am not a dancing man," I said, with a sigh.
+
+"I hate dancing men; they can do nothing but dance."
+
+"O yes, they can. Some of them can smoke, and some can ride, and some of
+them can even spell very well."
+
+"You wicked, satirical person. I'm quite afraid of you!"
+
+"And some of them call the Rhine the 'Whine,'" I said, giving an
+admirable imitation of poor Hicks's drawling manner.
+
+Fanny looked hard at me, with a peculiar expression on her face. At last
+she laughed. "Oh, you wicked, wicked man," she said, "what a capital
+mimic you are, and so full of cleverness! Do bring up Captain
+Hicks--isn't that his name?--and trot him out for us. Bring him up, and
+introduce him to mamma: do now, go!"
+
+Mamma, in the meanwhile, had waited her time, and was just going to step
+down the cabin stairs as Lady Knightsbridge ascended from them. To draw
+back, to make a most profound curtsy, to exclaim, "Lady Knightsbridge! I
+have had the honor of seeing your ladyship at--hum--hum--hum" (this word
+I could not catch)--"House,"--all these feats were performed by Lady
+Kicklebury in one instant, and acknowledged with the usual calmness by
+the younger lady.
+
+"And may I hope," continues Lady Kicklebury, "that that most beautiful
+of all children--a mother may say so--that Lord Pimlico has recovered
+his hooping-cough? We were so anxious about him. Our medical attendant
+is Mr. Topham, and he used to come from Knightsbridge House to
+Pocklington Square, often and often. I am interested about the
+hooping-cough. My own dear boy had it most severely; that dear girl, my
+eldest daughter, whom you see stretched on the bench--she is in a very
+delicate state, and only lately married--not such a match as I could
+have wished: but Mr. Milliken is of a good family, distantly related
+to your ladyship's. A Milliken, in George the Third's reign, married
+a Boltimore, and the Boltimores, I think, are your first-cousins. They
+married this year, and Lavinia is so fond of me, that she can't part
+with me, and I have come abroad just to please her. We are going to
+Noirbourg. I think I heard from my son that Lord Knightsbridge was at
+Noirbourg."
+
+"I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Sir Thomas Kicklebury
+at Knightsbridge House," Lady Knightsbridge said, with something of
+sadness.
+
+"Indeed!" and Kicklebury had never told her! He laughed at her when she
+talked about great people: he told her all sorts of ridiculous stories
+when upon this theme. But, at any rate, the acquaintance was made: Lady
+Kicklebury would not leave Lady Knightsbridge; and, even in the throes
+of sea-sickness, and the secret recesses of the cabin, WOULD talk to
+her about the world, Lord Pimlico, and her father, General Guff, late
+aide-de-camp to the Duke of York.
+
+That those throes of sickness ensued, I need not say. A short time after
+passing Ramsgate, Serjeant Lankin, who had been exceedingly gay and
+satirical--(in his calm way; he quotes Horace, my favorite bits as
+an author, to myself, and has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak,
+amontillado flavor, exceedingly pleasant)--Lankin, with a rueful and
+livid countenance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot
+of serjeant packed himself I don't know how.
+
+When Lady Knightsbridge went down, down went Kicklebury. Milliken and
+his wife stayed, and were ill together on deck. A palm of glory ought to
+be awarded to that man for his angelic patience, energy, and suffering.
+It was he who went for Mrs. Milliken's maid, who wouldn't come to
+her mistress; it was he, the shyest of men, who stormed the ladies'
+cabin--that maritime harem--in order to get her mother's bottle of
+salts; it was he who went for the brandy-and-water, and begged,
+and prayed, and besought his adored Lavinia to taste a leetle drop.
+Lavinia's reply was, "Don't--go away--don't tease, Horace," and so
+forth. And, when not wanted, the gentle creature subsided on the bench,
+by his wife's feet, and was sick in silence.
+
+[Mem--In married life, it seems to me, that it is almost always Milliken
+and wife, or just the contrary. The angels minister to the tyrants; or
+the gentle, hen-pecked husband cowers before the superior partlet. If
+ever I marry, I know the sort of woman I will choose; and I won't try
+her temper by over-indulgence, and destroy her fine qualities by a
+ruinous subserviency to her wishes.]
+
+Little Miss Fanny stayed on deck, as well as her sister, and looked at
+the stars of heaven, as they began to shine there, and at the Foreland
+lights as we passed them. I would have talked with her; I would
+have suggested images of poesy, and thoughts of beauty; I would have
+whispered the word of sentiment--the delicate allusion--the breathing
+of the soul that longs to find a congenial heart--the sorrows and
+aspirations of the wounded spirit, stricken and sad, yet not QUITE
+despairing; still knowing that the hope-plant lurked in its crushed
+ruins--still able to gaze on the stars and the ocean, and love their
+blazing sheen, their boundless azure. I would, I say, have taken the
+opportunity of that stilly night to lay bare to her the treasures of a
+heart that, I am happy to say, is young still; but circumstances forbade
+the frank outpouring of my poet soul: in a word, I was obliged to go and
+lie down on the flat of my back, and endeavor to control OTHER emotions
+which struggled in my breast.
+
+Once, in the night-watches, I arose, and came on deck; the vessel was
+not, methought, pitching much; and yet--and yet Neptune was inexorable.
+The placid stars looked down, but they gave me no peace. Lavinia
+Milliken seemed asleep, and her Horace, in a death-like torpor, was
+huddled at her feet. Miss Fanny had quitted the larboard side of
+the ship, and had gone to starboard; and I thought that there was a
+gentleman beside her; but I could not see very clearly, and returned
+to the horrid crib, where Lankin was asleep, and the German fiddler
+underneath him was snoring like his own violoncello.
+
+In the morning we were all as brisk as bees. We were in the smooth
+waters of the lazy Scheldt. The stewards began preparing breakfast with
+that matutinal eagerness which they always show. The sleepers in the
+cabin were roused from their horse-hair couches by the stewards' boys
+nudging, and pushing, and flapping table-cloths over them. I shaved and
+made a neat toilette, and came upon deck just as we lay off that little
+Dutch fort, which is, I dare say, described in "Murray's Guide-book,"
+and about which I had some rare banter with poor Hicks and Lady
+Kicklebury, whose sense of humor is certainly not very keen. He had,
+somehow, joined her ladyship's party, and they were looking at the
+fort, and its tri-colored flag--that floats familiar in Vandevelde's
+pictures--and at the lazy shipping, and the tall roofs, and dumpy church
+towers, and flat pastures, lying before us in a Cuyplike haze.
+
+I am sorry to say, I told them the most awful fibs about that fort. How
+it had been defended by the Dutch patriot, Van Swammerdam, against the
+united forces of the Duke of Alva and Marshal Turenne, whose leg was
+shot off as he was leading the last unsuccessful assault, and who turned
+round to his aide-de-camp and said, "Allez dire an Premier Consul, que
+je meurs avec regret de ne pas avoir assez fait pour la France!" which
+gave Lady Kicklebury an opportunity to placer her story of the Duke of
+York, and the bombardment of Valenciennes; and caused young Hicks
+to look at me in a puzzled and appealing manner and hint that I was
+"chaffing."
+
+"Chaffing indeed!" says I, with a particularly arch eye-twinkle at
+Miss Fanny. "I wouldn't make fun of you, Captain Hicks! If you doubt my
+historical accuracy, look at the 'Biographie Universelle.' I say--look
+at the 'Biographie Universelle.'"
+
+He said, "O--ah--the 'Biogwaphie Universelle' may be all vewy well, and
+that; but I never can make out whether you are joking or not, somehow;
+and I always fancy you are going to CAWICKACHAW me. Ha, ha!" And he
+laughed, the good-natured dragoon laughed, and fancied he had made a
+joke.
+
+I entreated him not to be so severe upon me; and again he said, "Haw
+haw!" and told me, "I mustn't expect to have it all MY OWN WAY, and if
+I gave a hit, I must expect a Punch in return. Haw haw!" Oh, you honest
+young Hicks!
+
+Everybody, indeed, was in high spirits. The fog cleared off, the sun
+shone, the ladies chatted and laughed, even Mrs. Milliken was in good
+humor ("My wife is all intellect," Milliken says, looking at her with
+admiration), and talked with us freely and gayly. She was kind enough
+to say that it was a great pleasure to meet with a literary and
+well-informed person--that one often lived with people that did not
+comprehend one. She asked if my companion, that tall gentleman--Mr.
+Serjeant Lankin, was he?--was literary. And when I said that Lankin knew
+more Greek, and more Latin, and more law, and more history, and more
+everything, than all the passengers put together, she vouchsafed to
+look at him with interest, and enter into a conversation with my modest
+friend the Serjeant. Then it was that her adoring husband said "his
+Lavinia was all intellect;"--Lady Kicklebury saying that SHE was not a
+literary woman: that in HER day few acquirements were requisite for the
+British female; but that she knew THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE, and her DUTY AS
+A MOTHER, and that "Lavinia and Fanny had had the best masters and
+the best education which money and constant maternal solicitude could
+impart." If our matrons are virtuous, as they are, and it is Britain's
+boast, permit me to say that they certainly know it.
+
+The conversation growing powerfully intellectual under Mrs. Milliken,
+poor Hicks naturally became uneasy, and put an end to literature by
+admiring the ladies' head-dresses. "Cab-heads, hoods, what do you call
+'em?" he asked of Miss Kicklebury. Indeed, she and her sister wore a
+couple of those blue silk over-bonnets, which have lately become the
+fashion, and which I never should have mentioned but for the young
+lady's reply.
+
+"Those hoods!" she said--"WE CALL THOSE HOODS UGLIES! Captain Hicks."
+
+Oh, how pretty she looked as she said it! The blue eyes looked up under
+the blue hood, so archly and gayly; ever so many dimples began playing
+about her face; her little voice rang so fresh and sweet, that a heart
+which has never loved a tree or flower but the vegetable in question
+was sure to perish--a heart worn down and sickened by repeated
+disappointment, mockery, faithlessness--a heart whereof despair is an
+accustomed tenant, and in whose desolate and lonely depths dwells an
+abiding gloom, began to throb once more--began to beckon Hope from the
+window--began to admit sunshine--began to--O Folly, Folly! O Fanny!
+O Miss K., how lovely you looked as you said, "We call those hoods
+Uglies!" Ugly indeed!
+
+
+This is a chronicle of feelings and characters, not of events and
+places, so much. All this time our vessel was making rapid way up the
+river, and we saw before us the slim towers of the noble cathedral of
+Antwerp soaring in the rosy sunshine. Lankin and I had agreed to go to
+the "Grand Laboureur," or the Place de Meir. They give you a particular
+kind of jam-tarts there--called Nun's tarts, I think--that I remember,
+these twenty years, as the very best tarts--as good as the tarts
+which we ate when we were boys. The "Laboureur" is a dear old quiet
+comfortable hotel; and there is no man in England who likes a good
+dinner better than Lankin.
+
+"What hotel do you go to?" I asked of Lady Kicklebury.
+
+"We go to the 'Saint Antoine' of course. Everybody goes to the 'Saint
+Antoine,'" her ladyship said. "We propose to rest here; to do the
+Rubens's; and to proceed to Cologne to-morrow. Horace, call Finch and
+Bowman; and your courier, if he will have the condescension to wait upon
+ME, will perhaps look to the baggage."
+
+"I think, Lankin," said I, "as everybody seems going to the 'Saint
+Antoine,' we may as well go, and not spoil the party."
+
+"I think I'll go too," says Hicks; as if HE belonged to the party.
+
+And oh, it was a great sight when we landed, and at every place at which
+we paused afterwards, to see Hirsch over the Kicklebury baggage, and
+hear his polyglot maledictions at the porters! If a man sometimes feels
+sad and lonely at his bachelor condition, if SOME feelings of envy
+pervade his heart, at seeing beauty on another's arm, and kind eyes
+directed towards a happier mug than his own--at least there are some
+consolations in travelling, when a fellow has but one little portmanteau
+or bag which he can easily shoulder, and thinks of the innumerable bags
+and trunks which the married man and the father drags after him. The
+married Briton on a tour is but a luggage overseer: his luggage is his
+morning thought, and his nightly terror. When he floats along the Rhine
+he has one eye on a ruin, and the other on his luggage. When he is in
+the railroad he is always thinking, or ordered by his wife to think, "is
+the luggage safe?" It clings round him. It never leaves him (except
+when it DOES leave him, as a trunk or two will, and make him doubly
+miserable). His carpet-bags lie on his chest at night, and his wife's
+forgotten bandbox haunts his turbid dreams.
+
+I think it was after she found that Lady Kicklebury proposed to go to
+the "Grand Saint Antoine" that Lady Knightsbridge put herself with
+her maid into a carriage and went to the other inn. We saw her at the
+cathedral, where she kept aloof from our party. Milliken went up the
+tower, and so did Miss Fanny. I am too old a traveller to mount up those
+immeasurable stairs, for the purpose of making myself dizzy by gazing
+upon a vast map of low countries stretched beneath me, and waited with
+Mrs. Milliken and her mother below.
+
+When the tower-climbers descended, we asked Miss Fanny and her brother
+what they had seen.
+
+"We saw Captain Hicks up there," remarked Milliken. "And I am very glad
+you didn't come, Lavinia my love. The excitement would have been too
+much for you, quite too much."
+
+All this while Lady Kicklebury was looking at Fanny, and Fanny was
+holding her eyes down; and I knew that between her and this poor Hicks
+there could be nothing serious, for she had laughed at him and mimicked
+him to me half a dozen times in the course of the day.
+
+We "do the Rubens's," as Lady Kicklebury says; we trudge from cathedral
+to picture-gallery, from church to church. We see the calm old city,
+with its towers and gables, the bourse, and the vast town-hall; and
+I have the honor to give Lady Kicklebury my arm during these
+peregrinations, and to hear a hundred particulars regarding her
+ladyship's life and family. How Milliken has been recently building
+at Pigeoncot; how he will have two thousand a year more when his uncle
+dies; how she had peremptorily to put a stop to the assiduities of that
+unprincipled young man, Lord Roughhead, whom Lavinia always detested,
+and who married Miss Brent out of sheer pique. It was a great escape for
+her darling Lavinia. Roughhead is a most wild and dissipated young man,
+one of Kicklebury's Christchurch friends, of whom her son has too many,
+alas! and she enters into many particulars respecting the conduct
+of Kicklebury--the unhappy boy's smoking, his love of billiards, his
+fondness for the turf: she fears he has already injured his income, she
+fears he is even now playing at Noirbourg; she is going thither to wean
+him, if possible, from his companions and his gayeties--what may not a
+mother effect? She only wrote to him the day before they left London
+to announce that she was marching on him with her family. He is in many
+respects like his poor father--the same openness and frankness, the same
+easy disposition: alas! the same love of pleasure. But she had reformed
+the father, and will do her utmost to call back her dear misguided boy.
+She had an advantageous match for him in view--a lady not beautiful in
+person, it is true, but possessed of every good principle, and a very,
+very handsome fortune. It was under pretence of flying from this lady
+that Kicklebury left town. But she knew better.
+
+I say young men will be young men, and sow their wild oats; and think
+to myself that the invasion of his mamma will be perhaps more surprising
+than pleasant to young Sir Thomas Kicklebury, and that she possibly
+talks about herself and her family, and her virtues and her daughters,
+a little too much: but she WILL make a confidant of me, and all the time
+we are doing the Rubens's she is talking of the pictures at Kicklebury,
+of her portrait by Lawrence, pronounced to be his finest work, of
+Lavinia's talent for drawing, and the expense of Fanny's music-masters;
+of her house in town (where she hopes to see me); of her parties which
+were stopped by the illness of her butler. She talks Kicklebury until I
+am sick. And oh, Miss Fanny, all of this I endure, like an old fool, for
+an occasional sight of your bright eyes and rosy face!
+
+
+[Another parenthesis.--"We hope to see you in town, Mr. Titmarsh."
+Foolish mockery! If all the people whom one has met abroad, and who
+have said, "We hope to meet you often in town," had but made any the
+slightest efforts to realize their hopes by sending a simple line of
+invitation through the penny post, what an enormous dinner acquaintance
+one would have had! But I mistrust people who say, "We hope to see you
+in town."]
+
+
+Lankin comes in at the end of the day, just before dinnertime. He has
+paced the whole town by himself--church, tower, and fortifications,
+and Rubens, and all. He is full of Egmont and Alva. He is up to all the
+history of the siege, when Chassee defended, and the French attacked the
+place. After dinner we stroll along the quays; and over the quiet
+cigar in the hotel court, Monsieur Lankin discourses about the Rubens
+pictures, in a way which shows that the learned Serjeant has an eye
+for pictorial beauty as well as other beauties in this world, and can
+rightly admire the vast energy, the prodigal genius, the royal splendor
+of the King of Antwerp. In the most modest way in the world he has
+remarked a student making clever sketches at the Museum, and has ordered
+a couple of copies from him of the famous Vandyke and the wondrous
+adoration of the Magi, "a greater picture," says he, "than even the
+cathedral picture; in which opinion those may agree who like." He says
+he thinks Miss Kicklebury is a pretty little thing; that all my swans
+are geese; and that as for that old woman, with her airs and graces, she
+is the most intolerable old nuisance in the world. There is much good
+judgment, but there is too much sardonic humor about Lankin. He cannot
+appreciate women properly. He is spoiled by being an old bachelor, and
+living in that dingy old Pump Court; where, by the way, he has a cellar
+fit for a Pontiff. We go to rest; they have given us humble lodgings
+high up in the building, which we accept like philosophers who travel
+with but a portmanteau apiece. The Kickleburys have the grand suite, as
+becomes their dignity. Which, which of those twinkling lights illumines
+the chamber of Miss Fanny?
+
+Hicks is sitting in the court too, smoking his cigar. He and Lankin met
+in the fortifications. Lankin says he is a sensible fellow, and seems
+to know his profession. "Every man can talk well about something," the
+Serjeant says. "And one man can about everything," says I; at which
+Lankin blushes; and we take our flaring tallow candles and go to bed. He
+has us up an hour before the starting time, and we have that period to
+admire Herr Oberkellner, who swaggers as becomes the Oberkellner of a
+house frequented by ambassadors; who contradicts us to our faces, and
+whose own countenance is ornamented with yesterday's beard, of which, or
+of any part of his clothing, the graceful youth does not appear to have
+divested himself since last we left him. We recognize, somewhat dingy
+and faded, the elaborate shirt-front which appeared at yesterday's
+banquet. Farewell, Herr Oberkellner! May we never see your handsome
+countenance, washed or unwashed, shaven or unshorn, again!
+
+Here come the ladies: "Good morning, Miss Fanny. I hope you slept
+well, Lady Kicklebury?" "A tremendous bill?" "No wonder; how can you
+expect otherwise, when you have such a bad dinner?" Hearken to Hirsch's
+comminations over the luggage! Look at the honest Belgian soldiers, and
+that fat Freyschutz on guard, his rifle in one hand, and the other hand
+in his pocket. Captain Hicks bursts into a laugh at the sight of the fat
+Freyschutz, and says, "By Jove, Titmarsh, you must cawickachaw him."
+And we take our seats at length and at leisure, and the railway trumpets
+blow, and (save for a brief halt) we never stop till night, trumpeting
+by green flats and pastures, by broad canals and old towns, through
+Liege and Verviers, through Aix and Cologne, till we are landed at Bonn
+at nightfall.
+
+We all have supper, or tea--we have become pretty intimate--we look at
+the strangers' book, as a matter of course, in the great room of the
+"Star Hotel." Why, everybody is on the Rhine! Here are the names of half
+one's acquaintance.
+
+"I see Lord and Lady Exborough are gone on," says Lady Kicklebury,
+whose eye fastens naturally on her kindred aristocracy. "Lord and Lady
+Wyebridge and suite, Lady Zedland and her family."
+
+"Hallo! here's Cutler of the Onety-oneth, and MacMull of the Greens, en
+route to Noirbourg," says Hicks, confidentially. "Know MacMull? Devilish
+good fellow--such a fellow to smoke."
+
+Lankin, too, reads and grins. "Why, are they going the Rhenish circuit?"
+he says, and reads:
+
+Sir Thomas Minos, Lady Minos, nebst Begleitung, aus England.
+
+Sir John AEacus, mit Familie und Dienerschaft, aus England.
+
+Sir Roger Raadamanthus.
+
+Thomas Smith, Serjeant.
+
+Serjeant Brown and Mrs. Brown, aus England.
+
+Serjeant Tomkins, Anglais. Madame Tomkins, Mesdemoiselles Tomkins.
+
+Monsieur Kewsy, Conseiller de S. M. la Reine d'Angleterre. Mrs. Kewsy,
+three Miss Kewsys.
+
+And to this list Lankin, laughing, had put down his own name, and that
+of the reader's obedient servant, under the august autograph of Lady
+Kicklebury, who signed for herself, her son-in-law, and her suite.
+
+Yes, we all flock the one after the other, we faithful English folks. We
+can buy Harvey Sauce, and Cayenne Pepper, and Morison's Pills, in every
+city in the world. We carry our nation everywhere with us; and are in
+our island, wherever we go. Toto divisos orbe--always separated from the
+people in the midst of whom we are.
+
+
+When we came to the steamer next morning, "the castled crag of
+Drachenfels" rose up in the sunrise before, and looked as pink as the
+cheeks of Master Jacky, when they have been just washed in the morning.
+How that rosy light, too, did become Miss Fanny's pretty dimples, to be
+sure! How good a cigar is at the early dawn! I maintain that it has a
+flavor which it does not possess at later hours, and that it partakes of
+the freshness of all Nature. And wine, too: wine is never so good as at
+breakfast; only one can't drink it, for tipsiness's sake.
+
+See! there is a young fellow drinking soda-water and brandy already. He
+puts down his glass with a gasp of satisfaction. It is evident that he
+had need of that fortifier and refresher. He puts down the beaker and
+says, "How are you, Titmarsh? I was SO cut last night. My eyes, wasn't
+I! Not in the least: that's all."
+
+It is the youthful descendant and heir of an ancient line: the noble
+Earl of Grimsby's son, Viscount Talboys. He is travelling with the Rev.
+Baring Leader, his tutor; who, having a great natural turn and liking
+towards the aristocracy, and having inspected Lady Kicklebury's cards
+on her trunks, has introduced himself to her ladyship already, and has
+inquired after Sir Thomas Kicklebury, whom he remembers perfectly,
+and whom he had often the happiness of meeting when Sir Thomas was an
+undergraduate at Oxford. There are few characters more amiable, and
+delightful to watch and contemplate, than some of those middle-aged
+Oxford bucks who hang about the university and live with the young
+tufts. Leader can talk racing and boating with the fastest young
+Christchurch gentleman. Leader occasionally rides to cover with Lord
+Talboys; is a good shot, and seldom walks out without a setter or
+a spaniel at his heels. Leader knows the "Peerage" and the "Racing
+Calendar" as well as the Oxford cram-books. Leader comes up to town and
+dines with Lord Grimsby. Leader goes to Court every two years. He is
+the greatest swell in his common-room. He drinks claret, and can't stand
+port-wine any longer; and the old fellows of his college admire him, and
+pet him, and get all their knowledge of the world and the aristocracy
+from him. I admire those kind old dons when they appear affable and
+jaunty, men of the world, members of the "Camford and Oxbridge Club,"
+upon the London pavement. I like to see them over the Morning Post in
+the common-room; with a "Ha, I see Lady Rackstraw has another daughter."
+"Poppleton there has been at another party at X---- House, and YOU
+weren't asked, my boy."--"Lord Coverdale has got a large party staying
+at Coverdale. Did you know him at Christchurch? He was a very handsome
+man before he broke his nose fighting the bargeman at Iffly: a light
+weight, but a beautiful sparrer," &c. Let me add that Leader, although
+he does love a tuft, has a kind heart: as his mother and sisters in
+Yorkshire know; as all the village knows too--which is proud of his
+position in the great world, and welcomes him very kindly when he comes
+down and takes the duty at Christmas, and preaches to them one or two
+of "the very sermons which Lord Grimsby was good enough to like, when I
+delivered them at Talboys."
+
+"You are not acquainted with Lord Talboys?" Leader asks, with a degage
+air. "I shall have much pleasure in introducing you to him. Talboys, let
+me introduce you to Lady Kicklebury. Sir Thomas Kicklebury was not at
+Christchurch in your time; but you have heard of him, I dare say. Your
+son has left a reputation at Oxford."
+
+"I should think I have, too. He walked a hundred miles in a hundred
+hours. They said he bet that he'd drink a hundred pints of beer in a
+hundred hours: but I don't think he could do it--not strong beer; don't
+think any man could. The beer here isn't worth a--"
+
+"My dear Talboys," says Leader, with a winning smile, "I suppose Lady
+Kicklebury is not a judge of beer--and what an unromantic subject of
+conversation here, under the castled crag immortalized by Byron."
+
+"What the deuce does it mean about peasant-girls with dark blue eyes,
+and hands that offer corn and wine?" asks Talboys. "I'VE never seen any
+peasant-girls, except the--ugliest set of women I ever looked at."
+
+"The poet's license. I see, Miliken, you are making a charming sketch.
+You used to draw when you were at Brasenose, Milliken; and play--yes,
+you played the violoncello."
+
+Mr. Milliken still possessed these accomplishments. He was taken up
+that very evening by a soldier at Coblentz, for making a sketch of
+Ehrenbreitstein. Mrs. Milliken sketches immensely too, and writes
+poetry: such dreary pictures, such dreary poems! but professional people
+are proverbially jealous; and I doubt whether our fellow-passenger, the
+German, would even allow that Milliken could play the violoncello.
+
+Lady Kicklebury gives Miss Fanny a nudge when Lord Talboys appears, and
+orders her to exert all her fascinations. How the old lady coaxes, and
+she wheedles! She pours out the Talboys' pedigree upon him; and asks
+after his aunt, and his mother's family. Is he going to Noirbourg? How
+delightful! There is nothing like British spirits; and to see an English
+matron well set upon a young man of large fortune and high rank, is a
+great and curious sight.
+
+And yet, somehow, the British doggedness does not always answer. "Do
+you know that old woman in the drab jacket, Titmarsh?" my hereditary
+legislator asks of me. "What the devil is she bothering ME for, about
+my aunts, and setting her daughter at me? I ain't such a fool as that.
+I ain't clever, Titmarsh; I never said I was. I never pretend to be
+clever, and that--but why does that old fool bother ME, hay? Heigho!
+I'm devilish thirsty. I was devilish cut last night. I think I must have
+another go-off. Hallo you! Kellner! Garsong! Ody soda, Oter petty vare
+do dyvee de Conac. That's your sort; isn't it, Leader?"
+
+"You will speak French well enough, if you practise," says Leader with
+a tender voice; "practice is everything. Shall we dine at the
+table-d'hote? Waiter! put down the name of Viscount Talboys and Mr.
+Leader, if you please."
+
+The boat is full of all sorts and conditions of men. For'ard, there are
+peasants and soldiers: stumpy, placid-looking little warriors for the
+most part, smoking feeble cigars and looking quite harmless under their
+enormous helmets. A poor stunted dull-looking boy of sixteen, staggering
+before a black-striped sentry-box, with an enormous musket on his
+shoulder, does not seem to me a martial or awe-inspiring object. Has it
+not been said that we carry our prejudices everywhere, and only admire
+what we are accustomed to admire in our own country?
+
+Yonder walks a handsome young soldier who has just been marrying a wife.
+How happy they seem! and how pleased that everybody should remark their
+happiness. It is a fact that in the full sunshine, and before a couple
+of hundred people on board the Joseph Miller steamer, the soldier
+absolutely kissed Mrs. Soldier; at which the sweet Fanny Kicklebury was
+made to blush.
+
+We were standing together looking at the various groups: the pretty
+peasant-woman (really pretty for once,) with the red head-dress and
+fluttering ribbons, and the child in her arms; the jolly fat old
+gentleman, who was drinking Rhine-wine before noon, and turning his back
+upon all the castles, towers, and ruins, which reflected their crumbling
+peaks in the water; upon the handsome young students who came with
+us from Bonn, with their national colors in their caps, with their
+picturesque looks, their yellow ringlets, their budding moustaches, and
+with cuts upon almost every one of their noses, obtained in duels at the
+university: most picturesque are these young fellows, indeed--but ah,
+why need they have such black hands?
+
+Near us is a type, too: a man who adorns his own tale, and points his
+own moral. "Yonder, in his carriage, sits the Count de Reineck, who
+won't travel without that dismal old chariot, though it is shabby,
+costly, and clumsy, and though the wicked red republicans come and smoke
+under his very nose. Yes, Miss Fanny, it is the lusty young Germany,
+pulling the nose of the worn-out old world."
+
+"Law, what DO you mean, Mr. Titmarsh?" cries the dear Fanny.
+
+"And here comes Mademoiselle de Reineck, with her companion. You see she
+is wearing out one of the faded silk gowns which she has spoiled at the
+Residenz during the season: for the Reinecks are economical, though they
+are proud; and forced, like many other insolvent grandees, to do and to
+wear shabby things.
+
+"It is very kind of the young countess to call her companion 'Louise,'
+and to let Louise call her 'Laure;' but if faces may be trusted,--and we
+can read in one countenance conceit and tyranny; deceit and slyness in
+another,--dear Louise has to suffer some hard raps from dear Laure: and,
+to judge from her dress, I don't think poor Louise has her salary paid
+very regularly.
+
+"What a comfort it is to live in a country where there is neither
+insolence nor bankruptcy among the great folks, nor cringing, nor
+flattery among the small. Isn't it, Miss Fanny?"
+
+Miss Fanny says, that she can't understand whether I am joking
+or serious; and her mamma calls her away to look at the ruins of
+Wigginstein. Everybody looks at Wigginstein. You are told in Murray to
+look at Wigginstein.
+
+
+Lankin, who has been standing by, with a grin every now and then upon
+his sardonic countenance, comes up and says, "Titmarsh, how can you be
+so impertinent?"
+
+"Impertinent! as how?"
+
+"The girl must understand what you mean; and you shouldn't laugh at her
+own mother to her. Did you ever see anything like the way in which that
+horrible woman is following the young lord about?"
+
+"See! You see it every day, my dear fellow; only the trick is better
+done, and Lady Kicklebury is rather a clumsy practitioner. See! why
+nobody is better aware of the springes which are set to catch him than
+that young fellow himself, who is as knowing as any veteran in May Fair.
+And you don't suppose that Lady Kicklebury fancies that she is doing
+anything mean, or anything wrong? Heaven bless you! she never did
+anything wrong in her life. She has no idea but that everything she
+says, and thinks, and does is right. And no doubt she never did rob a
+church: and was a faithful wife to Sir Thomas, and pays her tradesmen.
+Confound her virtue! It is that which makes her so wonderful--that brass
+armor in which she walks impenetrable--not knowing what pity is, or
+charity; crying sometimes when she is vexed, or thwarted, but laughing
+never; cringing, and domineering by the same natural instinct--never
+doubting about herself above all. Let us rise, and revolt against those
+people, Lankin. Let us war with them, and smite them utterly. It is to
+use against these, especially, that Scorn and Satire were invented."
+
+"And the animal you attack," says Lankin, "is provided with a hide to
+defend him--it is a common ordinance of nature."
+
+
+And so we pass by tower and town, and float up the Rhine. We don't
+describe the river. Who does not know it? How you see people asleep in
+the cabins at the most picturesque parts, and angry to be awakened when
+they fire off those stupid guns for the echoes! It is as familiar to
+numbers of people as Greenwich; and we know the merits of the inns along
+the road as if they were the "Trafalgar" or the "Star and Garter." How
+stale everything grows! If we were to live in a garden of Eden, now, and
+the gate were open, we should go out, and tramp forward, and push on,
+and get up early in the morning, and push on again--anything to keep
+moving, anything to get a change: anything but quiet for the restless
+children of Cain.
+
+
+So many thousands of English folks have been at Rougetnoirbourg in this
+and last seasons, that it is scarcely needful to alter the name of that
+pretty little gay, wicked place. There were so many British barristers
+there this year that they called the "Hotel des Quatre Saisons"
+the "Hotel of Quarter Sessions." There were judges and their wives,
+serjeants and their ladies, Queen's counsel learned in the law, the
+Northern circuit and the Western circuit: there were officers of
+half-pay and full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs'
+officers. There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of
+no rank at all; there were men and women of reputation, and of the two
+kinds of reputation; there were English boys playing cricket; English
+pointers putting up the German partridges, and English guns knocking
+them down; there were women whose husbands, and men whose wives were at
+home; there were High Church and Low Church--England turned out for a
+holiday, in a word. How much farther shall we extend our holiday ground,
+and where shall we camp next? A winter at Cairo is nothing now. Perhaps
+ere long we shall be going to Saratoga Springs, and the Americans coming
+to Margate for the summer.
+
+Apartments befitting her dignity and the number of her family had been
+secured for Lady Kicklebury by her dutiful son, in the same house in
+which one of Lankin's friends had secured for us much humbler lodgings.
+Kicklebury received his mother's advent with a great deal of good humor;
+and a wonderful figure the good-natured little baronet was when he
+presented himself to his astonished friends, scarcely recognizable by
+his own parent and sisters, and the staring retainers of their house.
+
+"Mercy, Kicklebury! have you become a red republican?" his mother asked.
+
+"I can't find a place to kiss you," said Miss Fanny, laughing to her
+brother; and he gave her pretty cheek such a scrub with his red beard,
+as made some folks think it would be very pleasant to be Miss Fanny's
+brother.
+
+In the course of his travels, one of Sir Thomas Kicklebury's chief
+amusements and cares had been to cultivate this bushy auburn ornament.
+He said that no man could pronounce German properly without a beard to
+his jaws; but he did not appear to have got much beyond this preliminary
+step to learning; and, in spite of his beard, his honest English accent
+came out, as his jolly English face looked forth from behind that fierce
+and bristly decoration, perfectly good-humored and unmistakable. We try
+our best to look like foreigners, but we can't. Every Italian mendicant
+or Pont Neuf beggar knows his Englishman in spite of blouse, and beard,
+and slouched hat. "There is a peculiar high-bred grace about us," I
+whisper to Lady Kicklebury, "an aristocratic je ne scais quoi, which is
+not to be found in any but Englishmen; and it is that which makes us so
+immensely liked and admired all over the Continent." Well, this may
+be truth or joke--this may be a sneer or a simple assertion: our
+vulgarities and our insolences may, perhaps, make us as remarkable
+as that high breeding which we assume to possess. It may be that the
+Continental society ridicules and detests us, as we walk domineering
+over Europe; but, after all, which of us would denationalize himself?
+who wouldn't be an Englishman? Come, sir, cosmopolite as you are,
+passing all your winters at Rome or at Paris; exiled by choice, or
+poverty, from your own country; preferring easier manners, cheaper
+pleasures, a simpler life: are you not still proud of your British
+citizenship? and would you like to be a Frenchman?
+
+Kicklebury has a great acquaintance at Noirbourg, and as he walks into
+the great concert-room at night, introducing his mother and sisters
+there, he seemed to look about with a little anxiety, lest all of his
+acquaintance should recognize him. There are some in that most strange
+and motley company with whom he had rather not exchange salutations,
+under present circumstances. Pleasure-seekers from every nation in the
+world are here, sharpers of both sexes, wearers of the stars and cordons
+of every court in Europe; Russian princesses, Spanish grandees, Belgian,
+French, and English nobles, every degree of Briton, from the ambassador,
+who has his conge, to the London apprentice who has come out for his
+fortnight's lark. Kicklebury knows them all, and has a good-natured nod
+for each.
+
+"Who is that lady with the three daughters who saluted you, Kicklebury?"
+asks his mother.
+
+"That is our Ambassadress at X., ma'am. I saw her yesterday buying a
+penny toy for one of her little children in Frankfort Fair."
+
+Lady Kicklebury looks towards Lady X.: she makes her excellency an
+undeveloped curtsy, as it were; she waves her plumed head (Lady K. is
+got up in great style, in a rich dejeuner toilette, perfectly regardless
+of expense); she salutes the ambassadress with a sweeping gesture from
+her chair, and backs before her as before royalty, and turns to her
+daughters large eyes full of meaning, and spreads out her silks in
+state.
+
+"And who is that distinguished-looking man who just passed, and who gave
+you a reserved nod?" asks her ladyship. "Is that Lord X.?"
+
+Kicklebury burst out laughing. "That, ma'am, is Mr. Higmore, of Conduit
+Street, tailor, draper, and habit-maker: and I owe him a hundred pound."
+
+"The insolence of that sort of people is really intolerable," says Lady
+Kicklebury. "There MUST be some distinction of classes. They ought not
+to be allowed to go everywhere. And who is yonder, that lady with the
+two boys and the--the very high complexion?" Lady Kicklebury asks.
+
+"That is a Russian princess: and one of those little boys, the one who
+is sucking a piece of barley-sugar, plays, and wins five hundred louis
+in a night."
+
+"Kicklebury, you do not play? Promise your mother you do not! Swear
+to me at this moment you do not! Where are the horrid gambling-rooms?
+There, at that door where the crowd is? Of course, I shall never enter
+them!"
+
+"Of course not, ma'am," says the affectionate son on duty. "And if you
+come to the balls here, please don't let Fanny dance with anybody, until
+you ask me first: you understand. Fanny, you will take care."
+
+"Yes, Tom," says Fanny.
+
+"What, Hicks, how are you, old fellow? How is Platts? Who would have
+thought of you being here? When did you come?"
+
+"I had the pleasure of travelling with Lady Kicklebury and her daughters
+in the London boat to Antwerp," says Captain Hicks, making the ladies
+a bow. Kicklebury introduces Hicks to his mother as his most particular
+friend--and he whispers Fanny that "he's as good a fellow as ever lived,
+Hicks is." Fanny says, "He seems very kind and good-natured: and--and
+Captain Hicks waltzes very well," says Miss Fanny with a blush, "and I
+hope I may have him for one of my partners."
+
+What a Babel of tongues it is in this splendid hall with gleaming marble
+pillars: a ceaseless rushing whisper as if the band were playing its
+music by a waterfall! The British lawyers are all got together, and
+my friend Lankin, on his arrival, has been carried off by his brother
+serjeants, and becomes once more a lawyer. "Well, brother Lankin," says
+old Sir Thomas Minos, with his venerable kind face, "you have got your
+rule, I see." And they fall into talk about their law matters, as
+they always do, wherever they are--at a club, in a ball-room, at a
+dinner-table, at the top of Chimborazo. Some of the young barristers
+appear as bucks with uncommon splendor, and dance and hang about the
+ladies. But they have not the easy languid deuce-may-care air of the
+young bucks of the Hicks and Kicklebury school--they can't put on
+their clothes with that happy negligence; their neck-cloths sit quite
+differently on them, somehow: they become very hot when they dance, and
+yet do not spin round near so quickly as those London youths, who have
+acquired experience in corpore vili, and learned to dance easily by the
+practice of a thousand casinos.
+
+Above the Babel tongues and the clang of the music, as you listen in the
+great saloon, you hear from a neighboring room a certain sharp
+ringing clatter, and a hard clear voice cries out, "Zero rouge," or
+"Trente-cinq noir. Impair et passe." And then there is a pause of a
+couple of minutes, and then the voice says, "Faites le jeu, Messieurs.
+Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus"--and the sharp ringing clatter
+recommences. You know what that room is? That is Hades. That is where
+the spirited proprietor of the establishment takes his toll, and thither
+the people go who pay the money which supports the spirited proprietor
+of this fine palace and gardens. Let us enter Hades, and see what is
+going on there.
+
+Hades is not an unpleasant place. Most of the people look rather
+cheerful. You don't see any frantic gamblers gnashing their teeth or
+dashing down their last stakes. The winners have the most anxious faces;
+or the poor shabby fellows who have got systems, and are pricking down
+the alternations of red and black on cards, and don't seem to be playing
+at all. On fete days the country people come in, men and women, to
+gamble; and THEY seem to be excited as they put down their hard-earned
+florins with trembling rough hands, and watch the turn of the wheel. But
+what you call the good company is very quiet and easy. A man loses his
+mass of gold, and gets up and walks off, without any particular mark of
+despair. The only gentleman whom I saw at Noirbourg who seemed really
+affected was a certain Count de Mustacheff, a Russian of enormous
+wealth, who clenched his fists, beat his breast, cursed his stars, and
+absolutely cried with grief: not for losing money, but for neglecting to
+win and play upon a coup de vingt, a series in which the red was turned
+up twenty times running: which series, had he but played, it is
+clear that he might have broken M. Lenoir's bank, and shut up the
+gambling-house, and doubled his own fortune--when he would have been no
+happier, and all the balls and music, all the newspaper-rooms and parks,
+all the feasting and pleasure of this delightful Rougetnoirbourg would
+have been at an end.
+
+For though he is a wicked gambling prince, Lenoir, he is beloved in
+all these regions; his establishment gives life to the town, to the
+lodging-house and hotel-keepers, to the milliners and hackney-coachmen,
+to the letters of horse-flesh, to the huntsmen and gardes-de-chasse; to
+all these honest fiddlers and trumpeters who play so delectably. Were
+Lenoir's bank to break, the whole little city would shut up; and all the
+Noirbourgers wish him prosperity, and benefit by his good fortune.
+
+Three years since the Noirbourgers underwent a mighty panic. There
+came, at a time when the chief Lenoir was at Paris, and the reins
+of government were in the hands of his younger brother, a company of
+adventurers from Belgium, with a capital of three hundred thousand
+francs, and an infallible system for playing rouge et noir, and they
+boldly challenged the bank of Lenoir, and sat down before his croupiers,
+and defied him. They called themselves in their pride the Contrebanque
+de Noirbourg: they had their croupiers and punters, even as Lenoir
+had his: they had their rouleaux of Napoleons, stamped with their
+Contrebanquish seal:--and they began to play.
+
+As when two mighty giants step out of a host and engage, the armies
+stand still in expectation, and the puny privates and commonalty remain
+quiet to witness the combat of the tremendous champions of the war: so
+it is said that when the Contrebanque arrived, and ranged itself before
+the officers of Lenoir--rouleau to rouleau, bank-note to bank-note, war
+for war, controlment for controlment--all the minor punters and gamblers
+ceased their peddling play, and looked on in silence, round the verdant
+plain where the great combat was to be decided.
+
+Not used to the vast operations of war, like his elder brother, Lenoir
+junior, the lieutenant, telegraphed to his absent chief the news of the
+mighty enemy who had come down upon him, asked for instructions, and in
+the meanwhile met the foe-man like a man. The Contrebanque of Noirbourg
+gallantly opened its campaign.
+
+The Lenoir bank was defeated day after day, in numerous savage
+encounters. The tactics of the Contrebanquist generals were
+irresistible: their infernal system bore down everything before it, and
+they marched onwards terrible and victorious as the Macedonian phalanx.
+Tuesday, a loss of eighteen thousand florins; Wednesday, a loss of
+twelve thousand florins; Thursday, a loss of forty thousand florins:
+night after night, the young Lenoir had to chronicle these disasters
+in melancholy despatches to his chief. What was to be done? Night after
+night, the Noirbourgers retired home doubtful and disconsolate; the
+horrid Contrebanquists gathered up their spoils and retired to a
+victorious supper. How was it to end?
+
+Far away at Paris, the elder Lenoir answered these appeals of his
+brother by sending reinforcements of money. Chests of gold arrived for
+the bank. The Prince of Noirbourg bade his beleaguered lieutenant not to
+lose heart: he himself never for a moment blenched in this trying hour
+of danger.
+
+The Contrebanquists still went on victorious. Rouleau after rouleau fell
+into their possession. At last the news came: The Emperor has joined
+the Grand Army. Lenoir himself had arrived from Paris, and was once more
+among his children, his people. The daily combats continued: and
+still, still, though Napoleon was with the Eagles, the abominable
+Contrebanquists fought and conquered. And far greater than Napoleon, as
+great as Ney himself under disaster, the bold Lenoir never lost courage,
+never lost good-humor, was affable, was gentle, was careful of his
+subjects' pleasures and comforts, and met an adverse fortune with a
+dauntless smile.
+
+With a devilish forbearance and coolness, the atrocious
+Contrebanque--like Polyphemus, who only took one of his prisoners out
+of the cave at a time, and so ate them off at leisure--the horrid
+Contrebanquists, I say, contented themselves with winning so much before
+dinner, and so much before supper--say five thousand florins for each
+meal. They played and won at noon: they played and won at eventide. They
+of Noirbourg went home sadly every night: the invader was carrying all
+before him. What must have been the feelings of the great Lenoir? What
+were those of Washington before Trenton, when it seemed all up with the
+cause of American Independence; what those of the virgin Elizabeth,
+when the Armada was signalled; what those of Miltiades, when the
+multitudinous Persian bore down on Marathon? The people looked on at
+the combat, and saw their chieftain stricken, bleeding, fallen, fighting
+still.
+
+At last there came one day when the Contrebanquists had won their
+allotted sum, and were about to leave the tables which they had swept
+so often. But pride and lust of gold had seized upon the heart of one of
+their vainglorious chieftains; and he said, "Do not let us go yet--let
+us win a thousand florins more!" So they stayed and set the bank yet
+a thousand florins. The Noirbourgers looked on, and trembled for their
+prince.
+
+Some three hours afterwards--a shout, a mighty shout was heard around
+the windows of that palace: the town, the gardens, the hills, the
+fountains took up and echoed the jubilant acclaim. Hip, hip, hip,
+hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! People rushed into each other's arms; men,
+women, and children cried and kissed each other. Croupiers, who never
+feel, who never tremble, who never care whether black wins or red loses,
+took snuff from each other's boxes, and laughed for joy; and Lenoir the
+dauntless, the INVINCIBLE Lenoir, wiped the drops of perspiration from
+his calm forehead, as he drew the enemy's last rouleau into his till. He
+had conquered. The Persians were beaten, horse and foot--the Armada had
+gone down. Since Wellington shut up his telescope at Waterloo, when the
+Prussians came charging on to the field, and the Guard broke and fled,
+there had been no such heroic endurance, such utter defeat, such signal
+and crowning victory. Vive Lenoir! I am a Lenoirite. I have read his
+newspapers, strolled in his gardens, listened to his music, and rejoice
+in his victory: I am glad he beat those Contrebanquists. Dissipati sunt.
+The game is up with them.
+
+
+The instances of this man's magnanimity are numerous, and worthy of
+Alexander the Great, or Harry the Fifth, or Robin Hood. Most gentle is
+he, and thoughtful to the poor, and merciful to the vanquished.
+When Jeremy Diddler, who had lost twenty pounds at his table, lay in
+inglorious pawn at his inn--when O'Toole could not leave Noirbourg until
+he had received his remittances from Ireland--the noble Lenoir
+paid Diddler's inn bill, advanced O'Toole money upon his well-known
+signature, franked both of them back to their native country again; and
+has never, wonderful to state, been paid from that day to this. If you
+will go play at his table, you may; but nobody forces you. If you lose,
+pay with a cheerful heart. Dulce est desipere in loco. This is not a
+treatise of morals. Friar Tuck was not an exemplary ecclesiastic, nor
+Robin Hood a model man; but he was a jolly outlaw; and I dare say the
+Sheriff of Nottingham, whose money he took, rather relished his feast at
+Robin's green table.
+
+And if you lose, worthy friend, as possibly you will, at Lenoir's pretty
+games, console yourself by thinking that it is much better for you in
+the end that you should lose, than that you should win. Let me, for my
+part, make a clean breast of it, and own that your humble servant did,
+on one occasion, win a score of Napoleons; and beginning with a sum of
+no less than five shillings. But until I had lost them again I was so
+feverish, excited, and uneasy, that I had neither delectation in
+reading the most exciting French novels, nor pleasure in seeing pretty
+landscapes, nor appetite for dinner. The moment, however, that graceless
+money was gone, equanimity was restored: Paul Feval and Eugene Sue began
+to be terrifically interesting again; and the dinners at Noirbourg,
+though by no means good culinary specimens, were perfectly sufficient
+for my easy and tranquil mind. Lankin, who played only a lawyer's rubber
+at whist, marked the salutary change in his friend's condition; and,
+for my part, I hope and pray that every honest reader of this volume
+who plays at M. Lenoir's table will lose every shilling of his winnings
+before he goes away. Where are the gamblers whom we have read of? Where
+are the card-players whom we can remember in our early days? At one
+time almost every gentleman played, and there were whist-tables in every
+lady's drawing-room. But trumps are going out along with numbers of
+old-world institutions; and, before very long, a blackleg will be as
+rare an animal as a knight in armor.
+
+There was a little dwarfish, abortive, counter bank set up at Noirbourg
+this year: but the gentlemen soon disagreed among themselves; and, let
+us hope, were cut off in detail by the great Lenoir. And there was a
+Frenchman at our inn who had won two Napoleons per day for the last six
+weeks, and who had an infallible system, whereof he kindly offered to
+communicate the secret for the consideration of a hundred louis; but
+there came one fatal night when the poor Frenchman's system could
+not make head against fortune, and her wheel went over him, and he
+disappeared utterly.
+
+
+With the early morning everybody rises and makes his or her appearance
+at the Springs, where they partake of water with a wonderful energy and
+perseverance. They say that people get to be fond of this water at last;
+as to what tastes cannot men accustom themselves? I drank a couple of
+glasses of an abominable sort of feeble salts in a state of very gentle
+effervescence; but, though there was a very pretty girl who served it,
+the drink was abominable, and it was a marvel to see the various topers,
+who tossed off glass after glass, which the fair-haired little Hebe
+delivered sparkling from the well.
+
+Seeing my wry faces, old Captain Carver expostulated, with a jolly
+twinkle of his eye, as he absorbed the contents of a sparkling crystal
+beaker. "Pooh! take another glass, sir: you'll like it better and better
+every day. It refreshes you, sir: it fortifies you: and as for liking
+it--gad! I remember the time when I didn't like claret. Times are
+altered now, ha! ha! Mrs. Fantail, madam, I wish you a very good
+morning. How is Fantail? He don't come to drink the water: so much the
+worse for him."
+
+To see Mrs. Fantail of an evening is to behold a magnificent sight.
+She ought to be shown in a room by herself; and, indeed, would occupy
+a moderate-sized one with her person and adornments. Marie Antoinette's
+hoop is not bigger than Mrs. Fantail's flounces. Twenty men taking hands
+(and, indeed, she likes to have at least that number about her) would
+scarcely encompass her. Her chestnut ringlets spread out in a halo
+round her face: she must want two or three coiffeurs to arrange that
+prodigious head-dress; and then, when it is done, how can she endure
+that extraordinary gown? Her travelling bandboxes must be as large as
+omnibuses.
+
+But see Mrs. Fantail in the morning, having taken in all sail: the
+chestnut curls have disappeared, and two limp bands of brown hair border
+her lean, sallow face; you see before you an ascetic, a nun, a woman
+worn by mortifications, of a sad yellow aspect, drinking salts at the
+well: a vision quite different from that rapturous one of the previous
+night's ball-room. No wonder Fantail does not come out of a morning; he
+had rather not see such a Rebecca at the well.
+
+Lady Kicklebury came for some mornings pretty regularly, and was very
+civil to Mr. Leader, and made Miss Fanny drink when his lordship took a
+cup, and asked Lord Talboys and his tutor to dinner. But the tutor came,
+and, blushing, brought an excuse from Talboys; and poor Milliken had not
+a very pleasant evening after Mr. Baring Leader rose to go away.
+
+But though the water was not good the sun was bright, the music cheery,
+the landscape fresh and pleasant, and it was always amusing to see the
+vast varieties of our human species that congregated at the Springs, and
+trudged up and down the green allees. One of the gambling conspirators
+of the roulette-table it was good to see here, in his private character,
+drinking down pints of salts like any other sinner, having a homely
+wife on his arm, and between them a poodle on which they lavished their
+tenderest affection. You see these people care for other things besides
+trumps; and are not always thinking about black and red:--as even ogres
+are represented, in their histories, as of cruel natures, and licentious
+appetites, and, to be sure, fond of eating men and women; but yet it
+appears that their wives often respected them, and they had a sincere
+liking for their own hideous children. And, besides the card-players,
+there are band-players: every now and then a fiddle from the neighboring
+orchestra, or a disorganized bassoon, will step down and drink a glass
+of the water, and jump back into his rank again.
+
+Then come the burly troops of English, the honest lawyers, merchants,
+and gentlemen, with their wives and buxom daughters, and stout sons,
+that, almost grown to the height of manhood, are boys still, with rough
+wide-awake hats and shooting-jackets, full of lark and laughter. A
+French boy of sixteen has had des passions ere that time, very likely,
+and is already particular in his dress, an ogler of the women, and
+preparing to kill. Adolphe says to Alphonse--"La voila cette charmante
+Miss Fanni, la belle Kickleburi! je te donne ma parole, elle est fraiche
+comme une rose! la crois-tu riche, Alphonse?" "Je me range, mon ami,
+vois-tu? La vie de garcon me pese. Ma parole d'honneur! je me range."
+
+And he gives Miss Fanny a killing bow, and a glance which seems to say,
+"Sweet Anglaise, I know that I have won your heart."
+
+Then besides the young French buck, whom we will willingly suppose
+harmless, you see specimens of the French raff, who goes aux eaux:
+gambler, speculator, sentimentalist, duellist, travelling with madame
+his wife, at whom other raffs nod and wink familiarly. This rogue is
+much more picturesque and civilized than the similar person in our own
+country: whose manners betray the stable; who never reads anything but
+Bell's Life; and who is much more at ease in conversing with a groom
+than with his employer. Here come Mr. Boucher and Mr. Fowler: better to
+gamble for a score of nights with honest Monsieur Lenoir, than to sit
+down in private once with those gentlemen. But we have said that their
+profession is going down, and the number of Greeks daily diminishes.
+They are travelling with Mr. Bloundell, who was a gentleman once, and
+still retains about him some faint odor of that time of bloom; and
+Bloundell has put himself on young Lord Talboys, and is trying to get
+some money out of that young nobleman. But the English youth of the
+present day is a wide-awake youth, and male or female artifices are
+expended pretty much in vain on our young travelling companion.
+
+Who come yonder? Those two fellows whom we met at the table-d'hote at
+the "Hotel de Russie" the other day: gentlemen of splendid costume, and
+yet questionable appearances, the eldest of whom called for the list of
+wines, and cried out loud enough for all the company to hear, "Lafite,
+six florins. 'Arry, shall we have some Lafite? You don't mind? No more
+do I then. I say, waiter, let's 'ave a pint of ordinaire." Truth is
+stranger than fiction. You good fellow, wherever you are, why did
+you ask 'Arry to 'ave that pint of ordinaire in the presence of your
+obedient servant? How could he do otherwise than chronicle the speech?
+
+And see: here is a lady who is doubly desirous to be put into print, who
+encourages it and invites it. It appears that on Lankin's first arrival
+at Noirbourg with his travelling companion, a certain sensation was
+created in the little society by the rumor that an emissary of the
+famous Mr. Punch had arrived in the place; and, as we were smoking the
+cigar of peace on the lawn after dinner, looking on at the benevolent,
+pretty scene, Mrs. Hopkins, Miss Hopkins, and the excellent head of the
+family, walked many times up and down before us; eyed us severely face
+to face, and then walking away, shot back fierce glances at us in the
+Parthian manner; and at length, at the third or fourth turn, and when
+we could not but overhear so fine a voice, Mrs. Hopkins looks at us
+steadily, and says, "I'm sure he may put ME in if he likes: I don't
+mind."
+
+Oh, ma'am! Oh, Mrs. Hopkins! how should a gentleman, who had never seen
+your face or heard of you before, want to put YOU in? What interest can
+the British public have in you? But as you wish it, and court publicity,
+here you are. Good luck go with you, madam. I have forgotten your real
+name, and should not know you again if I saw you. But why could not you
+leave a man to take his coffee and smoke his pipe in quiet?
+
+We could never have time to make a catalogue of all the portraits that
+figure in this motley gallery. Among the travellers in Europe, who are
+daily multiplying in numbers and increasing in splendor, the United
+States' dandies must not be omitted. They seem as rich as the Milor of
+old days; they crowd in European capitals; they have elbowed out people
+of the old country from many hotels which we used to frequent; they
+adopt the French fashion of dressing rather than ours, and they grow
+handsomer beards than English beards: as some plants are found to
+flourish and shoot up prodigiously when introduced into a new soil. The
+ladies seem to be as well dressed as Parisians, and as handsome; though
+somewhat more delicate, perhaps, than the native English roses. They
+drive the finest carriages, they keep the grandest houses, they frequent
+the grandest company--and, in a word, the Broadway Swell has now taken
+his station and asserted his dignity amongst the grandees of Europe.
+He is fond of asking Count Reineck to dinner, and Grafinn Laura will
+condescend to look kindly upon a gentleman who has millions of dollars.
+Here comes a pair of New Yorkers. Behold their elegant curling
+beards, their velvet coats, their delicate primrose gloves and cambric
+handkerchiefs, and the aristocratic beauty of their boots. Why, if you
+had sixteen quarterings, you could not have smaller feet than those; and
+if you were descended from a line of kings you could not smoke better or
+bigger cigars.
+
+Lady Kicklebury deigns to think very well of these young men, since she
+has seen them in the company of grandees and heard how rich they are.
+"Who is that very stylish-looking woman, to whom Mr. Washington Walker
+spoke just now?" she asks of Kicklebury.
+
+Kicklebury gives a twinkle of his eye. "Oh, that, mother! that is Madame
+La Princesse de Mogador--it's a French title."
+
+"She danced last night, and danced exceedingly well; I remarked her.
+There's a very high-bred grace about the princess."
+
+"Yes, exceedingly. We'd better come on," says Kicklebury, blushing
+rather as he returns the princess's nod.
+
+It is wonderful how large Kicklebury's acquaintance is. He has a word
+and a joke, in the best German he can muster, for everybody--for the
+high well-born lady, as for the German peasant maiden, or the pretty
+little washerwoman, who comes full sail down the streets, a basket on
+her head and one of Mrs. Fantail's wonderful gowns swelling on each arm.
+As we were going to the Schloss-Garten I caught a sight of the rogue's
+grinning face yesterday, close at little Gretel's ear under her basket;
+but spying out his mother advancing, he dashed down a bystreet, and when
+we came up with her, Gretel was alone.
+
+One but seldom sees the English and the holiday visitors in the ancient
+parts of Noirbourg; they keep to the streets of new buildings and garden
+villas, which have sprung up under the magic influence of M. Lenoir,
+under the white towers and gables of the old German town. The Prince
+of Trente et Quarante has quite overcome the old serene sovereign of
+Noirbourg, whom one cannot help fancying a prince like a prince in a
+Christmas pantomime--a burlesque prince with twopence-halfpenny for a
+revenue, jolly and irascible, a prime-minister-kicking prince, fed upon
+fabulous plum-puddings and enormous pasteboard joints, by cooks and
+valets with large heads which never alter their grin. Not that this
+portrait is from the life. Perhaps he has no life. Perhaps there is no
+prince in the great white tower, that we see for miles before we enter
+the little town. Perhaps he has been mediatized, and sold his kingdom
+to Monsieur Lenoir. Before the palace of Lenoir there is a grove of
+orange-trees in tubs, which Lenoir bought from another German prince;
+who went straightway and lost the money, which he had been paid for his
+wonderful orange-trees, over Lenoir's green tables, at his roulette and
+trente-et-quarante. A great prince is Lenoir in his way; a generous and
+magnanimous prince. You may come to his feast and pay nothing, unless
+you please. You may walk in his gardens, sit in his palace, and read
+his thousand newspapers. You may go and play at whist in his small
+drawing-rooms, or dance and hear concerts in his grand saloon--and there
+is not a penny to pay. His fiddlers and trumpeters begin trumpeting and
+fiddling for you at the early dawn--they twang and blow for you in the
+afternoon, they pipe for you at night that you may dance--and there is
+nothing to pay--Lenoir pays for all. Give him but the chances of the
+table, and he will do all this and more. It is better to live under
+Prince Lenoir than a fabulous old German Durchlaucht whose cavalry ride
+wicker horses with petticoats, and whose prime minister has a great
+pasteboard head. Vive le Prince Lenoir!
+
+There is a grotesque old carved gate to the palace of the Durchlaucht,
+from which you could expect none but a pantomime procession to pass.
+The place looks asleep; the courts are grass-grown and deserted. Is
+the Sleeping Beauty lying yonder, in the great white tower? What is the
+little army about? It seems a sham army: a sort of grotesque military.
+The only charge of infantry was this: one day when passing through the
+old town, looking for sketches. Perhaps they become croupiers at night.
+What can such a fabulous prince want with anything but a sham army?
+My favorite walk was in the ancient quarter of the town--the dear old
+fabulous quarter, away from the noisy actualities of life and Prince
+Lenoir's new palace--out of eye and earshot of the dandies and the
+ladies in their grand best clothes at the promenades--and the rattling
+whirl of the roulette wheel--and I liked to wander in the glum old
+gardens under the palace wall, and imagine the Sleeping Beauty within
+there.
+
+Some one persuaded us one day to break the charm, and see the interior
+of the palace. I am sorry we did. There was no Sleeping Beauty in any
+chamber that we saw; nor any fairies, good or malevolent. There was a
+shabby set of clean old rooms, which looked as if they had belonged to
+a prince hard put to it for money, and whose tin crown jewels would not
+fetch more than King Stephen's pantaloons. A fugitive prince, a brave
+prince struggling with the storms of fate, a prince in exile may
+be poor; but a prince looking out of his own palace windows with a
+dressing-gown out at elbows, and dunned by his subject washerwoman--I
+say this is a painful object. When they get shabby they ought not to be
+seen. "Don't you think so, Lady Kicklebury?" Lady Kicklebury evidently
+had calculated the price of the carpets and hangings, and set them
+justly down at a low figure. "These German princes," she said, "are not
+to be put on a level with English noblemen." "Indeed," we answer, "there
+is nothing so perfect as England: nothing so good as our aristocracy;
+nothing so perfect as our institutions." "Nothing! NOTHING!" says Lady
+K.
+
+An English princess was once brought to reign here; and almost the whole
+of the little court was kept upon her dowry. The people still regard
+her name fondly; and they show, at the Schloss, the rooms which she
+inhabited. Her old books are still there--her old furniture brought from
+home; the presents and keepsakes sent by her family are as they were in
+the princess's lifetime: the very clock has the name of a Windsor maker
+on its face; and portraits of all her numerous race decorate the homely
+walls of the now empty chambers. There is the benighted old king, his
+beard hanging down to the star on his breast; and the first gentleman
+of Europe--so lavish of his portrait everywhere, and so chary of showing
+his royal person--all the stalwart brothers of the now all but extinct
+generation are there; their quarrels and their pleasures, their glories
+and disgraces, enemies, flatterers, detractors, admirers--all now
+buried. Is it not curious to think that the King of Trumps now virtually
+reigns in this place, and has deposed the other dynasty?
+
+Very early one morning, wishing to have a sketch of the White Tower
+in which our English princess had been imprisoned, I repaired to the
+gardens, and set about a work, which, when completed, will no doubt
+have the honor of a place on the line at the Exhibition; and, returning
+homewards to breakfast, musing upon the strange fortunes and inhabitants
+of the queer, fantastic, melancholy place, behold, I came suddenly upon
+a couple of persons, a male and a female; the latter of whom wore a blue
+hood or "ugly," and blushed very much on seeing me. The man began to
+laugh behind his moustaches, the which cachinnation was checked by an
+appealing look from the young lady; and he held out his hand and said,
+"How d'ye do, Titmarsh? Been out making some cawickachaws, hay?"
+
+I need not say that the youth before me was the heavy dragoon, and that
+the maiden was Miss Fanny Kicklebury. Or need I repeat that, in the
+course of my blighted being, I never loved a young gazelle to glad
+me with its dark blue eye, but when it came to, &c., the usual
+disappointment, was sure to ensue? There is no necessity why I should
+allude to my feelings at this most manifest and outrageous case. I gave
+a withering glance of scorn at the pair, and, with a stately salutation,
+passed on.
+
+Miss Fanny came tripping after me. She held out her little hand with
+such a pretty look of deprecation, that I could not but take it; and
+she said, "Mr. Titmarsh, if you please, I want to speak to you, if you
+please;" and, choking with emotion, I bade her speak on.
+
+"My brother knows all about it, and, highly approves of Captain Hicks,"
+she said, with her head hanging down; "and oh, he's very good and kind:
+and I know him MUCH better now, than I did when we were on board the
+steamer."
+
+I thought how I had mimicked him, and what an ass I had been.
+
+"And you know," she continued, "that you have quite deserted me for the
+last ten days for your great acquaintances."
+
+"I have been to play chess with Lord Knightsbridge, who has the gout."
+
+"And to drink tea constantly with that American lady; and you have
+written verses in her album; and in Lavinia's album; and as I saw that
+you had quite thrown me off, why I--my brother approves of it highly;
+and--and Captain Hicks likes you very much, and says you amuse him very
+much--indeed he does," says the arch little wretch. And then she added
+a postscript, as it were to her letter, which contained, as usual, the
+point which she wished to urge:--
+
+"You--won't break it to mamma--will you be so kind? My brother will do
+that"--and I promised her; and she ran away, kissing her hand to me. And
+I did not say a word to Lady Kicklebury, and not above a thousand people
+at Noirbourg knew that Miss Kicklebury and Captain Hicks were engaged.
+
+
+And now let those who are too confident of their virtue listen to
+the truthful and melancholy story which I have to relate, and humble
+themselves, and bear in mind that the most perfect among us are
+occasionally liable to fall. Kicklebury was not perfect,--I do not
+defend his practice. He spent a great deal more time and money than was
+good for him at M. Lenoir's gaming-table, and the only thing which the
+young fellow never lost was his good humor. If Fortune shook her swift
+wings and fled away from him, he laughed at the retreating pinions, and
+you saw him dancing and laughing as gayly after losing a rouleau, as if
+he was made of money, and really had the five thousand a year which
+his mother said was the amount of the Kicklebury property. But when her
+ladyship's jointure, and the young ladies' allowances, and the interest
+of mortgages were paid out of the five thousand a year, I grieve to say
+that the gallant Kicklebury's income was to be counted by hundreds and
+not by thousands; so that, for any young lady who wants a carriage (and
+who can live without one?) our friend the baronet is not a desirable
+specimen of bachelors. Now, whether it was that the presence of his
+mamma interrupted his pleasures, or certain of her ways did not please
+him, or that he had lost all his money at roulette and could afford no
+more, certain it is, that after about a fortnight's stay at Noirbourg,
+he went off to shoot with Count Einhorn in Westphalia; he and Hicks
+parting the dearest of friends, and the baronet going off on a
+pony which the captain lent to him. Between him and Millikin, his
+brother-in-law, there was not much sympathy: for he pronounced Mr.
+Milliken to be what is called a muff; and had never been familiar with
+his elder sister Lavinia, of whose poems he had a mean opinion, and who
+used to tease and worry him by teaching him French, and telling tales
+of him to his mamma, when he was a schoolboy home for the holidays.
+Whereas, between the baronet and Miss Fanny there seemed to be the
+closest affection: they walked together every morning to the waters;
+they joked and laughed with each other as happily as possible. Fanny was
+almost ready to tell fibs to screen her brother's malpractices from her
+mamma: she cried when she heard of his mishaps, and that he had lost too
+much money at the green table; and when Sir Thomas went away, the good
+little soul brought him five louis; which was all the money she had:
+for you see she paid her mother handsomely for her board; and when her
+little gloves and milliner's bills were settled how much was there left
+out of two hundred a year? And she cried when she heard that Hicks had
+lent Sir Thomas money, and went up and said, "Thank you, Captain Hicks;"
+and shook hands with the captain so eagerly, that I thought he was
+a lucky fellow, who had a father a wealthy attorney in Bedford Row.
+Heighho! I saw how matters were going. The birds MUST sing in the
+spring-time, and the flowers bud.
+
+Mrs. Milliken, in her character of invalid, took the advantage of her
+situation to have her husband constantly about her, reading to her, or
+fetching the doctor to her, or watching her whilst she was dozing, and
+so forth; and Lady Kicklebury found the life which this pair led rather
+more monotonous than that sort of existence which she liked, and would
+leave them alone with Fanny (Captain Hicks not uncommonly coming in to
+take tea with the three), whilst her ladyship went to the Redoute to
+hear the music, or read the papers, or play a game of whist there.
+
+The newspaper-room at Noirbourg is next to the roulette-room, into which
+the doors are always open; and Lady K. would come, with newspaper in
+hand, into this play-room, sometimes, and look on at the gamesters.
+I have mentioned a little Russian boy, a little imp with the most
+mischievous intelligence and good humor in his face, who was suffered by
+his parents to play as much as he chose, and who pulled bonbons out of
+one pocket and Napoleons out of the other, and seemed to have quite a
+diabolical luck at the table.
+
+Lady Kicklebury's terror and interest at seeing this boy were extreme.
+She watched him and watched him, and he seemed always to win; and at
+last her ladyship put down just a florin--only just one florin--on one
+of the numbers at roulette which the little Russian imp was backing.
+Number twenty-seven came up, and the croupiers flung over three gold
+pieces and five florins to Lady Kicklebury, which she raked up with a
+trembling hand.
+
+She did not play any more that night, but sat in the playroom,
+pretending to read the Times newspaper; but you could see her eye
+peering over the sheet, and always fixed on the little imp of a Russian.
+He had very good luck that night, and his winning made her very savage.
+As he retired, rolling his gold pieces into his pocket and sucking his
+barley-sugar, she glared after him with angry eyes; and went home, and
+scolded everybody, and had no sleep. I could hear her scolding. Our
+apartments in the Tissisch House overlooked Lady Kicklebury's suite of
+rooms: the great windows were open in the autumn. Yes; I could hear her
+scolding, and see some other people sitting whispering in the embrasure,
+or looking out on the harvest moon.
+
+The next evening, Lady Kicklebury shirked away from the concert; and I
+saw her in the play-room again, going round and round the table; and,
+lying in ambush behind the Journal des Debats, I marked how, after
+looking stealthily round, my lady whipped a piece of money under the
+croupier's elbow, and (there having been no coin there previously) I saw
+a florin on the Zero.
+
+She lost that, and walked away. Then she came back and put down two
+florins on a number, and lost again, and became very red and angry; then
+she retreated, and came back a third time, and a seat being vacated by a
+player, Lady Kicklebury sat down at the verdant board. Ah me! She had
+a pretty good evening, and carried off a little money again that night.
+The next day was Sunday: she gave two florins at the collection at
+church, to Fanny's surprise at mamma's liberality. On this night of
+course there was no play. Her ladyship wrote letters, and read a sermon.
+
+But the next night she was back at the table; and won very plentifully,
+until the little Russian sprite made his appearance, when it seemed that
+her luck changed. She began to bet upon him, and the young Calmuck lost
+too. Her ladyship's temper went along with her money: first she backed
+the Calmuck, and then she played against him. When she played against
+him, his luck turned; and he began straightway to win. She put on more
+and more money as she lost: her winnings went: gold came out of secret
+pockets. She had but a florin left at last, and tried it on a number,
+and failed. She got up to go away. I watched her, and I watched Mr.
+Justice Aeacus, too, who put down a Napoleon when he thought nobody was
+looking.
+
+The next day my Lady Kicklebury walked over to the money-changers, where
+she changed a couple of circular notes. She was at the table that night
+again: and the next night, and the next night, and the next.
+
+By about the fifth day she was like a wild woman. She scolded so, that
+Hirsch, the courier, said he should retire from monsieur's service, as
+he was not hired by Lady Kicklebury: that Bowman gave warning, and told
+another footman in the building that he wouldn't stand the old cat no
+longer, blow him if he would: that the maid (who was a Kicklebury girl)
+and Fanny cried: and that Mrs. Milliken's maid, Finch, complained to
+her mistress, who ordered her husband to remonstrate with her mother.
+Milliken remonstrated with his usual mildness, and, of course, was
+routed by her ladyship. Mrs. Milliken said, "Give me the daggers," and
+came to her husband's rescue. A battle royal ensued; the scared Milliken
+hanging about his blessed Lavinia, and entreating and imploring her to
+be calm. Mrs. Milliken WAS calm. She asserted her dignity as mistress
+of her own family: as controller of her own household, as wife of her
+adored husband; and she told her mamma, that with her or here she must
+not interfere; that she knew her duty as a child: but that she also knew
+it as a wife, as a-- The rest of the sentence was drowned, as Milliken,
+rushing to her, called her his soul's angel, his adored blessing.
+
+Lady Kicklebury remarked that Shakspeare was very right in stating how
+much sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child.
+
+Mrs. Milliken said, the conversation could not be carried on in this
+manner: that it was best her mamma should now know, once for all, that
+the way in which she assumed the command at Pigeoncot was intolerable;
+that all the servants had given warning, and it was with the greatest
+difficulty they could be soothed: and that, as their living together
+only led to quarrels and painful recriminations (the calling her, after
+her forbearance, A SERPENT CHILD, was an expression which she would hope
+to forgive and forget,) they had better part.
+
+Lady Kicklebury wears a front, and, I make no doubt, a complete jasey;
+or she certainly would have let down her back hair at this minute, so
+overpowering were her feelings, and so bitter her indignation at her
+daughter's black ingratitude. She intimated some of her sentiments, by
+ejaculatory conjurations of evil. She hoped her daughter might NOT feel
+what ingratitude was; that SHE might never have children to turn on her
+and bring her to the grave with grief.
+
+"Bring me to the grave with fiddlestick!" Mrs. Milliken said with some
+asperity. "And, as we are going to part, mamma, and as Horace has paid
+EVERYTHING on the journey as yet, and we have only brought a VERY few
+circular notes with us, perhaps you will have the kindness to give him
+your share of the travelling expenses--for you, for Fanny, and your
+two servants whom you WOULD bring with you: and the man has only been a
+perfect hindrance and great useless log, and our courier has had to do
+EVERYTHING. Your share is now eighty-two pounds."
+
+Lady Kicklebury at this gave three screams, so loud that even the
+resolute Lavinia stopped in her speech. Her ladyship looked wildly:
+"Lavinia! Horace! Fanny my child," she said, "come here, and listen to
+your mother's shame."
+
+"What?" cried Horace, aghast.
+
+"I am ruined! I am a beggar! Yes; a beggar. I have lost all--all at
+yonder dreadful table."
+
+"How do you mean all? How much is all?" asked Horace.
+
+"All the money I brought with me, Horace. I intended to have paid
+the whole expenses of the journey: yours, this ungrateful
+child's--everything. But, a week ago, having seen a lovely baby's lace
+dress at the lace-shop; and--and--won enough at wh--wh--whoo--ist to
+pay for it, all but two--two florins--in an evil moment I went to the
+roulette-table--and lost--every shilling: and now, on may knees before
+you, I confess my shame."
+
+I am not a tragic painter, and certainly won't attempt to depict THIS
+harrowing scene. But what could she mean by saying she wished to pay
+everything? She had but two twenty-pound notes: and how she was to
+have paid all the expenses of the tour with that small sum, I cannot
+conjecture.
+
+The confession, however, had the effect of mollifying poor Milliken and
+his wife: after the latter had learned that her mamma had no money at
+all at her London bankers', and had overdrawn her account there,
+Lavinia consented that Horace should advance her fifty pounds upon her
+ladyship's solemn promise of repayment.
+
+And now it was agreed that this highly respectable lady should return
+to England, quick as she might: somewhat sooner than all the rest of the
+public did; and leave Mr. and Mrs. Horace Milliken behind her, as the
+waters were still considered highly salutary to that most interesting
+invalid. And to England Lady Kicklebury went; taking advantage of
+Lord Talboys' return thither to place herself under his lordship's
+protection; as if the enormous Bowman was not protector sufficient for
+her ladyship; and as if Captain Hicks would have allowed any mortal man,
+any German student, any French tourist, any Prussian whiskerando, to do
+a harm to Miss Fanny! For though Hicks is not a brilliant or poetical
+genius, I am bound to say that the fellow has good sense, good manners,
+and a good heart; and with these qualities, a competent sum of money,
+and a pair of exceedingly handsome moustaches, perhaps the poor little
+Mrs. Launcelot Hicks may be happy.
+
+
+No accident befell Lady Kicklebury on her voyage homewards: but she got
+one more lesson at Aix-la-Chapelle, which may serve to make her ladyship
+more cautious for the future: for, seeing Madame la Princesse de Mogador
+enter into a carriage on the railway, into which Lord Talboys followed,
+nothing would content Lady Kicklebury but to rush into the carriage
+after this noble pair; and the vehicle turned out to be what is called
+on the German lines, and what I wish were established in England, the
+Rauch Coupe. Having seated himself in this vehicle, and looked rather
+sulkily at my lady, Lord Talboys began to smoke: which, as the son of
+an English earl, heir to many thousands per annum, Lady Kicklebury
+permitted him to do. And she introduced herself to Madame la Princesse
+de Mogador, mentioning to her highness that she had the pleasure of
+meeting Madame la Princesse at Rougetnoirbourg; that she, Lady K., was
+the mother of the Chevalier de Kicklebury, who had the advantage of
+the acquaintance of Madame la Princesse; and that she hoped Madame la
+Princesse had enjoyed her stay at the waters. To these advances
+the Princess of Mogador returned a gracious and affable salutation,
+exchanging glances of peculiar meaning with two highly respectable
+bearded gentlemen who travelled in her suite; and, when asked by milady
+whereabouts her highness's residence was at Paris, said that her hotel
+was in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette: where Lady Kicklebury hoped to
+have the honor of waiting upon Madame la Princesse de Mogador.
+
+But when one of the bearded gentlemen called the princess by the
+familiar name of Fifine, and the other said, "Veux-tu fumer, Mogador?"
+and the princess actually took a cigar and began to smoke, Lady
+Kicklebury was aghast, and trembled; and presently Lord Talboys burst
+into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"What is the cause of your lordship's amusement?" asked the dowager,
+looking very much frightened, and blushing like a maiden of sixteen.
+
+"Excuse me, Lady Kicklebury, but I can't help it," he said. "You've
+been talking to your opposite neighbor--she don't understand a word
+of English--and calling her princess and highness, and she's no more
+a princess than you or I. She is a little milliner in the street she
+mentioned, and she dances at Mabille and Chateau Rouge."
+
+Hearing these two familiar names, the princess looked hard at Lord
+Talboys, but he never lost countenance; and at the next station Lady
+Kicklebury rushed out of the smoking-carriage and returned to her own
+place; where, I dare say, Captain Hicks and Miss Fanny were delighted
+once more to have the advantage of her company and conversation. And so
+they went back to England, and the Kickleburys were no longer seen on
+the Rhine. If her ladyship is not cured of hunting after great people,
+it will not be for want of warning: but which of us in life has not had
+many warnings: and is it for lack of them that we stick to our little
+failings still?
+
+
+When the Kickleburys were gone, that merry little Rougetnoirbourg did
+not seem the same place to me, somehow. The sun shone still, but the
+wind came down cold from the purple hills; the band played, but their
+tunes were stale; the promenaders paced the alleys, but I knew all their
+faces: as I looked out of my windows in the Tissisch house upon the
+great blank casements lately occupied by the Kickleburys, and remembered
+what a pretty face I had seen looking thence but a few days back, I
+cared not to look any longer; and though Mrs. Milliken did invite me to
+tea, and talked fine arts and poetry over the meal, both the beverage
+and the conversation seemed very weak and insipid to me, and I fell
+asleep once in my chair opposite that highly cultivated being. "Let us
+go back, Lankin," said I to the Serjeant, and he was nothing loth;
+for most of the other serjeants, barristers, and Queen's counsel were
+turning homewards, by this time, the period of term time summoning them
+all to the Temple.
+
+
+So we went straight one day to Biberich on the Rhine, and found the
+little town full of Britons, all trooping home like ourselves. Everybody
+comes, and everybody goes away again, at about the same time. The
+Rhine innkeepers say that their customers cease with a single day
+almost:--that in three days they shall have ninety, eighty, a hundred
+guests; on the fourth, ten or eight. We do as our neighbors do. Though
+we don't speak to each other much when we are out a-pleasuring, we take
+our holiday in common, and go back to our work in gangs. Little Biberich
+was so full, that Lankin and I could not get rooms at the large inns
+frequented by other persons of fashion, and could only procure a room
+between us, "at the German House, where you find English comfort," says
+the advertisement, "with German prices."
+
+But oh, the English comfort of those beds! How did Lankin manage in
+his, with his great long legs? How did I toss and tumble in mine; which,
+small as it was, I was not destined to enjoy alone, but to pass the
+night in company with anthropophagous wretched reptiles, who took their
+horrid meal off an English Christian! I thought the morning would never
+come; and when the tardy dawn at length arrived, and as I was in my
+first sleep, dreaming of Miss Fanny, behold I was wakened up by the
+Serjeant, already dressed and shaven, and who said, "Rise, Titmarsh,
+the steamer will be here in three-quarters of an hour." And the modest
+gentleman retired, and left me to dress.
+
+
+The next morning we had passed by the rocks and towers, the old familiar
+landscapes, the gleaming towns by the riverside, and the green vineyards
+combed along the hills, and when I woke up, it was at a great hotel at
+Cologne, and it was not sunrise yet.
+
+Deutz lay opposite, and over Deutz the dusky sky was reddened. The hills
+were veiled in the mist and the gray. The gray river flowed underneath
+us; the steamers were roosting along the quays, a light keeping watch in
+the cabins here and there, and its reflections quivering in the water.
+As I look, the sky-line towards the east grows redder and redder. A long
+troop of gray horsemen winds down the river road, and passes over the
+bridge of boats. You might take them for ghosts, those gray horsemen,
+so shadowy do they look; but you hear the trample of their hoofs as
+they pass over the planks. Every minute the dawn twinkles up into the
+twilight; and over Deutz the heaven blushes brighter. The quays begin
+to fill with men: the carts begin to creak and rattle, and wake the
+sleeping echoes. Ding, ding, ding, the steamers' bells begin to ring:
+the people on board to stir and wake: the lights may be extinguished,
+and take their turn of sleep: the active boats shake themselves, and
+push out into the river: the great bridge opens, and gives them passage:
+the church bells of the city begin to clink: the cavalry trumpets blow
+from the opposite bank: the sailor is at the wheel, the porter at his
+burden, the soldier at his musket, and the priest at his prayers. . . .
+
+And lo! in a flash of crimson splendor, with blazing scarlet clouds
+running before his chariot, and heralding his majestic approach, God's
+sun rises upon the world, and all nature wakens and brightens.
+
+O glorious spectacle of light and life! O beatific symbol of Power,
+Love, Joy, Beauty! Let us look at thee with humble wonder, and
+thankfully acknowledge and adore. What gracious forethought is it--what
+generous and loving provision, that deigns to prepare for our eyes and
+to soothe our hearts with such a splendid morning festival! For these
+magnificent bounties of heaven to us, let us be thankful, even that we
+can feel thankful--(for thanks surely is the noblest effort, as it is
+the greatest delight, of the gentle soul)--and so, a grace for this
+feast, let all say who partake of it.
+
+See! the mist clears off Drachenfels, and it looks out from the
+distance, and bids us a friendly farewell. Farewell to holiday and
+sunshine; farewell to kindly sport and pleasant leisure! Let us say
+good-by to the Rhine, friend. Fogs, and cares, and labor are awaiting
+us by the Thames; and a kind face or two looking out for us to cheer and
+bid us welcome.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE AND THE RING:
+
+A FIRE-SIDE PANTOMIME FOR GREAT AND SMALL CHILDREN.
+
+
+BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+It happened that the undersigned spent the last Christmas season in a
+foreign city where there were many English children.
+
+In that city, if you wanted to give a child's party, you could not even
+get a magic-lantern or buy Twelfth-Night characters--those funny painted
+pictures of the King, the Queen, the Lover, the Lady, the Dandy, the
+Captain, and so on--with which our young ones are wont to recreate
+themselves at this festive time.
+
+My friend Miss Bunch, who was governess of a large family that lived in
+the Piano Nobile of the house inhabited by myself and my young charges
+(it was the Palazzo Poniatowski at Rome, and Messrs. Spillmann, two
+of the best pastry-cooks in Christendom, have their shop on the ground
+floor): Miss Bunch, I say, begged me to draw a set of Twelfth-Night
+characters for the amusement of our young people.
+
+She is a lady of great fancy and droll imagination, and having looked
+at the characters, she and I composed a history about them, which
+was recited to the little folks at night, and served as our FIRE-SIDE
+PANTOMIME.
+
+Our juvenile audience was amused by the adventures of Giglio and Bulbo,
+Rosalba and Angelica. I am bound to say the fate of the Hall Porter
+created a considerable sensation; and the wrath of Countess Gruffanuff
+was received with extreme pleasure.
+
+If these children are pleased, thought I, why should not others be
+amused also? In a few days Dr. Birch's young friends will be expected
+to reassemble at Rodwell Regis, where they will learn everything that
+is useful, and under the eyes of careful ushers continue the business of
+their little lives.
+
+But, in the meanwhile, and for a brief holiday, let us laugh and be as
+pleasant as we can. And you elder folk--a little joking, and dancing,
+and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a merry
+Christmas, and welcomes you to the Fire-side Pantomime.
+
+M. A. TITMARSH.
+
+December 1854.
+
+
+
+THE ROSE AND THE RING
+
+
+I. SHOWS HOW THE ROYAL FAMILY SAT DOWN TO BREAKFAST
+
+
+This is Valoroso XXIV., King of Paflagonia, seated with his Queen and
+only child at their royal breakfast-table, and receiving the letter
+which announces to his Majesty a proposed visit from Prince Bulbo, heir
+of Padella, reigning King of Crim Tartary. Remark the delight upon the
+monarch's royal features. He is so absorbed in the perusal of the King
+of Crim Tartary's letter, that he allows his eggs to get cold, and
+leaves his august muffins untasted.
+
+"What! that wicked, brave, delightful Prince Bulbo!" cries Princess
+Angelica; "so handsome, so accomplished, so witty--the conqueror of
+Rimbombamento, where he slew ten thousand giants!"
+
+"Who told you of him, my dear?" asks his Majesty.
+
+"A little bird," says Angelica.
+
+"Poor Giglio!" says mamma, pouring out the tea.
+
+"Bother Giglio!" cries Angelica, tossing up her head, which rustled with
+a thousand curl-papers.
+
+"I wish," growls the King--"I wish Giglio was. . ."
+
+"Was better? Yes, dear, he is better," says the Queen. "Angelica's
+little maid, Betsinda, told me so when she came to my room this morning
+with my early tea."
+
+"You are always drinking tea," said the monarch, with a scowl.
+
+"It is better than drinking port or brandy-and-water," replies her
+Majesty.
+
+"Well, well, my dear, I only said you were fond of drinking tea," said
+the King of Paflagonia, with an effort as if to command his temper.
+"Angelica! I hope you have plenty of new dresses; your milliners' bills
+are long enough. My dear Queen, you must see and have some parties. I
+prefer dinners, but of course you will be for balls. Your everlasting
+blue velvet quite tires me: and, my love, I should like you to have a
+new necklace. Order one. Not more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty
+thousand pounds."
+
+"And Giglio, dear?" says the Queen.
+
+"GIGLIO MAY GO TO THE ----"
+
+"Oh, sir!" screams her Majesty. "Your own nephew! our late King's only
+son."
+
+"Giglio may go to the tailor's, and order the bills to be sent in to
+Glumboso to pay. Confound him! I mean bless his dear heart. He need want
+for nothing; give him a couple of guineas for pocket-money, my dear;
+and you may as well order yourself bracelets while you are about the
+necklace, Mrs. V."
+
+Her Majesty, or MRS. V., as the monarch facetiously called her (for
+even royalty will have its sport, and this august family were very
+much attached), embraced her husband, and, twining her arm round her
+daughter's waist, they quitted the breakfast-room in order to make all
+things ready for the princely stranger.
+
+When they were gone, the smile that had lighted up the eyes of the
+HUSBAND and FATHER fled--the pride of the KING fled--the MAN was alone.
+Had I the pen of a G. P. R. James, I would describe Valoroso's torments
+in the choicest language; in which I would also depict his flashing
+eye, his distended nostril--his dressing-gown, pocket-handkerchief, and
+boots. But I need not say I have NOT the pen of that novelist; suffice
+it to say, Valoroso was alone.
+
+He rushed to the cupboard, seizing from the table one of the many
+egg-cups with which his princely board was served for the matin meal,
+drew out a bottle of right Nantz or Cognac, filled and emptied the cup
+several times, and laid it down with a hoarse "Ha, ha, ha! now Valoroso
+is a man again!"
+
+"But oh!" he went on (still sipping, I am sorry to say), "ere I was a
+king, I needed not this intoxicating draught; once I detested the hot
+brandy wine, and quaffed no other fount but nature's rill. It dashes not
+more quickly o'er the rocks than I did, as, with blunderbuss in hand,
+I brushed away the early morning dew, and shot the partridge, snipe, or
+antlered deer! Ah! well may England's dramatist remark, 'Uneasy lies
+the head that wears a crown!' Why did I steal my nephew's, my young
+Giglio's--? Steal! said I? no, no, no, not steal, not steal. Let me
+withdraw that odious expression. I took, and on my manly head I set, the
+royal crown of Paflagonia; I took, and with my royal arm I wield, the
+sceptral rod of Paflagonia; I took, and in my outstretched hand I hold,
+the royal orb of Paflagonia! Could a poor boy, a snivelling, drivelling
+boy--was in his nurse's arms but yesterday, and cried for sugarplums and
+puled for pap--bear up the awful weight of crown, orb, sceptre? gird
+on the sword my royal fathers wore, and meet in fight the tough Crimean
+foe?"
+
+And then the monarch went on to argue in his own mind (though we need
+not say that blank verse is not argument) that what he had got it was
+his duty to keep, and that, if at one time he had entertained ideas of a
+certain restitution, which shall be nameless, the prospect by a CERTAIN
+MARRIAGE of uniting two crowns and two nations which had been engaged
+in bloody and expensive wars, as the Paflagonians and the Crimeans had
+been, put the idea of Giglio's restoration to the throne out of the
+question: nay, were his own brother, King Savio, alive, he would
+certainly will the crown from his own son in order to bring about such a
+desirable union.
+
+Thus easily do we deceive ourselves! Thus do we fancy what we wish is
+right! The King took courage, read the papers, finished his muffins
+and eggs, and rang the bell for his Prime Minister. The Queen, after
+thinking whether she should go up and see Giglio, who had been sick,
+thought, "Not now. Business first; pleasure afterwards. I will go and
+see dear Giglio this afternoon; and now I will drive to the jeweller's,
+to look for the necklace and bracelets." The Princess went up into her
+own room, and made Betsinda, her maid, bring out all her dresses; and
+as for Giglio, they forgot him as much as I forget what I had for dinner
+last Tuesday twelve-month.
+
+
+II. HOW KING VALOROSO GOT THE CROWN, AND PRINCE GIGLIO WENT WITHOUT.
+
+
+Paflagonia, ten or twenty thousand years ago, appears to have been one
+of those kingdoms where the laws of succession were not settled; for
+when King Savio died, leaving his brother Regent of the kingdom, and
+guardian of Savio's orphan infant, this unfaithful regent took no sort
+of regard of the late monarch's will; had himself proclaimed sovereign
+of Paflagonia under the title of King Valoroso XXIV., had a most
+splendid coronation, and ordered all the nobles of the kingdom to pay
+him homage. So long as Valoroso gave them plenty of balls at Court,
+plenty of money and lucrative places, the Paflagonian nobility did not
+care who was king; and as for the people, in those early times, they
+were equally indifferent. The Prince Giglio, by reason of his tender
+age at his royal father's death, did not feel the loss of his crown and
+empire. As long as he had plenty of toys and sweetmeats, a holiday
+five times a week and a horse and gun to go out shooting when he grew
+a little older, and, above all, the company of his darling cousin, the
+King's only child, poor Giglio was perfectly contented; nor did he
+envy his uncle the royal robes and sceptre, the great hot uncomfortable
+throne of state, and the enormous cumbersome crown in which that monarch
+appeared from morning till night. King Valoroso's portrait has been
+left to us; and I think you will agree with me that he must have been
+sometimes RATHER TIRED of his velvet, and his diamonds, and his ermine,
+and his grandeur. I shouldn't like to sit in that stifling robe with
+such a thing as that on my head.
+
+No doubt, the Queen must have been lovely in her youth; for though
+she grew rather stout in after life, yet her features, as shown in her
+portrait, are certainly PLEASING. If she was fond of flattery, scandal,
+cards, and fine clothes, let us deal gently with her infirmities, which,
+after all, may be no greater than our own. She was kind to her nephew;
+and if she had any scruples of conscience about her husband's taking the
+young Prince's crown, consoled herself by thinking that the King, though
+a usurper, was a most respectable man, and that at his death Prince
+Giglio would be restored to his throne, and share it with his cousin,
+whom he loved so fondly.
+
+The Prime Minister was Glumboso, an old statesman, who most cheerfully
+swore fidelity to King Valoroso, and in whose hands the monarch left
+all the affairs of his kingdom. All Valoroso wanted was plenty of
+money, plenty of hunting, plenty of flattery, and as little trouble as
+possible. As long as he had his sport, this monarch cared little how
+his people paid for it: he engaged in some wars, and of course
+the Paflagonian newspapers announced that he had gained prodigious
+victories: he had statues erected to himself in every city of the
+empire; and of course his pictures placed everywhere, and in all the
+print-shops: he was Valoroso the Magnanimous, Valoroso the Victorious,
+Valoroso the Great, and so forth;--for even in these early times
+courtiers and people knew how to flatter.
+
+This royal pair had one only child, the Princess Angelica, who, you may
+be sure, was a paragon in the courtiers' eyes, in her parents', and in
+her own. It was said she had the longest hair, the largest eyes, the
+slimmest waist, the smallest foot, and the most lovely complexion of
+any young lady in the Paflagonian dominions. Her accomplishments were
+announced to be even superior to her beauty; and governesses used to
+shame their idle pupils by telling them what Princess Angelica could do.
+She could play the most difficult pieces of music at sight. She could
+answer any one of "Mangnall's Questions." She knew every date in
+the history of Paflagonia, and every other country. She knew French,
+English, Italian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cappadocian,
+Samothracian, Aegean, and Crim Tartar. In a word, she was a most
+accomplished young creature; and her governess and lady-in-waiting was
+the severe Countess Gruffanuff.
+
+Would you not fancy, from this picture, that Gruffanuff must have been a
+person of highest birth? She looks so haughty that I should have thought
+her a princess at the very least, with a pedigree reaching as far back
+as the Deluge. But this lady was no better born than many other ladies
+who give themselves airs; and all sensible people laughed at her absurd
+pretensions. The fact is, she had been maid-servant to the Queen when
+her Majesty was only Princess, and her husband had been head footman;
+but after his death or DISAPPEARANCE, of which you shall hear presently,
+this Mrs. Gruffanuff, by flattering, toadying, and wheedling her royal
+mistress, became a favorite with the Queen (who was rather a weak
+woman), and her Majesty gave her a title, and made her nursery governess
+to the Princess.
+
+And now I must tell you about the Princess's learning and
+accomplishments, for which she had such a wonderful character. Clever
+Angelica certainly was, but as IDLE AS POSSIBLE. Play at sight, indeed!
+she could play one or two pieces, and pretend that she had never seen
+them before; she could answer half a dozen "Mangnall's Questions;" but
+then you must take care to ask the RIGHT ones. As for her languages,
+she had masters in plenty, but I doubt whether she knew more than a few
+phrases in each, for all her presence; and as for her embroidery and her
+drawing, she showed beautiful specimens, it is true, but WHO DID THEM?
+
+This obliges me to tell the truth, and to do so I must go back ever so
+far, and tell you about the FAIRY BLACKSTICK.
+
+
+III. TELLS WHO THE FAIRY BLACKSTICK WAS, AND WHO WERE EVER SO MANY GRAND
+PERSONAGES BESIDES.
+
+
+Between the kingdoms of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, there lived a
+mysterious personage, who was known in those countries as the Fairy
+Blackstick, from the ebony wand or crutch which she carried; on which
+she rode to the moon sometimes, or upon other excursions of business or
+pleasure, and with which she performed her wonders. When she was young,
+and had been first taught the art of conjuring by the necromancer, her
+father, she was always practicing her skill, whizzing about from one
+kingdom to another upon her black stick, and conferring her fairy favors
+upon this Prince or that. She had scores of royal godchildren; turned
+numberless wicked people into beasts, birds, millstones, clocks, pumps,
+boot jacks, umbrellas, or other absurd shapes; and, in a word, was one
+of the most active and officious of the whole college of fairies.
+
+But after two or three thousand years of this sport, I suppose
+Blackstick grew tired of it. Or perhaps she thought, "What good am I
+doing by sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a
+black pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to
+drop from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's?
+I begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances. I might
+as well shut my incantations up, and allow things to take their natural
+course.
+
+"There were my two young goddaughters, King Savio's wife, and Duke
+Padella's wife: I gave them each a present, which was to render them
+charming in the eyes of their husbands, and secure the affection of
+those gentlemen as long as they lived. What good did my Rose and my Ring
+do these two women? None on earth. From having all their whims indulged
+by their husbands, they became capricious, lazy, ill-humored, absurdly
+vain, and leered and languished, and fancied themselves irresistibly
+beautiful, when they were really quite old and hideous, the ridiculous
+creatures! They used actually to patronise me when I went to pay them
+a visit--ME, the Fairy Blackstick, who knows all the wisdom of the
+necromancers, and could have turned them into baboons, and all their
+diamonds into strings of onions, by a single wave of my rod!" So
+she locked up her books in her cupboard, declined further magical
+performances, and scarcely used her wand at all except as a cane to walk
+about with.
+
+So when Duke Padella's lady had a little son (the Duke was at that
+time only one of the principal noblemen in Crim Tartary), Blackstick,
+although invited to the christening, would not so much as attend; but
+merely sent her compliments and a silver papboat for the baby, which was
+really not worth a couple of guineas. About the same time the Queen
+of Paflagonia presented his Majesty with a son and heir; and guns
+were fired, the capital illuminated, and no end of feasts ordained to
+celebrate the young Prince's birth. It was thought the fairy, who was
+asked to be his godmother, would at least have presented him with an
+invisible jacket, a flying horse, a Fortunatus's purse, or some other
+valuable token of her favor; but instead, Blackstick went up to
+the cradle of the child Giglio, when everybody was admiring him and
+complimenting his royal papa and mamma, and said, "My poor child, the
+best thing I can send you is a little MISFORTUNE;" and this was all
+she would utter, to the disgust of Giglio's parents, who died very soon
+after, when Giglio's uncle took the throne, as we read in Chapter I.
+
+In like manner, when CAVOLFIORE, King of Crim Tartary, had a christening
+of his only child, ROSALBA, the Fairy Blackstick, who had been invited,
+was not more gracious than in Prince Giglio's case. Whilst everybody was
+expatiating over the beauty of the darling child, and congratulating
+its parents, the Fairy Blackstick looked very sadly at the baby and its
+mother, and said, "My good woman (for the Fairy was very familiar, and
+no more minded a Queen than a washerwoman)--my good woman, these people
+who are following you will be the first to turn against you; and as for
+this little lady, the best thing I can wish her is a LITTLE MISFORTUNE."
+So she touched Rosalba with her black wand, looked severely at the
+courtiers, motioned the Queen an adieu with her hand, and sailed slowly
+up into the air out of the window.
+
+When she was gone, the Court people, who had been awed and silent in her
+presence, began to speak. "What an odious Fairy she is" (they said)--"a
+pretty Fairy, indeed! Why, she went to the King of Paflagonia's
+christening, and pretended to do all sorts of things for that family;
+and what has happened--the Prince, her godson, has been turned off his
+throne by his uncle. Would we allow our sweet Princess to be deprived of
+her rights by any enemy? Never, never, never, never!"
+
+And they all shouted in a chorus, "Never, never, never, never!"
+
+Now, I should like to know, and how did these fine courtiers show
+their fidelity? One of King Cavolfiore's vassals, the Duke Padella
+just mentioned, rebelled against the King, who went out to chastise
+his rebellious subject. "Any one rebel against our beloved and august
+Monarch!" cried the courtiers; "any one resist HIM? Pooh! He is
+invincible, irresistible. He will bring home Padella a prisoner, and tie
+him to a donkey's tail, and drive him round the town, saying, 'This is
+the way the Great Cavolfiore treats rebels.'"
+
+The King went forth to vanquish Padella; and the poor Queen, who was a
+very timid, anxious creature, grew so frightened and ill that I am sorry
+to say she died; leaving injunctions with her ladies to take care of
+the dear little Rosalba. Of course they said they would. Of course they
+vowed they would die rather than any harm should happen to the Princess.
+At first the Crim Tartar Court Journal stated that the King was
+obtaining great victories over the audacious rebel: then it was
+announced that the troops of the infamous Padella were in flight: then
+it was said that the royal army would soon come up with the enemy, and
+then--then the news came that King Cavolfiore was vanquished and slain
+by his Majesty, King Padella the First!
+
+At this news, half the courtiers ran off to pay their duty to the
+conquering chief, and the other half ran away, laying hands on all the
+best articles in the palace; and poor little Rosalba was left there
+quite alone--quite alone: she toddled from one room to another, crying,
+"Countess! Duchess!" (only she said "Tountess, Duttess," not being
+able to speak plain) "bring me my mutton-sop; my Royal Highness hungy!
+Tountess! Duttess!" And she went from the private apartments into the
+throne-room and nobody was there;--and thence into the ballroom and
+nobody was there;--and thence into the pages' room and nobody was
+there;--and she toddled down the great staircase into the hall and
+nobody was there;--and the door was open, and she went into the court,
+and into the garden, and thence into the wilderness, and thence into the
+forest where the wild beasts live, and was never heard of any more!
+
+A piece of her torn mantle and one of her shoes were found in the wood
+in the mouths of two lionesses' cubs whom KING PADELLA and a royal
+hunting party shot--for he was King now, and reigned over Crim Tartary.
+"So the poor little Princess is done for," said he; "well, what's done
+can't be helped. Gentlemen, let us go to luncheon!" And one of the
+courtiers took up the shoe and put it in his pocket. And there was an
+end of Rosalba!
+
+
+IV. HOW BLACKSTICK WAS NOT ASKED TO THE PRINCESS ANGELICA'S CHRISTENING.
+
+
+When the Princess Angelica was born, her parents not only did not ask
+the Fairy Blackstick to the christening party, but gave orders to their
+porter absolutely to refuse her if she called. This porter's name
+was Gruffanuff, and he had been selected for the post by their Royal
+Highnesses because he was a very tall fierce man, who could say "Not
+at home" to a tradesman or an unwelcome visitor with a rudeness which
+frightened most such persons away. He was the husband of that Countess
+whose picture we have just seen, and as long as they were together they
+quarrelled from morning till night. Now this fellow tried his rudeness
+once too often, as you shall hear. For the Fairy Blackstick coming to
+call upon the Prince and Princess, who were actually sitting at the open
+drawing-room window, Gruffanuff not only denied them, but made the most
+ODIOUS VULGAR SIGN as he was going to slam the door in the Fairy's face!
+"Git away, hold Blackstick!" said he. "I tell you, Master and Missis
+ain't at home to you;" and he was, as we have said, GOING to slam the
+door.
+
+But the Fairy, with her wand, prevented the door being shut; and
+Gruffanuff came out again in a fury, swearing in the most abominable
+way, and asking the Fairy "whether she thought he was a-going to stay at
+that there door hall day?"
+
+"You ARE going to stay at that door all day and all night, and for many
+a long year," the Fairy said, very majestically; and Gruffanuff, coming
+out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out
+laughing, and cried, "Ha, ha, ha! this IS a good un! Ha--ah--what's
+this? Let me down--oh--o--h'm!" and then he was dumb!
+
+For, as the Fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off
+the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw
+ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to
+the door; and then his arms flew up over his head; and his legs, after
+writhing about wildly, twisted under his body; and he felt cold,
+cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal; and he said,
+"Oh--o--h'm!" and could say no more, because he was dumb.
+
+He WAS turned into metal! He was, from being BRAZEN, BRASS! He was
+neither more nor less than a knocker! And there he was, nailed to the
+door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there
+he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass
+nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him,
+and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the
+door. And the King and Queen (Princess and Prince they were then) coming
+home from a walk that evening, the King said, "Hullo, my dear! you have
+had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it's rather like our porter in
+the face! What has become of that boozy vagabond?" And the housemaid
+came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once, when the Princess
+Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid-glove;
+and, another night, some LARKING young men tried to wrench him off, and
+put him to the most excruciating agony with a turn screw. And then
+the Queen had a fancy to have the color of the door altered; and the
+painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as
+they painted him pea-green. I warrant he had leisure to repent of having
+been rude to the Fairy Blackstick!
+
+
+As for his wife, she did not miss him; and as he was always guzzling
+beer at the public-house, and notoriously quarrelling with his wife, and
+in debt to the tradesmen, it was supposed he had run away from all these
+evils, and emigrated to Australia or America. And when the Prince and
+Princess chose to become King and Queen, they left their old house, and
+nobody thought of the porter any more.
+
+
+V. HOW PRINCESS ANGELICA TOOK A LITTLE MAID.
+
+
+One day, when the Princess Angelica was quite a little girl, she
+was walking in the garden of the palace, with Mrs. Gruffanuff, the
+governess, holding a parasol over her head, to keep her sweet complexion
+from the freckles, and Angelica was carrying a bun, to feed the swans
+and ducks in the royal pond.
+
+They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them
+such a funny little girl! She had a great quantity of hair blowing about
+her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or
+combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only
+one shoe on.
+
+"You little wretch, who let you in here?" asked Mrs. Gruffanuff.
+
+"Div me dat bun," said the little girl, "me vely hungy."
+
+"Hungry! what is that?" asked Princess Angelica, and gave the child the
+bun.
+
+"Oh, Princess!" says Mrs. Gruffanuff, "how good, how kind, how truly
+angelical you are! See, Your Majesties," she said to the King and Queen,
+who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, "how kind the
+Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden--I can't
+tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at
+the gate!--and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of
+her bun!"
+
+"I didn't want it," said Angelica.
+
+"But you are a darling little angel all the same," says the governess.
+
+"Yes; I know I am," said Angelica. "Dirty little girl, don't you think
+I am very pretty?" Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and
+hats; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very
+well.
+
+"Oh, pooty, pooty!" says the little girl, capering about, laughing, and
+dancing, and munching her bun; and as she ate it she began to sing, "O
+what fun to have a plum bun! how I wis it never was done!" At which,
+and her funny accent, Angelica, Giglio, and the King and Queen began to
+laugh very merrily.
+
+"I can dance as well as sing," says the little girl. "I can dance, and I
+can sing, and I can do all sorts of ting." And she ran to a flower-bed,
+and pulling a few polyanthuses, rhododendrons, and other flowers, made
+herself a little wreath, and danced before the King and Queen so drolly
+and prettily, that everybody was delighted.
+
+"Who was your mother--who were your relations, little girl?" said the
+Queen.
+
+The little girl said, "Little lion was my brudder; great big lioness my
+mudder; neber heard of any udder." And she capered away on her one shoe,
+and everybody was exceedingly diverted.
+
+So Angelica said to the Queen, "Mamma, my parrot flew away yesterday out
+of its cage, and I don't care any more for any of my toys; and I think
+this funny little dirty child will amuse me. I will take her home, and
+give her some of my old frocks--"
+
+"Oh, the generous darling!" says Mrs. Gruffanuff.
+
+"--Which I have worn ever so many times, and am quite tired of,"
+Angelica went on; "and she shall be my little maid. Will you come home
+with me, little dirty girl?"
+
+The child clapped her hands, and said, "Go home with you--yes! You pooty
+Princess! Have a nice dinner, and wear a new dress!"
+
+And they all laughed again, and took home the child to the palace,
+where, when she was washed and combed, and had one of the Princess's
+frocks given to her, she looked as handsome as Angelica, almost. Not
+that Angelica ever thought so; for this little lady never imagined
+that anybody in the world could be as pretty, as good, or as clever as
+herself. In order that the little girl should not become too proud and
+conceited, Mrs. Gruffanuff took her old ragged mantle and one shoe, and
+put them into a glass box, with a card laid upon them, upon which was
+written, "These were the old clothes in which little BETSINDA was found
+when the great goodness and admirable kindness of Her Royal Highness the
+Princess Angelica received this little outcast." And the date was added,
+and the box locked up.
+
+For a while little Betsinda was a great favorite with the Princess, and
+she danced, and sang, and made her little rhymes, to amuse her mistress.
+But then the Princess got a monkey, and afterwards a little dog, and
+afterwards a doll, and did not care for Betsinda any more, who became
+very melancholy and quiet, and sang no more funny songs, because nobody
+cared to hear her. And then, as she grew older, she was made a little
+lady's-maid to the Princess; and though she had no wages, she worked
+and mended, and put Angelica's hair in papers, and was never cross when
+scolded, and was always eager to please her mistress, and was always
+up early and to bed late, and at hand when wanted, and in fact became
+a perfect little maid. So the two girls grew up, and, when the Princess
+came out, Betsinda was never tired of waiting on her; and made her
+dresses better than the best milliner, and was useful in a hundred ways.
+Whilst the Princess was having her masters, Betsinda would sit and watch
+them; and in this way she picked up a great deal of learning; for she
+was always awake, though her mistress was not, and listened to the wise
+professors when Angelica was yawning or thinking of the next ball. And
+when the dancing-master came, Betsinda learned along with Angelica;
+and when the music-master came, she watched him, and practiced the
+Princess's pieces when Angelica was away at balls and parties; and when
+the drawing-master came, she took note of all he said and did; and the
+same with French, Italian, and all other languages--she learned them
+from the teacher who came to Angelica. When the Princess was going out
+of an evening she would say, "My good Betsinda, you may as well finish
+what I have begun." "Yes, miss," Betsinda would say, and sit down very
+cheerful, not to FINISH what Angelica began, but to DO it.
+
+For instance, the Princess would begin a head of a warrior, let us say,
+and when it was begun it was something like this:
+
+But when it was done, the warrior was like this:--(only handsomer still
+if possible), and the Princess put her name to the drawing; and the
+Court and King and Queen, and above all poor Giglio, admired the picture
+of all things, and said, "Was there ever a genius like Angelica?" So,
+I am sorry to say, was it with the Princess's embroidery and other
+accomplishments; and Angelica actually believed that she did these
+things herself, and received all the flattery of the Court as if every
+word of it was true. Thus she began to think that there was no young
+woman in all the world equal to herself, and that no young man was good
+enough for her. As for Betsinda, as she heard none of these praises, she
+was not puffed up by them, and being a most grateful, good-natured girl,
+she was only too anxious to do everything which might give her mistress
+pleasure. Now you begin to perceive that Angelica had faults of her own,
+and was by no means such a wonder of wonders as people represented Her
+Royal Highness to be.
+
+
+VI. HOW PRINCE GIGLIO BEHAVED HIMSELF.
+
+
+And now let us speak about Prince Giglio, the nephew of the reigning
+monarch of Paflagonia. It has already been stated, in page seven, that
+as long as he had a smart coat to wear, a good horse to ride, and money
+in his pocket, or rather to take out of his pocket, for he was very
+good-natured, my young Prince did not care for the loss of his crown and
+sceptre, being a thoughtless youth, not much inclined to politics or any
+kind of learning. So his tutor had a sinecure. Giglio would not
+learn classics or mathematics, and the Lord Chancellor of Paflagonia,
+SQUARETOSO, pulled a very long face because the Prince could not be got
+to study the Paflagonian laws and constitution; but, on the other hand,
+the King's gamekeepers and huntsmen found the Prince an apt pupil;
+the dancing-master pronounced that he was a most elegant and assiduous
+scholar; the First Lord of the Billiard Table gave the most flattering
+reports of the Prince's skill; so did the Groom of the Tennis Court;
+and as for the Captain of the Guard and Fencing-master, the VALIANT and
+VETERAN Count KUTASOFF HEDZOFF, he avowed that since he ran the General
+of Crim Tartary, the dreadful Grumbuskin, through the body, he never had
+encountered so expert a swordsman as Prince Giglio.
+
+I hope you do not imagine that there was any impropriety in the Prince
+and Princess walking together in the palace garden, and because Giglio
+kissed Angelica's hand in a polite manner. In the first place they are
+cousins; next, the Queen is walking in the garden too (you cannot see
+her, for she happens to be behind that tree), and her Majesty always
+wished that Angelica and Giglio should marry: so did Giglio: so did
+Angelica sometimes, for she thought her cousin very handsome, brave,
+and good-natured: but then you know she was so clever and knew so many
+things, and poor Giglio knew nothing, and had no conversation. When they
+looked at the stars, what did Giglio know of the heavenly bodies? Once,
+when on a sweet night in a balcony where they were standing, Angelica
+said, "There is the Bear." "Where?" says Giglio. "Don't be afraid,
+Angelica! if a dozen bears come, I will kill them rather than they shall
+hurt you." "Oh, you silly creature!" says she; "you are very good, but
+you are not very wise." When they looked at the flowers, Giglio was
+utterly unacquainted with botany, and had never heard of Linnaeus.
+When the butterflies passed, Giglio knew nothing about them, being as
+ignorant of entomology as I am of algebra. So you see, Angelica, though
+she liked Giglio pretty well, despised him on account of his ignorance.
+I think she probably valued HER OWN LEARNING rather too much; but to
+think too well of one's self is the fault of people of all ages and both
+sexes. Finally, when nobody else was there, Angelica liked her cousin
+well enough.
+
+King Valoroso was very delicate in health, and withal so fond of good
+dinners (which were prepared for him by his French cook Marmitonio),
+that it was supposed he could not live long. Now the idea of anything
+happening to the King struck the artful Prime Minister and the designing
+old lady-in-waiting with terror. For, thought Glumboso and the Countess,
+"when Prince Giglio marries his cousin and comes to the throne, what a
+pretty position we shall be in, whom he dislikes, and who have always
+been unkind to him. We shall lose our places in a trice; Mrs. Gruffanuff
+will have to give up all the jewels, laces, snuff-boxes, rings, and
+watches which belonged to the Queen, Giglio's mother; and Glumboso will
+be forced to refund two hundred and seventeen thousand millions nine
+hundred and eighty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine pounds,
+thirteen shillings, and sixpence halfpenny, money left to Prince Giglio
+by his poor dear father."
+
+So the Lady of Honor and the Prime Minister hated Giglio because they
+had done him a wrong; and these unprincipled people invented a hundred
+cruel stories about poor Giglio, in order to influence the King, Queen,
+and Princess against him; how he was so ignorant that he could not spell
+the commonest words, and actually wrote Valoroso Valloroso, and spelt
+Angelica with two l's; how he drank a great deal too much wine at
+dinner, and was always idling in the stables with the grooms; how he
+owed ever so much money at the pastry-cook's and the haberdasher's; how
+he used to go to sleep at church; how he was fond of playing cards with
+the pages. So did the Queen like playing cards; so did the King go
+to sleep at church, and eat and drink too much; and, if Giglio owed
+a trifle for tarts, who owed him two hundred and seventeen thousand
+millions nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand four hundred and
+thirty-nine pounds, thirteen shillings, and sixpence halfpenny, I should
+like to know? Detractors and tale-bearers (in my humble opinion) had
+much better look at HOME. All this backbiting and slandering had effect
+upon Princess Angelica, who began to look coldly on her cousin, then to
+laugh at him and scorn him for being so stupid, then to sneer at him for
+having vulgar associates; and at Court balls, dinners, and so forth,
+to treat him so unkindly that poor Giglio became quite ill, took to his
+bed, and sent for the doctor.
+
+His Majesty King Valoroso, as we have seen, had his own reasons for
+disliking his nephew; and as for those innocent readers who ask why?--I
+beg (with the permission of their dear parents) to refer them to
+Shakespeare's pages, where they will read why King John disliked Prince
+Arthur. With the Queen, his royal but weak-minded aunt, when Giglio was
+out of sight he was out of mind. While she had her whist and her evening
+parties, she cared for little else.
+
+I dare say TWO VILLAINS, who shall be nameless, wished Doctor Pildrafto,
+the Court Physician, had killed Giglio right out, but he only bled
+and physicked him so severely that the Prince was kept to his room for
+several months, and grew as thin as a post.
+
+Whilst he was lying sick in this way, there came to the Court of
+Paflagonia a famous painter, whose name was Tomaso Lorenzo, and who was
+Painter in Ordinary to the King of Crim Tartary, Paflagonia's neighbor.
+Tomaso Lorenzo painted all the Court, who were delighted with his works;
+for even Countess Gruffanuff looked young and Glumboso good-humored in
+his pictures. "He flatters very much," some people said. "Nay!" says
+Princess Angelica, "I am above flattery, and I think he did not make my
+picture handsome enough. I can't bear to hear a man of genius unjustly
+cried down, and I hope my dear papa will make Lorenzo a knight of his
+Order of the Cucumber."
+
+The Princess Angelica, although the courtiers vowed Her Royal Highness
+could draw so BEAUTIFULLY that the idea of her taking lessons was
+absurd, yet chose to have Lorenzo for a teacher, and it was wonderful,
+AS LONG AS SHE PAINTED IN HIS STUDIO, what beautiful pictures she made!
+Some of the performances were engraved for the "Book of Beauty:" others
+were sold for enormous sums at Charity Bazaars. She wrote the
+SIGNATURES under the drawings, no doubt, but I think I know who did
+the pictures--this artful painter, who had come with other designs on
+Angelica than merely to teach her to draw.
+
+One day, Lorenzo showed the Princess a portrait of a young man in armor,
+with fair hair and the loveliest blue eyes, and an expression at once
+melancholy and interesting.
+
+"Dear Signor Lorenzo, who is this?" asked the Princess. "I never saw
+anyone so handsome," says Countess Gruffanuff (the old humbug).
+
+"That," said the painter, "that, Madam, is the portrait of my august
+young master, his Royal Highness Bulbo, Crown Prince of Crim Tartary,
+Duke of Acroceraunia, Marquis of Poluphloisboio, and Knight Grand Cross
+of the Order of the Pumpkin. That is the Order of the Pumpkin glittering
+on his manly breast, and received by His Royal Highness from his august
+father, his Majesty King PADELLA I., for his gallantry at the battle
+of Rimbombamento, when he slew with his own princely hand the King
+of Ograria and two hundred and eleven giants of the two hundred and
+eighteen who formed the King's bodyguard. The remainder were destroyed
+by the brave Crim Tartar army after an obstinate combat, in which the
+Crim Tartars suffered severely."
+
+"What a Prince!" thought Angelica: "so brave--so calm-looking--so
+young--what a hero!"
+
+"He is as accomplished as he is brave," continued the Court Painter.
+"He knows all languages perfectly: sings deliciously: plays every
+instrument: composes operas which have been acted a thousand nights
+running at the Imperial Theatre of Crim Tartary, and danced in a ballet
+there before the King and Queen; in which he looked so beautiful, that
+his cousin, the lovely daughter of the King of Circassia, died for love
+of him."
+
+"Why did he not marry the poor Princess?" asked Angelica, with a sigh.
+
+"Because they were FIRST COUSINS, Madam, and the clergy forbid these
+unions," said the Painter. "And, besides, the young Prince had given his
+royal heart ELSEWHERE."
+
+"And to whom?" asked Her Royal Highness.
+
+"I am not at liberty to mention the Princess's name," answered the
+Painter.
+
+"But you may tell me the first letter of it," gasped out the Princess.
+
+"That Your Royal Highness is at liberty to guess," said Lorenzo.
+
+"Does it begin with a Z?" asked Angelica.
+
+The Painter said it wasn't a Z; then she tried a Y; then an X; then a W,
+and went so backwards through almost the whole alphabet.
+
+When she came to D, and it wasn't D, she grew very excited; when she
+came to C, and it wasn't C, she was still more nervous; when she came
+to B, AND IT WASN'T B, "Oh dearest Gruffanuff," she said, "lend me your
+smelling-bottle!" and, hiding her head in the Countess's shoulder, she
+faintly whispered, "Ah, Signor, can it be A?"
+
+"It was A; and though I may not, by my Royal Master's orders, tell Your
+Royal Highness the Princess's name, whom he fondly, madly, devotedly,
+rapturously loves, I may show you her portrait," says this slyboots:
+and leading the Princess up to a gilt frame, he drew a curtain which was
+before it.
+
+O goodness! the frame contained A LOOKING-GLASS! and Angelica saw her
+own face!
+
+
+VII. HOW GIGLIO AND ANGELICA HAD A QUARREL.
+
+
+The Court Painter of his Majesty the King of Crim Tartary returned to
+that monarch's dominions, carrying away a number of sketches which he
+had made in the Paflagonian capital (you know, of course, my dears, that
+the name of that capital is Blombodinga); but the most charming of all
+his pieces was a portrait of the Princess Angelica, which all the Crim
+Tartar nobles came to see. With this work the King was so delighted,
+that he decorated the Painter with his Order of the Pumpkin (sixth
+class) and the artist became Sir Tomaso Lorenzo, K.P., thenceforth.
+
+King Valoroso also sent Sir Tomaso his Order of the Cucumber, besides a
+handsome order for money, for he painted the King, Queen, and principal
+nobility while at Blombodinga, and became all the fashion, to the
+perfect rage of all the artists in Paflagonia, where the King used to
+point to the portrait of Prince Bulbo, which Sir Tomaso had left behind
+him, and say "Which among you can paint a picture like that?"
+
+It hung in the royal parlor over the royal sideboard, and Princess
+Angelica could always look at it as she sat making the tea. Each day it
+seemed to grow handsomer and handsomer, and the Princess grew so fond
+of looking at it, that she would often spill the tea over the cloth, at
+which her father and mother would wink and wag their heads; and say to
+each other, "Aha! we see how things are going."
+
+In the meantime poor Giglio lay upstairs very sick in his chamber,
+though he took all the doctor's horrible medicines like a good young
+lad: as I hope YOU do, my dears, when you are ill and mamma sends for
+the medical man. And the only person who visited Giglio (besides his
+friend the captain of the guard, who was almost always busy or on
+parade), was little Betsinda the housemaid, who used to do his bedroom
+and sitting-room out, bring him his gruel, and warm his bed.
+
+When the little housemaid came to him in the morning and evening, Prince
+Giglio used to say, "Betsinda, Betsinda, how is the Princess Angelica?"
+
+And Betsinda used to answer, "The Princess is very well, thank you, my
+Lord." And Giglio would heave a sigh, and think, "If Angelica were sick,
+I am sure I should not be very well."
+
+Then Giglio would say, "Betsinda, has the Princess Angelica asked for
+me today?" And Betsinda would answer, "No, my Lord, not today"; or, "She
+was very busy practicing the piano when I saw her"; or, "She was writing
+invitations for an evening party, and did not speak to me"; or make some
+excuse or other, not strictly consonant with truth: for Betsinda was
+such a good-natured creature that she strove to do everything to prevent
+annoyance to Prince Giglio, and even brought him up roast chicken and
+jellies from the kitchen (when the Doctor allowed them, and Giglio was
+getting better), saying, "that the Princess had made the jelly, or the
+bread-sauce, with her own hands, on purpose for Giglio."
+
+When Giglio heard this he took heart and began to mend immediately;
+and gobbled up all the jelly, and picked the last bone of the
+chicken--drumsticks, merry-thought, sides'-bones, back, pope's nose,
+and all--thanking his dear Angelica; and he felt so much better the next
+day, that he dressed and went downstairs--where, whom should he meet
+but Angelica going into the drawing-room? All the covers were off the
+chairs, the chandeliers taken out of the bags, the damask curtains
+uncovered, the work and things carried away, and the handsomest albums
+on the tables. Angelica had her hair in papers: in a word, it was
+evident there was going to be a party.
+
+"Heavens, Giglio!" cries Angelica: "YOU here in such a dress! What a
+figure you are!"
+
+"Yes, dear Angelica, I am come downstairs, and feel so well today,
+thanks to the FOWL and the JELLY."
+
+"What do I know about fowls and jellies, that you allude to them in that
+rude way?" says Angelica.
+
+"Why, didn't--didn't you send them, Angelica dear?" says Giglio.
+
+"I send them indeed! Angelica dear! No, Giglio dear," says she, mocking
+him, "I was engaged in getting the rooms ready for His Royal Highness
+the Prince of Crim Tartary, who is coming to pay my papa's Court a
+visit."
+
+"The--Prince--of--Crim--Tartary!" Giglio said, aghast.
+
+"Yes, the Prince of Crim Tartary," says Angelica, mocking him. "I dare
+say you never heard of such a country. What DID you ever hear of? You
+don't know whether Crim Tartary is on the Red Sea or on the Black Sea, I
+dare say."
+
+"Yes, I do: it's on the Red Sea," says Giglio; at which the Princess
+burst out laughing at him, and said, "Oh, you ninny! You are so
+ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about
+horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal
+Father's heaviest dragoons. Don't look so surprised at me, sir: go
+and put your best clothes on to receive the Prince, and let me get the
+drawing-room ready."
+
+Giglio said, "Oh, Angelica, Angelica, I didn't think this of you. THIS
+wasn't your language to me when you gave me this ring, and I gave you
+mine in the garden, and you gave me that k--"
+
+But what k-- was we never shall know, for Angelica, in a rage, cried,
+"Get out, you saucy, rude creature! How dare you to remind me of your
+rudeness? As for your little trumpery twopenny ring, there, sir--there!"
+And she flung it out of the window.
+
+"It was my mother's marriage-ring," cried Giglio.
+
+"I don't care whose marriage-ring it was," cries Angelica. "Marry the
+person who picks it up if she's a woman; you shan't marry ME. And give
+me back MY ring. I've no patience with people who boast about the things
+they give away! I know who'll give me much finer things than you ever
+gave me. A beggarly ring indeed, not worth five shillings!"
+
+Now Angelica little knew that the ring which Giglio had given her was a
+fairy ring; if a man wore it, it made all the women in love with him;
+if a woman, all the gentlemen. The Queen, Giglio's mother, quite an
+ordinary-looking person, was admired immensely whilst she wore this
+ring, and her husband was frantic when she was ill. But when she called
+her little Giglio to her, and put the ring on his finger, King Savio did
+not seem to care for his wife so much any more, but transferred all his
+love to little Giglio. So did everybody love him as long as he had the
+ring; but when, as quite a child, he gave it to Angelica, people began
+to love and admire HER; and Giglio, as the saying is, played only second
+fiddle.
+
+"Yes," says Angelica, going on in her foolish ungrateful way. "I
+know who'll give me much finer things than your beggarly little pearl
+nonsense."
+
+"Very good, miss! You may take back your ring too!" says Giglio, his
+eyes flashing fire at her, and then, as his eyes had been suddenly
+opened, he cried out, "Ha! what does this mean? Is THIS the woman I have
+been in love with all my life? Have I been such a ninny as to throw away
+my regard upon you? Why--actually--yes--you are a little crooked!"
+
+"Oh, you wretch!" cries Angelica.
+
+"And, upon my conscience, you--you squint a little."
+
+"Eh!" cries Angelica.
+
+"And your hair is red--and you are marked with the smallpox--and what?
+you have three false teeth--and one leg shorter than the other!"
+
+"You brute, you brute, you!" Angelica screamed out: and as she seized
+the ring with one hand, she dealt Giglio one, two, three smacks on the
+face, and would have pulled the hair off his head had he not started
+laughing, and crying,
+
+"Oh dear me, Angelica, don't pull out MY hair, it hurts! You might
+remove a great deal of YOUR OWN, as I perceive, without scissors or
+pulling at all. Oh, ho, ho! ha, ha, ha! he he he!"
+
+And he nearly choked himself with laughing, and she with rage; when,
+with a low bow, and dressed in his Court habit, Count Gambabella,
+the first lord-in-waiting, entered and said, "Royal Highnesses! Their
+Majesties expect you in the Pink Throne-room, where they await the
+arrival of the Prince of CRIM TARTARY."
+
+
+VIII. HOW GRUFFANUFF PICKED THE FAIRY RING UP, AND PRINCE BULBO CAME TO
+COURT.
+
+
+Prince Bulbo's arrival had set all the court in a flutter: everybody was
+ordered to put his or her best clothes on: the footmen had their gala
+liveries; the Lord Chancellor his new wig; the Guards their last
+new tunics; and Countess Gruffanuff, you may be sure, was glad of an
+opportunity of decorating HER old person with her finest things. She was
+walking through the court of the Palace on her way to wait upon their
+Majesties, when she espied something glittering on the pavement, and
+bade the boy in buttons who was holding up her train, to go and pick up
+the article shining yonder. He was an ugly little wretch, in some of the
+late groom-porter's old clothes cut down, and much too tight for him;
+and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), and was
+carrying it to his mistress, she thought he looked like a little cupid.
+He gave the ring to her; it was a trumpery little thing enough, but too
+small for any of her old knuckles, so she put it into her pocket.
+
+"Oh, mum!" says the boy, looking at her "how--how beyoutiful you do
+look, mum, to-day, mum!"
+
+"And you, too, Jacky," she was going to say; but, looking down
+at him--no, he was no longer good-looking at all--but only the
+carroty-haired little Jacky of the morning. However, praise is welcome
+from the ugliest of men or boys, and Gruffanuff, bidding the boy hold
+up her train, walked on in high good-humor. The Guards saluted her
+with peculiar respect. Captain Hedzoff, in the anteroom, said, "My
+dear madam, you look like an angel today." And so, bowing and smirking,
+Gruffanuff went in and took her place behind her Royal Master and
+Mistress, who were in the throne-room, awaiting the Prince of Crim
+Tartary. Princess Angelica sat at their feet, and behind the King's
+chair stood Prince Giglio, looking very savage.
+
+The Prince of Crim Tartary made his appearance, attended by Baron
+Sleibootz, his chamberlain, and followed by a black page carrying the
+most beautiful crown you ever saw! He was dressed in his travelling
+costume, and his hair, as you see, was a little in disorder. "I have
+ridden three hundred miles since breakfast," said he, "so eager was I to
+behold the Prin--the Court and august family of Paflagonia, and I could
+not wait one minute before appearing in Your Majesties' presences."
+
+Giglio, from behind the throne, burst out into a roar of contemptuous
+laughter; but all the Royal party, in fact, were so flurried, that they
+did not hear this little outbreak. "Your R. H. is welcome in any dress,"
+says the King. "Glumboso, a chair for His Royal Highness."
+
+"Any dress His Royal Highness wears IS a Court-dress," says Princess
+Angelica, smiling graciously.
+
+"Ah! but you should see my other clothes," said the Prince. "I should
+have had them on, but that stupid carrier has not brought them. Who's
+that laughing?"
+
+It was Giglio laughing. "I was laughing," he said, "because you said
+just now that you were in such a hurry to see the Princess, that you
+could not wait to change your dress; and now you say you come in those
+clothes because you have no others."
+
+"And who are you?" says Prince Bulbo, very fiercely.
+
+"My father was King of this country, and I am his only son, Prince!"
+replies Giglio, with equal haughtiness.
+
+"Ha!" said the King and Glumboso, looking very flurried; but the former,
+collecting himself, said, "Dear Prince Bulbo, I forgot to introduce to
+Your Royal Highness my dear nephew, His Royal Highness Prince Giglio!
+Know each other! Embrace each other! Giglio, give His Royal Highness
+your hand!" and Giglio, giving his hand, squeezed poor Bulbo's until the
+tears ran out of his eyes. Glumboso now brought a chair for the Royal
+visitor, and placed it on the platform on which the King, Queen, and
+Prince were seated; but the chair was on the edge of the platform, and
+as Bulbo sat down, it toppled over, and he with it, rolling over and
+over, and bellowing like a bull. Giglio roared still louder at this
+disaster, but it was with laughter; so did all the Court when Prince
+Bulbo got up; for though when he entered the room he appeared not very
+ridiculous, as he stood up from his fall for a moment he looked so
+exceedingly plain and foolish, that nobody could help laughing at him.
+When he had entered the room, he was observed to carry a rose in his
+hand, which fell out of it as he tumbled.
+
+"My rose! my rose!" cried Bulbo; and his chamberlain dashed forwards and
+picked it up, and gave it to the Prince, who put it in his waistcoat.
+Then people wondered why they had laughed; there was nothing
+particularly ridiculous in him. He was rather short, rather stout,
+rather red-haired, but, in fine, for a Prince, not so bad.
+
+So they sat and talked, the Royal personages together, the Crim
+Tartar officers with those of Paflagonia--Giglio very comfortable with
+Gruffanuff behind the throne. He looked at her with such tender eyes,
+that her heart was all in a flutter. "Oh, dear Prince," she said, "how
+could you speak so haughtily in presence of Their Majesties? I protest I
+thought I should have fainted."
+
+"I should have caught you in my arms," said Giglio, looking raptures.
+
+"Why were you so cruel to Prince Bulbo, dear Prince?" says Gruff.
+
+"Because I hate him," says Gil.
+
+"You are jealous of him, and still love poor Angelica," cries
+Gruffanuff, putting her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+"I did, but I love her no more!" Giglio cried. "I despise her! Were she
+heiress to twenty thousand thrones, I would despise her and scorn her.
+But why speak of thrones? I have lost mine. I am too weak to recover
+it--I am alone, and have no friend."
+
+"Oh, say not so, dear Prince!" says Gruffanuff.
+
+"Besides," says he, "I am so happy here BEHIND THE THRONE, that I would
+not change my place, no, not for the throne of the world!"
+
+"What are you two people chattering about there?" says the Queen, who
+was rather good-natured, though not over-burthened with wisdom. "It is
+time to dress for dinner. Giglio, show Prince Bulbo to his room. Prince,
+if your clothes have not come, we shall be very happy to see you as you
+are." But when Prince Bulbo got to his bedroom, his luggage was there
+and unpacked; and the hairdresser coming in, cut and curled him entirely
+to his own satisfaction; and when the dinner-bell rang, the Royal
+company had not to wait above five-and-twenty minutes until Bulbo
+appeared, during which time the King, who could not bear to wait, grew
+as sulky as possible. As for Giglio, he never left Madam Gruffanuff all
+this time, but stood with her in the embrasure of a window, paying her
+compliments. At length the Groom of the Chambers announced His Royal
+Highness the Prince of Crim Tartary! and the noble company went into the
+royal dining-room. It was quite a small party; only the King and Queen,
+the Princess, whom Bulbo took out, the two Princes, Countess Gruffanuff,
+Glumboso the Prime Minister, and Prince Bulbo's chamberlain. You may be
+sure they had a very good dinner--let every boy or girl think of what he
+or she likes best, and fancy it on the table.*
+
+
+* Here a very pretty game may be played by all the children saying what
+they like best for dinner.
+
+
+The Princess talked incessantly all dinner-time to the Prince of Crimea,
+who ate an immense deal too much, and never took his eyes off his plate,
+except when Giglio, who was carving a goose, sent a quantity of stuffing
+and onion sauce into one of them. Giglio only burst out a-laughing
+as the Crimean Prince wiped his shirt-front and face with his scented
+pocket-handkerchief. He did not make Prince Bulbo any apology. When the
+Prince looked at him, Giglio would not look that way. When Prince Bulbo
+said, "Prince Giglio, may I have the honor of taking a glass of wine
+with you?" Giglio WOULDN'T answer. All his talk and his eyes were for
+Countess Gruffanuff, who you may be sure was pleased with Giglio's
+attentions--the vain old creature! When he was not complimenting her,
+he was making fun of Prince Bulbo, so loud that Gruffanuff was always
+tapping him with her fan, and saying, "Oh, you satirical Prince! Oh,
+fie, the Prince will hear!" "Well, I don't mind," says Giglio, louder
+still. The King and Queen luckily did not hear; for her Majesty was a
+little deaf, and the King thought so much about his own dinner, and,
+besides, made such a dreadful noise, hob-gobbling in eating it, that
+he heard nothing else. After dinner, his Majesty and the Queen went to
+sleep in their arm-chairs.
+
+This was the time when Giglio began his tricks with Prince Bulbo, plying
+that young gentleman with port, sherry, madeira, champagne, marsala,
+cherry-brandy, and pale ale, of all of which Master Bulbo drank without
+stint. But in plying his guest, Giglio was obliged to drink himself,
+and, I am sorry to say, took more than was good for him, so that the
+young men were very noisy, rude, and foolish when they joined the ladies
+after dinner; and dearly did they pay for that imprudence, as now, my
+darlings, you shall hear!
+
+Bulbo went and sat by the piano, where Angelica was playing and singing,
+and he sang out of tune, and he upset the coffee when the footman
+brought it, and he laughed out of place, and talked absurdly, and fell
+asleep and snored horridly. Booh, the nasty pig! But as he lay there
+stretched on the pink satin sofa, Angelica still persisted in thinking
+him the most beautiful of human beings. No doubt the magic rose which
+Bulbo wore caused this infatuation on Angelica's part; but is she the
+first young woman who has thought a silly fellow charming?
+
+Giglio must go and sit by Gruffanuff, whose old face he, too,
+every moment began to find more lovely. He paid the most outrageous
+compliments to her:--There never was such a darling. Older than he
+was?--Fiddle-de-dee! He would marry her--he would, have nothing but her!
+
+To marry the heir to the throne! Here was a chance! The artful hussy
+actually got a sheet of paper, and wrote upon it, "This is to give
+notice that I, Giglio, only son of Savio, King of Paflagonia, hereby
+promise to marry the charming and virtuous Barbara Griselda Countess
+Gruffanuff, and widow of the late Jenkins Gruffanuff, Esq."
+
+"What is it you are writing, you charming Gruffy?" says Giglio, who was
+lolling on the sofa, by the writing-table.
+
+"Only an order for you to sign, dear Prince, for giving coals and
+blankets to the poor, this cold weather. Look! the King and Queen are
+both asleep, and your Royal Highness's order will do."
+
+So Giglio, who was very good-natured, as Gruffy well knew, signed the
+order immediately; and, when she had it in her pocket, you may fancy
+what airs she gave herself. She was ready to flounce out of the room
+before the Queen herself, as now she was the wife of the RIGHTFUL King
+of Paflagonia! She would not speak to Glumboso, whom she thought a
+brute, for depriving her DEAR HUSBAND of the crown! And when candles
+came, and she had helped to undress the Queen and Princess, she went
+into her own room, and actually practiced on a sheet of paper, "Griselda
+Paflagonia," "Barbara Regina," "Griselda Barbara, Paf. Reg.," and I
+don't know what signatures besides, against the day when she should be
+Queen forsooth!
+
+
+IX. HOW BETSINDA GOT THE WARMING PAN.
+
+
+Little Betsinda came in to put Gruffanuff's hair in papers; and the
+Countess was so pleased, that, for a wonder, she complimented Betsinda.
+"Betsinda!" she said, "you dressed my hair very nicely today; I promised
+you a little present. Here are five sh--no, here is a pretty little
+ring, that I picked--that I have had some time." And she gave Betsinda
+the ring she had picked up in the court. It fitted Betsinda exactly.
+
+"It's like the ring the Princess used to wear," says the maid.
+
+"No such thing," says Gruffanuff, "I have had it this ever so long.
+There, tuck me up quite comfortable; and now, as it's a very cold night
+(the snow was beating in at the window), you may go and warm dear Prince
+Giglio's bed, like a good girl, and then you may unrip my green silk,
+and then you can just do me up a little cap for the morning, and then
+you can mend that hole in my silk stocking, and then you can go to
+bed, Betsinda. Mind I shall want my cup of tea at five o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+"I suppose I had best warm both the young gentlemen's beds, Ma'am," says
+Betsinda.
+
+Gruffanuff, for reply, said, "Hau-au-ho!--Grau-haw-hoo!--Hong-hrho!" In
+fact, she was snoring sound asleep.
+
+Her room, you know, is next to the King and Queen, and the Princess is
+next to them. So pretty Betsinda went away for the coals to the kitchen,
+and filled the royal warming-pan.
+
+Now, she was a very kind, merry, civil, pretty girl; but there must
+have been something very captivating about her this evening, for all
+the women in the servants' hall began to scold and abuse her. The
+housekeeper said she was a pert, stuck-up thing: the upper-housemaid
+asked, how dare she wear such ringlets and ribbons, it was quite
+improper! The cook (for there was a woman-cook as well as a man-cook)
+said to the kitchen-maid that SHE never could see anything in that
+creetur: but as for the men, every one of them, Coachman, John, Buttons,
+the page, and Monsieur, the Prince of Crim Tartary's valet, started up,
+and said--
+
+"My eyes! }
+
+"O mussey! } what a pretty girl Betsinda is!"
+
+"O jemmany! }
+
+"O ciel! }
+
+"Hands off; none of your impertinence, you vulgar, low people!" says
+Betsinda, walking off with her pan of coals. She heard the young
+gentlemen playing at billiards as she went upstairs: first to Prince
+Giglio's bed, which she warmed, and then to Prince Bulbo's room.
+
+He came in just as she had done; and as soon as he saw her, "O! O! O!
+O! O! O! what a beyou--oo--ootiful creature you are! You angel--you
+Peri--you rosebud, let me be thy bulbul--thy Bulbo, too! Fly to the
+desert, fly with me! I never saw a young gazelle to glad me with its
+dark blue eye that had eyes like thine. Thou nymph of beauty, take, take
+this young heart. A truer never did itself sustain within a soldier's
+waistcoat. Be mine! Be mine! Be Princess of Crim Tartary! My Royal
+father will approve our union; and, as for that little carroty-haired
+Angelica, I do not care a fig for her any more."
+
+"Go away, Your Royal Highness, and go to bed, please," said Betsinda,
+with the warming-pan.
+
+But Bulbo said, "No, never, till thou swearest to be mine, thou lovely,
+blushing chambermaid divine! Here, at thy feet, the Royal Bulbo lies,
+the trembling captive of Betsinda's eyes."
+
+And he went on, making himself SO ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS, that Betsinda,
+who was full of fun, gave him a touch with the warming-pan, which, I
+promise you, made him cry "O-o-o-o!" in a very different manner.
+
+Prince Bulbo made such a noise that Prince Giglio, who heard him from
+the next room, came in to see what was the matter. As soon as he saw
+what was taking place, Giglio, in a fury, rushed on Bulbo, kicked him
+in the rudest manner up to the ceiling, and went on kicking him till his
+hair was quite out of curl.
+
+Poor Betsinda did not know whether to laugh or to cry; the kicking
+certainly must hurt the Prince, but then he looked so droll! When Giglio
+had done knocking him up and down to the ground, and whilst he went into
+a corner rubbing himself, what do you think Giglio does? He goes down on
+his own knees to Betsinda, takes her hand, begs her to accept his heart,
+and offers to marry her that moment. Fancy Betsinda's condition, who had
+been in love with the Prince ever since she first saw him in the palace
+garden, when she was quite a little child.
+
+"Oh, divine Betsinda!" says the Prince, "how have I lived fifteen years
+in thy company without seeing thy perfections? What woman in all
+Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, nay, in Australia, only it is not
+yet discovered, can presume to be thy equal? Angelica? Pish! Gruffanuff?
+Phoo! The Queen? Ha, ha! Thou art my Queen. Thou art the real Angelica,
+because thou art really angelic."
+
+"Oh, Prince! I am but a poor chambermaid," says Betsinda, looking,
+however, very much pleased.
+
+"Didst thou not tend me in my sickness, when all forsook me?" continues
+Giglio. "Did not thy gentle hand smooth my pillow, and bring me jelly
+and roast chicken?"
+
+"Yes, dear Prince, I did," says Betsinda, "and I sewed Your Royal
+Highness's shirt-buttons on too, if you please, Your Royal Highness,"
+cries this artless maiden.
+
+When poor Prince Bulbo, who was now madly in love with Betsinda, heard
+this declaration, when he saw the unmistakable glances which she flung
+upon Giglio, Bulbo began to cry bitterly, and tore quantities of hair
+out of his head, till it all covered the room like so much tow.
+
+Betsinda had left the warming-pan on the floor while the princes were
+going on with their conversation, and as they began now to quarrel and
+be very fierce with one another, she thought proper to run away.
+
+"You great big blubbering booby, tearing your hair in the corner there;
+of course you will give me satisfaction for insulting Betsinda. YOU dare
+to kneel down at Princess Giglio's knees and kiss her hand!"
+
+"She's not Princess Giglio!" roars out Bulbo. "She shall be Princess
+Bulbo, no other shall be Princess Bulbo."
+
+"You are engaged to my cousin!" bellows out Giglio.
+
+"I hate your cousin," says Bulbo.
+
+"You shall give me satisfaction for insulting her!" cries Giglio in a
+fury.
+
+"I'll have your life."
+
+"I'll run you through."
+
+"I'll cut your throat."
+
+"I'll blow your brains out."
+
+"I'll knock your head off."
+
+"I'll send a friend to you in the morning."
+
+"I'll send a bullet into you in the afternoon."
+
+"We'll meet again," says Giglio, shaking his fist in Bulbo's face; and
+seizing up the warming-pan, he kissed it, because, forsooth, Betsinda
+had carried it, and rushed downstairs. What should he see on the landing
+but his Majesty talking to Betsinda, whom he called by all sorts of fond
+names. His Majesty had heard a row in the building, so he stated, and
+smelling something burning, had come out to see what the matter was.
+
+"It's the young gentlemen smoking, perhaps, sir," says Betsinda.
+
+"Charming chambermaid," says the King (like all the rest of them),
+"never mind the young men! Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who
+has been considered not ill-looking in his time."
+
+"Oh, sir! what will her Majesty say?" cries Betsinda.
+
+"Her Majesty!" laughs the monarch. "Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not
+Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen--ha?
+Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives
+withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,--your mistress
+straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and
+throne."
+
+When Giglio heard these atrocious sentiments, he forgot the respect
+usually paid to Royalty, lifted up the warming-pan, and knocked down the
+King as flat as a pancake; after which, Master Giglio took to his
+heels and ran away, and Betsinda went off screaming, and the Queen,
+Gruffanuff, and the Princess, all came out of their rooms. Fancy their
+feelings on beholding their husband, father, sovereign, in this posture!
+
+
+X. HOW KING VALOROSO WAS IN A DREADFUL PASSION.
+
+
+As soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself
+and stood up. "Ho! my captain of the guards!" his Majesty exclaimed,
+stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King's nose
+was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground
+his teeth with rage. "Hedzoff," he said, taking a death-warrant out of
+his dressing-gown pocket, "Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince.
+Thou'lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with
+sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred night-cap of a king--Hedzoff,
+and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies!
+See it be done, or else,--h'm--ha!--h'm! mind thine own eyes!" And
+followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown,
+the King entered his own apartment.
+
+Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for
+Giglio. "Poor, poor Giglio!" he said, the tears rolling over his manly
+face, and dripping down his moustachios; "my noble young Prince, is it
+my hand must lead thee to death?"
+
+"Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff," said a female voice. It was
+Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the
+noise. "The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the
+Prince."
+
+"I don't understand you," says Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.
+
+"You Gaby! he didn't say WHICH Prince," says Gruffanuff.
+
+"No; he didn't say which, certainly," said Hedzoff.
+
+"Well then, take Bulbo, and hang HIM!"
+
+When Captain Hedzoff heard this, he began to dance about for joy.
+"Obedience is a soldier's honor," says he. "Prince Bulbo's head will do
+capitally;" and he went to arrest the Prince the very first thing next
+morning.
+
+He knocked at the door. "Who's there?" says Bulbo. "Captain Hedzoff?
+Step in, pray, my good Captain; I'm delighted to see you; I have been
+expecting you."
+
+"Have you?" says Hedzoff.
+
+"Sleibootz, my Chamberlain, will act for me," says the Prince.
+
+"I beg Your Royal Highness's pardon, but you will have to act for
+yourself, and it's a pity to wake Baron Sleibootz."
+
+The Prince Bulbo still seemed to take the matter very coolly. "Of
+course, Captain," says he, "you are come about that affair with Prince
+Giglio?"
+
+"Precisely," says Hedzoff, "that affair of Prince Giglio."
+
+"Is it to be pistols, or swords, Captain?" asks Bulbo. "I'm a pretty
+good hand with both, and I'll do for Prince Giglio as sure as my name is
+My Royal Highness Prince Bulbo."
+
+"There's some mistake, my Lord," says the Captain. "The business is done
+with AXES among us."
+
+"Axes? That's sharp work," says Bulbo. "Call my Chamberlain, he'll be my
+second, and in ten minutes, I flatter myself, you'll see Master
+Giglio's head off his impertinent shoulders. I'm hungry for his blood
+Hoo-oo--aw!" and he looked as savage as an ogre.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, but by this warrant I am to take you prisoner,
+and hand you over to--to the executioner."
+
+"Pooh, pooh, my good man!--Stop, I say,--ho!--hulloa!" was all that this
+luckless Prince was enabled to say: for Hedzoff's guards seizing him,
+tied a handkerchief over his mouth and face, and carried him to the
+place of execution.
+
+The King, who happened to be talking to Glumboso, saw him pass, and
+took a pinch of snuff and said, "So much for Giglio. Now let's go to
+breakfast."
+
+The Captain of the Guard handed over his prisoner to the Sheriff, with
+the fatal order,
+
+
+"AT SIGHT CUT OFF THE BEARER'S HEAD.
+
+"VALOROSO XXIV."
+
+
+"It's a mistake," says Bulbo, who did not seem to understand the
+business in the least.
+
+"Poo--poo--pooh," says the Sheriff. "Fetch Jack Ketch instantly. Jack
+Ketch!"
+
+And poor Bulbo was led to the scaffold, where an executioner with a
+block and a tremendous axe was always ready in case he should be wanted.
+
+But we must now revert to Giglio and Betsinda.
+
+
+XI. WHAT GRUFFANUFF DID TO GIGLIO AND BETSINDA.
+
+
+Gruffanuff, who had seen what had happened with the King, and knew that
+Giglio must come to grief, got up very early the next morning, and went
+to devise some plans for rescuing her darling husband, as the silly old
+thing insisted on calling him. She found him walking up and down the
+garden, thinking of a rhyme for Betsinda (TINDER and WINDA were all he
+could find), and indeed having forgotten all about the past evening,
+except that Betsinda was the most lovely of beings.
+
+"Well, dear Giglio," says Gruff.
+
+"Well, dear Gruffy," says Giglio, only HE was quite satirical.
+
+"I have been thinking, darling, what you must do in this scrape. You
+must fly the country for a while."
+
+"What scrape?--fly the country? Never without her I love, Countess,"
+says Giglio.
+
+"No, she will accompany you, dear Prince," she says, in her most coaxing
+accents. "First, we must get the jewels belonging to our royal parents,
+and those of her and his present Majesty. Here is the key, duck; they
+are all yours, you know, by right, for you are the rightful King of
+Paflagonia, and your wife will be the rightful Queen."
+
+"Will she?" says Giglio.
+
+"Yes; and having got the jewels, go to Glumboso's apartment, where,
+under his bed, you will find sacks containing money to the amount of
+L217,000,000,987,439, 13s. 6-12d., all belonging to you, for he took
+it out of your royal father's room on the day of his death. With this we
+will fly."
+
+"WE will fly?" says Giglio.
+
+"Yes, you and your bride--your affianced love--your Gruffy!" says the
+Countess, with a languishing leer.
+
+"YOU my bride!" says Giglio. "You, you hideous old woman!"
+
+"Oh, you--you wretch! didn't you give me this paper promising marriage?"
+cries Gruff.
+
+"Get away, you old goose! I love Betsinda, and Betsinda only!" And in a
+fit of terror he ran from her as quickly as he could.
+
+"He! he! he!" shrieks out Gruff; "a promise is a promise if there are
+laws in Paflagonia! And as for that monster, that wretch, that fiend,
+that ugly little vixen--as for that upstart, that ingrate, that beast,
+Betsinda, Master Giglio will have no little difficulty in discovering
+her whereabouts. He may look very long before finding HER, I warrant. He
+little knows that Miss Betsinda is--"
+
+
+Is--what? Now, you shall hear. Poor Betsinda got up at five in winter's
+morning to bring her cruel mistress her tea; and instead of finding her
+in a good humor, found Gruffy as cross as two sticks. The Countess boxed
+Betsinda's ears half a dozen times whilst she was dressing; but as poor
+little Betsinda was used to this kind of treatment, she did not feel
+any special alarm. "And now," says she, "when her Majesty rings her bell
+twice, I'll trouble you, miss, to attend."
+
+So when the Queen's bell rang twice, Betsinda came to her Majesty and
+made a pretty little curtsey. The Queen, the Princess, and Gruffanuff
+were all three in the room. As soon as they saw her they began,
+
+"You wretch!" says the Queen.
+
+"You little vulgar thing!" says the Princess.
+
+"You beast!" says Gruffanuff.
+
+"Get out of my sight!" says the Queen.
+
+"Go away with you, do!" says the Princess.
+
+"Quit the premises!" says Gruffanuff.
+
+"Alas! and woe is me!" very lamentable events had occurred to Betsinda
+that morning, and all in consequence of that fatal warming-pan business
+of the previous night. The King had offered to marry her; of course her
+Majesty the Queen was jealous: Bulbo had fallen in love with her; of
+course Angelica was furious: Giglio was in love with her, and oh, what a
+fury Gruffy was in!
+
+ { cap }
+
+"Take off that {petticoat} I gave you," they said, all at once,
+
+ { gown }
+
+and began tearing the clothes off poor Betsinda.
+
+ { the King?" }
+
+"How dare you flirt with {Prince Bulbo?" } cried the Queen, the
+
+ {Prince Giglio?"} Princess, and Countess.
+
+"Give her the rags she wore when she came into the house, and turn her
+out of it!" cries the Queen.
+
+"Mind she does not go with MY shoes on, which I lent her so kindly,"
+says the Princess; and indeed the Princess's shoes were a great deal too
+big for Betsinda.
+
+"Come with me, you filthy hussy!" and taking up the Queen's poker, the
+cruel Gruffanuff drove Betsinda into her room.
+
+The Countess went to the glass box in which she had kept Betsinda's old
+cloak and shoe this ever so long, and said, "Take those rags, you little
+beggar creature, and strip off everything belonging to honest people,
+and go about your business"; and she actually tore off the poor little
+delicate thing's back almost all her things, and told her to be off out
+of the house.
+
+Poor Betsinda huddled the cloak round her back, on which were
+embroidered the letters PRIN. . . . ROSAL . . and then came a great
+rent.
+
+As for the shoe, what was she to do with one poor little tootsey sandal?
+The string was still to it, so she hung it round her neck.
+
+"Won't you give me a pair of shoes to go out in the snow, mum, if you
+please, mum?" cried the poor child.
+
+"No, you wicked beast!" says Gruffanuff, driving her along with the
+poker--driving her down the cold stairs--driving her through the cold
+hall--flinging her out into the cold street, so that the knocker itself
+shed tears to see her!
+
+But a kind fairy made the soft snow warm for her little feet, and she
+wrapped herself up in the ermine of her mantle, and was gone!
+
+
+"And now let us think about breakfast," says the greedy Queen.
+
+"What dress shall I put on, mamma? the pink or the pea-green?" says
+Angelica. "Which do you think the dear Prince will like best?"
+
+"Mrs. V.!" sings out the King from his dressing-room, "let us have
+sausages for breakfast! Remember we have Prince Bulbo staying with us!"
+
+And they all went to get ready.
+
+Nine o'clock came, and they were all in the breakfast-room, and no
+Prince Bulbo as yet. The urn was hissing and humming: the muffins were
+smoking--such a heap of muffins! the eggs were done, there was a pot
+of raspberry jam, and coffee, and a beautiful chicken and tongue on the
+side-table. Marmitonio the cook brought in the sausages. Oh, how nice
+they smelt!
+
+"Where is Bulbo?" said the King. "John, where is His Royal Highness?"
+
+John said he had a took hup His Roilighnessesses shaving-water, and
+his clothes and things, and he wasn't in his room, which he sposed His
+Royliness was just stepped hout.
+
+"Stepped out before breakfast in the snow! Impossible!" says the King,
+sticking his fork into a sausage. "My dear, take one. Angelica, won't
+you have a saveloy?" The Princess took one, being very fond of them; and
+at this moment Glumboso entered with Captain Hedzoff, both looking very
+much disturbed.
+
+"I am afraid Your Majesty--" cries Glumboso.
+
+"No business before breakfast, Glum!" says the King. "Breakfast first,
+business next. Mrs. V., some more sugar!"
+
+"Sire, I am afraid if we wait till after breakfast it will be too late,"
+says Glumboso. "He--he--he'll be hanged at half-past nine."
+
+"Don't talk about hanging and spoil my breakfast, you unkind, vulgar
+man you," cries the Princess. "John, some mustard. Pray who is to be
+hanged?"
+
+"Sire, it is the Prince," whispers Glumboso to the King.
+
+"Talk about business after breakfast, I tell you!" says his Majesty,
+quite sulky.
+
+"We shall have a war, Sire, depend on it," says the Minister. "His
+father, King Padella. . . ."
+
+"His father, King WHO?" says the King. "King Padella is not Giglio's
+father. My brother, King Savio, was Giglio's father."
+
+"It's Prince Bulbo they are hanging, Sire, not Prince Giglio," says the
+Prime Minister.
+
+"You told me to hang the Prince, and I took the ugly one," says Hedzoff.
+"I didn't, of course, think Your Majesty intended to murder your own
+flesh and blood!"
+
+The King for all reply flung the plate of sausages at Hedzoff's head.
+The Princess cried out "Hee-karee-karee!" and fell down in a fainting
+fit.
+
+"Turn the cock of the urn upon Her Royal Highness," said the King,
+and the boiling water gradually revived her. His Majesty looked at his
+watch, compared it by the clock in the parlor, and by that of the church
+in the square opposite; then he wound it up; then he looked at it again.
+"The great question is," says he, "am I fast or am I slow? If I'm slow,
+we may as well go on with breakfast. If I'm fast, why, there is just the
+possibility of saving Prince Bulbo. It's a doosid awkward mistake, and
+upon my word, Hedzoff, I have the greatest mind to have you hanged too."
+
+"Sire, I did but my duty: a soldier has but his orders. I didn't expect
+after forty-seven years of faithful service, that my sovereign would
+think of putting me to a felon's death!"
+
+"A hundred thousand plagues upon you! Can't you see that while you are
+talking my Bulbo is being hung?" screamed the Princess.
+
+"By Jove! she's always right, that girl, and I'm so absent," says the
+King, looking at his watch again. "Ha! there go the drums! What a doosid
+awkward thing though!"
+
+"O, papa, you goose! Write the reprieve, and let me run with it," cries
+the Princess--and she got a sheet of paper, and pen and ink, and laid
+them before the King.
+
+"Confound it! Where are my spectacles?" the Monarch exclaimed.
+"Angelica! Go up into my bedroom, look under my pillow, not your
+mamma's; there you'll see my keys. Bring them down to me, and--Well,
+well! what impetuous things these girls are!" Angelica was gone, and had
+run up panting to the bedroom, and found the keys, and was back again
+before the King had finished a muffin. "Now, love," says he, "you must
+go all the way back for my desk, in which my spectacles are. If you
+would but have heard me out. . . . Be hanged to her! There she is off
+again. Angelica! ANGELICA!" When his Majesty called in his LOUD voice,
+she knew she must obey, and came back.
+
+"My dear, when you go out of a room, how often have I told you, SHUT THE
+DOOR. That's a darling. That's all." At last the keys and the desk and
+the spectacles were got, and the King mended his pen, and signed his
+name to a reprieve, and Angelica ran with it as swift as the wind.
+"You'd better stay, my love, and finish the muffins. There's no use
+going. Be sure it's too late. Hand me over that raspberry jam, please,"
+said the Monarch. "Bong! Bawong! There goes the half-hour. I knew it
+was."
+
+Angelica ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. She ran up Fore Street, and
+down High Street, and through the Market-place, and down to the left,
+and over the bridge, and up the blind alley, and back again, and round
+by the Castle, and so along by the Haberdasher's on the right, opposite
+the lamp-post, and round the square, and she came--she came to the
+EXECUTION PLACE, where she saw Bulbo laying his head on the block!!! The
+executioner raised his axe, but at that moment the Princess came panting
+up and cried Reprieve! "Reprieve!" screamed the Princess. "Reprieve!"
+shouted all the people. Up the scaffold stairs she sprang, with the
+agility of a lighter of lamps; and flinging herself in Bulbo's arms,
+regardless of all ceremony, she cried out, "Oh, my Prince! my lord! my
+love! my Bulbo! Thine Angelica has been in time to save thy precious
+existence, sweet rosebud; to prevent thy being nipped in thy young
+bloom! Had aught befallen thee, Angelica too had died, and welcomed
+death that joined her to her Bulbo."
+
+"H'm! there's no accounting for tastes," said Bulbo, looking so very
+much puzzled and uncomfortable that the Princess, in tones of tenderest
+strain, asked the cause of his disquiet.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Angelica," said he, "since I came here
+yesterday, there has been such a row, and disturbance, and quarrelling,
+and fighting, and chopping of heads off, and the deuce to pay, that I am
+inclined to go back to Crim Tartary."
+
+"But with me as thy bride, my Bulbo! Though wherever thou art is Crim
+Tartary to me, my bold, my beautiful, my Bulbo!"
+
+"Well, well, I suppose we must be married," says Bulbo. "Doctor, you
+came to read the Funeral Service--read the Marriage Service, will you?
+What must be, must. That will satisfy Angelica, and then, in the name of
+peace and quietness, do let us go back to breakfast."
+
+Bulbo had carried a rose in his mouth all the time of the dismal
+ceremony. It was a fairy rose, and he was told by his mother that he
+ought never to part with it. So he had kept it between his teeth, even
+when he laid his poor head upon the block, hoping vaguely that some
+chance would turn up in his favor. As he began to speak to Angelica, he
+forgot about the rose, and of course it dropped out of his mouth. The
+romantic Princess instantly stooped and seized it. "Sweet rose!" she
+exclaimed, "that bloomed upon my Bulbo's lip, never, never will I part
+from thee!" and she placed it in her bosom. And you know Bulbo COULDN'T
+ask her to give the rose back again. And they went to breakfast; and as
+they walked, it appeared to Bulbo that Angelica became more exquisitely
+lovely every moment.
+
+He was frantic until they were married; and now, strange to say, it was
+Angelica who didn't care about him! He knelt down, he kissed her hand,
+he prayed and begged; he cried with admiration; while she for her part
+said she really thought they might wait; it seemed to her he was not
+handsome any more--no, not at all, quite the reverse; and not clever,
+no, very stupid; and not well bred, like Giglio; no, on the contrary,
+dreadfully vul--
+
+What, I cannot say, for King Valoroso roared out "POOH, stuff!" in a
+terrible voice. "We will have no more of this shilly-shallying! Call the
+Archbishop, and let the Prince and Princess be married offhand!"
+
+So, married they were, and I am sure for my part I trust they will be
+happy.
+
+
+XII. HOW BETSINDA FLED, AND WHAT BECAME OF HER.
+
+
+Betsinda wandered on and on, till she passed through the town gates, and
+so on the great Crim Tartary road, the very way on which Giglio too
+was going. "Ah!" thought she, as the diligence passed her, of which the
+conductor was blowing a delightful tune on his horn, "how I should like
+to be on that coach!" But the coach and the jingling horses were very
+soon gone. She little knew who was in it, though very likely she was
+thinking of him all the time.
+
+Then came an empty cart, returning from market; and the driver being
+a kind man, and seeing such a very pretty girl trudging along the road
+with bare feet, most good-naturedly gave her a seat. He said he lived on
+the confines of the forest, where his old father was a woodman, and, if
+she liked, he would take her so far on her road. All roads were the same
+to little Betsinda, so she very thankfully took this one.
+
+And the carter put a cloth round her bare feet, and gave her some bread
+and cold bacon, and was very kind to her. For all that she was very cold
+and melancholy. When after travelling on and on, evening came, and all
+the black pines were bending with snow, and there, at last, was the
+comfortable light beaming in the woodman's windows; and so they arrived,
+and went into his cottage. He was an old man, and had a number of
+children, who were just at supper, with nice hot bread-and-milk, when
+their elder brother arrived with the cart. And they jumped and clapped
+their hands; for they were good children; and he had brought them toys
+from the town. And when they saw the pretty stranger, they ran to
+her, and brought her to the fire, and rubbed her poor little feet, and
+brought her bread and milk.
+
+"Look, father!" they said to the old woodman, "look at this poor girl,
+and see what pretty cold feet she has. They are as white as our milk!
+And look and see what an odd cloak she has, just like the bit of velvet
+that hangs up in our cupboard, and which you found that day the little
+cubs were killed by King Padella, in the forest! And look, why, bless
+us all! she has got round her neck just such another little shoe as
+that you brought home, and have shown us so often--a little blue velvet
+shoe!"
+
+"What," said the old woodman, "what is all this about a shoe and a
+cloak?"
+
+And Betsinda explained that she had been left, when quite a little
+child, at the town with this cloak and this shoe. And the persons who
+had taken care of her had--had been angry with her, for no fault, she
+hoped, of her own. And they had sent her away with her old clothes--and
+here, in fact, she was. She remembered having been in a forest--and
+perhaps it was a dream--it was so very odd and strange--having lived in
+a cave with lions there; and, before that, having lived in a very, very
+fine house, as fine as the King's, in the town.
+
+When the woodman heard this, he was so astonished, it was quite curious
+to see how astonished he was. He went to his cupboard, and took out of
+a stocking a five-shilling piece of King Cavolfiore, and vowed it was
+exactly like the young woman. And then he produced the shoe and piece
+of velvet which he had kept so long, and compared them with the things
+which Betsinda wore. In Betsinda's little shoe was written, "Hopkins,
+maker to the Royal Family"; so in the other shoe was written, "Hopkins,
+maker to the Royal Family." In the inside of Betsinda's piece of
+cloak was embroidered, "PRIN ROSAL"; in the other piece of cloak was
+embroidered "CESS BA. NO. 246." So that when put together you read,
+"PRINCESS ROSALBA. NO. 246."
+
+On seeing this, the dear old woodman fell down on his knee, saying,
+"O my Princess, O my gracious royal lady, O my rightful Queen of Crim
+Tartary,--I hail thee--I acknowledge thee--I do thee homage!" And in
+token of his fealty, he rubbed his venerable nose three times on the
+ground, and put the Princess's foot on his head.
+
+"Why," said she, "my good woodman, you must be a nobleman of my royal
+father's Court!" For in her lowly retreat, and under the name of
+Betsinda, HER MAJESTY, ROSALBA, Queen of Crim Tartary, had read of the
+customs of all foreign courts and nations.
+
+"Marry, indeed, am I, my gracious liege--the poor Lord Spinachi
+once--the humble woodman these fifteen years syne--ever since the tyrant
+Padella (may ruin overtake the treacherous knave!) dismissed me from my
+post of First Lord."
+
+"First Lord of the Toothpick and Joint Keeper of the Snuffbox? I mind
+me! Thou heldest these posts under our royal Sire. They are restored to
+thee, Lord Spinachi! I make thee knight of the second class of our Order
+of the Pumpkin (the first class being reserved for crowned heads alone).
+Rise, Marquis of Spinachi!" And with indescribable majesty, the Queen,
+who had no sword handy, waved the pewter spoon with which she had been
+taking her bread-and-milk, over the bald head of the old nobleman, whose
+tears absolutely made a puddle on the ground, and whose dear children
+went to bed that night Lords and Ladies Bartolomeo, Ubaldo, Catarina,
+and Ottavia degli Spinachi!
+
+The acquaintance HER MAJESTY showed with the history, and NOBLE FAMILIES
+of her empire, was wonderful. "The House of Broccoli should remain
+faithful to us," she said; "they were ever welcome at our Court. Have
+the Articiocchi, as was their wont, turned to the Rising Sun? The family
+of Sauerkraut must sure be with us--they were ever welcome in the halls
+of King Cavolfiore." And so she went on enumerating quite a list of
+the nobility and gentry of Crim Tartary, so admirably had her Majesty
+profited by her studies while in exile.
+
+The old Marquis of Spinachi said he could answer for them all; that the
+whole country groaned under Padella's tyranny, and longed to return to
+its rightful sovereign; and late as it was, he sent his children, who
+knew the forest well, to summon this nobleman and that; and when his
+eldest son, who had been rubbing the horse down and giving him his
+supper, came into the house for his own, the Marquis told him to put his
+boots on, and a saddle on the mare, and ride hither and thither to such
+and such people.
+
+When the young man heard who his companion in the cart had been, he too
+knelt down and put her royal foot on his head; he too bedewed the ground
+with his tears; he was frantically in love with her, as everybody now
+was who saw her: so were the young Lords Bartolomeo and Ubaldo, who
+punched each other's little heads out of jealousy: and so, when they
+came from east and west at the summons of the Marquis degli Spinachi,
+were the Crim Tartar Lords who still remained faithful to the House of
+Cavolfiore. They were such very old gentlemen for the most part that her
+Majesty never suspected their absurd passion, and went among them quite
+unaware of the havoc her beauty was causing, until an old blind Lord who
+had joined her party told her what the truth was; after which, for fear
+of making the people too much in love with her, she always wore a veil.
+She went about privately, from one nobleman's castle to another; and
+they visited among themselves again, and had meetings, and composed
+proclamations and counter-proclamations, and distributed all the best
+places of the kingdom amongst one another, and selected who of the
+opposition party should be executed when the Queen came to her own. And
+so in about a year they were ready to move.
+
+The party of Fidelity was in truth composed of very feeble old fogies
+for the most part; they went about the country waving their old swords
+and flags, and calling "God save the Queen!" and King Padella happening
+to be absent upon an invasion, they had their own way for a little,
+and to be sure the people were very enthusiastic whenever they saw the
+Queen; otherwise the vulgar took matters very quietly, for they said,
+as far as they could recollect, they were pretty well as much taxed in
+Cavolfiore's time, as now in Padella's.
+
+
+XIII. HOW QUEEN ROSALBA CAME TO THE CASTLE OF THE BOLD COUNT HOGGINARMO.
+
+
+Her Majesty, having indeed nothing else to give, made all her followers
+Knights of the Pumpkin, and Marquises, Earls, and Baronets; and they had
+a little court for her, and made her a little crown of gilt paper, and a
+robe of cotton velvet; and they quarrelled about the places to be given
+away in her court, and about rank and precedence and dignities;--you
+can't think how they quarrelled! The poor Queen was very tired of her
+honors before she had had them a month, and I dare say sighed sometimes
+even to be a lady's-maid again. But we must all do our duty in our
+respective stations, so the Queen resigned herself to perform hers.
+
+We have said how it happened that none of the Usurper's troops came out
+to oppose this Army of Fidelity: it pottered along as nimbly as the
+gout of the principal commanders allowed: it consisted of twice as many
+officers as soldiers: and at length passed near the estates of one of
+the most powerful noblemen of the country, who had not declared for the
+Queen, but of whom her party had hopes, as he was always quarrelling
+with King Padella.
+
+When they came close to his park gates, this nobleman sent to say he
+would wait upon her Majesty: he was a most powerful warrior, and his
+name was Count Hogginarmo, whose helmet it took two strong negroes to
+carry. He knelt down before her and said, "Madam and liege lady! it
+becomes the great nobles of the Crimean realm to show every outward sign
+of respect to the wearer of the Crown, whoever that may be. We testify
+to our own nobility in acknowledging yours. The bold Hogginarmo bends
+the knee to the first of the aristocracy of his country."
+
+Rosalba said the bold Count of Hogginarmo was uncommonly kind; but she
+felt afraid of him, even while he was kneeling, and his eyes scowled at
+her from between his whiskers, which grew up to them.
+
+"The first Count of the Empire, madam," he went on, "salutes the
+Sovereign. The Prince addresses himself to the not more noble lady!
+Madam, my hand is free, and I offer it, and my heart and my sword to
+your service! My three wives lie buried in my ancestral vaults. The
+third perished but a year since; and this heart pines for a consort!
+Deign to be mine, and I swear to bring to your bridal table the head of
+King Padella, the eyes and nose of his son Prince Bulbo, the right hand
+and ears of the usurping Sovereign of Paflagonia, which country shall
+thenceforth be an appanage to your--to OUR Crown! Say yes; Hogginarmo is
+not accustomed to be denied. Indeed I cannot contemplate the possibility
+of a refusal; for frightful will be the result; dreadful the murders;
+furious the devastations; horrible the tyranny; tremendous the tortures,
+misery, taxation, which the people of this realm will endure, if
+Hogginarmo's wrath be aroused! I see consent in Your Majesty's lovely
+eyes--their glances fill my soul with rapture!"
+
+"Oh, sir!" Rosalba said, withdrawing her hand in great fright. "Your
+Lordship is exceedingly kind; but I am sorry to tell you that I have a
+prior attachment to a young gentleman by the name of--Prince Giglio--and
+never--never can marry any one but him."
+
+Who can describe Hogginarmo's wrath at this remark? Rising up from the
+ground, he ground his teeth so that fire flashed out of his mouth, from
+which at the same time issued remarks and language, so LOUD,
+VIOLENT, AND IMPROPER, that this pen shall never repeat them!
+"R-r-r-r-r-r--Rejected! Fiends and perdition! The bold Hogginarmo
+rejected! All the world shall hear of my rage; and you, madam, you above
+all shall rue it!" And kicking the two negroes before him, he rushed
+away, his whiskers streaming in the wind.
+
+Her Majesty's Privy Council was in a dreadful panic when they saw
+Hogginarmo issue from the royal presence in such a towering rage, making
+footballs of the poor negroes--a panic which the events justified. They
+marched off from Hogginarmo's park very crest-fallen; and in another
+half-hour they were met by that rapacious chieftain with a few of his
+followers, who cut, slashed, charged, whacked, banged, and pommelled
+amongst them, took the Queen prisoner, and drove the Army of Fidelity to
+I don't know where.
+
+Poor Queen! Hogginarmo, her conqueror, would not condescend to see her.
+"Get a horse-van!" he said to his grooms, "clap the hussy into it, and
+send her, with my compliments, to his Majesty King Padella."
+
+Along with his lovely prisoner, Hogginarmo sent a letter full of servile
+compliments and loathsome flatteries to King Padella, for whose life,
+and that of his royal family, the HYPOCRITICAL HUMBUG pretended to offer
+the most fulsome prayers. And Hogginarmo promised speedily to pay his
+humble homage at his august master's throne, of which he begged leave to
+be counted the most loyal and constant defender. Such a WARY old BIRD
+as King Padella was not to be caught by Master Hogginarmo's CHAFF and we
+shall hear presently how the tyrant treated his upstart vassal. No, no;
+depend on't, two such rogues do not trust one another.
+
+So this poor Queen was laid in the straw like Margery Daw, and driven
+along in the dark ever so many miles to the Court, where King Padella
+had now arrived, having vanquished all his enemies, murdered most of
+them, and brought some of the richest into captivity with him for the
+purpose of torturing them and finding out where they had hidden their
+money.
+
+Rosalba heard their shrieks and groans in the dungeon in which she was
+thrust; a most awful black hole, full of bats, rats, mice, toads, frogs,
+mosquitoes, bugs, fleas, serpents, and every kind of horror. No light
+was let into it, otherwise the gaolers might have seen her and fallen in
+love with her, as an owl that lived up in the roof of the tower did, and
+a cat, you know, who can see in the dark, and having set its green eyes
+on Rosalba, never would be got to go back to the turnkey's wife to whom
+it belonged. And the toads in the dungeon came and kissed her feet,
+and the vipers wound round her neck and arms, and never hurt her, so
+charming was this poor Princess in the midst of her misfortunes.
+
+At last, after she had been kept in this place EVER SO LONG, the door of
+the dungeon opened, and the terrible KING PADELLA came in.
+
+But what he said and did must be reserved for another chapter, as we
+must now back to Prince Giglio.
+
+
+XIV. WHAT BECAME OF GIGLIO.
+
+
+The idea of marrying such an old creature as Gruffanuff frightened
+Prince Giglio so, that he ran up to his room, packed his trunks,
+fetched in a couple of porters, and was off to the diligence office in a
+twinkling.
+
+It was well that he was so quick in his operations, did not dawdle over
+his luggage, and took the early coach: for as soon as the mistake about
+Prince Bulbo was found out, that cruel Glumboso sent up a couple of
+policemen to Prince Giglio's room, with orders that he should be carried
+to Newgate, and his head taken off before twelve o'clock. But the coach
+was out of the Paflagonian dominions before two o'clock; and I dare say
+the express that was sent after Prince Giglio did not ride very quick,
+for many people in Paflagonia had a regard for Giglio, as the son of
+their old sovereign; a Prince who, with all his weaknesses, was very
+much better than his brother, the usurping, lazy, careless, passionate,
+tyrannical, reigning monarch. That Prince busied himself with the balls,
+fetes, masquerades, hunting-parties, and so forth, which he thought
+proper to give on occasion of his daughter's marriage to Prince Bulbo;
+and let us trust was not sorry in his own heart that his brother's son
+had escaped the scaffold.
+
+It was very cold weather, and the snow was on the ground, and
+Giglio, who gave his name as simple Mr. Giles, was very glad to get a
+comfortable place in the coupe of the diligence, where he sat with the
+conductor and another gentleman. At the first stage from Blombodinga,
+as they stopped to change horses, there came up to the diligence a very
+ordinary, vulgar-looking woman, with a bag under her arm, who asked
+for a place. All the inside places were taken, and the young woman was
+informed that if she wished to travel, she must go upon the roof; and
+the passenger inside with Giglio (a rude person, I should think), put
+his head out of the window, and said, "Nice weather for travelling
+outside! I wish you a pleasant journey, my dear." The poor woman coughed
+very much, and Giglio pitied her. "I will give up my place to her,"
+says he, "rather than she should travel in the cold air with that horrid
+cough." On which the vulgar traveller said, "YOU'D keep her warm, I am
+sure, if it's a MUFF she wants." On which Giglio pulled his nose, boxed
+his ears, hit him in the eye, and gave this vulgar person a warning
+never to call him MUFF again.
+
+Then he sprang up gaily on to the roof of the diligence, and made
+himself very comfortable in the straw. The vulgar traveller got down
+only at the next station, and Giglio took his place again, and talked
+to the person next to him. She appeared to be a most agreeable,
+well-informed, and entertaining female. They travelled together till
+night, and she gave Giglio all sorts of things out of the bag which
+she carried, and which indeed seemed to contain the most wonderful
+collection of articles. He was thirsty--out there came a pint bottle
+of Bass's pale ale, and a silver mug! Hungry--she took out a cold fowl,
+some slices of ham, bread, salt, and a most delicious piece of cold
+plum-pudding, and a little glass of brandy afterwards.
+
+As they travelled, this plain-looking, queer woman talked to Giglio on
+a variety of subjects, in which the poor Prince showed his ignorance as
+much as she did her capacity. He owned, with many blushes, how ignorant
+he was; on which the lady said, "My dear Gigl--my good Mr. Giles, you
+are a young man, and have plenty of time before you. You have nothing to
+do but to improve yourself. Who knows but that you may find use for your
+knowledge some day? When--when you may be wanted at home, as some people
+may be."
+
+"Good heavens, madam!" says he, "do you know me?"
+
+"I know a number of funny things," says the lady. "I have been at some
+people's christenings, and turned away from other folks' doors. I have
+seen some people spoilt by good fortune, and others, as I hope, improved
+by hardship. I advise you to stay at the town where the coach stops for
+the night. Stay there and study, and remember your old friend to whom
+you were kind."
+
+"And who is my old friend?" asked Giglio.
+
+"When you want anything," says the lady, "look in this bag, which I
+leave to you as a present, and be grateful to--"
+
+"To whom, madam?" says he.
+
+"To the Fairy Blackstick," says the lady, flying out of the window. And
+then Giglio asked the conductor if he knew where the lady was?
+
+"What lady?" says the man; "there has been no lady in this coach, except
+the old woman, who got out at the last stage." And Giglio thought he
+had been dreaming. But there was the bag which Blackstick had given him
+lying on his lap; and when he came to the town he took it in his hand
+and went into the inn.
+
+They gave him a very bad bedroom, and Giglio, when he woke in the
+morning, fancying himself in the Royal Palace at home, called, "John,
+Charles, Thomas! My chocolate--my dressing-gown--my slippers;" but
+nobody came. There was no bell, so he went and bawled out for water on
+the top of the stairs.
+
+The landlady came up, looking--looking like this--
+
+"What are you a-hollering and a-bellaring for here, young man?" says
+she.
+
+"There's no warm water--no servants; my boots are not even cleaned."
+
+"He, he! Clean 'em yourself," says the landlady. "You young students
+give yourselves pretty airs. I never heard such impudence."
+
+"I'll quit the house this instant," says Giglio.
+
+"The sooner the better, young man. Pay your bill and be off. All my
+rooms is wanted for gentlefolks, and not for such as you."
+
+"You may well keep the Bear Inn," said Giglio. "You should have yourself
+painted as the sign."
+
+The landlady of the Bear went away GROWLING. And Giglio returned to his
+room, where the first thing he saw was the fairy bag lying on the table,
+which seemed to give a little hop as he came in. "I hope it has some
+breakfast in it," says Giglio, "for I have only a very little money
+left." But on opening the bag, what do you think was there? A blacking
+brush and a pot of Warren's jet, and on the pot was written,
+
+     "Poor young men their boots must black:
+     Use me and cork me and put me back."
+
+So Giglio laughed and blacked his boots, and put back the brush and the
+bottle into the bag.
+
+When he had done dressing himself, the bag gave another little hop, and
+he went to it and took out--
+
+1. A tablecloth and a napkin.
+
+2. A sugar-basin full of the best loaf-sugar.
+
+4, 6, 8, 10. Two forks, two teaspoons, two knives, and a pair of
+sugar-tongs, and a butter-knife all marked G.
+
+11, 12, 13. A teacup, saucer, and slop-basin.
+
+14. A jug full of delicious cream.
+
+15. A canister with black tea and green.
+
+16. A large tea-urn and boiling water.
+
+17. A saucepan, containing three eggs nicely done.
+
+18. A quarter of a pound of best Epping butter.
+
+19. A brown loaf.
+
+And if he hadn't enough now for a good breakfast, I should like to know
+who ever had one?
+
+Giglio, having had his breakfast, popped all the things back into
+the bag, and went out looking for lodgings. I forgot to say that this
+celebrated university town was called Bosforo.
+
+He took a modest lodging opposite the Schools, paid his bill at the
+inn, and went to his apartment with his trunk, carpet-bag, and not
+forgetting, we may be sure, his OTHER bag.
+
+When he opened his trunk, which the day before he had filled with his
+best clothes, he found it contained only books. And in the first of them
+which he opened there was written--
+
+     "Clothes for the back, books for the head:
+     Read, and remember them when they are read."
+
+And in his bag, when Giglio looked in it, he found a student's cap and
+gown, a writing-book full of paper, an inkstand, pens, and a Johnson's
+dictionary, which was very useful to him, as his spelling had been sadly
+neglected.
+
+So he sat down and worked away, very, very hard for a whole year,
+during which "Mr. Giles" was quite an example to all the students in the
+University of Bosforo. He never got into any riots or disturbances. The
+Professors all spoke well of him, and the students liked him too; so
+that, when at examination, he took all the prizes, viz.:--
+
+     {The Spelling Prize      {The French Prize
+     {The Writing Prize       {The Arithmetic Prize
+     {The History Prize       {The Latin Prize
+     {The Catechism Prize     {The Good Conduct Prize,
+
+all his fellow-students said, "Hurrah! Hurray for Giles! Giles is
+the boy--the student's joy! Hurray for Giles!" And he brought quite a
+quantity of medals, crowns, books, and tokens of distinction home to his
+lodgings.
+
+One day after the Examinations, as he was diverting himself at a
+coffee-house with two friends--(Did I tell you that in his bag, every
+Saturday night, he found just enough to pay his bills, with a guinea
+over, for pocket-money? Didn't I tell you? Well, he did, as sure as
+twice twenty makes forty-five)--he chanced to look in the Bosforo
+Chronicle, and read off, quite easily (for he could spell, read, and
+write the longest words now), the following:--
+
+"ROMANTIC CIRCUMSTANCE.--One of the most extraordinary adventures that
+we have ever heard has set the neighboring country of Crim Tartary in a
+state of great excitement.
+
+"It will be remembered that when the present revered sovereign of Crim
+Tartary, his Majesty King PADELLA, took possession of the throne, after
+having vanquished, in the terrific battle of Blunderbusco, the late
+King CAVOLFIORE, that Prince's only child, the Princess Rosalba, was not
+found in the royal palace, of which King Padella took possession, and,
+it was said, had strayed into the forest (being abandoned by all her
+attendants) where she had been eaten up by those ferocious lions, the
+last pair of which were captured some time since, and brought to the
+Tower, after killing several hundred persons.
+
+"His Majesty King Padella, who has the kindest heart in the world,
+was grieved at the accident which had occurred to the harmless little
+Princess, for whom his Majesty's known benevolence would certainly have
+provided a fitting establishment. But her death seemed to be certain.
+The mangled remains of a cloak, and a little shoe, were found in the
+forest, during a hunting-party, in which the intrepid sovereign of
+Crim Tartary slew two of the lions' cubs with his own spear. And these
+interesting relics of an innocent little creature were carried home
+and kept by their finder, the Baron Spinachi, formerly an officer in
+Cavolfiore's household. The Baron was disgraced in consequence of his
+known legitimist opinions, and has lived for some time in the humble
+capacity of a wood-cutter, in a forest on the outskirts of the Kingdom
+of Crim Tartary.
+
+"Last Tuesday week Baron Spinachi and a number of gentlemen, attached
+to the former dynasty, appeared in arms, crying, 'God save Rosalba,
+the first Queen of Crim Tartary!' and surrounding a lady whom report
+describes as 'BEAUTIFUL EXCEEDINGLY.' Her history MAY be authentic, IS
+certainly most romantic.
+
+"The personage calling herself Rosalba states that she was brought out
+of the forest, fifteen years since, by a lady in a car drawn by dragons
+(this account is certainly IMPROBABLE), that she was left in the Palace
+Garden of Blombodinga, where Her Royal Highness the Princess Angelica,
+now married to His Royal Highness Bulbo, Crown Prince of Crim Tartary,
+found the child, and, with THAT ELEGANT BENEVOLENCE which has always
+distinguished the heiress of the throne of Paflagonia, gave the little
+outcast a SHELTER AND A HOME! Her parentage not being known, and her
+garb very humble, the foundling was educated in the Palace in a menial
+capacity, under the name of BETSINDA.
+
+"She did not give satisfaction, and was dismissed, carrying with her,
+certainly, part of a mantle and a shoe, which she had on when first
+found. According to her statement she quitted Blombodinga about a year
+ago, since which time she has been with the Spinachi family. On the
+very same morning the Prince Giglio, nephew to the King of Paflagonia,
+a young Prince whose character for TALENT and ORDER were, to say truth,
+NONE OF THE HIGHEST, also quitted Blombodinga, and has not been since
+heard of!"
+
+"What an extraordinary story!" said Smith and Jones, two young students,
+Giglio's especial friends.
+
+"Ha! what is this?" Giglio went on, reading:--
+
+"SECOND EDITION, EXPRESS.--We hear that the troop under Baron Spinachi
+has been surrounded, and utterly routed, by General Count Hogginarmo,
+and the soi-disant Princess is sent a prisoner to the capital.
+
+"UNIVERSITY NEWS.--Yesterday, at the Schools, the distinguished young
+student, Mr. Giles, read a Latin oration, and was complimented by
+the Chancellor of Bosforo, Dr. Prugnaro, with the highest University
+honor--the wooden spoon."
+
+"Never mind that stuff," says GILES, greatly disturbed. "Come home
+with me, my friends. Gallant Smith! intrepid Jones! friends of my
+studies--partakers of my academic toils--I have that to tell which shall
+astonish your honest minds."
+
+"Go it, old boy!" cries the impetuous Smith.
+
+"Talk away, my buck!" says Jones, a lively fellow.
+
+With an air of indescribable dignity, Giglio checked their natural, but
+no more seemly, familiarity. "Jones, Smith, my good friends," said the
+PRINCE, "disguise is henceforth useless; I am no more the humble student
+Giles, I am the descendant of a royal line."
+
+"Atavis edite regibus. I know, old co--" cried Jones. He was going to
+say old cock, but a flash from THE ROYAL EYE again awed him.
+
+"Friends," continued the Prince, "I am that Giglio: I am, in fact,
+Paflagonia. Rise, Smith, and kneel not in the public street. Jones, thou
+true heart! My faithless uncle, when I was a baby, filched from me that
+brave crown my father left me, bred me, all young and careless of my
+rights, like unto hapless Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; and had I any
+thoughts about my wrongs, soothed me with promises of near redress. I
+should espouse his daughter, young Angelica; we two indeed should reign
+in Paflagonia. His words were false--false as Angelica's heart!--false
+as Angelica's hair, color, front teeth! She looked with her skew eyes
+upon young Bulbo, Crim Tartary's stupid heir, and she preferred him.
+Twas then I turned my eyes upon Betsinda--Rosalba, as she now is. And
+I saw in her the blushing sum of all perfection; the pink of maiden
+modesty; the nymph that my fond heart had ever woo'd in dreams," &c. &c.
+
+(I don't give this speech, which was very fine, but very long; and
+though Smith and Jones knew nothing about the circumstances, my dear
+reader does, so I go on.)
+
+The Prince and his young friends hastened home to his apartment,
+highly excited by the intelligence, as no doubt by the ROYAL NARRATOR'S
+admirable manner of recounting it, and they ran up to his room where he
+had worked so hard at his books.
+
+On his writing-table was his bag, grown so long that the Prince could
+not help remarking it. He went to it, opened it, and what do you think
+he found in it?
+
+A splendid long, gold-handled, red-velvet-scabbarded, cut-and-thrust
+sword, and on the sheath was embroidered "ROSALBA FOR EVER!"
+
+He drew out the sword, which flashed and illuminated the whole room, and
+called out "Rosalba for ever!" Smith and Jones following him, but quite
+respectfully this time, and taking the time from His Royal Highness.
+
+And now his trunk opened with a sudden pong, and out there came three
+ostrich feathers in a gold crown, surrounding a beautiful shining steel
+helmet, a cuirass, a pair of spurs, finally a complete suit of armor.
+
+The books on Giglio's shelves were all gone. Where there had been some
+great dictionaries, Giglio's friends found two pairs of jack-boots
+labelled, "Lieutenant Smith," "---- Jones, Esq.," which fitted them to
+a nicety. Besides, there were helmets, back and breast plates, swords,
+&c., just like in Mr. G. P. R. James's novels; and that evening three
+cavaliers might have been seen issuing from the gates of Bosforo, in
+whom the porters, proctors, &c., never thought of recognising the young
+Prince and his friends.
+
+They got horses at a livery stable-keeper's, and never drew bridle
+until they reached the last town on the frontier before you come to Crim
+Tartary. Here, as their animals were tired, and the cavaliers hungry,
+they stopped and refreshed at an hostel. I could make a chapter of this
+if I were like some writers, but I like to cram my measure tight down,
+you see, and give you a great deal for your money, and, in a word, they
+had some bread and cheese and ale upstairs on the balcony of the inn.
+As they were drinking, drums and trumpets sounded nearer and nearer,
+the marketplace was filled with soldiers, and His Royal Highness looking
+forth, recognised the Paflagonian banners, and the Paflagonian national
+air which the bands were playing.
+
+The troops all made for the tavern at once, and as they came up Giglio
+exclaimed, on beholding their leader, "Whom do I see? Yes!--no! It
+is, it is!--Phoo!--No, it can't be! Yes! it is my friend, my gallant
+faithful veteran, Captain Hedzoff! Ho, Hedzoff! Knowest thou not thy
+Prince, thy Giglio? Good Corporal, methinks we once were friends. Ha,
+Sergeant, an my memory serves me right, we have had many a bout at
+singlestick."
+
+"I' faith, we have, a many, good my Lord," says the Sergeant.
+
+"Tell me, what means this mighty armament," continued His Royal Highness
+from the balcony, "and whither march my Paflagonians?"
+
+Hedzoff's head fell. "My Lord," he said, "we march as the allies of
+great Padella, Crim Tartary's monarch."
+
+"Crim Tartary's usurper, gallant Hedzoff! Crim Tartary's grim tyrant,
+honest Hedzoff!" said the Prince, on the balcony, quite sarcastically.
+
+"A soldier, Prince, must needs obey his orders: mine are to help his
+Majesty Padella. And also (though alack that I should say it!) to seize
+wherever I should light upon him--"
+
+"First catch your hare! ha, Hedzoff!" exclaimed His Royal Highness.
+
+"--On the body of GIGLIO, whilome Prince of Paflagonia" Hedzoff went on,
+with indescribable emotion. "My Prince, give up your sword without ado.
+Look! we are thirty thousand men to one!"
+
+"Give up my sword! Giglio give up his sword!" cried the Prince; and
+stepping well forward on to the balcony, the royal youth, WITHOUT
+PREPARATION, delivered a speech so magnificent, that no report can do
+justice to it. It was all in blank verse (in which, from this time, he
+invariably spoke, as more becoming his majestic station). It lasted for
+three days and three nights, during which not a single person who heard
+him was tired, or remarked the difference between daylight and dark.
+The soldiers only cheering tremendously, when occasionally, once in nine
+hours, the Prince paused to suck an orange, which Jones took out of the
+bag. He explained, in terms which we say we shall not attempt to convey,
+the whole history of the previous transaction, and his determination not
+only not to give up his sword, but to assume his rightful crown; and
+at the end of this extraordinary, this truly GIGANTIC effort, Captain
+Hedzoff flung up his helmet, and cried, "Hurray! Hurray! Long live King
+Giglio!"
+
+Such were the consequences of having employed his time well at College!
+
+When the excitement had ceased, beer was ordered out for the army, and
+their Sovereign himself did not disdain a little! And now it was with
+some alarm that Captain Hedzoff told him his division was only the
+advanced guard of the Paflagonian contingent, hastening to King
+Padella's aid; the main force being a day's march in the rear under His
+Royal Highness Prince Bulbo.
+
+"We will wait here, good friend, to beat the Prince," his Majesty said,
+"and THEN will make his royal father wince."
+
+
+XV. WE RETURN TO ROSALBA.
+
+
+King Padella made very similar proposals to Rosalba to those which she
+had received from the various princes who, as we have seen, had fallen
+in love with her. His Majesty was a widower, and offered to marry his
+fair captive that instant, but she declined his invitation in her usual
+polite gentle manner, stating that Prince Giglio was her love, and
+that any other union was out of the question. Having tried tears and
+supplications in vain, this violent-tempered monarch menaced her with
+threats and tortures; but she declared she would rather suffer all these
+than accept the hand of her father's murderer, who left her finally,
+uttering the most awful imprecations, and bidding her prepare for death
+on the following morning.
+
+All night long the King spent in advising how he should get rid of this
+obdurate young creature. Cutting off her head was much too easy a death
+for her; hanging was so common in his Majesty's dominions that it no
+longer afforded him any sport; finally, he bethought himself of a pair
+of fierce lions which had lately been sent to him as presents, and he
+determined, with these ferocious brutes, to hunt poor Rosalba down.
+Adjoining his castle was an amphitheatre where the Prince indulged in
+bull-baiting, rat-hunting, and other ferocious sports. The two lions
+were kept in a cage under this place; their roaring might be heard over
+the whole city, the inhabitants of which, I am sorry to say, thronged in
+numbers to see a poor young lady gobbled up by two wild beasts.
+
+The King took his place in the royal box, having the officers of his
+Court around and the Count Hogginarmo by his side, upon whom his Majesty
+was observed to look very fiercely: the fact is, royal spies had told
+the monarch of Hogginarmo's behavior, his proposals to Rosalba, and his
+offer to fight for the crown. Black as thunder looked King Padella at
+this proud noble, as they sat in the front seats of the theatre waiting
+to see the tragedy whereof poor Rosalba was to be the heroine.
+
+At length that Princess was brought out in her nightgown, with all her
+beautiful hair falling down her back, and looking so pretty that even
+the beef-eaters and keepers of the wild animals wept plentifully at
+seeing her. And she walked with her poor little feet (only luckily the
+arena was covered with sawdust), and went and leaned up against a great
+stone in the centre of the amphitheatre, round which the Court and the
+people were seated in boxes, with bars before them, for fear of
+the great, fierce, red-maned, black-throated, long-tailed, roaring,
+bellowing, rushing lions.
+
+And now the gates were opened, and with a "Wurrawarrurawarar!" two great
+lean, hungry, roaring lions rushed out of their den, where they had been
+kept for three weeks on nothing but a little toast-and-water, and dashed
+straight up to the stone where poor Rosalba was waiting. Commend her to
+your patron saints, all you kind people, for she is in a dreadful state!
+
+There was a hum and a buzz all through the circus, and the fierce King
+Padella even felt a little compassion. But Count Hogginarmo, seated by
+his Majesty, roared out "Hurray! Now for it! Soo-soo-soo!" that nobleman
+being uncommonly angry still at Rosalba's refusal of him.
+
+But, O strange event! O remarkable circumstance! O extraordinary
+coincidence, which I am sure none of you could BY ANY POSSIBILITY have
+divined! When the lions came to Rosalba, instead of devouring her with
+their great teeth, it was with kisses they gobbled her up! They licked
+her pretty feet, they nuzzled their noses in her lap, they moo'd, they
+seemed to say, "Dear, dear sister don't you recollect your brothers in
+the forest?" And she put her pretty white arms round their tawny necks,
+and kissed them.
+
+King Padella was immensely astonished. The Count Hogginarmo was
+extremely disgusted. "Pooh!" the Count cried. "Gammon!" exclaimed his
+Lordship. "These lions are tame beasts come from Wombwell's or Astley's.
+It is a shame to put people off in this way. I believe they are little
+boys dressed up in door-mats. They are no lions at all."
+
+"Ha!" said the King, "you dare to say 'Gammon!' to your Sovereign, do
+you? These lions are no lions at all, aren't they? Ho! my beef-eaters!
+Ho! my bodyguard! Take this Count Hogginarmo and fling him into the
+circus! Give him a sword and buckler, let him keep his armor on, and his
+weather-eye out, and fight these lions."
+
+The haughty Hogginarmo laid down his opera-glass, and looked scowling
+round at the King and his attendants. "Touch me not, dogs!" he said,
+"or by St. Nicholas the Elder, I will gore you! Your Majesty thinks
+Hogginarmo is afraid? No, not of a hundred thousand lions! Follow me
+down into the circus, King Padella, and match thyself against one of
+yon brutes. Thou darest not. Let them both come on, then!" And opening a
+grating of the box, he jumped lightly down into the circus.
+
+                WURRA WURRA WURRA WUR-AW-AW-AW!!!
+                     In about two minutes
+                   The Count Hogginarmo was
+                          GOBBLED UP
+                              by
+                         those lions,
+                     bones, boots, and all,
+                             and
+                         There was an
+                          End of him.
+
+At this, the King said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And
+now, as those lions won't eat that young woman--"
+
+"Let her off!--let her off!" cried the crowd.
+
+"NO!" roared the King. "Let the beef-eaters go down and chop her into
+small pieces. If the lions defend her, let the archers shoot them to
+death. That hussy shall die in tortures!"
+
+"A-a-ah!" cried the crowd. "Shame! shame!"
+
+"Who dares cry out 'Shame?'" cried the furious potentate (so little can
+tyrants command their passions). "Fling any scoundrel who says a word
+down among the lions!" I warrant you there was a dead silence then,
+which was broken by a "Pang arang pang pangkarangpang!" and a Knight and
+a Herald rode in at the further end of the circus; the Knight, in full
+armor, with his vizor up, and bearing a letter on the point of his
+lance.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed the King, "by my fay, 'tis Elephant and Castle,
+pursuivant of my brother of Paflagonia; and the Knight, an my memory
+serves me, is the gallant Captain Hedzoff! What news from Paflagonia,
+gallant Hedzoff? Elephant and Castle, beshrew me, thy trumpeting must
+have made thee thirsty. What will my trusty herald like to drink?"
+
+"Bespeaking first safe conduct from your Lordship," said Captain
+Hedzoff, "before we take a drink of anything, permit us to deliver our
+King's message."
+
+"My Lordship, ha!" said Crim Tartary, frowning terrifically. "That title
+soundeth strange in the anointed ears of a crowned King. Straightway
+speak out your message, Knight and Herald!"
+
+Reining up his charger in a most elegant manner close under the King's
+balcony, Hedzoff turned to the Herald, and bade him begin.
+
+Elephant and Castle, dropping his trumpet over his shoulder, took a
+large sheet of paper out of his hat, and began to read:--
+
+"O Yes! O Yes! O Yes! Know all men by these presents, that we, Giglio,
+King of Paflagonia, Grand Duke of Cappadocia, Sovereign Prince of Turkey
+and the Sausage Islands, having assumed our rightful throne and title,
+long time falsely borne by our usurping Uncle, styling himself King of
+Paflagonia--"
+
+"Ha!" growled Padella.
+
+"Hereby summon the false traitor, Padella, calling himself King of Crim
+Tartary--"
+
+The King's curses were dreadful. "Go on, Elephant and Castle!" said the
+intrepid Hedzoff.
+
+"--To release from cowardly imprisonment his liege lady and rightful
+Sovereign, ROSALBA, Queen of Crim Tartary, and restore her to her royal
+throne: in default of which, I, Giglio, proclaim the said Padella sneak,
+traitor, humbug, usurper, and coward. I challenge him to meet me, with
+fists or with pistols, with battle-axe or sword, with blunderbuss or
+single-stick, alone or at the head of his army, on foot or on horseback;
+and will prove my words upon his wicked ugly body!"
+
+"God save the King!" said Captain Hedzoff, executing a demivolte, two
+semilunes, and three caracols.
+
+"Is that all?" said Padella, with the terrific calm of concentrated
+fury.
+
+"That, sir, is all my royal master's message. Here is his Majesty's
+letter in autograph, and here is his glove, and if any gentleman of
+Crim Tartary chooses to find fault with his Majesty's expressions, I,
+Kustasoff Hedzoff, Captain of the Guard, am very much at his service,"
+and he waved his lance, and looked at the assembly all round.
+
+"And what says my good brother of Paflagonia, my dear son's
+father-in-law, to this rubbish?" asked the King.
+
+"The King's uncle hath been deprived of the crown he unjustly wore,"
+said Hedzoff gravely. "He and his ex-minister, Glumboso, are now in
+prison waiting the sentence of my royal master. After the battle of
+Bombardaro--"
+
+"Of what?" asked the surprised Padella.
+
+"--Of Bombardaro, where my liege, his present Majesty, would have
+performed prodigies of valor, but that the whole of his uncle's army
+came over to our side, with the exception of Prince Bulbo--"
+
+"Ah! my boy, my boy, my Bulbo was no traitor!" cried Padella.
+
+"Prince Bulbo, far from coming over to us, ran away, sir; but I caught
+him. The Prince is a prisoner in our army, and the most terrific
+tortures await him if a hair of the Princess Rosalba's head is injured."
+
+"Do they?" exclaimed the furious Padella, who was now perfectly LIVID
+with rage. "Do they indeed? So much the worse for Bulbo. I've twenty
+sons as lovely each as Bulbo. Not one but is as fit to reign as Bulbo.
+Whip, whack, flog, starve, rack, punish, torture Bulbo--break all his
+bones--roast him or flay him alive--pull all his pretty teeth out one by
+one! But justly dear as Bulbo is to me,--joy of my eyes, fond treasure
+of my soul!--Ha, ha, ha, ha! revenge is dearer still. Ho! tortures,
+rack-men, executioners--light up the fires and make the pincers hot! get
+lots of boiling lead!--Bring out ROSALBA!"
+
+
+XVI. HOW HEDZOFF RODE BACK AGAIN TO KING GIGLIO.
+
+
+Captain Hedzoff rode away when King Padella uttered this cruel command,
+having done his duty in delivering the message with which his royal
+master had entrusted him. Of course he was very sorry for Rosalba, but
+what could he do?
+
+So he returned to King Giglio's camp, and found the young monarch in a
+disturbed state of mind, smoking cigars in the royal tent. His
+Majesty's agitation was not appeased by the news that was brought by
+his ambassador. "The brutal, ruthless ruffian royal wretch!" Giglio
+exclaimed. "As England's poesy has well remarked, 'The man that lays
+his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a villain.' Ha,
+Hedzoff!"
+
+"That he is, your Majesty," said the attendant.
+
+"And didst thou see her flung into the oil? and didn't the soothing
+oil--the emollient oil, refuse to boil, good Hedzoff--and to spoil the
+fairest lady ever eyes did look on?"
+
+"'Faith, good my liege, I had no heart to look and see a beauteous lady
+boiling down; I took your royal message to Padella, and bore his back
+to you. I told him you would hold Prince Bulbo answerable. He only said
+that he had twenty sons as good as Bulbo, and forthwith he bade the
+ruthless executioners proceed."
+
+"O cruel father--O unhappy son!" cried the King. "Go, some of you, and
+bring Prince Bulbo hither."
+
+Bulbo was brought in chains, looking very uncomfortable. Though a
+prisoner, he had been tolerably happy, perhaps because his mind was at
+rest, and all the fighting was over, and he was playing at marbles with
+his guards when the King sent for him.
+
+"Oh, my poor Bulbo," said his Majesty, with looks of infinite
+compassion, "hast thou heard the news?" (for you see Giglio wanted to
+break the thing gently to the Prince), "thy brutal father has condemned
+Rosalba--p-p-p-ut her to death, P-p-p-prince Bulbo!"
+
+"What, killed Betsinda! Boo-hoo-hoo," cried out Bulbo. "Betsinda! pretty
+Betsinda! dear Betsinda! She was the dearest little girl in the world.
+I love her better twenty thousand times even than Angelica." And he went
+on expressing his grief in so hearty and unaffected a manner that the
+King was quite touched by it, and said, shaking Bulbo's hand, that he
+wished he had known Bulbo sooner.
+
+Bulbo, quite unconsciously, and meaning for the best, offered to come
+and sit with his Majesty, and smoke a cigar with him, and console him.
+The ROYAL KINDNESS supplied Bulbo with a cigar; he had not had one, he
+said, since he was taken prisoner.
+
+And now think what must have been the feelings of the most MERCIFUL OF
+MONARCHS, when he informed his prisoner that, in consequence of King
+Padella's CRUEL AND DASTARDLY BEHAVIOR to Rosalba, Prince Bulbo must
+instantly be executed! The noble Giglio could not restrain his tears,
+nor could the Grenadiers, nor the officers, nor could Bulbo himself,
+when the matter was explained to him, and he was brought to understand
+that his Majesty's promise, of course, was ABOVE EVERYTHING, and Bulbo
+must submit. So poor Bulbo was led out, Hedzoff trying to console him,
+by pointing out that if he had won the battle of Bombardaro, he might
+have hanged Prince Giglio. "Yes! But that is no comfort to me now!" said
+poor Bulbo; nor indeed was it, poor fellow!
+
+He was told the business would be done the next morning at eight, and
+was taken back to his dungeon, where every attention was paid to him.
+The gaoler's wife sent him tea, and the turnkey's daughter begged him
+to write his name in her album, where a many gentlemen had written it on
+like occasions! "Bother your album!" says Bulbo. The Undertaker came and
+measured him for the handsomest coffin which money could buy: even this
+didn't console Bulbo. The Cook brought him dishes which he once used to
+like; but he wouldn't touch them: he sat down and began writing an adieu
+to Angelica, as the clock kept always ticking, and the hands drawing
+nearer to next morning. The Barber came in at night, and offered to
+shave him for the next day. Prince Bulbo kicked him away, and went
+on writing a few words to Princess Angelica, as the clock kept always
+ticking, and the hands hopping nearer and nearer to next morning. He got
+up on the top of a hatbox, on the top of a chair, on the top of his bed,
+on the top of his table, and looked out to see whether he might escape
+as the clock kept always ticking and the hands drawing nearer, and
+nearer, and nearer.
+
+But looking out of the window was one thing, and jumping another: and
+the town clock struck seven. So he got into bed for a little sleep, but
+the gaoler came and woke him, and said, "Git up, your Royal Ighness, if
+you please, it's TEN MINUTES TO EIGHT!"
+
+So poor Bulbo got up: he had gone to bed in his clothes (the lazy boy),
+and he shook himself, and said he didn't mind about dressing, or having
+any breakfast, thank you; and he saw the soldiers who had come for him.
+"Lead on!" he said; and they led the way, deeply affected; and they came
+into the courtyard, and out into the square, and there was King Giglio
+come to take leave of him, and his Majesty most kindly shook hands with
+him, and the GLOOMY PROCESSION marched on:--when hark!
+
+"Haw--wurraw--wurraw--aworr!"
+
+A roar of wild beasts was heard. And who should come riding into the
+town, frightening away the boys, and even the beadle and policeman, but
+ROSALBA!
+
+The fact is, that when Captain Hedzoff entered into the court of
+Snapdragon Castle, and was discoursing with King Padella, the Lions made
+a dash at the open gate, gobbled up the six beef-eaters in a jiffy, and
+away they went with Rosalba on the back of one of them, and they carried
+her, turn and turn about, till they came to the city where Prince
+Giglio's army was encamped.
+
+When the KING heard of the QUEEN'S arrival, you may think how he rushed
+out of his breakfast-room to hand her Majesty off her Lion! The Lions
+were grown as fat as pigs now, having had Hogginarmo and all those
+beef-eaters, and were so tame, anybody might pat them.
+
+While Giglio knelt (most gracefully) and helped the Princess, Bulbo,
+for his part, rushed up and kissed the Lion. He flung his arms round the
+forest monarch; he hugged him, and laughed and cried for joy. "Oh, you
+darling old beast--oh, how glad I am to see you, and the dear, dear
+Bets--that is, Rosalba."
+
+"What, is it you, poor Bulbo?" said the Queen. "Oh, how glad I am to see
+you," and she gave him her hand to kiss. King Giglio slapped him most
+kindly on the back, and said, "Bulbo, my boy, I am delighted, for your
+sake, that her Majesty has arrived."
+
+"So am I," said Bulbo; "and YOU KNOW WHY." Captain Hedzoff here came up.
+"Sire, it is half-past eight: shall we proceed with the execution?"
+
+"Execution! what for?" asked Bulbo.
+
+"An officer only knows his orders," replied Captain Hedzoff, showing his
+warrant: on which his Majesty King Giglio smilingly said Prince Bulbo
+was reprieved this time, and most graciously invited him to breakfast.
+
+
+XVII. HOW A TREMENDOUS BATTLE TOOK PLACE, AND WHO WON IT.
+
+
+As soon as King Padella heard--what we know already--that his victim,
+the lovely Rosalba, had escaped him, his Majesty's fury knew no bounds,
+and he pitched the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chamberlain, and every officer
+of the Crown whom he could set eyes on, into the cauldron of boiling oil
+prepared for the Princess. Then he ordered out his whole army, horse,
+foot, and artillery; and set forth at the head of an innumerable host,
+and I should think twenty thousand drummers, trumpeters, and fifers.
+
+King Giglio's advance guard, you may be sure, kept that monarch
+acquainted with the enemy's dealings, and he was in nowise disconcerted.
+He was much too polite to alarm the Princess, his lovely guest, with
+any unnecessary rumors of battles impending; on the contrary, he did
+everything to amuse and divert her; gave her a most elegant breakfast,
+dinner, lunch, and got up a ball for her that evening, when he danced
+with her every single dance.
+
+Poor Bulbo was taken into favor again, and allowed to go quite free
+now. He had new clothes given him, was called "My good cousin" by his
+Majesty, and was treated with the greatest distinction by everybody.
+But it was easy to see he was very melancholy. The fact is, the sight of
+Betsinda, who looked perfectly lovely in an elegant new dress, set
+poor Bulbo frantic in love with her again. And he never thought about
+Angelica, now Princess Bulbo, whom he had left at home, and who, as we
+know, did not care much about him.
+
+The King, dancing the twenty-fifth polka with Rosalba, remarked with
+wonder the ring she wore; and then Rosalba told him how she had got it
+from Gruffanuff, who no doubt had picked it up when Angelica flung it
+away.
+
+"Yes," says the Fairy Blackstick, who had come to see the young people,
+and who had very likely certain plans regarding them--"that ring I gave
+the Queen, Giglio's mother, who was not, saving your presence, a very
+wise woman: it is enchanted, and whoever wears it looks beautiful in the
+eyes of the world. I made poor Prince Bulbo, when he was christened, the
+present of a rose which made him look handsome while he had it; but he
+gave it to Angelica, who instantly looked beautiful again, whilst Bulbo
+relapsed into his natural plainness."
+
+"Rosalba needs no ring, I am sure," says Giglio, with a low bow. "She is
+beautiful enough, in my eyes, without any enchanted aid."
+
+"Oh, sir!" said Rosalba.
+
+"Take off the ring and try," said the King, and resolutely drew the ring
+off her finger. In HIS eyes she looked just as handsome as before!
+
+The King was thinking of throwing the ring away, as it was so dangerous
+and made all the people so mad about Rosalba; but being a Prince of
+great humor, and good humor too, he cast eyes upon a poor youth who
+happened to be looking on very disconsolately, and said--
+
+"Bulbo, my poor lad! come and try on this ring. The Princess Rosalba
+makes it a present to you." The magic properties of this ring were
+uncommonly strong, for no sooner had Bulbo put it on, but lo and behold,
+he appeared a personable, agreeable young Prince enough--with a fine
+complexion, fair hair, rather stout, and with bandy legs; but these were
+encased in such a beautiful pair of yellow morocco boots that nobody
+remarked them. And Bulbo's spirits rose up almost immediately after he
+had looked in the glass, and he talked to their Majesties in the most
+lively, agreeable manner, and danced opposite the Queen with one of the
+prettiest maids of honor, and after looking at her Majesty, could
+not help saying, "How very odd! she is very pretty, but not so
+EXTRAORDINARILY handsome." "Oh no, by no means!" says the Maid of Honor.
+
+"But what care I, dear sir," says the Queen, who overheard them, "if YOU
+think I am good-looking enough?"
+
+His Majesty's glance in reply to this affectionate speech was such that
+no painter could draw it. And the Fairy Blackstick said, "Bless you, my
+darling children! Now you are united and happy; and now you see what I
+said from the first, that a little misfortune has done you both good.
+YOU, Giglio, had you been bred in prosperity, would scarcely have
+learned to read or write--you would have been idle and extravagant, and
+could not have been a good King as now you will be. You, Rosalba, would
+have been so flattered, that your little head might have been turned
+like Angelica's, who thought herself too good for Giglio."
+
+"As if anybody could be good enough for HIM," cried Rosalba.
+
+"Oh, you, you darling!" says Giglio. And so she was; and he was just
+holding out his arms in order to give her a hug before the whole
+company, when a messenger came rushing in, and said, "My Lord, the
+enemy!"
+
+"To arms!" cries Giglio.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" says Rosalba, and fainted of course. He snatched one kiss
+from her lips, and rushed FORTH TO THE FIELD of battle!
+
+
+The Fairy had provided King Giglio with a suit of armor, which was not
+only embroidered all over with jewels, and blinding to your eyes to
+look at, but was water-proof, gun-proof, and sword-proof; so that in the
+midst of the very hottest battles his Majesty rode about as calmly as if
+he had been a British Grenadier at Alma. Were I engaged in fighting for
+my country, I should like such a suit of armor as Prince Giglio wore;
+but, you know, he was a Prince of a fairy tale, and they always have
+these wonderful things.
+
+Besides the fairy armor, the Prince had a fairy horse, which would
+gallop at any pace you pleased; and a fairy sword, which would lengthen
+and run through a whole regiment of enemies at once. With such a weapon
+at command, I wonder, for my part, he thought of ordering his army out;
+but forth they all came, in magnificent new uniforms, Hedzoff and the
+Prince's two college friends each commanding a division, and his Majesty
+prancing in person at the head of them all.
+
+Ah! if I had the pen of a Sir Archibald Alison, my dear friends, would
+I not now entertain you with the account of a most tremendous shindy?
+Should not fine blows be struck? dreadful wounds be delivered? arrows
+darken the air? cannon balls crash through the battalions? cavalry
+charge infantry? infantry pitch into cavalry? bugles blow; drums beat;
+horses neigh; fifes sing; soldiers roar, swear, hurray; officers shout
+out, "Forward, my men!" "This way, lads!" "Give it 'em, boys!" "Fight
+for King Giglio, and the cause of right!" "King Padella for ever!" Would
+I not describe all this, I say, and in the very finest language too? But
+this humble pen does not possess the skill necessary for the description
+of combats. In a word, the overthrow of King Padella's army was so
+complete, that if they had been Russians you could not have wished them
+to be more utterly smashed and confounded.
+
+As for that usurping monarch, having performed acts of valor much more
+considerable than could be expected of a royal ruffian and usurper,
+who had such a bad cause, and who was so cruel to women,--as for King
+Padella, I say, when his army ran away, the King ran away too, kicking
+his first general, Prince Punchikoff, from his saddle, and galloping
+away on the Prince's horse, having, indeed, had twenty-five or
+twenty-six of his own shot under him. Hedzoff coming up, and finding
+Punchikoff down, as you may imagine, very speedily disposed of HIM.
+Meanwhile King Padella was scampering off as hard as his horse could
+lay legs to ground. Fast as he scampered, I promise you somebody else
+galloped faster; and that individual, as no doubt you are aware, was the
+Royal Giglio, who kept bawling out, "Stay, traitor! Turn, miscreant, and
+defend thyself! Stand, tyrant, coward, ruffian, royal wretch, till I cut
+thy ugly head from thy usurping shoulders!" And, with his fairy sword,
+which elongated itself at will, his Majesty kept poking and prodding
+Padella in the back, until that wicked monarch roared with anguish.
+
+When he was fairly brought to bay, Padella turned and dealt Prince
+Giglio a prodigious crack over the sconce with his battle-axe, a most
+enormous weapon, which had cut down I don't know how many regiments in
+the course of the afternoon. But, law bless you! though the blow fell
+right down on his Majesty's helmet, it made no more impression than if
+Padella had struck him with a pat of butter: his battle-axe crumpled up
+in Padella's hand, and the Royal Giglio laughed for very scorn at the
+impotent efforts of that atrocious usurper.
+
+At the ill success of his blow the Crim Tartar monarch was justly
+irritated. "If," says he to Giglio, "you ride a fairy horse, and wear
+fairy armor, what on earth is the use of my hitting you? I may as well
+give myself up a prisoner at once. Your Majesty won't, I suppose, be so
+mean as to strike a poor fellow who can't strike again?"
+
+The justice of Padella's remark struck the magnanimous Giglio. "Do you
+yield yourself a prisoner, Padella?" says he.
+
+"Of course I do," says Padella.
+
+"Do you acknowledge Rosalba as your rightful Queen, and give up the
+crown and all your treasures to your rightful mistress?"
+
+"If I must, I must," says Padella, who was naturally very sulky.
+
+By this time King Giglio's aides-de-camp had come up, whom his Majesty
+ordered to bind the prisoner. And they tied his hands behind him, and
+bound his legs tight under his horse, having set him with his face to
+the tail; and in this fashion he was led back to King Giglio's quarters,
+and thrust into the very dungeon where young Bulbo had been confined.
+
+Padella (who was a very different person in the depth of his distress,
+to Padella, the proud wearer of the Crim Tartar crown), now most
+affectionately and earnestly asked to see his son--his dear eldest
+boy--his darling Bulbo; and that good-natured young man never once
+reproached his haughty parent for his unkind conduct the day before,
+when he would have left Bulbo to be shot without any pity, but came to
+see his father, and spoke to him through the grating of the door, beyond
+which he was not allowed to go; and brought him some sandwiches from the
+grand supper which his Majesty was giving above stairs, in honor of the
+brilliant victory which had just been achieved.
+
+"I cannot stay with you long, sir," says Bulbo, who was in his best ball
+dress, as he handed his father in the prog. "I am engaged to dance the
+next quadrille with her Majesty Queen Rosalba, and I hear the fiddles
+playing at this very moment."
+
+So Bulbo went back to the ball-room and the wretched Padella ate his
+solitary supper in silence and tears.
+
+
+All was now joy in King Giglio's circle. Dancing, feasting, fun,
+illuminations, and jollifications of all sorts ensued. The people
+through whose villages they passed were ordered to illuminate their
+cottages at night, and scatter flowers on the roads during the day. They
+were requested--and I promise you they did not like to refuse--to serve
+the troops liberally with eatables and wine; besides, the army was
+enriched by the immense quantity of plunder which was found in King
+Padella's camp, and taken from his soldiers; who (after they had given
+up everything) were allowed to fraternize with the conquerors; and the
+united forces marched back by easy stages towards King Giglio's capital,
+his royal banner and that of Queen Rosalba being carried in front of
+the troops. Hedzoff was made a Duke and a Field Marshal. Smith and Jones
+were promoted to be Earls; the Crim Tartar Order of the Pumpkin and the
+Paflagonian decoration of the Cucumber were freely distributed by their
+Majesties to the army. Queen Rosalba wore the Paflagonian Ribbon of
+the Cucumber across her riding-habit, whilst King Giglio never appeared
+without the grand Cordon of the Pumpkin. How the people cheered them as
+they rode along side by side! They were pronounced to be the handsomest
+couple ever seen: that was a matter of course; but they really WERE very
+handsome, and, had they been otherwise, would have looked so, they were
+so happy! Their Majesties were never separated during the whole day, but
+breakfasted, dined, and supped together always, and rode side by side,
+interchanging elegant compliments, and indulging in the most delightful
+conversation. At night, her Majesty's ladies of honor (who had all
+rallied round her the day after King Padella's defeat) came and
+conducted her to the apartments prepared for her; whilst King Giglio,
+surrounded by his gentlemen, withdrew to his own Royal quarters. It was
+agreed they should be married as soon as they reached the capital, and
+orders were dispatched to the Archbishop of Blombodinga, to hold himself
+in readiness to perform the interesting ceremony. Duke Hedzoff carried
+the message, and gave instructions to have the Royal Castle splendidly
+refurnished and painted afresh. The Duke seized Glumboso, the Ex-Prime
+Minister, and made him refund that considerable sum of money which the
+old scoundrel had secreted out of the late King's treasure. He also
+clapped Valoroso into prison (who, by the way, had been dethroned
+for some considerable period past), and when the ex-monarch weakly
+remonstrated, Hedzoff said, "A soldier, sir, knows but his duty; my
+orders are to lock you up along with the ex-King Padella, whom I have
+brought hither a prisoner under guard." So these two ex-Royal personages
+were sent for a year to the House of Correction, and thereafter were
+obliged to become monks of the severest Order of Flagellants, in which
+state, by fasting, by vigils, by flogging (which they administered
+to one another, humbly but resolutely), no doubt they exhibited a
+repentance for their past misdeeds, usurpations, and private and public
+crimes.
+
+As for Glumboso, that rogue was sent to the galleys, and never had an
+opportunity to steal any more.
+
+
+XVIII. HOW THEY ALL JOURNEYED BACK TO THE CAPITAL.
+
+
+The Fairy Blackstick, by whose means this young King and Queen had
+certainly won their respective crowns back, would come not unfrequently,
+to pay them a little visit--as they were riding in their triumphal
+progress towards Giglio's capital--change her wand into a pony, and
+travel by their Majesties' side, giving them the very best advice. I am
+not sure that King Giglio did not think the Fairy and her advice rather
+a bore, fancying it was his own valor and merits which had put him on
+his throne, and conquered Padella: and, in fine, I fear he rather gave
+himself airs towards his best friend and patroness. She exhorted him to
+deal justly by his subjects, to draw mildly on the taxes, never to break
+his promise when he had once given it--and in all respects to be a good
+King.
+
+"A good King, my dear Fairy!" cries Rosalba. "Of course he will. Break
+his promise! can you fancy my Giglio would ever do anything so improper,
+so unlike him? No! never!" And she looked fondly towards Giglio, whom
+she thought a pattern of perfection.
+
+"Why is Fairy Blackstick always advising me, and telling me how to
+manage my government, and warning me to keep my word? Does she suppose
+that I am not a man of sense, and a man of honor?" asks Giglio testily.
+"Methinks she rather presumes upon her position."
+
+"Hush! dear Giglio," says Rosalba. "You know Blackstick has been very
+kind to us, and we must not offend her." But the Fairy was not listening
+to Giglio's testy observations, she had fallen back, and was trotting
+on her pony now, by Master Bulbo's side, who rode a donkey, and made
+himself generally beloved in the army by his cheerfulness, kindness, and
+good-humor to everybody. He was eager to see his darling Angelica. He
+thought there never was such a charming being. Blackstick did not tell
+him it was the possession of the magic rose that made Angelica so lovely
+in his eyes. She brought him the very best accounts of his little wife,
+whose misfortunes and humiliations had indeed very greatly improved
+her; and, you see, she could whisk off on her wand a hundred miles in a
+minute, and be back in no time, and so carry polite messages from Bulbo
+to Angelica, and from Angelica to Bulbo, and comfort that young man upon
+his journey.
+
+When the Royal party arrived at the last stage before you reach
+Blombodinga, who should be in waiting, in her carriage there with her
+lady of honor by her side, but the Princess Angelica? She rushed into
+her husband's arms, scarcely stopping to make a passing curtsey to the
+King and Queen. She had no eyes but for Bulbo, who appeared perfectly
+lovely to her on account of the fairy ring which he wore; whilst she
+herself, wearing the magic rose in her bonnet, seemed entirely beautiful
+to the enraptured Bulbo.
+
+A splendid luncheon was served to the Royal party, of which the
+Archbishop, the Chancellor, Duke Hedzoff, Countess Gruffanuff, and all
+our friends partook, the Fairy Blackstick being seated on the left of
+King Giglio, with Bulbo and Angelica beside her. You could hear the
+joy-bells ringing in the capital, and the guns which the citizens were
+firing off in honor of their Majesties.
+
+"What can have induced that hideous old Gruffanuff to dress herself up
+in such an absurd way? Did you ask her to be your bridesmaid, my dear?"
+says Giglio to Rosalba. "What a figure of fun Gruffy is!"
+
+Gruffy was seated opposite their Majesties, between the Archbishop and
+the Lord Chancellor, and a figure of fun she certainly was, for she was
+dressed in a low white silk dress, with lace over, a wreath of white
+roses on her wig, a splendid lace veil, and her yellow old neck was
+covered with diamonds. She ogled the King in such a manner that his
+Majesty burst out laughing.
+
+"Eleven o'clock!" cries Giglio, as the great Cathedral bell of
+Blombodinga tolled that hour. "Gentlemen and ladies, we must be
+starting. Archbishop, you must be at church, I think, before twelve?"
+
+"We must be at church before twelve," sighs out Gruffanuff in a
+languishing voice, hiding her old face behind her fan.
+
+"And then I shall be the happiest man in my dominions," cries Giglio,
+with an elegant bow to the blushing Rosalba.
+
+"Oh, my Giglio! Oh, my dear Majesty!" exclaims Gruffanuff; "and can it
+be that this happy moment at length has arrived--"
+
+"Of course it has arrived," says the King.
+
+"--and that I am about to become the enraptured bride of my adored
+Giglio!" continues Gruffanuff. "Lend me a smelling-bottle, somebody. I
+certainly shall faint with joy."
+
+"YOU my bride?" roars out Giglio.
+
+"YOU marry my Prince?" cried poor little Rosalba.
+
+"Pooh! Nonsense! The woman's mad!" exclaims the King. And all the
+courtiers exhibited by their countenances and expressions, marks of
+surprise, or ridicule, or incredulity, or wonder.
+
+"I should like to know who else is going to be married, if I am not?"
+shrieks out Gruffanuff. "I should like to know if King Giglio is a
+gentleman, and if there is such a thing as justice in Paflagonia? Lord
+Chancellor! my Lord Archbishop! will your Lordships sit by and see a
+poor, fond, confiding, tender creature put upon? Has not Prince Giglio
+promised to marry his Barbara? Is not this Giglio's signature? Does not
+this paper declare that he is mine, and only mine?" And she handed
+to his Grace the Archbishop the document which the Prince signed
+that evening when she wore the magic ring, and Giglio drank so
+much champagne. And the old Archbishop, taking out his eyeglasses,
+read--"This is to give notice, that I, Giglio, only son of Savio, King
+of Paflagonia, hereby promise to marry the charming Barbara Griselda
+Countess Gruffanuff, and widow of the late Jenkins Gruffanuff, Esq."
+
+"H'm," says the Archbishop, "the document is certainly a--a document."
+
+"Phoo!" says the Lord Chancellor, "the signature is not in his Majesty's
+handwriting." Indeed, since his studies at Bosforo, Giglio had made an
+immense improvement in caligraphy.
+
+"Is it your handwriting, Giglio?" cries the Fairy Blackstick, with an
+awful severity of countenance.
+
+"Y--y--y--es," poor Giglio gasps out, "I had quite forgotten the
+confounded paper: she can't mean to hold me by it. You old wretch, what
+will you take to let me off? Help the Queen, some one--her Majesty has
+fainted."
+
+"Chop her head off!" } exclaim the impetuous Hedzoff,
+
+"Smother the old witch!" } the ardent Smith, and the
+
+"Pitch her into the river!"} faithful Jones.
+
+But Gruffanuff flung her arms round the Archbishop's neck, and bellowed
+out, "Justice, justice, my Lord Chancellor!" so loudly, that her
+piercing shrieks caused everybody to pause. As for Rosalba, she was
+borne away lifeless by her ladies; and you may imagine the look of agony
+which Giglio cast towards that lovely being, as his hope, his joy, his
+darling, his all in all, was thus removed, and in her place the horrid
+old Gruffanuff rushed up to his side, and once more shrieked out,
+"Justice, justice!"
+
+"Won't you take that sum of money which Glumboso hid?" says Giglio; "two
+hundred and eighteen thousand millions, or thereabouts. It's a handsome
+sum."
+
+"I will have that and you too!" says Gruffanuff.
+
+"Let us throw the crown jewels into the bargain," gasps out Giglio.
+
+"I will wear them by my Giglio's side!" says Gruffanuff.
+
+"Will half, three-quarters, five-sixths, nineteen-twentieths, of my
+kingdom do, Countess?" asks the trembling monarch.
+
+"What were all Europe to me without YOU, my Giglio?" cries Gruff,
+kissing his hand.
+
+"I won't, I can't, I shan't,--I'll resign the crown first," shouts
+Giglio, tearing away his hand; but Gruff clung to it.
+
+"I have a competency, my love," she says, "and with thee and a cottage
+thy Barbara will be happy."
+
+Giglio was half mad with rage by this time. "I will not marry her,"
+says he. "Oh, Fairy, Fairy, give me counsel?" And as he spoke he looked
+wildly round at the severe face of the Fairy Blackstick.
+
+"'Why is Fairy Blackstick always advising me, and warning me to keep my
+word? Does she suppose that I am not a man of honor?'" said the Fairy,
+quoting Giglio's own haughty words. He quailed under the brightness
+of her eyes; he felt that there was no escape for him from that awful
+inquisition.
+
+"Well, Archbishop," said he in a dreadful voice, that made his Grace
+start, "since this Fairy has led me to the height of happiness but to
+dash me down into the depths of despair, since I am to lose Rosalba, let
+me at least keep my honor. Get up, Countess, and let us be married; I
+can keep my word, but I can die afterwards."
+
+"Oh, dear Giglio," cries Gruffanuff, skipping up, "I knew, I knew I
+could trust thee--I knew that my Prince was the soul of honor. Jump into
+your carriages, ladies and gentlemen, and let us go to church at
+once; and as for dying, dear Giglio, no, no:--thou wilt forget that
+insignificant little chambermaid of a Queen--thou wilt live to be
+consoled by thy Barbara! She wishes to be a Queen, and not a Queen
+Dowager, my gracious Lord!" And hanging upon poor Giglio's arm, and
+leering and grinning in his face in the most disgusting manner, this old
+wretch tripped off in her white satin shoes, and jumped into the very
+carriage which had been got ready to convey Giglio and Rosalba to
+church. The cannons roared again, the bells pealed triple-bobmajors, the
+people came out flinging flowers upon the path of the royal bride and
+bridegroom, and Gruff looked out of the gilt coach window and bowed and
+grinned to them. Phoo! the horrid old wretch!
+
+
+XIX. AND NOW WE COME TO THE LAST SCENE IN THE PANTOMIME.
+
+
+The many ups and downs of her life had given the Princess Rosalba
+prodigious strength of mind, and that highly principled young
+woman presently recovered from her fainting-fit, out of which Fairy
+Blackstick, by a precious essence which the Fairy always carried in her
+pocket, awakened her. Instead of tearing her hair, crying, and bemoaning
+herself, and fainting again, as many young women would have done,
+Rosalba remembered that she owed an example of firmness to her subjects;
+and though she loved Giglio more than her life, was determined, as she
+told the Fairy, not to interfere between him and justice, or to cause
+him to break his royal word.
+
+"I cannot marry him, but I shall love him always," says she to
+Blackstick; "I will go and be present at his marriage with the Countess,
+and sign the book, and wish them happy with all my heart. I will see,
+when I get home, whether I cannot make the new Queen some handsome
+presents. The Crim Tartary crown diamonds are uncommonly fine, and I
+shall never have any use for them. I will live and die unmarried like
+Queen Elizabeth, and, of course, I shall leave my crown to Giglio when
+I quit this world. Let us go and see them married, my dear Fairy, let me
+say one last farewell to him; and then, if you please, I will return to
+my own dominions."
+
+So the Fairy kissed Rosalba with peculiar tenderness, and at once
+changed her wand into a very comfortable coach-and-four, with a steady
+coachman, and two respectable footmen behind, and the Fairy and Rosalba
+got into the coach, which Angelica and Bulbo entered after them. As
+for honest Bulbo, he was blubbering in the most pathetic manner, quite
+overcome by Rosalba's misfortune. She was touched by the honest fellow's
+sympathy, promised to restore to him the confiscated estates of Duke
+Padella his father, and created him, as he sat there in the coach,
+Prince, Highness, and First Grandee of the Crim Tartar Empire. The
+coach moved on, and, being a fairy coach, soon came up with the bridal
+procession.
+
+Before the ceremony at church it was the custom in Paflagonia, as it is
+in other countries, for the bride and bridegroom to sign the Contract
+of Marriage, which was to be witnessed by the Chancellor, Minister, Lord
+Mayor, and principal officers of state. Now, as the royal palace was
+being painted and furnished anew, it was not ready for the reception of
+the King and his bride, who proposed at first to take up their residence
+at the Prince's palace, that one which Valoroso occupied when Angelica
+was born, and before he usurped the throne.
+
+So the marriage party drove up to the palace: the dignitaries got out of
+their carriages and stood aside: poor Rosalba stepped out of her coach,
+supported by Bulbo, and stood almost fainting up against the railings
+so as to have a last look of her dear Giglio. As for Blackstick, she,
+according to her custom, had flown out of the coach window in some
+inscrutable manner, and was now standing at the palace door.
+
+Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking
+as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy
+Blackstick--he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his
+misery.
+
+"Get out of the way, pray," says Gruffanuff haughtily. "I wonder why you
+are always poking your nose into other people's affairs?"
+
+"Are you determined to make this poor young man unhappy?" says
+Blackstick.
+
+"To marry him, yes! What business is it of yours? Pray, madam, don't say
+'you' to a Queen," cries Gruffanuff.
+
+"You won't take the money he offered you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't let him off his bargain, though you know you cheated him when
+you made him sign the paper?"
+
+"Impudence! Policemen, remove this woman!" cries Gruffanuff. And the
+policemen were rushing forward, but with a wave of her wand the Fairy
+struck them all like so many statues in their places.
+
+"You won't take anything in exchange for your bond, Mrs. Gruffanuff,"
+cries the Fairy, with awful severity. "I speak for the last time."
+
+"No!" shrieks Gruffanuff, stamping with her foot. "I'll have my husband,
+my husband, my husband!"
+
+"YOU SHALL HAVE YOUR HUSBAND!" the Fairy Blackstick cried; and advancing
+a step, laid her hand upon the nose of the KNOCKER.
+
+
+As she touched it, the brass nose seemed to elongate, the open mouth
+opened still wider, and uttered a roar which made everybody start.
+The eyes rolled wildly; the arms and legs uncurled themselves, writhed
+about, and seemed to lengthen with each twist; the knocker expanded into
+a figure in yellow livery, six feet high; the screws by which it was
+fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and JENKINS GRUFFANUFF once more
+trod the threshold off which he had been lifted more than twenty years
+ago!
+
+"Master's not at home," says Jenkins, just in his old voice; and Mrs.
+Jenkins, giving a dreadful YOUP, fell down in a fit, in which nobody
+minded her.
+
+For everybody was shouting, "Huzzay! huzzay!" "Hip, hip, hurray!" "Long
+live the King and Queen!" "Were such things ever seen?" "No, never,
+never, never!" "The Fairy Blackstick for ever!"
+
+The bells were ringing double peals, the guns roaring and banging most
+prodigiously. Bulbo was embracing everybody; the Lord Chancellor was
+flinging up his wig and shouting like a madman; Hedzoff had got the
+Archbishop round the waist, and they were dancing a jig for joy; and as
+for Giglio, I leave you to imagine what HE was doing, and if he kissed
+Rosalba once, twice--twenty thousand times, I'm sure I don't think he
+was wrong.
+
+So Gruffanuff opened the hall door with a low bow, just as he had been
+accustomed to do, and they all went in and signed the book, and then
+they went to church and were married, and the Fairy Blackstick sailed
+away on her cane, and was never more heard of in Paflagonia.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Christmas Books, by William Makepeace Thackeray
+
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