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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Christmas Books, by W. M. Thackeray
+#19 in our series by William Makepeace Thackeray
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+Title:  The Christmas Books
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+Author:  William Makepeace Thackeray
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+July, 2001  [Etext #2731]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Christmas Books, by W. M. Thackeray
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+
+
+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+withdrawn his custom from the "infernal four-and-nine-penny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,
+thc 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. 6-1/2d., 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 Etext The Christmas Books, by W. M. Thackeray
+
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