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diff --git a/2796-0.txt b/2796-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb48431 --- /dev/null +++ b/2796-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6847 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush + The Yellowplush Papers + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2796] +Release Date: September, 2001 +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MR. YELLOWPLUSH *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MR. CHARLES J. YELLOWPLUSH + + +By William Makepeace Thackeray + + + +CONTENTS + + + MISS SHUM'S HUSBAND + + THE AMOURS OF MR. DEUCEACE + + FORING PARTS + + MR. DEUCEACE AT PARIS:-- + + CHAP. I. The Two Bundles of Hay + + II. “Honor thy Father” + + III. Minewvring + + IV. “Hitting the Nale on the Hedd” + + V. The Griffin's Claws + + VI. The Jewel + + VII. The Consquinsies + + VIII. The End of Mr. Deuceace's History. Limbo + + IX. The Marriage + + X. The Honey-moon + + MR. YELLOWPLUSH'S AJEW + + SKIMMINGS FROM “THE DAIRY OF GEORGE IV.” + + EPISTLES TO THE LITERATI + + + + + +MEMOIRS OF MR. CHARLES J. YELLOWPLUSH + + + + +MISS SHUM'S HUSBAND. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +I was born in the year one, of the present or Christian hera, and am, in +consquints, seven-and-thirty years old. My mamma called me Charles James +Harrington Fitzroy Yellowplush, in compliment to several noble families, +and to a sellybrated coachmin whom she knew, who wore a yellow livry, +and drove the Lord Mayor of London. + +Why she gev me this genlmn's name is a diffiklty, or rayther the name of +a part of his dress; however, it's stuck to me through life, in which I +was, as it were, a footman by buth. + +Praps he was my father--though on this subjict I can't speak suttinly, +for my ma wrapped up my buth in a mistry. I may be illygitmit, I may +have been changed at nuss; but I've always had genlmnly tastes through +life, and have no doubt that I come of a genlmnly origum. + +The less I say about my parint the better, for the dear old creatur was +very good to me, and, I fear, had very little other goodness in her. +Why, I can't say; but I always passed as her nevyou. We led a strange +life; sometimes ma was dressed in sattn and rooge, and sometimes in rags +and dutt; sometimes I got kisses, and sometimes kix; sometimes gin, +and sometimes shampang; law bless us! how she used to swear at me, and +cuddle me; there we were, quarrelling and making up, sober and tipsy, +starving and guttling by turns, just as ma got money or spent it. +But let me draw a vail over the seen, and speak of her no more--its +'sfishant for the public to know, that her name was Miss Montmorency, +and we lived in the New Cut. + +My poor mother died one morning, Hev'n bless her! and I was left alone +in this wide wicked wuld, without so much money as would buy me a penny +roal for my brexfast. But there was some amongst our naybors (and let me +tell you there's more kindness among them poor disrepettable creaturs, +than in half a dozen lords or barrynets) who took pity upon poor Sal's +orfin (for they bust out laffin when I called her Miss Montmorency), and +gev me bred and shelter. I'm afraid, in spite of their kindness, that +my MORRILS wouldn't have improved if I'd stayed long among 'em. But a +benny-violent genlmn saw me, and put me to school. The academy which I +went to was called the Free School of Saint Bartholomew's the Less--the +young genlmn wore green baize coats, yellow leather whatsisnames, a tin +plate on the left arm, and a cap about the size of a muffing. I stayed +there sicks years; from sicks, that is to say, till my twelth year, +during three years of witch I distinguished myself not a little in the +musicle way, for I bloo the bellus of the church horgin, and very fine +tunes we played too. + +Well, it's not worth recounting my jewvenile follies (what trix we +used to play the applewoman! and how we put snuff in the old clark's +Prayer-book--my eye!); but one day, a genlmn entered the school-room--it +was on the very day when I went to subtraxion--and asked the master for +a young lad for a servant. They pitched upon me glad enough; and nex +day found me sleeping in the sculry, close under the sink, at Mr. Bago's +country-house at Pentonwille. + +Bago kep a shop in Smithfield market, and drov a taring good trade in +the hoil and Italian way. I've heard him say, that he cleared no less +than fifty pounds every year by letting his front room at hanging time. +His winders looked right opsit Newgit, and many and many dozen chaps has +he seen hanging there. Laws was laws in the year ten, and they screwed +chaps' nex for nex to nothink. But my bisniss was at his country-house, +where I made my first ontray into fashnabl life. I was knife, errint, +and stable-boy then, and an't ashamed to own it; for my merrits have +raised me to what I am--two livries, forty pound a year, malt-licker, +washin, silk-stocking, and wax candles--not countin wails, which is +somethink pretty considerable at OUR house, I can tell you. + +I didn't stay long here, for a suckmstance happened which got me a very +different situation. A handsome young genlmn, who kep a tilbry and a +ridin horse at livry, wanted a tiger. I bid at once for the place; and, +being a neat tidy-looking lad, he took me. Bago gave me a character, and +he my first livry; proud enough I was of it, as you may fancy. + +My new master had some business in the city, for he went in every +morning at ten, got out of his tilbry at the Citty Road, and had it +waiting for him at six; when, if it was summer, he spanked round into +the Park, and drove one of the neatest turnouts there. Wery proud I was +in a gold-laced hat, a drab coat and a red weskit, to sit by his side, +when he drove. I already began to ogle the gals in the carridges, and to +feel that longing for fashionabl life which I've had ever since. When +he was at the oppera, or the play, down I went to skittles, or to White +Condick Gardens; and Mr. Frederic Altamont's young man was somebody, I +warrant: to be sure there is very few man-servants at Pentonwille, the +poppylation being mostly gals of all work; and so, though only fourteen, +I was as much a man down there, as if I had been as old as Jerusalem. + +But the most singular thing was, that my master, who was such a gay +chap, should live in such a hole. He had only a ground-floor in John +Street--a parlor and a bedroom. I slep over the way, and only came in +with his boots and brexfast of a morning. + +The house he lodged in belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Shum. They were a poor +but proliffic couple, who had rented the place for many years; and they +and their family were squeezed in it pretty tight, I can tell you. + +Shum said he had been a hofficer, and so he had. He had been a +sub-deputy assistant vice-commissary, or some such think; and, as +I heerd afterwards, had been obliged to leave on account of his +NERVOUSNESS. He was such a coward, the fact is, that he was considered +dangerous to the harmy, and sent home. + +He had married a widow Buckmaster, who had been a Miss Slamcoe. She was +a Bristol gal; and her father being a bankrup in the tallow-chandlering +way, left, in course, a pretty little sum of money. A thousand pound +was settled on her; and she was as high and mighty as if it had been a +millium. + +Buckmaster died, leaving nothink; nothink except four ugly daughters by +Miss Slamcoe: and her forty pound a year was rayther a narrow income for +one of her appytite and pretensions. In an unlucky hour for Shum she +met him. He was a widower with a little daughter of three years old, +a little house at Pentonwille, and a little income about as big as her +own. I believe she bullyd the poor creature into marridge; and it was +agreed that he should let his ground-floor at John Street, and so add +somethink to their means. + +They married; and the widow Buckmaster was the gray mare, I can +tell you. She was always talking and blustering about her famly, the +celebrity of the Buckmasters, and the antickety of the Slamcoes. They +had a six-roomed house (not counting kitching and sculry), and now +twelve daughters in all; whizz.--4 Miss Buckmasters: Miss Betsy, Miss +Dosy, Miss Biddy, and Miss Winny; 1 Miss Shum, Mary by name, Shum's +daughter, and seven others, who shall be nameless. Mrs. Shum was a fat, +red-haired woman, at least a foot taller than S.; who was but a yard and +a half high, pale-faced, red-nosed, knock-kneed, bald-headed, his nose +and shut-frill all brown with snuff. + +Before the house was a little garden, where the washin of the famly was +all ways hanging. There was so many of 'em that it was obliged to be +done by relays. There was six rails and a stocking on each, and four +small goosbry bushes, always covered with some bit of linning or other. +The hall was a regular puddle: wet dabs of dishclouts flapped in your +face; soapy smoking bits of flanning went nigh to choke you; and while +you were looking up to prevent hanging yourself with the ropes which +were strung across and about, slap came the hedge of a pail against your +shins, till one was like to be drove mad with hagony. The great slattnly +doddling girls was always on the stairs, poking about with nasty +flower-pots, a-cooking something, or sprawling in the window-seats +with greasy curl-papers, reading greasy novels. An infernal pianna was +jingling from morning till night--two eldest Miss Buckmasters, “Battle +of Prag”--six youngest Miss Shums, “In my Cottage,” till I knew every +note in the “Battle of Prag,” and cussed the day when “In my Cottage” + was rote. The younger girls, too, were always bouncing and thumping +about the house, with torn pinnyfores, and dogs-eard grammars, and large +pieces of bread and treacle. I never see such a house. + +As for Mrs. Shum, she was such a fine lady, that she did nothink but +lay on the drawing-room sophy, read novels, drink, scold, scream, and go +into hystarrix. Little Shum kep reading an old newspaper from weeks' end +to weeks' end, when he was not engaged in teaching the children, or goin +for the beer, or cleanin the shoes: for they kep no servant. This house +in John Street was in short a regular Pandymony. + +What could have brought Mr. Frederic Altamont to dwell in such a place? +The reason is hobvius: he adoared the fust Miss Shum. + +And suttnly he did not show a bad taste; for though the other daughters +were as ugly as their hideous ma, Mary Shum was a pretty little pink, +modest creatur, with glossy black hair and tender blue eyes, and a neck +as white as plaster of Parish. She wore a dismal old black gownd, which +had grown too short for her, and too tight; but it only served to show +her pretty angles and feet, and bewchus figger. Master, though he had +looked rather low for the gal of his art, had certainly looked in the +right place. Never was one more pretty or more hamiable. I gav her +always the buttered toast left from our brexfust, and a cup of tea or +chocklate, as Altamont might fancy: and the poor thing was glad enough +of it, I can vouch; for they had precious short commons up stairs, and +she the least of all. + +For it seemed as if which of the Shum famly should try to snub the poor +thing most. There was the four Buckmaster girls always at her. It was, +Mary, git the coal-skittle; Mary, run down to the public-house for the +beer; Mary, I intend to wear your clean stockens out walking, or your +new bonnet to church. Only her poor father was kind to her; and he, poor +old muff! his kindness was of no use. Mary bore all the scolding like +a hangel, as she was: no, not if she had a pair of wings and a goold +trumpet, could she have been a greater hangel. + +I never shall forgit one seen that took place. It was when Master was +in the city; and so, having nothink earthly to do, I happened to be +listening on the stairs. The old scolding was a-going on, and the old +tune of that hojus “Battle of Prag.” Old Shum made some remark; and Miss +Buckmaster cried out, “Law, pa! what a fool you are!” All the gals began +laffin, and so did Mrs. Shum; all, that is, excep Mary, who turned as +red as flams, and going up to Miss Betsy Buckmaster, give her two such +wax on her great red ears as made them tingle again. + +Old Mrs. Shum screamed, and ran at her like a Bengal tiger. Her great +arms vent veeling about like a vinmill, as she cuffed and thumped +poor Mary for taking her pa's part. Mary Shum, who was always a-crying +before, didn't shed a tear now. “I will do it again,” she said, “if +Betsy insults my father.” New thumps, new shreex; and the old horridan +went on beatin the poor girl till she was quite exosted, and fell down +on the sophy, puffin like a poppus. + +“For shame, Mary,” began old Shum; “for shame, you naughty gal, you! for +hurting the feelings of your dear mamma, and beating your kind sister.” + +“Why, it was because she called you a--” + +“If she did, you pert miss,” said Shum, looking mighty dignitified, “I +could correct her, and not you.” + +“You correct me, indeed!” said Miss Betsy, turning up her nose, if +possible, higher than before; “I should like to see you erect me! +Imperence!” and they all began laffin again. + +By this time Mrs. S. had recovered from the effex of her exsize, and she +began to pour in HER wolly. Fust she called Mary names, then Shum. + +“Oh, why,” screeched she, “why did I ever leave a genteel famly, where +I ad every ellygance and lucksry, to marry a creatur like this? He is +unfit to be called a man, he is unworthy to marry a gentlewoman; and as +for that hussy, I disown her. Thank heaven she an't a Slamcoe; she is +only fit to be a Shum!” + +“That's true, mamma,” said all the gals; for their mother had taught +them this pretty piece of manners, and they despised their father +heartily: indeed, I have always remarked that, in famlies where the wife +is internally talking about the merits of her branch, the husband is +invariably a spooney. + +Well, when she was exosted again, down she fell on the sofy, at her old +trix--more screeching--more convulshuns: and she wouldn't stop, this +time, till Shum had got her half a pint of her old remedy, from the +“Blue Lion” over the way. She grew more easy as she finished the gin; +but Mary was sent out of the room, and told not to come back agin all +day. + +“Miss Mary,” says I,--for my heart yurned to the poor gal, as she came +sobbing and miserable down stairs: “Miss Mary,” says I, “if I might make +so bold, here's master's room empty, and I know where the cold bif and +pickles is.” “Oh, Charles!” said she, nodding her head sadly, “I'm too +retched to have any happytite.” And she flung herself on a chair, and +began to cry fit to bust. + +At this moment who should come in but my master. I had taken hold of +Miss Mary's hand, somehow, and do believe I should have kist it, when, +as I said, Haltamont made his appearance. “What's this?” cries he, +lookin at me as black as thunder, or as Mr. Phillips as Hickit, in the +new tragedy of MacBuff. + +“It's only Miss Mary, sir,” answered I. + +“Get out, sir,” says he, as fierce as posbil; and I felt somethink (I +think it was the tip of his to) touching me behind, and found myself, +nex minit, sprawling among the wet flannings and buckets and things. + +The people from up stairs came to see what was the matter, as I was +cussin and crying out. “It's only Charles, ma,” screamed out Miss Betsy. + +“Where's Mary?” says Mrs. Shum, from the sofy. + +“She's in Master's room, miss,” said I. + +“She's in the lodger's room, ma,” cries Miss Shum, heckoing me. + +“Very good; tell her to stay there till he comes back.” And then Miss +Shum went bouncing up the stairs again, little knowing of Haltamont's +return. + + . . . . . . + +I'd long before observed that my master had an anchoring after Mary +Shum; indeed, as I have said, it was purely for her sake that he took +and kep his lodgings at Pentonwille. Excep for the sake of love, which +is above being mersnary, fourteen shillings a wick was a LITTLE too +strong for two such rat-holes as he lived in. I do blieve the famly +had nothing else but their lodger to live on: they brekfisted off his +tea-leaves, they cut away pounds and pounds of meat from his jints (he +always dined at home), and his baker's bill was at least enough for six. +But that wasn't my business. I saw him grin, sometimes, when I laid down +the cold bif of a morning, to see how little was left of yesterday's +sirline; but he never said a syllabub: for true love don't mind a pound +of meat or so hextra. + +At first, he was very kind and attentive to all the gals; Miss Betsy, +in partickler, grew mighty fond of him: they sat, for whole evenings, +playing cribbitch, he taking his pipe and glas, she her tea and muffing; +but as it was improper for her to come alone, she brought one of her +sisters, and this was genrally Mary,--for he made a pint of asking her, +too,--and one day, when one of the others came instead, he told her, +very quitely, that he hadn't invited her; and Miss Buckmaster was too +fond of muffings to try this game on again: besides, she was jealous of +her three grown sisters, and considered Mary as only a child. Law bless +us! how she used to ogle him, and quot bits of pottry, and play “Meet +Me by Moonlike,” on an old gitter: she reglar flung herself at his head: +but he wouldn't have it, bein better ockypied elsewhere. + +One night, as genteel as possible, he brought home tickets for +“Ashley's,” and proposed to take the two young ladies--Miss Betsy and +Miss Mary, in course. I recklect he called me aside that afternoon, +assuming a solamon and misterus hare, “Charles,” said he, “ARE YOU UP TO +SNUFF?” + +“Why sir,” said I, “I'm genrally considered tolerably downy.” + +“Well,” says he, “I'll give you half a suffering if you can manage this +bisness for me; I've chose a rainy night on purpus. When the theatre is +over, you must be waitin with two umbrellows; give me one, and hold the +other over Miss Buckmaster: and, hark ye, sir, TURN TO THE RIGHT when +you leave the theater, and say the coach is ordered to stand a little +way up the street, in order to get rid of the crowd.” + +We went (in a fly hired by Mr. A.), and never shall I forgit Cartliche's +hacting on that memrable night. Talk of Kimble! talk of Magreedy! +Ashley's for my money, with Cartlitch in the principal part. But this +is nothink to the porpus. When the play was over, I was at the door with +the umbrellos. It was raining cats and dogs, sure enough. + +Mr. Altamont came out presently, Miss Mary under his arm, and Miss +Betsy following behind, rayther sulky. “This way, sir,” cries I, pushin +forward; and I threw a great cloak over Miss Betsy, fit to smother her. +Mr. A. and Miss Mary skipped on and was out of sight when Miss Betsy's +cloak was settled, you may be sure. + +“They're only gone to the fly, miss. It's a little way up the street, +away from the crowd of carridges.” And off we turned TO THE RIGHT, and +no mistake. + +After marchin a little through the plash and mud, “Has anybody seen +Coxy's fly?” cries I, with the most innocent haxent in the world. + +“Cox's fly!” hollows out one chap. “Is it the vaggin you want?” says +another. “I see the blackin wan pass,” giggles out another gentlmn; and +there was such a hinterchange of compliments as you never heerd. I pass +them over though, because some of 'em were not wery genteel. + +“Law, miss,” said I, “what shall I do? My master will never forgive me; +and I haven't a single sixpence to pay a coach.” Miss Betsy was just +going to call one when I said that; but the coachman wouldn't have it at +that price, he said, and I knew very well that SHE hadn't four or five +shillings to pay for a wehicle. So, in the midst of that tarin rain, +at midnight, we had to walk four miles, from Westminster Bridge to +Pentonwille; and what was wuss, I DIDN'T HAPPEN TO KNOW THE WAY. A very +nice walk it was, and no mistake. + +At about half-past two, we got safe to John Street. My master was at the +garden gate. Miss Mary flew into Miss Betsy's arms, while master begun +cussin and swearing at me for disobeying his orders, and TURNING TO THE +RIGHT INSTEAD OF TO THE LEFT! Law bless me! his hacting of hanger was +very near as natral and as terrybl as Mr. Cartlich's in the play. + +They had waited half an hour, he said, in the fly, in the little street +at the left of the theater; they had drove up and down in the greatest +fright possible; and at last came home, thinking it was in vain to wait +any more. They gave her 'ot rum-and-water and roast oysters for supper, +and this consoled her a little. + +I hope nobody will cast an imputation on Miss Mary for HER share in this +adventer, for she was as honest a gal as ever lived, and I do believe is +hignorant to this day of our little strattygim. Besides, all's fair in +love; and, as my master could never get to see her alone, on account +of her infernal eleven sisters and ma, he took this opportunity of +expressin his attachment to her. + +If he was in love with her before, you may be sure she paid it him back +again now. Ever after the night at Ashley's, they were as tender as two +tuttle-doves--which fully accounts for the axdent what happened to me, +in being kicked out of the room: and in course I bore no mallis. + +I don't know whether Miss Betsy still fancied that my master was in love +with her, but she loved muffings and tea, and kem down to his parlor as +much as ever. + +Now comes the sing'lar part of my history. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +But who was this genlmn with a fine name--Mr. Frederic Altamont? or what +was he? The most mysterus genlmn that ever I knew. Once I said to him on +a wery rainy day, “Sir, shall I bring the gig down to your office?” and +he gave me one of his black looks and one of his loudest hoaths, and +told me to mind my own bizziness, and attend to my orders. Another +day,--it was on the day when Miss Mary slapped Miss Betsy's face,--Miss +M., who adoared him, as I have said already, kep on asking him what was +his buth, parentidg, and ediccation. “Dear Frederic,” says she, “why +this mistry about yourself and your hactions? why hide from your little +Mary”--they were as tender as this, I can tell you--“your buth and your +professin?” + +I spose Mr. Frederic looked black, for I was ONLY listening, and he +said, in a voice hagitated by emotion, “Mary,” said he, “if you love +me, ask me this no more: let it be sfishnt for you to know that I am a +honest man, and that a secret, what it would be misery for you to larn, +must hang over all my actions--that is from ten o'clock till six.” + +They went on chaffin and talking in this melumcolly and mysterus +way, and I didn't lose a word of what they said; for them houses in +Pentonwille have only walls made of pasteboard, and you hear rayther +better outside the room than in. But, though he kep up his secret, he +swore to her his affektion this day pint blank. Nothing should prevent +him, he said, from leading her to the halter, from makin her his +adoarable wife. After this was a slight silence. “Dearest Frederic,” + mummered out miss, speakin as if she was chokin, “I am yours--yours +for ever.” And then silence agen, and one or two smax, as if there +was kissin going on. Here I thought it best to give a rattle at the +door-lock; for, as I live, there was old Mrs. Shum a-walkin down the +stairs! + +It appears that one of the younger gals, a-looking out of the bed-rum +window, had seen my master come in, and coming down to tea half an hour +afterwards, said so in a cussary way. Old Mrs. Shum, who was a dragon of +vertyou, cam bustling down the stairs, panting and frowning, as fat and +as fierce as a old sow at feedin time. + +“Where's the lodger, fellow?” says she to me. + +I spoke loud enough to be heard down the street--“If you mean, ma'am, +my master, Mr. Frederic Altamont, esquire, he's just stept in, and is +puttin on clean shoes in his bedroom.” + +She said nothink in answer, but flumps past me, and opening the +parlor-door, sees master looking very queer, and Miss Mary a-drooping +down her head like a pale lily. + +“Did you come into my famly,” says she, “to corrupt my daughters, and to +destroy the hinnocence of that infamous gal? Did you come here, sir, as +a seducer, or only as a lodger? Speak, sir, speak!”--and she folded her +arms quite fierce, and looked like Mrs. Siddums in the Tragic Mews. + +“I came here, Mrs. Shum,” said he, “because I loved your daughter, or +I never would have condescended to live in such a beggarly hole. I have +treated her in every respect like a genlmn, and she is as innocent now, +ma'm, as she was when she was born. If she'll marry me, I am ready; +if she'll leave you, she shall have a home where she shall be neither +bullyd nor starved: no hangry frumps of sisters, no cross mother-in-law, +only an affeckshnat husband, and all the pure pleasures of Hyming.” + +Mary flung herself into his arms--“Dear, dear Frederic,” says she, “I'll +never leave you.” + +“Miss,” says Mrs. Shum, “you ain't a Slamcoe nor yet a Buckmaster, thank +God. You may marry this person if your pa thinks proper, and he may +insult me--brave me--trample on my feelinx in my own house--and there's +no-o-o-obody by to defend me.” + +I knew what she was going to be at: on came her histarrix agen, and she +began screechin and roaring like mad. Down comes of course the eleven +gals and old Shum. There was a pretty row. “Look here, sir,” says she, +“at the conduck of your precious trull of a daughter--alone with this +man, kissin and dandlin, and Lawd knows what besides.” + +“What, he?” cries Miss Betsy--“he in love with Mary. Oh, the wretch, the +monster, the deceiver!”--and she falls down too, screeching away as loud +as her mamma; for the silly creature fancied still that Altamont had a +fondness for her. + +“SILENCE THESE WOMEN!” shouts out Altamont, thundering loud. “I love +your daughter, Mr. Shum. I will take her without a penny, and can afford +to keep her. If you don't give her to me, she'll come of her own will. +Is that enough?--may I have her?” + +“We'll talk of this matter, sir,” says Mr. Shum, looking as high and +mighty as an alderman. “Gals, go up stairs with your dear mamma.”--And +they all trooped up again, and so the skrimmage ended. + +You may be sure that old Shum was not very sorry to get a husband for +his daughter Mary, for the old creatur loved her better than all the +pack which had been brought him or born to him by Mrs. Buckmaster. But, +strange to say, when he came to talk of settlements and so forth, not +a word would my master answer. He said he made four hundred a year +reglar--he wouldn't tell how--but Mary, if she married him, must share +all that he had, and ask no questions; only this he would say, as he'd +said before, that he was a honest man. + +They were married in a few days, and took a very genteel house at +Islington; but still my master went away to business, and nobody knew +where. Who could he be? + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +If ever a young kipple in the middlin classes began life with a chance +of happiness, it was Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Altamont. There house at +Cannon Row, Islington, was as comfortable as house could be. Carpited +from top to to; pore's rates small; furnitur elygant; and three +deomestix: of which I, in course, was one. My life wasn't so easy as +in Mr. A.'s bachelor days; but, what then? The three W's is my maxum: +plenty of work, plenty of wittles, and plenty of wages. Altamont kep his +gig no longer, but went to the city in an omlibuster. + +One would have thought, I say, that Mrs. A., with such an effeckshnut +husband, might have been as happy as her blessid majisty. Nothing of the +sort. For the fust six months it was all very well; but then she grew +gloomier and gloomier, though A. did everythink in life to please her. + +Old Shum used to come reglarly four times a wick to Cannon Row, where +he lunched, and dined, and teed, and supd. The pore little man was a +thought too fond of wine and spirits; and many and many's the night that +I've had to support him home. And you may be sure that Miss Betsy did +not now desert her sister: she was at our place mornink, noon, and +night; not much to my mayster's liking, though he was too good-natured +to wex his wife in trifles. + +But Betsy never had forgotten the recollection of old days, and hated +Altamont like the foul feind. She put all kind of bad things into +the head of poor innocent missis; who, from being all gayety and +cheerfulness, grew to be quite melumcolly and pale, and retchid, just as +if she had been the most misrable woman in the world. + +In three months more, a baby comes, in course, and with it old Mrs. +Shum, who stuck to Mrs.' side as close as a wampire, and made her +retchider and retchider. She used to bust into tears when Altamont +came home: she used to sigh and wheep over the pore child, and say, “My +child, my child, your father is false to me;” or, “your father deceives +me;” or “what will you do when your pore mother is no more?” or such +like sentimental stuff. + +It all came from Mother Shum, and her old trix, as I soon found out. +The fact is, when there is a mistry of this kind in the house, its a +servant's DUTY to listen; and listen I did, one day when Mrs. was cryin +as usual, and fat Mrs. Shum a sittin consolin her, as she called it: +though, heaven knows, she only grew wuss and wuss for the consolation. + +Well, I listened; Mrs. Shum was a-rockin the baby, and missis cryin as +yousual. + +“Pore dear innocint,” says Mrs. S., heavin a great sigh, “you're the +child of a unknown father and a misrable mother.” + +“Don't speak ill of Frederic, mamma,” says missis; “he is all kindness +to me.” + +“All kindness, indeed! yes, he gives you a fine house, and a fine gownd, +and a ride in a fly whenever you please; but WHERE DOES ALL HIS +MONEY COME FROM? Who is he--what is he? Who knows that he mayn't be a +murderer, or a housebreaker, or a utterer of forged notes? How can he +make his money honestly, when he won't say where he gets it? Why does he +leave you eight hours every blessid day, and won't say where he goes to? +Oh, Mary, Mary, you are the most injured of women!” + +And with this Mrs. Shum began sobbin; and Miss Betsy began yowling like +a cat in a gitter; and pore missis cried, too--tears is so remarkable +infeckshus. + +“Perhaps, mamma,” wimpered out she, “Frederic is a shop-boy, and don't +like me to know that he is not a gentleman.” + +“A shopboy,” says Betsy, “he a shopboy! O no, no, no! more likely a +wretched willain of a murderer, stabbin and robing all day, and feedin +you with the fruits of his ill-gotten games!” + +More crying and screechin here took place, in which the baby joined; and +made a very pretty consort, I can tell you. + +“He can't be a robber,” cries missis; “he's too good, too kind, for +that: besides, murdering is done at night, and Frederic is always home +at eight.” + +“But he can be a forger,” says Betsy, “a wicked, wicked FORGER. Why does +he go away every day? to forge notes, to be sure. Why does he go to +the city? to be near banks and places, and so do it more at his +convenience.” + +“But he brings home a sum of money every day--about thirty +shillings--sometimes fifty: and then he smiles, and says it's a good +day's work. This is not like a forger,” said pore Mrs. A. + +“I have it--I have it!” screams out Mrs. S. “The villain--the sneaking, +double-faced Jonas! he's married to somebody else he is, and that's why +he leaves you, the base biggymist!” + +At this, Mrs. Altamont, struck all of a heap, fainted clean away. A +dreadful business it was--hystarrix; then hystarrix, in course, from +Mrs. Shum; bells ringin, child squalin, suvvants tearin up and down +stairs with hot water! If ever there is a noosance in the world, it's a +house where faintain is always goin on. I wouldn't live in one,--no, not +to be groom of the chambers, and git two hundred a year. + +It was eight o'clock in the evenin when this row took place; and such +a row it was, that nobody but me heard master's knock. He came in, and +heard the hooping, and screeching, and roaring. He seemed very much +frightened at first, and said, “What is it?” + +“Mrs. Shum's here,” says I, “and Mrs. in astarrix.” + +Altamont looked as black as thunder, and growled out a word which I +don't like to name,--let it suffice that it begins with a D and ends +with a NATION; and he tore up stairs like mad. + +He bust open the bedroom door; missis lay quite pale and stony on the +sofy; the babby was screechin from the craddle; Miss Betsy was sprawlin +over missis; and Mrs. Shum half on the bed and half on the ground: all +howlin and squeelin, like so many dogs at the moond. + +When A. came in, the mother and daughter stopped all of a sudding. There +had been one or two tiffs before between them, and they feared him as if +he had been a hogre. + +“What's this infernal screeching and crying about?” says he. “Oh, Mr. +Altamont,” cries the old woman, “you know too well; it's about you that +this darling child is misrabble!” + +“And why about me, pray, madam?” + +“Why, sir, dare you ask why? Because you deceive her, sir; because you +are a false, cowardly traitor, sir; because YOU HAVE A WIFE ELSEWHERE, +SIR!” And the old lady and Miss Betsy began to roar again as loud as +ever. + +Altamont pawsed for a minnit, and then flung the door wide open; nex he +seized Miss Betsy as if his hand were a vice, and he world her out of +the room; then up he goes to Mrs. S. “Get up,” says he, thundering loud, +“you lazy, trolloping, mischsef-making, lying old fool! Get up, and get +out of this house. You have been the cuss and bain of my happyniss +since you entered it. With your d----d lies, and novvle rending, and +histerrix, you have perwerted Mary, and made her almost as mad as +yourself.” + +“My child! my child!” shriex out Mrs. Shum, and clings round missis. But +Altamont ran between them, and griping the old lady by her arm, dragged +her to the door. “Follow your daughter, ma'm,” says he, and down she +went. “CHAWLS, SEE THOSE LADIES TO THE DOOR,” he hollows out, “and never +let them pass it again.” We walked down together, and off they went: and +master locked and double-locked the bedroom door after him, intendin, +of course, to have a tator-tator (as they say) with his wife. You may be +sure that I followed up stairs again pretty quick, to hear the result of +their confidence. + +As they say at St. Stevenses, it was rayther a stormy debate. “Mary,” + says master, “you're no longer the merry greatful gal I knew and loved +at Pentonwill: there's some secret a pressin on you--there's no +smilin welcom for me now, as there used formly to be! Your mother and +sister-in-law have perwerted you, Mary: and that's why I've drove them +from this house, which they shall not re-enter in my life.” + +“O, Frederic! it's YOU is the cause, and not I. Why do you have any +mistry from me? Where do you spend your days? Why did you leave me, +even on the day of your marridge, for eight hours, and continue to do so +every day?” + +“Because,” says he, “I makes my livelihood by it. I leave you, and don't +tell you HOW I make it: for it would make you none the happier to know.” + +It was in this way the convysation ren on--more tears and questions on +my missises part, more sturmness and silence on my master's: it ended +for the first time since their marridge, in a reglar quarrel. Wery +difrent, I can tell you, from all the hammerous billing and kewing which +had proceeded their nupshuls. + +Master went out, slamming the door in a fury; as well he might. Says he, +“If I can't have a comforable life, I can have a jolly one;” and so +he went off to the hed tavern, and came home that evening beesly +intawsicated. When high words begin in a family drink generally follows +on the genlman's side; and then, fearwell to all conjubial happyniss! +These two pipple, so fond and loving, were now sirly, silent, and full +of il wil. Master went out earlier, and came home later; missis cried +more, and looked even paler than before. + +Well, things went on in this uncomfortable way, master still in the +mopes, missis tempted by the deamons of jellosy and curosity; until a +singlar axident brought to light all the goings on of Mr. Altamont. + +It was the tenth of January; I recklect the day, for old Shum gev me +half a crownd (the fust and last of his money I ever see, by the way): +he was dining along with master, and they were making merry together. + +Master said, as he was mixing his fifth tumler of punch and little Shum +his twelfth or so--master said, “I see you twice in the City to-day, Mr. +Shum.” + +“Well, that's curous!” says Shum. “I WAS in the City. To-day's the day +when the divvydins (God bless 'em) is paid; and me and Mrs. S. went for +our half-year's inkem. But we only got out of the coach, crossed the +street to the Bank, took our money, and got in agen. How could you see +me twice?” + +Altamont stuttered and stammered and hemd, and hawd. “O!” says he, “I +was passing--passing as you went in and out.” And he instantly turned +the conversation, and began talking about pollytix, or the weather, or +some such stuff. + +“Yes, my dear,” said my missis, “but how could you see papa TWICE?” + Master didn't answer, but talked pollytix more than ever. Still she +would continy on. “Where was you, my dear, when you saw pa? What were +you doing, my love, to see pa twice?” and so forth. Master looked +angrier and angrier, and his wife only pressed him wuss and wuss. + +This was, as I said, little Shum's twelfth tumler; and I knew pritty +well that he could git very little further; for, as reglar as the +thirteenth came, Shum was drunk. The thirteenth did come, and its +consquinzes. I was obliged to leed him home to John Street, where I left +him in the hangry arms of Mrs. Shum. + +“How the d--,” sayd he all the way, “how the d-dd--the +deddy--deddy--devil--could he have seen me TWICE?” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It was a sad slip on Altamont's part, for no sooner did he go out the +next morning than missis went out too. She tor down the street, and +never stopped till she came to her pa's house at Pentonwill. She was +clositid for an hour with her ma, and when she left her she drove +straight to the City. She walked before the Bank, and behind the Bank, +and round the Bank: she came home disperryted, having learned nothink. + +And it was now an extraordinary thing that from Shum's house for the +next ten days there was nothing but expyditions into the city. Mrs. +S., tho her dropsicle legs had never carred her half so fur before, was +eternally on the key veve, as the French say. If she didn't go, Miss +Betsy did, or misses did: they seemed to have an attrackshun to the +Bank, and went there as natral as an omlibus. + +At last one day, old Mrs. Shum comes to our house--(she wasn't admitted +when master was there, but came still in his absints)--and she wore a +hair of tryumph, as she entered. “Mary,” says she, “where is the money +your husbind brought to you yesterday?” My master used always to give it +to missis when he returned. + +“The money, ma!” says Mary. “Why here!” And pulling out her puss, she +showed a sovrin, a good heap of silver, and an odd-looking little coin. + +“THAT'S IT! that's it!” cried Mrs. S. “A Queene Anne's sixpence, isn't +it, dear--dated seventeen hundred and three?” + +It was so sure enough: a Queen Ans sixpence of that very date. + +“Now, my love,” says she, “I have found him! Come with me to-morrow, and +you shall KNOW ALL!” + +And now comes the end of my story. + + . . . . . . + +The ladies nex morning set out for the City, and I walked behind, doing +the genteel thing, with a nosegy and a goold stick. We walked down the +New Road--we walked down the City Road--we walked to the Bank. We were +crossing from that heddyfiz to the other side of Cornhill, when all of a +sudden missis shreeked, and fainted spontaceously away. + +I rushed forrard, and raised her to my arms: spiling thereby a new +weskit and a pair of crimson smalcloes. I rushed forrard. I say, very +nearly knocking down the old sweeper who was hobbling away as fast as +posibil. We took her to Birch's; we provided her with a hackney-coach +and every lucksury, and carried her home to Islington. + + . . . . . . + +That night master never came home. Nor the nex night, nor the nex. +On the fourth day an octioneer arrived; he took an infantry of the +furnitur, and placed a bill in the window. + +At the end of the wick Altamont made his appearance. He was haggard and +pale; not so haggard, however, not so pale as his miserable wife. + +He looked at her very tendrilly. I may say, it's from him that I coppied +MY look to Miss ----. He looked at her very tendrilly and held out his +arms. She gev a suffycating shreek, and rusht into his umbraces. + +“Mary,” says he, “you know all now. I have sold my place; I have got +three thousand pounds for it, and saved two more. I've sold my house +and furnitur, and that brings me another. We'll go abroad and love each +other, has formly.” + +And now you ask me, Who he was? I shudder to relate.--Mr. Haltamont SWEP +THE CROSSING FROM THE BANK TO CORNHILL!! + +Of cors, I left his servis. I met him, few years after, at +Badden-Badden, where he and Mrs. A. were much respectid, and pass for +pipple of propaty. + + + + +THE AMOURS OF MR. DEUCEACE. + + +DIMOND CUT DIMOND. + + +The name of my nex master was, if posbil, still more ellygant and +youfonious than that of my fust. I now found myself boddy servant to the +Honrabble Halgernon Percy Deuceace, youngest and fifth son of the Earl +of Crabs. + +Halgernon was a barrystir--that is, he lived in Pump Cort, Temple: a +wulgar naybrood, witch praps my readers don't no. Suffiz to say, it's on +the confines of the citty, and the choasen aboad of the lawyers of this +metrappolish. + +When I say that Mr. Deuceace was a barrystir, I don't mean that he +went sesshums or surcoats (as they call 'em), but simply that he kep +chambers, lived in Pump Cort, and looked out for a commitionarship, or +a revisinship, or any other place that the Wig guvvyment could give +him. His father was a Wig pier (as the landriss told me), and had been +a Toary pier. The fack is, his lordship was so poar, that he would be +anythink or nothink, to get provisions for his sons and an inkum for +himself. + +I phansy that he aloud Halgernon two hundred a year; and it would have +been a very comforable maintenants, only he knever paid him. + +Owever, the young genlmn was a genlmn, and no mistake; he got his +allowents of nothing a year, and spent it in the most honrabble and +fashnabble manner. He kep a kab---he went to Holmax--and Crockfud's--he +moved in the most xquizzit suckles and trubbld the law boox very little, +I can tell you. Those fashnabble gents have ways of getten money, witch +comman pipple doan't understand. + +Though he only had a therd floar in Pump Cort, he lived as if he had +the welth of Cresas. The tenpun notes floo abowt as common as +haypince--clarrit and shampang was at his house as vulgar as gin; and +verry glad I was, to be sure, to be a valley to a zion of the nobillaty. + +Deuceace had, in his sittin-room, a large pictur on a sheet of paper. +The names of his family was wrote on it; it was wrote in the shape of +a tree, a-groin out of a man-in-armer's stomick, and the names were on +little plates among the bows. The pictur said that the Deuceaces kem +into England in the year 1066, along with William Conqueruns. My master +called it his podygree. I do bleev it was because he had this pictur, +and because he was the HONRABBLE Deuceace, that he mannitched to live +as he did. If he had been a common man, you'd have said he was no +better than a swinler. It's only rank and buth that can warrant such +singularities as my master show'd. For it's no use disgysing it--the +Honrabble Halgernon was a GAMBLER. For a man of wulgar family, it's the +wust trade that can be--for a man of common feelinx of honesty, this +profession is quite imposbil; but for a real thoroughbread genlmn, it's +the esiest and most prophetable line he can take. + +It may praps appear curious that such a fashnabble man should live in +the Temple; but it must be recklected, that it's not only lawyers who +live in what's called the Ins of Cort. Many batchylers, who have nothink +to do with lor, have here their loginx; and many sham barrysters, who +never put on a wig and gownd twise in their lives, kip apartments in the +Temple, instead of Bon Street, Pickledilly, or other fashnabble places. + +Frinstance, on our stairkis (so these houses are called), there was +8 sets of chamberses, and only 3 lawyers. These was bottom floar, +Screwson, Hewson, and Jewson, attorneys; fust floar, Mr. Sergeant +Flabber--opsite, Mr. Counslor Bruffy; and secknd pair, Mr. Haggerstony, +an Irish counslor, praktising at the Old Baly, and lickwise what they +call reporter to the Morning Post nyouspapper. Opsite him was wrote + + + MR. RICHARD BLEWITT; + + +and on the thud floar, with my master, lived one Mr. Dawkins. + +This young fellow was a new comer into the Temple, and unlucky it was +for him too--he'd better have never been born; for it's my firm apinion +that the Temple ruined him--that is, with the help of my master and Mr. +Dick Blewitt: as you shall hear. + +Mr. Dawkins, as I was gave to understand by his young man, had just left +the Universary of Oxford, and had a pretty little fortn of his own--six +thousand pound, or so--in the stox. He was jest of age, an orfin who +had lost his father and mother; and having distinkwished hisself at +Collitch, where he gained seffral prices, was come to town to push his +fortn, and study the barryster's bisness. + +Not bein of a very high fammly hisself--indeed, I've heard say his +father was a chismonger, or somethink of that lo sort--Dawkins was glad +to find his old Oxford frend, Mr. Blewitt, yonger son to rich Squire +Blewitt, of Listershire, and to take rooms so near him. + +Now, tho' there was a considdrable intimacy between me and Mr. Blewitt's +gentleman, there was scarcely any betwixt our masters,--mine being +too much of the aristoxy to associate with one of Mr. Blewitt's sort. +Blewitt was what they call a bettin man; he went reglar to Tattlesall's, +kep a pony, wore a white hat, a blue berd's-eye handkercher, and a +cut-away coat. In his manners he was the very contrary of my master, who +was a slim, ellygant man as ever I see--he had very white hands, rayther +a sallow face, with sharp dark ise, and small wiskus neatly trimmed and +as black as Warren's jet--he spoke very low and soft--he seemed to be +watchin the person with whom he was in convysation, and always flatterd +everybody. As for Blewitt, he was quite of another sort. He was always +swearin, singing, and slappin people on the back, as hearty as posbill. +He seemed a merry, careless, honest cretur, whom one would trust with +life and soul. So thought Dawkins, at least; who, though a quiet young +man, fond of his boox, novvles, Byron's poems, foot-playing, and such +like scientafic amusemints, grew hand in glove with honest Dick Blewitt, +and soon after with my master, the Honrabble Halgernon. Poor Daw! he +thought he was makin good connexions and real frends--he had fallen in +with a couple of the most etrocious swinlers that ever lived. + +Before Mr. Dawkins's arrivial in our house, Mr. Deuceace had barely +condysended to speak to Mr. Blewitt; it was only about a month after +that suckumstance that my master, all of a sudding, grew very friendly +with him. The reason was pretty clear,--Deuceace WANTED HIM. Dawkins had +not been an hour in master's company before he knew that he had a pidgin +to pluck. + +Blewitt knew this too: and bein very fond of pidgin, intended to +keep this one entirely to himself. It was amusin to see the Honrabble +Halgernon manuvring to get this poor bird out of Blewitt's clause, who +thought he had it safe. In fact, he'd brought Dawkins to these chambers +for that very porpos, thinking to have him under his eye, and strip him +at leisure. + +My master very soon found out what was Mr. Blewitt's game. Gamblers +know gamblers, if not by instink, at least by reputation; and though Mr. +Blewitt moved in a much lower speare than Mr. Deuceace, they knew each +other's dealins and caracters puffickly well. + +“Charles you scoundrel,” says Deuceace to me one day (he always spoak in +that kind way), “who is this person that has taken the opsit chambers, +and plays the flute so industrusly?” + +“It's Mr. Dawkins, a rich young gentleman from Oxford, and a great +friend of Mr. Blewittses, sir,” says I; “they seem to live in each +other's rooms.” + +Master said nothink, but he GRIN'D--my eye, how he did grin. Not the +fowl find himself could snear more satannickly. + +I knew what he meant: + +Imprimish. A man who plays the floot is a simpleton. + +Secknly. Mr. Blewitt is a raskle. + +Thirdmo. When a raskle and a simpleton is always together, and when the +simpleton is RICH, one knows pretty well what will come of it. + +I was but a lad in them days, but I knew what was what, as well as my +master; it's not gentlemen only that's up to snough. Law bless us! there +was four of us on this stairkes, four as nice young men as you ever see: +Mr. Bruffy's young man, Mr. Dawkinses, Mr. Blewitt's, and me--and +we knew what our masters was about as well as thay did theirselfs. +Frinstance, I can say this for MYSELF, there wasn't a paper in +Deuceace's desk or drawer, not a bill, a note, or mimerandum, which I +hadn't read as well as he: with Blewitt's it was the same--me and his +young man used to read 'em all. There wasn't a bottle of wine that we +didn't get a glass out of, nor a pound of sugar that we didn't have some +lumps of it. We had keys to all the cubbards--we pipped into all the +letters that kem and went---we pored over all the bill-files--we'd the +best pickens out of the dinners, the livvers of the fowls, the forcemit +balls out of the soup, the egs from the sallit. As for the coals +and candles, we left them to the landrisses. You may call this +robry--nonsince--it's only our rights--a suvvant's purquizzits is as +sacred as the laws of Hengland. + +Well, the long and short of it is this. Richard Blewitt, esquire, was +sityouated as follows: He'd an incum of three hundred a year from his +father. Out of this he had to pay one hundred and ninety for money +borrowed by him at collidge, seventy for chambers, seventy more for his +hoss, aty for his suvvant on bord wagis, and about three hundred and +fifty for a sepparat establishment in the Regency Park; besides this, +his pockit-money, say a hunderd, his eatin, drinkin, and wine-marchant's +bill, about two hunderd moar. So that you see he laid by a pretty +handsome sum at the end of the year. + +My master was diffrent; and being a more fashnable man than Mr. B., in +course he owed a deal more mony. There was fust: + + + Account contray, at Crockford's L 3711 0 0 + Bills of xchange and I. O. U.'s (but he + didn't pay these in most cases) 4963 0 0 + 21 tailors' bills, in all 1306 11 9 + 3 hossdealers' do 402 0 0 + 2 coachbuilder 506 0 0 + Bills contracted at Cambridtch 2193 6 8 + Sundries 987 10 0 + ------------ + L 14069 8 5 + + +I give this as a curosity--pipple doan't know how in many cases +fashnabble life is carried on; and to know even what a real gnlmn OWES +is somethink instructif and agreeable. + +But to my tail. The very day after my master had made the inquiries +concerning Mr. Dawkins, witch I mentioned already, he met Mr. Blewitt on +the stairs; and byoutiffle it was to see how this gnlmn, who had before +been almost cut by my master, was now received by him. One of +the sweetest smiles I ever saw was now vizzable on Mr. Deuceace's +countenance. He held out his hand, covered with a white kid glove, and +said, in the most frenly tone of vice posbill, “What! Mr. Blewitt? It is +an age since we met. What a shame that such near naybors should see each +other so seldom!” + +Mr. Blewitt, who was standing at his door, in a pe-green dressing-gown, +smoakin a segar, and singing a hunting coarus, looked surprised, +flattered, and then suspicious. + +“Why, yes,” says he, “it is, Mr. Deuceace, a long time.” + +“Not, I think, since we dined at Sir George Hookey's. By-the-by, what +an evening that was--hay, Mr. Blewitt? What wine! what capital songs! I +recollect your 'May-day in the morning'--cuss me, the best comick song +I ever heard. I was speaking to the Duke of Doncaster about it only +yesterday. You know the duke, I think?” + +Mr. Blewitt said, quite surly, “No, I don't.” + +“Not know him!” cries master; “why, hang it, Blewitt! he knows YOU; as +every sporting man in England does, I should think. Why, man, your good +things are in everybody's mouth at Newmarket.” + +And so master went on chaffin Mr. Blewitt. That genlmn at fust answered +him quite short and angry: but, after a little more flummery, he grew as +pleased as posbill, took in all Deuceace's flatry, and bleeved all +his lies. At last the door shut, and they both went into Mr. Blewitt's +chambers together. + +Of course I can't say what past there; but in an hour master kem up to +his own room as yaller as mustard, and smellin sadly of backo smoke. I +never see any genmln more sick than he was; HE'D BEEN SMOAKIN SEAGARS +along with Blewitt. I said nothink, in course, tho I'd often heard him +xpress his horrow of backo, and knew very well he would as soon swallow +pizon as smoke. But he wasn't a chap to do a thing without a reason: if +he'd been smoakin, I warrant he had smoked to some porpus. + +I didn't hear the convysation betwean 'em; but Mr. Blewitt's man did: +it was,--“Well, Mr. Blewitt, what capital seagars! Have you one for +a friend to smoak?” (The old fox, it wasn't only the SEAGARS he was +a-smoakin!) “Walk in,” says Mr. Blewitt; and they began a chaffin +together; master very ankshous about the young gintleman who had come +to live in our chambers, Mr. Dawkins, and always coming back to that +subject,--saying that people on the same stairkis ot to be frenly; how +glad he'd be, for his part, to know Mr. Dick Blewitt, and ANY FRIEND OF +HIS, and so on. Mr. Dick, howsever, seamed quite aware of the trap +laid for him. “I really don't know this Dawkins,” says he: “he's a +chismonger's son, I hear; and tho I've exchanged visits with him, I +doan't intend to continyou the acquaintance,--not wishin to assoshate +with that kind of pipple.” So they went on, master fishin, and Mr. +Blewitt not wishin to take the hook at no price. + +“Confound the vulgar thief!” muttard my master, as he was laying on his +sophy, after being so very ill; “I've poisoned myself with his infernal +tobacco, and he has foiled me. The cursed swindling boor! he thinks +he'll ruin this poor Cheese-monger, does he? I'll step in, and WARN +him.” + +I thought I should bust a-laffin, when he talked in this style. I knew +very well what his “warning” meant,--lockin the stable-door but stealin +the hoss fust. + +Next day, his strattygam for becoming acquainted with Mr. Dawkins we +exicuted; and very pritty it was. + +Besides potry and the flute, Mr. Dawkins, I must tell you, had some +other parshallities--wiz., he was very fond of good eatin and drinkin. +After doddling over his music and boox all day, this young genlmn used +to sally out of evenings, dine sumptiously at a tavern, drinkin all +sorts of wine along with his friend Mr. Blewitt. He was a quiet young +fellow enough at fust; but it was Mr. B. who (for his own porpuses, no +doubt,) had got him into this kind of life. Well, I needn't say that he +who eats a fine dinner, and drinks too much overnight, wants a bottle +of soda-water, and a gril, praps, in the morning. Such was Mr. Dawkinses +case; and reglar almost as twelve o'clock came, the waiter from “Dix +Coffy-House” was to be seen on our stairkis, bringing up Mr. D.'s hot +breakfast. + +No man would have thought there was anythink in such a trifling +cirkumstance; master did, though, and pounced upon it like a cock on a +barlycorn. + +He sent me out to Mr. Morell's in Pickledilly, for wot's called a +Strasbug-pie--in French, a “patty defau graw.” He takes a card, and +nails it on the outside case (patty defaw graws come generally in a +round wooden box, like a drumb); and what do you think he writes on it? +why, as follos:--“For the Honorable Algernon Percy Deuceace, &c. &c. &c. +With Prince Talleyrand's compliments.” + +Prince Tallyram's complimints, indeed! I laff when I think of it, still, +the old surpint! He WAS a surpint, that Deuceace, and no mistake. + +Well, by a most extrornary piece of ill-luck, the nex day punctially +as Mr. Dawkinses brexfas was coming UP the stairs, Mr. Halgernon Percy +Deuceace was going DOWN. He was as gay as a lark, humming an Oppra tune, +and twizzting round his head his hevy gold-headed cane. Down he went +very fast, and by a most unlucky axdent struck his cane against the +waiter's tray, and away went Mr. Dawkinses gril, kayann, kitchup, +soda-water and all! I can't think how my master should have choas such +an exact time; to be sure, his windo looked upon the court, and he could +see every one who came into our door. + +As soon as the axdent had took place, master was in such a rage as, to +be sure, no man ever was in befor; he swoar at the waiter in the most +dreddfle way; he threatened him with his stick, and it was only when he +see that the waiter was rayther a bigger man than hisself that he was +in the least pazzyfied. He returned to his own chambres; and John, the +waiter, went off for more gril to Dixes Coffy-house. + +“This is a most unlucky axdent, to be sure, Charles,” says master to me, +after a few minits paws, during witch he had been and wrote a note, +put it into an anvelope, and sealed it with his big seal of arms. “But +stay--a thought strikes me--take this note to Mr. Dawkins, and that pye +you brought yesterday; and hearkye, you scoundrel, if you say where you +got it I will break every bone in your skin!” + +These kind of promises were among the few which I knew him to keep: and +as I loved boath my skinn and my boans, I carried the noat, and of cors +said nothink. Waiting in Mr. Dawkinses chambus for a few minnits, I +returned to my master with an anser. I may as well give both of these +documence, of which I happen to have taken coppies: + + + I. + + THE HON. A. P. DEUCEACE TO T. S. DAWKINS, ESQ. + + “TEMPLE, Tuesday. + + “Mr. DEUCEACE presents his compliments to Mr. Dawkins, and begs at + the same time to offer his most sincere apologies and regrets for + the accident which has just taken place. + + “May Mr. Deuceace be allowed to take a neighbor's privilege, and to + remedy the evil he has occasioned to the best of his power if Mr. + Dawkins will do him the favor to partake of the contents of the + accompanying case (from Strasbourg direct, and the gift of a + friend, on whose taste as a gourmand Mr. Dawkins may rely), perhaps + he will find that it is not a bad substitute for the plat which Mr. + Deuceace's awkwardness destroyed. + + “It will also, Mr. Deuceace is sure, be no small gratification to + the original donor of the 'pate', when he learns that it has fallen + into the hands of so celebrated a bon vivant as Mr. Dawkins. + + “T. S. DAWKINS, Esq., &c. &c. &c.” + + + II. + + FROM T. S. DAWKINS, ESQ., TO THE HON. A. P. DEUCEACE. + + “MR. THOMAS SMITH DAWKINS presents his grateful compliments to the + Hon. Mr. Deuceace, and accepts with the greatest pleasure Mr. + Deuceace's generous proffer. + + “It would be one of the HAPPIEST MOMENTS of Mr. Smith Dawkins's + life, if the Hon. Mr. Deuceace would EXTEND HIS GENEROSITY still + further, and condescend to partake of the repast which his + MUNIFICENT POLITENESS has furnished. + + “TEMPLE, Tuesday.” + + +Many and many a time, I say, have I grin'd over these letters, which +I had wrote from the original by Mr. Bruffy's copyin clark. Deuceace's +flam about Prince Tallyram was puffickly successful. I saw young Dawkins +blush with delite as he red the note; he toar up for or five sheets +before he composed the answer to it, which was as you red abuff, and +roat in a hand quite trembling with pleasyer. If you could but have seen +the look of triumph in Deuceace's wicked black eyes, when he read the +noat! I never see a deamin yet, but I can phansy 1, a holding a writhing +soal on his pitchfrock, and smilin like Deuceace. He dressed himself in +his very best clothes, and in he went, after sending me over to say that +he would except with pleasyour Mr. Dawkins's invite. + +The pie was cut up, and a most frenly conversation begun betwixt the two +genlmin. Deuceace was quite captivating. He spoke to Mr. Dawkins in +the most respeckful and flatrin manner,--agread in every think he +said,--prazed his taste, his furniter, his coat, his classick nolledge, +and his playin on the floot; you'd have thought, to hear him, that such +a polygon of exlens as Dawkins did not breath,--that such a modist, +sinsear, honrabble genlmn as Deuceace was to be seen nowhere xcept +in Pump Cort. Poor Daw was complitly taken in. My master said he'd +introduce him to the Duke of Doncaster, and heaven knows how many nobs +more, till Dawkins was quite intawsicated with pleasyour. I know as a +fac (and it pretty well shows the young genlmn's carryter), that he went +that very day and ordered 2 new coats, on porpos to be introjuiced to +the lords in. + +But the best joak of all was at last. Singin, swagrin, and swarink--up +stares came Mr. Dick Blewitt. He flung opn Mr. Dawkins's door, shouting +out, “Daw my old buck, how are you?” when, all of a sudden, he sees Mr. +Deuceace: his jor dropt, he turned chocky white, and then burnin red, +and looked as if a stror would knock him down. “My dear Mr. Blewitt,” + says my master, smilin and offring his hand, “how glad I am to see you. +Mr. Dawkins and I were just talking about your pony! Pray sit down.” + +Blewitt did; and now was the question, who should sit the other out; but +law bless you! Mr. Blewitt was no match for my master: all the time he +was fidgetty, silent, and sulky; on the contry, master was charmin. +I never herd such a flo of conversatin, or so many wittacisms as he +uttered. At last, completely beat, Mr. Blewitt took his leaf; that +instant master followed him; and passin his arm through that of Mr. +Dick, led him into our chambers, and began talkin to him in the most +affabl and affeckshnat manner. + +But Dick was too angry to listen; at last, when master was telling him +some long story about the Duke of Doncaster, Blewitt burst out-- + +“A plague on the Duke of Doncaster! Come, come, Mr. Deuceace, don't +you be running your rigs upon me; I ain't the man to be bamboozl'd by +long-winded stories about dukes and duchesses. You think I don't know +you; every man knows you and your line of country. Yes, you're after +young Dawkins there, and think to pluck him; but you shan't,--no, +by ---- you shan't.” (The reader must recklect that the oaths which +interspussed Mr. B.'s convysation I have left out.) Well, after he'd +fired a wolley of 'em, Mr. Deuceace spoke as cool as possbill. + +“Hark ye, Blewitt. I know you to be one of the most infernal thieves and +scoundrels unhung. If you attempt to hector with me, I will cane you; if +you want more, I'll shoot you; if you meddle between me and Dawkins, I +will do both. I know your whole life, you miserable swindler and coward. +I know you have already won two hundred pounds of this lad, and want +all. I will have half, or you never shall have a penny.” It's quite true +that master knew things; but how was the wonder. + +I couldn't see Mr. B.'s face during this dialogue, bein on the wrong +side of the door; but there was a considdrable paws after thuse +complymints had passed between the two genlmn,--one walkin quickly up +and down the room--tother, angry and stupid, sittin down, and stampin +with his foot. + +“Now listen to this, Mr. Blewitt,” continues master at last. “If you're +quiet, you shall have half this fellow's money: but venture to win a +shilling from him in my absence, or without my consent, and you do it at +your peril.” + +“Well, well, Mr. Deuceace,” cries Dick, “it's very hard, and I must say, +not fair: the game was of my startin, and you've no right to interfere +with my friend.” + +“Mr. Blewitt, you are a fool! You professed yesterday not to know this +man, and I was obliged to find him out for myself. I should like to know +by what law of honor I am bound to give him up to you?” + +It was charmin to hear this pair of raskles talkin about HONOR. I +declare I could have found it in my heart to warn young Dawkins of the +precious way in which these chaps were going to serve him. But if THEY +didn't know what honor was, I did; and never, never did I tell tails +about my masters when in their sarvice--OUT, in cors, the hobligation is +no longer binding. + +Well, the nex day there was a gran dinner at our chambers. White soop, +turbit, and lobstir sos; saddil of Scoch muttn, grous, and M'Arony; +wines, shampang, hock, maderia, a bottle of poart, and ever so many +of clarrit. The compny presint was three; wiz., the Honrabble A. P. +Deuceace, R. Blewitt, and Mr. Dawkins, Exquires. My i, how we genlmn in +the kitchin did enjy it. Mr. Blewittes man eat so much grous (when it +was brot out of the parlor), that I reely thought he would be sik; Mr. +Dawkinses genlmn (who was only abowt 13 years of age) grew so il with +M'Arony and plumb-puddn, as to be obleeged to take sefral of Mr. D's. +pils, which 1/2 kild him. But this is all promiscuous: I an't talkin of +the survants now, but the masters. + +Would you bleeve it? After dinner and praps 8 bottles of wine between +the 3, the genlm sat down to ecarty. It's a game where only 2 plays, and +where, in coarse, when there's only 3, one looks on. + +Fust, they playd crown pints, and a pound the bett. At this game they +were wonderful equill; and about supper-time (when grilled am, more +shampang, devld biskits, and other things, was brot in) the play stood +thus: Mr. Dawkins had won 2 pounds; Mr. Blewitt 30 shillings; the +Honrabble Mr. Deuceace having lost 3L. l0s. After the devvle and the +shampang the play was a little higher. Now it was pound pints, and five +pound the bet. I thought, to be sure, after hearing the complymints +between Blewitt and master in the morning, that now poor Dawkins's time +was come. + +Not so: Dawkins won always, Mr. B. betting on his play, and giving him +the very best of advice. At the end of the evening (which was abowt five +o'clock the nex morning) they stopt. Master was counting up the skore on +a card. + +“Blewitt,” says he, “I've been unlucky. I owe you, let me see--yes, +five-and-forty pounds?” + +“Five-and-forty,” says Blewitt, “and no mistake!” + +“I will give you a cheque,” says the honrabble genlmn. + +“Oh! don't mention it, my dear sir!” But master got a grate sheet +of paper, and drew him a check on Messeers. Pump, Algit and Co., his +bankers. + +“Now,” says master, “I've got to settle with you, my dear Mr. Dawkins. +If you had backd your luck, I should have owed you a very handsome sum +of money. Voyons, thirteen points at a pound--it is easy to calculate;” + and drawin out his puss, he clinked over the table 13 goolden suverings, +which shon till they made my eyes wink. + +So did pore Dawkinses, as he put out his hand, all trembling, and drew +them in. + +“Let me say,” added master, “let me say (and I've had some little +experience), that you are the very best ecarte player with whom I ever +sat down.” + +Dawkinses eyes glissened as he put the money up, and said, “Law, +Deuceace, you flatter me.” + +FLATTER him! I should think he did. It was the very think which master +ment. + +“But mind you, Dawkins,” continyoud he, “I must have my revenge; for I'm +ruined--positively ruined by your luck.” + +“Well, well,” says Mr. Thomas Smith Dawkins, as pleased as if he had +gained a millium, “shall it be to-morrow? Blewitt, what say you?” + +Mr. Blewitt agreed, in course. My master, after a little demurring, +consented too. “We'll meet,” says he, “at your chambers. But mind, my +dear fello, not too much wine: I can't stand it at any time, especially +when I have to play ecarte with YOU.” + +Pore Dawkins left our rooms as happy as a prins. “Here, Charles,” says +he, and flung me a sovring. Pore fellow! pore fellow! I knew what was +a-comin! + +But the best of it was, that these 13 sovrings which Dawkins won, MASTER +HAD BORROWED THEM FROM MR. BLEWITT! I brought 'em, with 7 more, from +that young genlmn's chambers that very morning: for, since his interview +with master, Blewitt had nothing to refuse him. + + +Well, shall I continue the tail? If Mr. Dawkins had been the least bit +wiser, it would have taken him six months befoar he lost his money; as +it was, he was such a confunded ninny, that it took him a very short +time to part with it. + +Nex day (it was Thursday, and master's acquaintance with Mr. Dawkins +had only commenced on Tuesday), Mr. Dawkins, as I said, gev his +party,--dinner at 7. Mr. Blewitt and the two Mr. D.'s as befoar. Play +begins at 11. This time I knew the bisness was pretty serious, for +we suvvants was packed off to bed at 2 o'clock. On Friday, I went to +chambers--no master--he kem in for 5 minutes at about 12, made a little +toilit, ordered more devvles and soda-water, and back again he went to +Mr. Dawkins's. + +They had dinner there at 7 again, but nobody seamed to eat, for all the +vittles came out to us genlmn: they had in more wine though, and must +have drunk at least two dozen in the 36 hours. + +At ten o'clock, however, on Friday night, back my master came to his +chambers. I saw him as I never saw him before, namly reglar drunk. He +staggered about the room, he danced, he hickipd, he swoar, he flung me +a heap of silver, and, finely, he sunk down exosted on his bed; I pullin +off his boots and close, and making him comfrabble. + +When I had removed his garmints, I did what it's the duty of every +servant to do--I emtied his pockits, and looked at his pockit-book and +all his letters: a number of axdents have been prevented that way. + +I found there, among a heap of things, the following pretty dockyment-- + + + I. O. U. + L 4700. + THOMAS SMITH DAWKINS. + Friday, 16th January. + + +There was another bit of paper of the same kind--“I. 0. U. four hundred +pounds: Richard Blewitt:” but this, in corse, ment nothink. + + . . . . . . + +Nex mornin, at nine, master was up, and as sober as a judg. He drest, +and was off to Mr. Dawkins. At ten, he ordered a cab, and the two +gentlmn went together. + +“Where shall he drive, sir?” says I. + +“Oh, tell him to drive to THE BANK.” + +Pore Dawkins! his eyes red with remors and sleepliss drunkenniss, gave a +shudder and a sob, as he sunk back in the wehicle; and they drove on. + +That day he sold out every hapny he was worth, xcept five hundred +pounds. + + . . . . . . + +Abowt 12 master had returned, and Mr. Dick Blewitt came stridin up the +stairs with a sollum and important hair. + +“Is your master at home?” says he. + +“Yes, sir,” says I; and in he walks. I, in coars, with my ear to the +keyhole, listning with all my mite. + +“Well,” says Blewitt, “we maid a pretty good night of it, Mr. Deuceace. +Yu've settled, I see, with Dawkins.” + +“Settled!” says master. “Oh, yes--yes--I've settled with him.” + +“Four thousand seven hundred, I think?” + +“About that--yes.” + +“That makes my share--let me see--two thousand three hundred and fifty; +which I'll thank you to fork out.” + +“Upon my word--why--Mr. Blewitt,” says master, “I don't really +understand what you mean.” + +“YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” says Blewitt, in an axent such as I never +before heard. “You don't know what I mean! Did you not promise me that +we were to go shares? Didn't I lend you twenty sovereigns the other +night to pay our losings to Dawkins? Didn't you swear, on your honor as +a gentleman, to give me half of all that might be won in this affair?” + +“Agreed, sir,” says Deuceace; “agreed.” + +“Well, sir, and now what have you to say?” + +“Why, THAT I DON'T INTEND TO KEEP MY PROMISE! You infernal fool and +ninny! do you suppose I was laboring for YOU? Do you fancy I was going +to the expense of giving a dinner to that jackass yonder, that +you should profit by it? Get away, sir! Leave the room, sir! Or, +stop--here--I will give you four hundred pounds--your own note of hand, +sir, for that sum, if you will consent to forget all that has passed +between us, and that you have never known Mr. Algernon Deuceace.” + +I've seen pipple angery before now, but never any like Blewitt. He +stormed, groaned, belloed, swoar! At last, he fairly began blubbring; +now cussing and nashing his teeth, now praying dear Mr. Deuceace to +grant him mercy. + +At last, master flung open the door (heaven bless us! it's well I didn't +tumble hed over eels into the room!), and said, “Charles, show the +gentleman down stairs!” My master looked at him quite steddy. Blewitt +slunk down, as misrabble as any man I ever see. As for Dawkins, heaven +knows where he was! + + . . . . . . + +“Charles,” says my master to me, about an hour afterwards, “I'm going to +Paris; you may come, too, if you please.” + + + + +FORING PARTS. + + +It was a singular proof of my master's modesty, that though he had won +this andsome sum of Mr. Dawkins, and was inclined to be as extravygant +and osntatious as any man I ever seed, yet, when he determined on going +to Paris, he didn't let a single frend know of all them winnings of his; +didn't acquaint my Lord Crabs his father, that he was about to leave +his natiff shoars--neigh--didn't even so much as call together his +tradesmin, and pay off their little bills befor his departure. + +On the contry, “Chawles,” said he to me, “stick a piece of paper on my +door,” which is the way that lawyers do, “and write 'Back at seven' +upon it.” Back at seven I wrote, and stuck it on our outer oak. And so +mistearus was Deuceace about his continental tour (to all except me), +that when the landriss brought him her account for the last month +(amountain, at the very least, to 2L. 10s.), master told her to leave it +till Monday morning, when it should be properly settled. It's extrodny +how ickonomical a man becomes, when he's got five thousand lbs. in his +pockit. + +Back at 7 indeed! At 7 we were a-roalin on the Dover Road, in the +Reglator Coach--master inside, me out. A strange company of people there +was, too, in that wehicle,--3 sailors; an Italyin with his music-box and +munky; a missionary, going to convert the heathens in France; 2 oppra +girls (they call 'em figure-aunts), and the figure-aunts' mothers +inside; 4 Frenchmin, with gingybred caps and mustashes, singing, +chattering, and jesticklating in the most vonderful vay. Such +compliments as passed between them and the figure-aunts! such a munshin +of biskits and sippin of brandy! such “O mong Jews,” and “O sacrrres,” + and “kill fay frwaws!” I didn't understand their languidge at that time, +so of course can't igsplain much of their conwersation; but it pleased +me, nevertheless, for now I felt that I was reely going into foring +parts: which, ever sins I had had any edication at all, was always my +fondest wish. Heavin bless us! thought I, if these are specimeens of +all Frenchmen, what a set they must be. The pore Italyin's monky, sittin +mopin and meluncolly on his box, was not half so ugly, and seamed quite +as reasonabble. + +Well, we arrived at Dover--“Ship Hotel” weal cutlets half a ginny, +glas of ale a shilling, glas of neagush, half a crownd, a hapnyworth of +wax-lites four shillings, and so on. But master paid without grumbling; +as long as it was for himself he never minded the expens: and nex day we +embarked in the packit for Balong sir-mare--which means in French, the +town of Balong sityouated on the sea. I who had heard of foring +wonders, expected this to be the fust and greatest: phansy, then, my +disapintment, when we got there, to find this Balong, not situated on +the sea, but on the SHOAR. + +But oh! the gettin there was the bisniss. How I did wish for Pump Court +agin, as we were tawsing abowt in the Channel! Gentle reader, av you +ever been on the otion?--“The sea, the sea, the open sea!” as Barry +Cromwell says. As soon as we entered our little wessel, and I'd +looked to master's luggitch and mine (mine was rapt up in a very small +hankercher), as soon, I say, as we entered our little wessel, as soon +as I saw the waives, black and frothy, like fresh drawn porter, a-dashin +against the ribs of our galliant bark, the keal like a wedge, splittin +the billoes in two, the sales a-flaffin in the hair, the standard of +Hengland floating at the mask-head, the steward a-getting ready the +basins and things, the capting proudly tredding the deck and giving +orders to the salers, the white rox of Albany and the bathin-masheens +disappearing in the distans--then, then I felt, for the first time, +the mite, the madgisty of existence. “Yellowplush my boy,” said I, in a +dialogue with myself, “your life is now about to commens--your carear, +as a man, dates from your entrans on board this packit. Be wise, be +manly, be cautious, forgit the follies of your youth. You are no longer +a boy now, but a FOOTMAN. Throw down your tops, your marbles, your +boyish games--throw off your childish habbits with your inky clerk's +jackit--throw up your--” + + . . . . . . + +Here, I recklect, I was obleeged to stopp. A fealin, in the fust place +singlar, in the next place painful, and at last compleatly overpowering, +had come upon me while I was making the abuff speach, and now I found +myself in a sityouation which Dellixy for Bids me to describe. Suffis to +say, that now I dixcovered what basins was made for--that for many, many +hours, I lay in a hagony of exostion, dead to all intense and porpuses, +the rain pattering in my face, the salers tramplink over my body--the +panes of purgatory going on inside. When we'd been about four hours in +this sityouation (it seam'd to me four ears), the steward comes to that +part of the deck where we servants were all huddled up together, and +calls out “Charles!” + +“Well,” says I, gurgling out a faint “yes, what's the matter?” + +“You're wanted.” + +“Where?” + +“Your master's wery ill,” says he, with a grin. + +“Master be hanged!” says I, turning round, more misrable than ever. I +woodn't have moved that day for twenty thousand masters--no, not for the +Empror of Russia or the Pop of Room. + +Well, to cut this sad subjik short, many and many a voyitch have I sins +had upon what Shakspur calls the “wasty dip,” but never such a retched +one as that from Dover to Balong, in the year Anna Domino 1818. Steemers +were scarce in those days; and our journey was made in a smack. At last, +when I was in a stage of despare and exostion, as reely to phansy myself +at Death's doar, we got to the end of our journey. Late in the evening +we hailed the Gaelic shoars, and hankered in the arbor of Balong +sir-mare. + +It was the entrans of Parrowdice to me and master: and as we entered the +calm water, and saw the comfrabble lights gleaming in the houses, and +felt the roal of the vessel degreasing, never was two mortials gladder, +I warrant, than we were. At length our capting drew up at the key, and +our journey was down. But such a bustle and clatter, such jabbering, +such shrieking and swaring, such wollies of oafs and axicrations as +saluted us on landing, I never knew! We were boarded, in the fust place, +by custom-house officers in cock-hats, who seased our luggitch, and +called for our passpots: then a crowd of inn-waiters came, tumbling and +screaming on deck--“Dis way, sare,” cries one; “Hotel Meurice,” says +another; “Hotel de Bang,” screeches another chap--the tower of Babyle +was nothink to it. The fust thing that struck me on landing was a +big fellow with ear-rings, who very nigh knock me down, in wrenching +master's carpet-bag out of my hand, as I was carrying it to the hotell. +But we got to it safe at last; and, for the fust time in my life, I slep +in a foring country. + +I shan't describe this town of Balong, which, as it has been visited by +not less (on an avaridg) than two milliums of English since I fust +saw it twenty years ago, is tolrabbly well known already. It's a dingy +melumcolly place, to my mind; the only thing moving in the streets is +the gutter which runs down 'em. As for wooden shoes, I saw few of 'em; +and for frogs, upon my honor I never see a single Frenchman swallow +one, which I had been led to beleave was their reg'lar, though beastly, +custom. One thing which amazed me was the singlar name which they give +to this town of Balong. It's divided, as every boddy knows, into +an upper town (sitouate on a mounting, and surrounded by a wall, or +bullyvar) and a lower town, which is on the level of the sea. Well, will +it be believed that they call the upper town the Hot Veal, and the other +the Base Veal, which is on the contry, genrally good in France, though +the beaf, it must be confest, is excrabble. + +It was in the Base Veal that Deuceace took his lodgian, at the Hotel +de Bang, in a very crooked street called the Rue del Ascew; and if he'd +been the Archbishop of Devonshire, or the Duke of Canterbury, he could +not have given himself greater hairs, I can tell you. Nothink was too +fine for us now; we had a sweet of rooms on the first floor, which +belonged to the prime minister of France (at least the landlord said +they were the premier's); and the Hon. Algernon Percy Deuceace, who had +not paid his landriss, and came to Dover in a coach, seamed now to think +that goold was too vulgar for him, and a carridge and six would break +down with a man of his weight. Shampang flew about like ginger-pop, +besides bordo, clarit, burgundy, burgong, and other wines, and all the +delixes of the Balong kitchins. We stopped a fortnit at this dull place, +and did nothing from morning till night excep walk on the bench, and +watch the ships going in and out of arber, with one of them long, +sliding opra-glasses, which they call, I don't know why, tallow-scoops. +Our amusements for the fortnit we stopped here were boath numerous and +daliteful; nothink, in fact, could be more pickong, as they say. In the +morning before breakfast we boath walked on the Peer; master in a blue +mareen jackit, and me in a slap-up new livry; both provided with long +sliding opra-glasses, called as I said (I don't know Y, but I suppose +it's a scientafick term) tallow-scoops. With these we igsamined, very +attentively, the otion, the sea-weed, the pebbles, the dead cats, the +fishwimmin, and the waives (like little children playing at leap-frog), +which came tumblin over 1 another on to the shoar. It seemed to me as if +they were scrambling to get there, as well they might, being sick of the +sea, and anxious for the blessid, peaceable terry firmy. + +After brexfast, down we went again (that is, master on his beat, and me +on mine,--for my place in this foring town was a complete shinycure), +and putting our tally-scoops again in our eyes, we egsamined a little +more the otion, pebbils, dead cats, and so on; and this lasted till +dinner, and dinner till bedtime, and bedtime lasted till nex day, when +came brexfast, and dinner, and tally-scooping, as before. This is the +way with all people of this town, of which, as I've heard say, there is +ten thousand happy English, who lead this plesnt life from year's end to +year's end. + +Besides this, there's billiards and gambling for the gentlemen, a little +dancing for the gals, and scandle for the dowygers. In none of these +amusements did we partake. We were a LITTLE too good to play crown pints +at cards, and never get paid when we won; or to go dangling after the +portionless gals, or amuse ourselves with slops and penny-wist along +with the old ladies. No, no; my master was a man of fortn now, and +behayved himself as sich. If ever he condysended to go into the public +room of the Hotel de Bang--the French (doubtless for reasons best known +to themselves) call this a sallymanjy--he swoar more and lowder than +any one there; he abyoused the waiters, the wittles, the wines. With his +glas in his i, he staired at every body. He took always the place before +the fire. He talked about “my carridge,” “my currier,” “my servant;” and +he did wright. I've always found through life, that if you wish to be +respected by English people, you must be insalent to them, especially +if you are a sprig of nobiliaty. We LIKE being insulted by noblemen,--it +shows they're familiar with us. Law bless us! I've known many and many +a genlmn about town who'd rather be kicked by a lord than not be noticed +by him; they've even had an aw of ME, because I was a lord's footman. +While my master was hectoring in the parlor, at Balong, pretious airs +I gave myself in the kitching, I can tell you; and the consequints was, +that we were better served, and moar liked, than many pipple with twice +our merit. + +Deuceace had some particklar plans, no doubt, which kep him so long at +Balong; and it clearly was his wish to act the man of fortune there for +a little time before he tried the character of Paris. He purchased a +carridge, he hired a currier, he rigged me in a fine new livry blazin +with lace, and he past through the Balong bank a thousand pounds of the +money he had won from Dawkins, to his credit at a Paris house; showing +the Balong bankers at the same time, that he'd plenty moar in his +potfolie. This was killin two birds with one stone; the bankers' clerks +spread the nuse over the town, and in a day after master had paid the +money every old dowyger in Balong had looked out the Crabs' family +podigree in the Peeridge, and was quite intimate with the Deuceace name +and estates. If Sattn himself were a lord, I do beleave there's many +vurtuous English mothers would be glad to have him for a son-in-law. + +Now, though my master had thought fitt to leave town without +excommunicating with his father on the subject of his intended +continental tripe, as soon as he was settled at Balong he roat my Lord +Crabbs a letter, of which I happen to have a copy. It ran thus:-- + + +“BOULOGNE, January 25. + +“MY DEAR FATHER,--I have long, in the course of my legal studies, found +the necessity of a knowledge of French, in which language all the early +history of our profession is written, and have determined to take a +little relaxation from chamber reading, which has seriously injured +my health. If my modest finances can bear a two months' journey, and a +residence at Paris, I propose to remain there that period. + +“Will you have the kindness to send me a letter of introduction to Lord +Bobtail, our ambassador? My name, and your old friendship with him, I +know would secure me a reception at his house; but a pressing letter +from yourself would at once be more courteous, and more effectual. + +“May I also ask you for my last quarter's salary? I am not an expensive +man, my dear father, as you know; but we are no chameleons, and fifty +pounds (with my little earnings in my profession) would vastly add to +the agremens of my continental excursion. + +“Present my love to all my brothers and sisters. Ah! how I wish the +hard portion of a younger son had not been mine, and that I could live +without the dire necessity for labor, happy among the rural scenes of my +childhood, and in the society of my dear sisters and you! Heaven bless +you, dearest father, and all those beloved ones now dwelling under the +dear old roof at Sizes. + +“Ever your affectionate son, + +“Algernon. + +“THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF CRABS, &c., + +SIZES COURT, BUCKS.” + + +To this affeckshnat letter his lordship replied, by return of poast, as +follos:-- + + +“MY DEAR ALGERNON,--Your letter came safe to hand and I enclose you the +letter for Lord Bobtail as you desire. He is a kind man, and has one of +the best cooks in Europe. + +“We were all charmed with your warm remembrances of us, not having seen +you for seven years. We cannot but be pleased at the family affection +which, in spite of time and absence, still clings so fondly to home. It +is a sad, selfish world, and very few who have entered it can afford to +keep those fresh feelings which you have, my dear son. + +“May you long retain them, is a fond father's earnest prayer. Be sure, +dear Algernon, that they will be through life your greatest comfort, as +well as your best worldly ally; consoling you in misfortune, cheering +you in depression, aiding and inspiring you to exertion and success. + +“I am sorry, truly sorry, that my account at Coutts's is so low, +just now, as to render a payment of your allowance for the present +impossible. I see by my book that I owe you now nine quarters, or 450L. +Depend on it, my dear boy, that they shall be faithfully paid over to +you on the first opportunity. + +“By the way, I have enclosed some extracts from the newspapers, which +may interest you: and have received a very strange letter from a Mr. +Blewitt, about a play transaction, which, I suppose, is the case alluded +to in these prints. He says you won 4700L. from one Dawkins: that the +lad paid it; that he, Blewitt, was to go what he calls 'snacks' in the +winning; but that you refused to share the booty. How can you, my dear +boy, quarrel with these vulgar people, or lay yourself in any way open +to their attacks? I have played myself a good deal, and there is no man +living who can accuse me of a doubtful act. You should either have shot +this Blewitt or paid him. Now, as the matter stands, it is too late to +do the former; and, perhaps, it would be Quixotic to perform the latter. +My dearest boy! recollect through life that YOU NEVER CAN AFFORD TO BE +DISHONEST WITH A ROQUE. Four thousand seven hundred pounds was a great +coup, to be sure. + +“As you are now in such high feather, can you, dearest Algernon! lend +me five hundred pounds? Upon my soul and honor, I will repay you. Your +brothers and sisters send you their love. I need not add, that you have +always the blessings of your affectionate father, + +“CRABS.” + +“P.S.--Make it 500, and I will give you my note-of-hand for a thousand.” + + . . . . . . + +I needn't say that this did not QUITE enter into Deuceace's eyedears. +Lend his father 500 pound, indeed! He'd as soon have lent him a box on +the year! In the fust place, he hadn seen old Crabs for seven years, as +that nobleman remarked in his epistol; in the secknd he hated him, and +they hated each other; and nex, if master had loved his father ever +so much, he loved somebody else better--his father's son, namely: and +sooner than deprive that exlent young man of a penny, he'd have sean all +the fathers in the world hangin at Newgat, and all the “beloved ones,” + as he called his sisters, the Lady Deuceacisses, so many convix at +Bottomy Bay. + +The newspaper parrografs showed that, however secret WE wished to keep +the play transaction, the public knew it now full well. Blewitt, as I +found after, was the author of the libels which appeared right and left: + + +“GAMBLING IN HIGH LIFE--the HONORABLE Mr. D--c--ce again!--This +celebrated whist-player has turned his accomplishments to some profit. +On Friday, the 16th January, he won five thousand pounds from a VERY +young gentleman, Th-m-s Sm-th D-wk-ns, Esq., and lost two thousand five +hundred to R. Bl-w-tt, Esq., of the T-mple. Mr. D. very honorably paid +the sum lost by him to the honorable whist-player, but we have not heard +that, BEFORE HIS SUDDEN TRIP TO PARIS, Mr. D--uc--ce paid HIS losings to +Mr. Bl-w-tt.” + + +Nex came a “Notice to Corryspondents:” + + +“Fair Play asks us, if we know of the gambling doings of the notorious +Deuceace? We answer, WE DO; and, in our very next Number, propose to +make some of them public.” + + . . . . . . + +They didn't appear, however; but, on the contry, the very same +newspeper, which had been before so abusiff of Deuceace, was now loud in +his praise. It said:-- + + +“A paragraph was inadvertently admitted into our paper of last week, +most unjustly assailing the character of a gentleman of high birth and +talents, the son of the exemplary E-rl of Cr-bs. We repel, with scorn +and indignation, the dastardly falsehoods of the malignant slanderer +who vilified Mr. De--ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only +reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied +name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely +regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought +forward to the readers of this paper.” + + +This was satisfactory, and no mistake: and much pleased we were at the +denial of this conshentious editor. So much pleased that master sent +him a ten-pound noat, and his complymints. He'd sent another to the same +address, BEFORE this parrowgraff was printed; WHY, I can't think: for I +woodn't suppose any thing musnary in a littery man. + +Well, after this bisniss was concluded, the currier hired, the carridge +smartened a little, and me set up in my new livries, we bade ojew to +Bulong in the grandest state posbill. What a figure we cut! and, my i, +what a figger the postillion cut! A cock-hat, a jackit made out of a +cow's skin (it was in cold weather), a pig-tale about 3 fit in length, +and a pair of boots! Oh, sich a pare! A bishop might almost have +preached out of one, or a modrat-sized famly slep in it. Me and Mr. +Schwigshhnaps, the currier, sate behind in the rumbill; master aloan in +the inside, as grand as a Turk, and rapt up in his fine fir-cloak. Off +we sett, bowing gracefly to the crowd; the harniss-bells jinglin, the +great white hosses snortin, kickin, and squeelin, and the postilium +cracking his wip, as loud as if he'd been drivin her majesty the quean. + + . . . . . . + +Well, I shan't describe our voyitch. We passed sefral sitties, +willitches, and metrappolishes; sleeping the fust night at Amiens, +witch, as everyboddy knows, is famous ever since the year 1802 for +what's called the Pease of Amiens. We had some, very good, done with +sugar and brown sos, in the Amiens way. But after all the boasting about +them, I think I like our marrowphats better. + +Speaking of wedgytables, another singler axdent happened here concarning +them. Master, who was brexfasting before going away, told me to go and +get him his fur travling-shoes. I went and toald the waiter of the +inn, who stared, grinned (as these chaps always do), said “Bong” (which +means, very well), and presently came back. + +I'M BLEST IF HE DIDN'T BRING MASTER A PLATE OF CABBITCH! Would you +bleave it, that now, in the nineteenth sentry, when they say +there's schoolmasters abroad, these stewpid French jackasses are so +extonishingly ignorant as to call a CABBIDGE a SHOO! Never, never let +it be said, after this, that these benighted, souperstitious, misrabble +SAVIDGES, are equill, in any respex, to the great Brittish people. The +moor I travvle, the moor I see of the world, and other natiums, I am +proud of my own, and despise and deplore the retchid ignorance of the +rest of Yourup. + + . . . . . . + +My remarks on Parris you shall have by an early opportunity. Me and +Deuceace played some curious pranx there, I can tell you. + + + + +MR. DEUCEACE AT PARIS. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +THE TWO BUNDLES OF HAY. + + +Lieutenant-General Sir George Griffin, K.C.B., was about seventy-five +years old when he left this life, and the East Ingine army, of which he +was a distinguished ornyment. Sir George's first appearance in Injar was +in the character of a cabbingboy to a vessel; from which he rose to be +clerk to the owners at Calcutta, from which he became all of a sudden a +capting in the Company's service; and so rose and rose, until he rose to +be a leftenant-general, when he stopped rising altogether--hopping the +twig of this life, as drummers, generals, dustmen, and emperors must do. + +Sir George did not leave any mal hair to perpetuate the name of Griffin. +A widow of about twenty-seven, and a daughter avaritching twenty-three, +was left behind to deploar his loss, and share his proppaty. On old Sir +George's deth, his interesting widdo and orfan, who had both been with +him in Injer, returned home--tried London for a few months, did not +like it, and resolved on a trip to Paris; where very small London people +become very great ones, if they've money, as these Griffinses had. +The intelligent reader need not be told that Miss Griffin was not the +daughter of Lady Griffin; for though marritches are made tolrabbly early +in Injer, people are not quite so precoashoos as all that: the fact is, +Lady G. was Sir George's second wife. I need scarcely add, that Miss +Matilda Griffin wos the offspring of his fust marritch. + +Miss Leonora Kicksey, a ansum, lively Islington gal, taken out to +Calcutta, and, amongst his other goods, very comfortably disposed of +by her uncle, Capting Kicksey, was one-and-twenty when she married Sir +George at seventy-one; and the 13 Miss Kickseys, nine of whom kep a +school at Islington (the other 4 being married variously in the city), +were not a little envius of my lady's luck, and not a little proud of +their relationship to her. One of 'em, Miss Jemima Kicksey, the oldest, +and by no means the least ugly of the sett, was staying with her +ladyship, and gev me all the partecklars. Of the rest of the famly, +being of a lo sort, I in course no nothink; MY acquaintance, thank my +stars, don't lie among them, or the likes of them. + +Well, this Miss Jemima lived with her younger and more fortnat sister, +in the qualaty of companion, or toddy. Poar thing! I'd a soon be a gally +slave, as lead the life she did! Every body in the house despised her; +her ladyship insulted her; the very kitching gals scorned and flouted +her. She roat the notes, she kep the bills, she made the tea, she +whipped the chocklate, she cleaned the canary birds, and gev out the +linning for the wash. She was my lady's walking pocket, or rettycule; +and fetched and carried her handkercher, or her smell-bottle, like a +well-bred spaniel. All night, at her ladyship's swarries, she thumped +kidrills (nobody ever thought of asking HER to dance!); when Miss +Griffing sung, she played the piano, and was scolded because the singer +was out of tune; abommanating dogs, she never drove out without her +ladyship's puddle in her lap; and, reglarly unwell in a carriage, she +never got anything but the back seat. Poar Jemima! I can see her now +in my lady's SECKND-BEST old clothes (the ladies'-maids always got the +prime leavings): a liloc sattn gown, crumpled, blotched, and greasy; a +pair of white sattn shoes, of the color of Inger rubber; a faded yellow +velvet hat, with a wreath of hartifishl flowers run to sead, and a bird +of Parrowdice perched on the top of it, melumcolly and moulting, with +only a couple of feathers left in his unfortunate tail. + +Besides this ornyment to their saloon, Lady and Miss Griffin kept a +number of other servants in the kitching; 2 ladies'-maids; 2 footmin, +six feet high each, crimson coats, goold knots, and white cassymear +pantyloons; a coachmin to match; a page: and a Shassure, a kind +of servant only known among forriners, and who looks more like a +major-general than any other mortial, wearing a cock-hat, a unicorn +covered with silver lace, mustashos, eplets, and a sword by his side. +All these to wait upon two ladies; not counting a host of the fair sex, +such as cooks, scullion, housekeepers, and so forth. + +My Lady Griffin's lodging was at forty pound a week, in a grand sweet +of rooms in the Plas Vandome at Paris. And, having thus described their +house, and their servants' hall, I may give a few words of description +concerning the ladies themselves. + +In the fust place, and in coarse, they hated each other. My lady was +twenty-seven--a widdo of two years--fat, fair, and rosy. A slow, quiet, +cold-looking woman, as those fair-haired gals generally are, it seemed +difficult to rouse her either into likes or dislikes; to the former, +at least. She never loved any body but ONE, and that was herself. She +hated, in her calm, quiet way, almost every one else who came near +her--every one, from her neighbor, the duke, who had slighted her at +dinner, down to John the footman, who had torn a hole in her train. I +think this woman's heart was like one of them lithograffic stones, you +CAN'T RUB OUT ANY THING when once it's drawn or wrote on it; nor could +you out of her ladyship's stone--heart, I mean--in the shape of an +affront, a slight, or real, or phansied injury. She boar an exlent, +irreprotchable character, against which the tongue of scandal never +wagged. She was allowed to be the best wife posbill--and so she was; but +she killed her old husband in two years, as dead as ever Mr. Thurtell +killed Mr. William Weare. She never got into a passion, not she--she +never said a rude word; but she'd a genius--a genius which many women +have--of making A HELL of a house, and tort'ring the poor creatures of +her family, until they were wellnigh drove mad. + +Miss Matilda Griffin was a good deal uglier, and about as amiable as +her mother-in-law. She was crooked, and squinted; my lady, to do her +justice, was straight, and looked the same way with her i's. She was +dark, and my lady was fair--sentimental, as her ladyship was cold. My +lady was never in a passion--Miss Matilda always; and awfille were the +scenes which used to pass between these 2 women, and the wickid, wickid +quarls which took place. Why did they live together? There was the +mistry. Not related, and hating each other like pison, it would surely +have been easier to remain seprat, and so have detested each other at a +distans. + +As for the fortune which old Sir George had left, that, it was clear, +was very considrabble--300 thousand lb. at the least, as I have heard +say. But nobody knew how it was disposed of. Some said that her ladyship +was sole mistriss of it, others that it was divided, others that she had +only a life inkum, and that the money was all to go (as was natral) to +Miss Matilda. These are subjix which are not praps very interesting to +the British public, but were mighty important to my master, the +Honrable Algernon Percy Deuceace, esquire, barrister-at-law, etsettler, +etsettler. + +For I've forgot to inform you that my master was very intimat in this +house; and that we were now comfortably settled at the Hotel Mirabew +(pronounced Marobo in French), in the Rew delly Pay, at Paris. We had +our cab, and two riding horses; our banker's book, and a thousand pound +for a balantz at Lafitt's; our club at the corner of the Rew Gramong; +our share in a box at the oppras; our apartments, spacious and elygant; +our swarries at court; our dinners at his excellency Lord Bobtail's +and elsewhere. Thanks to poar Dawkins's five thousand pound, we were as +complete gentlemen as any in Paris. + +Now my master, like a wise man as he was, seaing himself at the head of +a smart sum of money, and in a country where his debts could not bother +him, determined to give up for the present every think like gambling--at +least, high play; as for losing or winning a ralow of Napoleums at whist +or ecarty, it did not matter; it looks like money to do such things, and +gives a kind of respectabilaty. “But as for play, he wouldn't--oh no! +not for worlds!--do such a thing.” He HAD played, like other young men +of fashn, and won and lost [old fox! he didn't say he had PAID]; but he +had given up the amusement, and was now determined, he said, to live +on his inkum. The fact is, my master was doing his very best to act +the respectable man: and a very good game it is, too; but it requires a +precious great roag to play it. + +He made his appearans reglar at church--me carrying a handsome large +black marocky Prayer-book and Bible, with the psalms and lessons marked +out with red ribbings; and you'd have thought, as I graivly laid the +volloms down before him, and as he berried his head in his nicely +brushed hat, before service began, that such a pious, proper morl, young +nobleman was not to be found in the whole of the peeridge. It was a +comfort to look at him. Efry old tabby and dowyger at my Lord Bobtail's +turned up the wights of their i's when they spoke of him, and vowed they +had never seen such a dear, daliteful, exlent young man. What a good son +he must be, they said; and oh, what a good son-in-law! He had the pick +of all the English gals at Paris before we had been there 3 months. But, +unfortunately, most of them were poar; and love and a cottidge was not +quite in master's way of thinking. + +Well, about this time my Lady Griffin and Miss G. made their appearants +at Parris, and master, who was up to snough, very soon changed his noat. +He sate near them at chapple, and sung hims with my lady: he danced with +'em at the embassy balls; he road with them in the Boy de Balong and +the Shandeleasies (which is the French High Park); he roat potry in Miss +Griffin's halbim, and sang jewets along with her and Lady Griffin; he +brought sweet-meats for the puddle-dog; he gave money to the footmin, +kissis and gloves to the sniggering ladies'-maids; he was sivvle even +to poar Miss Kicksey; there wasn't a single soal at the Griffinses that +didn't adoar this good young man. + +The ladies, if they hated befoar, you may be sure detested each other +now wuss than ever. There had been always a jallowsy between them: +miss jellows of her mother-in-law's bewty; madam of miss's espree: miss +taunting my lady about the school at Islington, and my lady sneering at +miss for her squint and her crookid back. And now came a stronger caws. +They both fell in love with Mr. Deuceace--my lady, that is to say, as +much as she could, with her cold selfish temper. She liked Deuceace, who +amused her and made her laff. She liked his manners, his riding, and his +good loox; and being a pervinew herself had a dubble respect for real +aristocratick flesh and blood. Miss's love, on the contry, was all flams +and fury. She'd always been at this work from the time she had been at +school, where she very nigh run away with a Frentch master; next with +a footman (which I may say, in confidence, is by no means unnatral or +unusyouall, as I COULD SHOW IF I LIKED); and so had been going on sins +fifteen. She reglarly flung herself at Deuceace's head--such sighing, +crying, and ogling, I never see. Often was I ready to bust out laffin, +as I brought master skoars of rose-colored billydoos, folded up like +cockhats, and smellin like barber's shops, which this very tender young +lady used to address to him. Now, though master was a scoundrill and no +mistake, he was a gentlemin, and a man of good breading; and miss CAME +A LITTLE TOO STRONG (pardon the wulgarity of the xpression) with her +hardor and attachmint, for one of his taste. Besides, she had a crookid +spine, and a squint; so that (supposing their fortns tolrabbly equal) +Deuceace reely preferred the mother-in-law. + +Now, then, it was his bisniss to find out which had the most money. With +an English famly this would have been easy: a look at a will at Doctor +Commons'es would settle the matter at once. But this India naybob's +will was at Calcutty, or some outlandish place; and there was no getting +sight of a coppy of it. I will do Mr. Algernon Deuceace the justass to +say, that he was so little musnary in his love for Lady Griffin, that he +would have married her gladly, even if she had ten thousand pounds less +than Miss Matilda. In the meantime, his plan was to keep 'em both in +play, until he could strike the best fish of the two--not a difficult +matter for a man of his genus: besides, Miss was hooked for certain. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +“HONOR THY FATHER.” + + +I said that my master was adoard by every person in my Lady Griffin's +establishmint. I should have said by every person excep one,--a young +French gnlmn, that is, who, before our appearants, had been mighty +partiklar with my lady, ockupying by her side exackly the same +pasition which the Honrable Mr. Deuceace now held. It was bewtiffle +and headifying to see how coolly that young nobleman kicked the poar +Shevalliay de L'Orge out of his shoes, and how gracefully he himself +stept into 'em. Munseer de L'Orge was a smart young French jentleman, +of about my master's age and good looks, but not possest of half my +master's impidince. Not that that quallaty is uncommon in France; +but few, very few, had it to such a degree as my exlent employer, Mr. +Deuceace. Besides De L'Orge was reglarly and reely in love with Lady +Griffin, and master only pretending: he had, of coars, an advantitch, +which the poor Frentchman never could git. He was all smiles and gaty, +while Delorge was ockward and melumcolly. My master had said twenty +pretty things to Lady Griffin, befor the shevalier had finished +smoothing his hat, staring at her, and sighing fit to bust his weskit. +O luv, luv! THIS isn't the way to win a woman, or my name's not Fitzroy +Yellowplush! Myself, when I begun my carear among the fair six, I +was always sighing and moping, like this poar Frenchman. What was the +consquints? The foar fust women I adoared lafft at me, and left me for +something more lively. With the rest I have edopted a diffrent game, +and with tolerable suxess, I can tell you. But this is eggatism, which I +aboar. + +Well, the long and the short of it is, that Munseer Ferdinand Hyppolite +Xavier Stanislas, Shevalier de L'Orge, was reglar cut out by Munseer +Algernon Percy Deuceace, Exquire. Poar Ferdinand did not leave the +house--he hadn't the heart to do that--nor had my lady the desire +to dismiss him. He was usefle in a thousand different ways, gitting +oppra-boxes, and invitations to French swarries, bying gloves, and O de +Colong, writing French noats, and such like. Always let me recommend +an English famly, going to Paris, to have at least one young man of the +sort about them. Never mind how old your ladyship is, he will make love +to you; never mind what errints you send him upon, he'll trot off and do +them. Besides, he's always quite and well-dresst, and never drinx moar +than a pint of wine at dinner, which (as I say) is a pint to consider. +Such a conveniants of a man was Munseer de L'Orge--the greatest use +and comfort to my lady posbill; if it was but to laff at his bad +pronunciatium of English, it was somethink amusink; the fun was to pit +him against poar Miss Kicksey, she speakin French, and he our naytif +British tong. + +My master, to do him justace, was perfickly sivvle to this poar young +Frenchman; and having kicked him out of the place which he occupied, +sertingly treated his fallen anymy with every respect and consideration. +Poar modist, down-hearted little Ferdinand adoured my lady as a goddice! +and so he was very polite likewise to my master--never venturing once to +be jellows of him, or to question my Lady Griffin's right to change her +lover, if she choase to do so. + +Thus, then, matters stood; master had two strinx to his bo, and might +take either the widdo or the orfn, as he preferred: com bong lwee +somblay, as the Frentch say. His only pint was to discover how the money +was disposed off, which evidently belonged to one or other, or boath. +At any rate he was sure of one; as sure as any mortal man can be in this +sublimary spear, where nothink is suttin except unsertnty. + + . . . . . . + +A very unixpected insident here took place, which in a good deal changed +my master's calkylations. + +One night, after conducting the two ladies to the oppra, after suppink +of white soop, sammy-deperdrow, and shampang glassy (which means eyced), +at their house in the Plas Vandom, me and master droav hoam in the cab, +as happy as possbill. + +“Chawls you d----d scoundrel,” says he to me (for he was in an exlent +humer), “when I'm married, I'll dubbil your wagis.” + +This he might do, to be sure, without injuring himself, seeing that he +had us yet never paid me any. But, what then? Law bless us! things +would be at a pretty pass if we suvvants only lived on our WAGIS; our +puckwisits is the thing, and no mistake. + +I ixprest my gratitude as best I could; swoar that it wasn't for wagis +I served him--that I would as leaf weight upon him for nothink; and that +never, never, so long as I livd, would I, of my own accord, part from +such an exlent master. By the time these two spitches had been made--my +spitch and his--we arrived at the “Hotel Mirabeu;” which, us every body +knows, ain't very distant from the Plas Vandome. Up we marched to our +apartmince, me carrying the light and the cloax, master hummink a hair +out of the oppra, as merry as a lark. + +I opened the door of our salong. There was lights already in the room; +an empty shampang bottle roalin on the floar, another on the table; near +which the sofy was drawn, and on it lay a stout old genlmn, smoaking +seagars as if he'd bean in an inn tap-room. + +Deuceace (who abommunates seagars, as I've already shown) bust into +a furious raige against the genlmn, whom he could hardly see for the +smoak; and, with a number of oaves quite unnecessary to repeat, asked +him what bisniss he'd there. + +The smoaking chap rose, and, laying down his seagar, began a ror of +laffin, and said, “What! Algy my boy! don't you know me?” + +The reader may praps recklect a very affecting letter which was +published in the last chapter of these memoars; in which the writer +requested a loan of five hundred pound from Mr. Algernon Deuceace, and +which boar the respected signatur of the Earl of Crabs, Mr. Deuceace's +own father. It was that distinguished arastycrat who was now smokin and +laffin in our room. + +My Lord Crabs was, as I preshumed, about 60 years old. A stowt, burly, +red-faced, bald-headed nobleman, whose nose seemed blushing at what his +mouth was continually swallowing; whose hand, praps, trembled a little; +and whose thy and legg was not quite so full or as steddy as they +had been in former days. But he was a respecktabble, fine-looking old +nobleman; and though it must be confest, 1/2 drunk when we fust made our +appearance in the salong, yet by no means moor so than a reel noblemin +ought to be. + +“What, Algy my boy!” shouts out his lordship, advancing and seasing +master by the hand, “doan't you know your own father?” + +Master seemed anythink but overhappy. “My lord,” says he, looking very +pail, and speakin rayther slow, “I didn't--I confess--the unexpected +pleasure--of seeing you in Paris. The fact is, sir, said he,” recovering +himself a little; “the fact is, there was such a confounded smoke of +tobacco in the room, that I really could not see who the stranger was +who had paid me such an unexpected visit.” + +“A bad habit, Algernon; a bad habit,” said my lord, lighting another +seagar: “a disgusting and filthy practice, which you, my dear child, +will do well to avoid. It is at best, dear Algernon, but a nasty, idle +pastime, unfitting a man as well for mental exertion as for respectable +society; sacrificing, at once, the vigor of the intellect and the graces +of the person. By-the-by, what infernal bad tobacco they have, too, in +this hotel. Could not you send your servant to get me a few seagars at +the Cafe de Paris? Give him a five-franc piece, and let him go at once, +that's a good fellow.” + +Here his lordship hiccupt, and drank off a fresh tumbler of shampang. +Very sulkily, master drew out the coin, and sent me on the errint. + +Knowing the Cafe de Paris to be shut at that hour, I didn't say a word, +but quietly establisht myself in the ante-room; where, as it happened +by a singler coinstdints, I could hear every word of the conversation +between this exlent pair of relatifs. + +“Help yourself, and get another bottle,” says my lord, after a sollum +paws. My poar master, the king of all other compnies in which he moved, +seamed here but to play secknd fiddill, and went to the cubbard, +from which his father had already igstracted two bottils of his prime +Sillary. + +He put it down before his father, coft, spit, opened the windows, +stirred the fire, yawned, clapt his hand to his forehead, and suttnly +seamed as uneezy as a genlmn could be. But it was of no use; the old +one would not budg. “Help yourself,” says he again, “and pass me the +bottil.” + +“You are very good, father,” says master; “but really, I neither drink +nor smoke.” + +“Right, my boy: quite right. Talk about a good conscience in this +life--a good STOMACK is everythink. No bad nights, no headachs--eh? +Quite cool and collected for your law studies in the morning?--eh?” And +the old nobleman here grinned, in a manner which would have done creddit +to Mr. Grimoldi. + +Master sate pale and wincing, as I've seen a pore soldier under the cat. +He didn't anser a word. His exlent pa went on, warming as he continued +to speak, and drinking a fresh glas at evry full stop. + +“How you must improve, with such talents and such principles! Why, +Algernon, all London talks of your industry and perseverance: you're not +merely a philosopher, man; hang it! you've got the philosopher's stone. +Fine rooms, fine horses, champagne, and all for 200 a year!” + +“I presume, sir,” says my master, “that you mean the two hundred a year +which YOU pay me?” + +“The very sum, my boy; the very sum!” cries my lord, laffin as if he +would die. “Why, that's the wonder! I never pay the two hundred a year, +and you keep all this state up upon nothing. Give me your secret, O you +young Trismegistus! Tell your old father how such wonders can be worked, +and I will--yes, then, upon my word, I will--pay you your two hundred a +year!” + +“Enfin, my lord,” says Mr. Deuceace, starting up, and losing all +patience, “will you have the goodness to tell me what this visit means? +You leave me to starve, for all you care; and you grow mighty facetious +because I earn my bread. You find me in prosperity, and--” + +“Precisely, my boy; precisely. Keep your temper, and pass that bottle. +I find you in prosperity; and a young gentleman of your genius and +acquirements asks me why I seek your society? Oh, Algernon! Algernon! +this is not worthy of such a profound philosopher. WHY do I seek you? +Why, because you ARE in prosperity, O my son! else, why the devil should +I bother my self about you? Did I, your poor mother, or your family, +ever get from you a single affectionate feeling? Did we, or any other of +your friends or intimates, ever know you to be guilty of a single honest +or generous action? Did we ever pretend any love for you, or you for us? +Algernon Deuceace, you don't want a father to tell you that you are +a swindler and a spendthrift! I have paid thousands for the debts of +yourself and your brothers; and, if you pay nobody else, I am determined +you shall repay me. You would not do it by fair means, when I wrote +to you and asked you for a loan of money. I knew you would not. Had +I written again to warn you of my coming, you would have given me the +slip; and so I came, uninvited, to FORCE you to repay me. THAT'S why I +am here, Mr. Algernon; and so help yourself and pass the bottle.” + +After this speach, the old genlmn sunk down on the sofa, and puffed +as much smoke out of his mouth as if he'd been the chimley of a +steam-injian. I was pleased, I confess, with the sean, and liked to see +this venrabble and virtuous old man a-nocking his son about the hed; +just as Deuceace had done with Mr. Richard Blewitt, as I've before +shown. Master's face was, fust, red-hot; next, chawk-white: and then +sky-blew. He looked, for all the world, like Mr. Tippy Cooke in the +tragady of Frankinstang. At last, he mannidged to speek. + +“My lord,” says he, “I expected when I saw you that some such scheme was +on foot. Swindler and spendthrift as I am, at least it is but a family +failing; and I am indebted for my virtues to my father's precious +example. Your lordship has, I perceive, added drunkenness to the list +of your accomplishments, and, I suppose, under the influence of that +gentlemanly excitement, has come to make these preposterous propositions +to me. When you are sober, you will, perhaps, be wise enough to know, +that, fool as I may be, I am not such a fool as you think me; and that +if I have got money, I intend to keep it--every farthing of it, though +you were to be ten times as drunk, and ten times as threatening as you +are now.” + +“Well, well, my boy,” said Lord Crabs, who seemed to have been half +asleep during his son's oratium, and received all his sneers and +surcasms with the most complete good-humor; “well, well, if you will +resist, tant pis pour toi. I've no desire to ruin you, recollect, and +am not in the slightest degree angry but I must and will have a thousand +pounds. You had better give me the money at once; it will cost you more +if you don't.” + +“Sir,” says Mr. Deuceace, “I will be equally candid. I would not give +you a farthing to save you from--” + +Here I thought proper to open the doar, and, touching my hat, said, “I +have been to the Cafe de Paris, my lord, but the house is shut.” + +“Bon: there's a good lad; you may keep the five francs. And now, get me +a candle and show me down stairs.” + +But my master seized the wax taper. “Pardon me, my lord,” says he. +“What! a servant do it, when your son is in the room? Ah, par exemple, +my dear father,” said he, laughing, “you think there is no politeness +left among us.” And he led the way out. + +“Good night, my dear boy,” said Lord Crabs. + +“God bless you, sir,” says he. “Are you wrapped warm? Mind the step!” + +And so this affeckshnate pair parted. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MINEWVRING. + + +Master rose the nex morning with a dismal countinants--he seamed to +think that his pa's visit boded him no good. I heard him muttering at +his brexfast, and fumbling among his hundred pound notes; once he had +laid a parsle of them aside (I knew what he meant), to send 'em to his +father. “But no,” says he at last, clutching them all up together again, +and throwing them into his escritaw, “what harm can he do me? If he is +a knave, I know another who's full as sharp. Let's see if we cannot beat +him at his own weapons.” With that Mr. Deuceace drest himself in his +best clothes, and marched off to the Plas Vandom, to pay his cort to the +fair widdo and the intresting orfn. + +It was abowt ten o'clock, and he propoased to the ladies, on seeing +them, a number of planns for the day's rackryation. Riding in the Body +Balong, going to the Twillaries to see King Looy Disweet (who was then +the raining sufferin of the French crownd) go to chapple, and, finely, +a dinner at 5 o'clock at the Caffy de Parry; whents they were all to +adjourn, to see a new peace at the theatre of the Pot St. Martin, called +Sussannar and the Elders. + +The gals agread to everythink, exsep the two last prepositiums. “We have +an engagement, my dear Mr. Algernon,” said my lady. “Look--a very kind +letter from Lady Bobtail.” And she handed over a pafewmd noat from that +exolted lady. It ran thus:-- + + +“FBG. ST. HONORE, Thursday, Feb. 15, 1817. + +“MY DEAR LADY GRIFFIN,--It is an age since we met. Harassing public +duties occupy so much myself and Lord Bobtail, that we have scarce time +to see our private friends; among whom, I hope, my dear Lady Griffin +will allow me to rank her. Will you excuse so unceremonious an +invitation, and dine with us at the embassy to-day? We shall be en +petite comite, and shall have the pleasure of hearing, I hope, some of +your charming daughter's singing in the evening. I ought, perhaps, to +have addressed a separate, note to dear Miss Griffin; but I hope she +will pardon a poor diplomate, who has so many letters to write, you +know. + +“Farewell till seven, when I POSITIVELY MUST see you both. Ever, dearest +Lady Griffin, your affectionate + +“ELIZA BOBTAIL.” + + +Such a letter from the ambassdriss, brot by the ambasdor's Shassure, and +sealed with his seal of arms, would affect anybody in the middling ranx +of life. It droav Lady Griffin mad with delight; and, long before my +master's arrivle, she'd sent Mortimer and Fitzclarence, her two footmin, +along with a polite reply in the affummatiff. + +Master read the noat with no such fealinx of joy. He felt that there +was somethink a-going on behind the seans, and, though he could not tell +how, was sure that some danger was near him. That old fox of a father of +his had begun his M'Inations pretty early! + +Deuceace handed back the letter; sneared, and poohd, and hinted that +such an invitation was an insult at best (what he called a pees ally); +and, the ladies might depend upon it, was only sent because Lady Bobtail +wanted to fill up two spare places at her table. But Lady Griffin and +Miss would not have his insinwations; they knew too fu lords ever to +refuse an invitatium from any one of them. Go they would; and poor +Deuceace must dine alone. After they had been on their ride, and had had +their other amusemince, master came back with them, chatted, and laft; +he was mighty sarkastix with my lady; tender and sentrymentle with Miss; +and left them both in high sperrits to perform their twollet, before +dinner. + +As I came to the door (for I was as famillyer as a servnt of the house), +as I came into the drawing-room to announts his cab, I saw master very +quietly taking his pocket-book (or pot fool, as the French call it) and +thrusting it under one of the cushinx of the sofa. What game is this? +thinx I. + +Why, this was the game. In abowt two hours, when he knew the ladies were +gon, he pretends to be vastly anxious abowt the loss of his potfolio; +and back he goes to Lady Griffinses to seek for it there. + +“Pray,” says he, on going in, “ask Miss Kicksey if I may see her for a +single moment.” And down comes Miss Kicksey, quite smiling, and happy to +see him. + +“Law, Mr. Deuceace!” says she, trying to blush as hard as ever she +could, “you quite surprise me! I don't know whether I ought, really, +being alone, to admit a gentleman.” + +“Nay, don't say so, dear Miss Kicksey! for do you know, I came here for +a double purpose--to ask about a pocket-book which I have lost, and may, +perhaps, have left here; and then, to ask you if you will have the great +goodness to pity a solitary bachelor, and give him a cup of your nice +tea?” + +NICE TEA! I thot I should have split; for I'm blest if master had eaten +a morsle of dinner! + +Never mind: down to tea they sat. “Do you take cream and sugar, dear +sir?” says poar Kicksey, with a voice as tender as a tuttle-duff. + +“Both, dearest Miss Kicksey!” answers master; who stowed in a power of +sashong and muffinx which would have done honor to a washawoman. + +I shan't describe the conversation that took place betwigst master and +this young lady. The reader, praps, knows y Deuceace took the trouble to +talk to her for an hour, and to swallow all her tea. He wanted to find +out from her all she knew about the famly money matters, and settle at +once which of the two Griffinses he should marry. + +The poar thing, of cors, was no match for such a man as my master. In +a quarter of an hour, he had, if I may use the igspression, “turned her +inside out.” He knew everything that she knew; and that, poar creature, +was very little. There was nine thousand a year, she had heard say, +in money, in houses, in banks in Injar, and what not. Boath the ladies +signed papers for selling or buying, and the money seemed equilly +divided betwigst them. + +NINE THOUSAND A YEAR! Deuceace went away, his cheex tingling, his heart +beating. He, without a penny, could nex morning, if he liked, be master +of five thousand per hannum! + +Yes. But how? Which had the money, the mother or the daughter? All the +tea-drinking had not taught him this piece of nollidge; and Deuceace +thought it a pity that he could not marry both. + + . . . . . . + +The ladies came back at night, mightaly pleased with their reception at +the ambasdor's; and, stepping out of their carridge, bid coachmin drive +on with a gentlemin who had handed them out--a stout old gentlemin, who +shook hands most tenderly at parting, and promised to call often upon my +Lady Griffin. He was so polite, that he wanted to mount the stairs with +her ladyship; but no, she would not suffer it. “Edward,” says she to +the coachmin, quite loud, and pleased that all the people in the hotel +should hear her, “you will take the carriage, and drive HIS LORDSHIP +home.” Now, can you guess who his lordship was? The Right Hon. the +Earl of Crabs, to be sure; the very old genlmn whom I had seen on such +charming terms with his son the day before. Master knew this the nex +day, and began to think he had been a fool to deny his pa the thousand +pound. + +Now, though the suckmstansies of the dinner at the ambasdor's only came +to my years some time after, I may as well relate 'em here, word for +word, as they was told me by the very genlmn who waited behind Lord +Crabseses chair. + +There was only a “petty comity” at dinner, as Lady Bobtail said; and my +Lord Crabs was placed betwigst the two Griffinses, being mighty ellygant +and palite to both. “Allow me,” says he to Lady G. (between the soop and +the fish), “my dear madam, to thank you--fervently thank you for your +goodness to my poor boy. Your ladyship is too young to experience, but, +I am sure, far too tender not to understand the gratitude which must +fill a fond parent's heart for kindness shown to his child. Believe +me,” says my lord, looking her full and tenderly in the face, “that the +favors you have done to another have been done equally to myself, and +awaken in my bosom the same grateful and affectionate feelings with +which you have already inspired my son Algernon.” + +Lady Griffin blusht, and droopt her head till her ringlets fell into her +fish-plate: and she swallowed Lord Crabs's flumry just as she would so +many musharuins. My lord (whose powers of slack-jaw was notoarious) nex +addrast another spitch to Miss Griffin. He said he'd heard how Deuceace +was SITUATED. Miss blusht--what a happy dog he was--Miss blusht crimson, +and then he sighed deeply, and began eating his turbat and lobster +sos. Master was a good un at flumry, but, law bless you! he was no moar +equill to the old man than a mole-hill is to a mounting. Before the +night was over, he had made as much progress as another man would in a +ear. One almost forgot his red nose and his big stomick, and his wicked +leering i's, in his gentle insiniwating woice, his fund of annygoats, +and, above all, the bewtific, morl, religious, and honrabble toan of his +genral conservation. Praps you will say that these ladies were, for such +rich pipple, mightaly esaly captivated; but recklect, my dear sir, that +they were fresh from Injar,--that they'd not sean many lords,--that +they adoared the peeridge, as every honest woman does in England who has +proper feelinx, and has read the fashnabble novvles,--and that here at +Paris was their fust step into fashnabble sosiaty. + +Well, after dinner, while Miss Matilda was singing “Die tantie,” or “Dip +your chair,” or some of them sellabrated Italyian hairs (when she began +this squall, hang me if she'd ever stop), my lord gets hold of Lady +Griffin again, and gradgaly begins to talk to her in a very different +strane. + +“What a blessing it is for us all,” says he, “that Algernon has found a +friend so respectable as your ladyship.” + +“Indeed, my lord; and why? I suppose I am not the only respectable +friend that Mr. Deuceace has?” + +“No, surely; not the only one he HAS HAD: his birth, and, permit me to +say, his relationship to myself, have procured him many. But--” (here my +lord heaved a very affecting and large sigh). + +“But what?” says my lady, laffing at the igspression of his dismal face. +“You don't mean that Mr. Deuceace has lost them or is unworthy of them?” + +“I trust not, my dear madam, I trust not; but he is wild, thoughtless, +extravagant, and embarrassed: and you know a man under these +circumstances is not very particular as to his associates.” + +“Embarrassed? Good heavens! He says he has two thousand a year left him +by a god-mother; and he does not seem even to spend his income--a very +handsome independence, too, for a bachelor.” + +My lord nodded his head sadly, and said,--“Will your ladyship give me +your word of honor to be secret? My son has but a thousand a year, which +I allow him, and is heavily in debt. He has played, madam, I fear; +and for this reason I am so glad to hear that he is in a respectable +domestic circle, where he may learn, in the presence of far greater and +purer attractions, to forget the dice-box, and the low company which has +been his bane.” + +My Lady Griffin looked very grave indeed. Was it true? Was Deuceace +sincere in his professions of love, or was he only a sharper wooing her +for her money? Could she doubt her informer? his own father, and, what's +more, a real flesh and blood pear of parlyment? She determined she would +try him. Praps she did not know she had liked Deuceace so much, until +she kem to feel how much she should HATE him if she found he'd been +playing her false. + +The evening was over, and back they came, as wee've seen,--my lord +driving home in my lady's carridge, her ladyship and Miss walking up +stairs to their own apartmince. + +Here, for a wonder, was poar Miss Kicksey quite happy and smiling, and +evidently full of a secret,--something mighty pleasant, to judge from +her loox. She did not long keep it. As she was making tea for the ladies +(for in that house they took a cup regular before bedtime), “Well, my +lady,” says she, “who do you think has been to drink tea with me?” Poar +thing, a frendly face was a event in her life--a tea-party quite a hera! + +“Why, perhaps, Lenoir my maid,” says my lady, looking grave. “I wish, +Miss Kicksey, you would not demean yourself by mixing with my domestics. +Recollect, madam, that you are sister to Lady Griffin.” + +“No, my lady, it was not Lenoir; it was a gentleman, and a handsome +gentleman, too.” + +“Oh, it was Monsieur de l'Orge, then,” says Miss; “he promised to bring +me some guitar-strings.” + +“No, nor yet M. de l'Orge. He came, but was not so polite as to ask +for me. What do you think of your own beau, the Honorable Mr. Algernon +Deuceace;” and, so saying, poar Kicksey clapped her hands together, and +looked as joyfle as if she'd come in to a fortin. + +“Mr. Deuceace here; and why, pray?” says my lady, who recklected all +that his exlent pa had been saying to her. + +“Why, in the first place, he had left his pocket-book, and in the +second, he wanted, he said, a dish of my nice tea; which he took, and +stayed with me an hour, or moar.” + +“And pray, Miss Kicksey,” said Miss Matilda, quite contempshusly, “what +may have been the subject of your conversation with Mr. Algernon? Did +you talk politics, or music, or fine arts, or metaphysics?” Miss M. +being what was called a blue (as most hump-backed women in sosiaty are), +always made a pint to speak on these grand subjects. + +“No, indeed; he talked of no such awful matters. If he had, you know, +Matilda, I should never have understood him. First we talked about the +weather, next about muffins and crumpets. Crumpets, he said, he liked +best; and then we talked” (here Miss Kicksey's voice fell) “about poor +dear Sir George in heaven! what a good husband he was, and--” + +“What a good fortune he left, eh, Miss Kicksey?” says my lady, with a +hard, snearing voice, and a diabollicle grin. + +“Yes, dear Leonora, he spoke so respectfully of your blessed husband, +and seemed so anxious about you and Matilda, it was quite charming to +hear him, dear man!” + +“And pray, Miss Kicksey, what did you tell him?” + +“Oh, I told him that you and Leonora had nine thousand a year, and--” + +“What then?” + +“Why, nothing; that is all I know. I am sure I wish I had ninety,” says +poor Kicksey, her eyes turning to heaven. + +“Ninety fiddlesticks! Did not Mr. Deuceace ask how the money was left, +and to which of us?” + +“Yes; but I could not tell him.” + +“I knew it!” says my lady, slapping down her tea-cup,--“I knew it!” + +“Well!” says Miss Matilda, “and why not, Lady Griffin? There is no +reason you should break your tea-cup, because Algernon asks a harmless +question. HE is not mercenary; he is all candor, innocence, generosity! +He is himself blessed with a sufficient portion of the world's goods to +be content; and often and often has he told me he hoped the woman of his +choice might come to him without a penny, that he might show the purity +of his affection.” + +“I've no doubt,” says my lady. “Perhaps the lady of his choice is Miss +Matilda Griffin!” and she flung out of the room, slamming the door, and +leaving Miss Matilda to bust into tears, as was her reglar custom, and +pour her loves and woas into the buzzom of Miss Kicksey. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +“HITTING THE NALE ON THE HEDD.” + + +The nex morning, down came me and master to Lady Griffinses,--I amusing +myself with the gals in the antyroom, he paying his devours to the +ladies in the salong. Miss was thrumming on her gitter; my lady was +before a great box of papers, busy with accounts, bankers' books, +lawyers' letters, and what not. Law bless us! it's a kind of bisniss I +should like well enuff; especially when my hannual account was seven or +eight thousand on the right side, like my lady's. My lady in this house +kep all these matters to herself. Miss was a vast deal too sentrimentle +to mind business. + +Miss Matilda's eyes sparkled as master came in; she pinted gracefully to +a place on the sofy beside her, which Deuceace took. My lady only looked +up for a moment, smiled very kindly, and down went her head among the +papers agen, as busy as a B. + +“Lady Griffin has had letters from London,” says Miss, “from nasty +lawyers and people. Come here and sit by me, you naughty man you!” + +And down sat master. “Willingly,” says he, “my dear Miss Griffin; why, I +declare, it is quits a tete-a-tete.” + +“Well,” says Miss (after the prillimnary flumries, in coarse), “we met a +friend of yours at the embassy, Mr. Deuceace.” + +“My father, doubtless; he is a great friend of the ambassador, and +surprised me myself by a visit the night before last.” + +“What a dear delightful old man! how he loves you, Mr. Deuceace!” + +“Oh, amazingly!” says master, throwing his i's to heaven. + +“He spoke of nothing but you, and such praises of you!” + +Master breathed more freely. “He is very good, my dear father; but +blind, as all fathers are, he is so partial and attached to me.” + +“He spoke of you being his favorite child, and regretted that you were +not his eldest son. 'I can but leave him the small portion of a younger +brother,' he said; 'but never mind, he has talents, a noble name, and an +independence of his own.'” + +“An independence? yes, oh yes; I am quite independent of my father.” + +“Two thousand pounds a year left you by your godmother; the very same +you told us you know.” + +“Neither more nor less,” says master, bobbing his head; “a sufficiency, +my dear Miss Griffin,--to a man of my moderate habits an ample +provision.” + +“By-the-by,” cries out Lady Griffin, interrupting the conversation, “you +who are talking about money matters there, I wish you would come to the +aid of poor ME! Come, naughty boy, and help me out with this long long +sum.” + +DIDN'T HE GO--that's all! My i, how his i's shone, as he skipt across +the room, and seated himself by my lady! + +“Look!” said she, “my agents write me over that they have received a +remittance of 7,200 rupees, at 2s. 9d. a rupee. Do tell me what the sum +is, in pounds and shillings;” which master did with great gravity. + +“Nine hundred and ninety pounds. Good; I daresay you are right. I'm sure +I can't go through the fatigue to see. And now comes another question. +Whose money is this, mine or Matilda's? You see it is the interest of a +sum in India, which we have not had occasion to touch; and, according to +the terms of poor Sir George's will, I really don't know how to dispose +of the money except to spend it. Matilda, what shall we do with it?” + +“La, ma'am, I wish you would arrange the business yourself.” + +“Well, then, Algernon, YOU tell me;” and she laid her hand on his and +looked him most pathetickly in the face. + +“Why,” says he, “I don't know how Sir George left his money; you must +let me see his will, first.” + +“Oh, willingly.” + +Master's chair seemed suddenly to have got springs in the cushns; he was +obliged to HOLD HIMSELF DOWN. + +“Look here, I have only a copy, taken by my hand from Sir George's own +manuscript. Soldiers, you know, do not employ lawyers much, and this +was written on the night before going into action.” And she read, “'I, +George Griffin,' &c. &c.--you know how these things begin--'being now of +sane mind'--um, um, um,--'leave to my friends, Thomas Abraham Hicks, +a colonel in the H. E. I. Company's Service, and to John Monro +Mackirkincroft (of the house of Huffle, Mackirkincroft, and Dobbs, at +Calcutta), the whole of my property, to be realized as speedily as they +may (consistently with the interests of the property), in trust for +my wife, Leonora Emilia Griffin (born L. E. Kicksey), and my only +legitimate child, Matilda Griffin. The interest resulting from such +property to be paid to them, share and share alike; the principal +to remain untouched, in the names of the said T. A. Hicks and J. M. +Mackirkincroft, until the death of my wife, Leonora Emilia Griffin, when +it shall be paid to my daughter, Matilda Griffin, her heirs, executors, +or assigns.'” + +“There,” said my lady, “we won't read any more; all the rest is stuff. +But now you know the whole business, tell us what is to be done with the +money?” + +“Why, the money, unquestionably, should be divided between you.” + +“Tant mieux, say I; I really thought it had been all Matilda's.” + + . . . . . . + +There was a paws for a minit or two after the will had been read. Master +left the desk at which he had been seated with her ladyship, paced up +and down the room for a while, and then came round to the place where +Miss Matilda was seated. At last he said, in a low, trembling voice,-- + +“I am almost sorry, my dear Lady Griffin, that you have read that will +to me; for an attachment such as mine must seem, I fear, mercenary, +when the object of it is so greatly favored by worldly fortune. Miss +Griffin--Matilda! I know I may say the word; your dear eyes grant me the +permission. I need not tell you, or you, dear mother-in-law, how long, +how fondly, I have adored you. My tender, my beautiful Matilda, I will +not affect to say I have not read your heart ere this, and that I have +not known the preference with which you have honored me. SPEAK IT, +dear girl! from your own sweet lips: in the presence of an affectionate +parent, utter the sentence which is to seal my happiness for life. +Matilda, dearest Matilda! say, oh say, that you love me!” + +Miss M. shivered, turned pail, rowled her eyes about, and fell on +master's neck, whispering hodibly, “I DO!” + +My lady looked at the pair for a moment with her teeth grinding, her i's +glaring, her busm throbbing, and her face chock white; for all the world +like Madam Pasty, in the oppra of “Mydear” (when she's goin to mudder +her childring, you recklect); and out she flounced from the room, +without a word, knocking down poar me, who happened to be very near the +dor, and leaving my master along with his crook-back mistress. + +I've repotted the speech he made to her pretty well. The fact is, I got +it in a ruff copy; only on the copy it's wrote, “Lady Griffin, Leonora!” + instead of “Miss Griffin, Matilda,” as in the abuff, and so on. + +Master had hit the right nail on the head this time, he thought: but his +adventors an't over yet. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE GRIFFIN'S CLAWS. + + +Well, master had hit the right nail on the head this time: thanx to +luck--the crooked one, to be sure, but then it had the GOOLD NOBB, which +was the part Deuceace most valued, as well he should; being a connyshure +as to the relletiff valyou of pretious metals, and much preferring +virging goold like this to poor old battered iron like my Lady Griffin. + +And so, in spite of his father (at which old noblemin Mr. Deuceace now +snapt his fingers), in spite of his detts (which, to do him Justas, had +never stood much in his way), and in spite of his povatty, idleness, +extravagans, swindling, and debotcheries of all kinds (which an't +GENERALLY very favorable to a young man who has to make his way in the +world); in spite of all, there he was, I say, at the topp of the trea, +the fewcher master of a perfect fortun, the defianced husband of a +fool of a wife. What can mortial man want more? Vishns of ambishn now +occupied his soal. Shooting boxes, oppra boxes, money boxes always full; +hunters at Melton; a seat in the house of Commins: heaven knows what! +and not a poar footman, who only describes what he's seen, and can't, in +cors, pennytrate into the idears and the busms of men. + +You may be shore that the three-cornered noats came pretty thick now +from the Griffinses. Miss was always a-writing them befoar; and now, +nite, noon, and mornink, breakfast, dinner, and sopper, in they came, +till my pantry (for master never read 'em, and I carried 'em out) was +puffickly intolrabble from the odor of musk, ambygrease, bargymot, and +other sense with which they were impregniated. Here's the contense +of three on 'em, which I've kep in my dex these twenty years as +skeewriosities. Faw! I can smel 'em at this very minit, as I am copying +them down. + + +BILLY DOO. No. I. + +“Monday morning, 2 o'clock. + +“'Tis the witching hour of night. Luna illumines my chamber, and falls +upon my sleepless pillow. By her light I am inditing these words to +thee, my Algernon. My brave and beautiful, my soul's lord! when shall +the time come when the tedious night shall not separate us, nor the +blessed day? Twelve! one! two! I have heard the bells chime, and the +quarters, and never cease to think of my husband. My adored Percy, +pardon the girlish confession,--I have kissed the letter at this place. +Will thy lips press it too, and remain for a moment on the spot which +has been equally saluted by your + +“MATILDA?” + + +This was the FUST letter, and was brot to our house by one of the poar +footmin, Fitzclarence, at sicks o'clock in the morning. I thot it was +for life and death, and woak master at that extraornary hour, and gave +it to him. I shall never forgit him, when he red it; he cramped it up, +and he cust and swoar, applying to the lady who roat, the genlmn that +brought it, and me who introjuiced it to his notice such a collection of +epitafs as I seldum hered, excep at Billinxgit. The fact is thiss; for a +fust letter, miss's noat was RATHER too strong and sentymentle. But that +was her way; she was always reading melancholy stoary books--“Thaduse of +Wawsaw,” the “Sorrows of MacWhirter,” and such like. + +After about 6 of them, master never yoused to read them, but handid them +over to me, to see if there was anythink in them which must be answered, +in order to kip up appearuntses. The next letter is + + +No. II. + +“BELOVED! to what strange madnesses will passion lead one! Lady Griffin, +since your avowal yesterday, has not spoken a word to your poor Matilda; +has declared that she will admit no one (heigho! not even you, my +Algernon); and has locked herself in her own dressing-room. I do believe +that she is JEALOUS, and fancies that you were in love with HER! Ha, ha! +I could have told her ANOTHER TALE--n'est-ce pas? Adieu, adieu, adieu! A +thousand thousand million kisses! + +“M. G. + +“Monday afternoon, 2 o'clock.” + + +There was another letter kem before bedtime; for though me and master +called at the Griffinses, we wairnt aloud to enter at no price. Mortimer +and Fitzclarence grin'd at me, as much as to say we were going to be +relations; but I don't spose master was very sorry when he was obleached +to come back without seeing the fare objict of his affeckshns. + +Well, on Chewsdy there was the same game; ditto on Wensday; only, when +we called there, who should we see but our father, Lord Crabs, who was +waiving his hand to Miss Kicksey, and saying HE SHOULD BE BACK TO DINNER +AT 7, just as me and master came up the stares. There was no admittns +for us though. “Bah! bah! never mind,” says my lord, taking his +son affeckshnately by the hand. “What, two strings to your bow; ay, +Algernon? The dowager a little jealous, miss a little lovesick. But my +lady's fit of anger will vanish, and I promise you, my boy, that you +shall see your fair one to-morrow.” + +And so saying, my lord walked master down stares, looking at him as +tender and affeckshnat, and speaking to him as sweet as posbill. Master +did not know what to think of it. He never new what game his old father +was at; only he somehow felt that he had got his head in a net, in spite +of his suxess on Sunday. I knew it--I knew it quite well, as soon as I +saw the old genlmn igsammin him by a kind of smile which came over his +old face, and was somethink betwigst the angellic and the direbollicle. + +But master's dowts were cleared up nex day and every thing was bright +again. At brexfast, in comes a note with inclosier, boath of witch I +here copy:-- + + +No. IX. + +“Thursday morning. + +“Victoria, Victoria! Mamma has yielded at last; not her consent to our +union, but her consent to receive you as before; and has promised +to forget the past. Silly woman, how could she ever think of you as +anything but the lover of your Matilda? I am in a whirl of delicious +joy and passionate excitement. I have been awake all this long night, +thinking of thee, my Algernon, and longing for the blissful hour of +meeting. + +“Come! M. G.” + + +This is the inclosier from my lady:-- + + +“I will not tell you that your behavior on Sunday did not deeply shock +me. I had been foolish enough to think of other plans, and to fancy your +heart (if you had any) was fixed elsewhere than on one at whose foibles +you have often laughed with me, and whose person at least cannot have +charmed you. + +“My step-daughter will not, I presume, marry without at least going +through the ceremony of asking my consent; I cannot, as yet, give it. +Have I not reason to doubt whether she will be happy in trusting herself +to you? + +“But she is of age, and has the right to receive in her own house all +those who may be agreeable to her,--certainly you, who are likely to be +one day so nearly connected with her. If I have honest reason to believe +that your love for Miss Griffin is sincere; if I find in a few months +that you yourself are still desirous to marry her, I can, of course, +place no further obstacles in your way. + +“You are welcome, then, to return to our hotel. I cannot promise to +receive you as I did of old; you would despise me if I did. I can +promise, however, to think no more of all that has passed between +us, and yield up my own happiness for that of the daughter of my dear +husband. + +“L. E. G.” + + +Well, now, an't this a manly, straitforard letter enough, and natral +from a woman whom we had, to confess the truth, treated most scuvvily? +Master thought so, and went and made a tender, respeckful speach to Lady +Griffin (a little flumry costs nothink). Grave and sorroflle he kist her +hand, and, speakin in a very low adgitayted voice, calld Hevn to witness +how he deplord that his conduct should ever have given rise to such an +unfornt ideer; but if he might offer her esteem, respect, the warmest +and tenderest admiration, he trusted she would accept the same, and a +deal moar flumry of the kind, with dark, sollum glansis of the eyes, and +plenty of white pockit-hankercher. + +He thought he'd make all safe. Poar fool! he was in a net--sich a net as +I never yet see set to ketch a roag in. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE JEWEL. + + +The Shevalier de l'Orge, the young Frenchmin whom I wrote of in my last, +who had been rather shy of his visits while master was coming it so +very strong, now came back to his old place by the side of Lady Griffin: +there was no love now, though, betwigst him and master, although the +shevallier had got his lady back agin; Deuceace being compleatly devoted +to his crookid Veanus. + +The shevalier was a little, pale, moddist, insinifishnt creature; and I +shoodn't have thought, from his appearants, would have the heart to do +harm to a fli, much less to stand befor such a tremendious tiger and +fire-eater as my master. But I see putty well, after a week, from his +manner of going on--of speakin at master, and lookin at him, and olding +his lips tight when Deuceace came into the room, and glaring at him with +his i's, that he hated the Honrabble Algernon Percy. + +Shall I tell you why? Because my Lady Griffin hated him: hated him wuss +than pison, or the devvle, or even wuss than her daughter-in-law. Praps +you phansy that the letter you have juss red was honest; praps you +amadgin that the sean of the reading of the will came on by mere chans, +and in the reglar cors of suckmstansies: it was all a GAME, I tell +you--a reglar trap; and that extrodnar clever young man, my master, as +neatly put his foot into it, as ever a pocher did in fesnt preserve. + +The shevalier had his q from Lady Griffin. When Deuceace went off the +feald, back came De l'Orge to her feet, not a witt less tender than +befor. Por fellow, por fellow! he really loved this woman. He might as +well have foln in love with a bore-constructor! He was so blinded and +beat by the power wich she had got over him, that if she told him black +was white he'd beleave it, or if she ordered him to commit murder, he'd +do it: she wanted something very like it, I can tell you. + +I've already said how, in the fust part of their acquaintance, master +used to laff at De l'Orge's bad Inglish, and funny ways. The little +creature had a thowsnd of these; and being small, and a Frenchman, +master, in cors, looked on him with that good-humored kind of contemp +which a good Brittn ot always to show. He rayther treated him like an +intelligent munky than a man, and ordered him about as if he'd bean my +lady's footman. + +All this munseer took in very good part, until after the quarl betwigst +master and Lady Griffin; when that lady took care to turn the tables. +Whenever master and miss were not present (as I've heard the servants +say), she used to laff at shevalliay for his obeajance and sivillatty +to master. For her part, she wondered how a man of his birth could act +a servnt: how any man could submit to such contemsheous behavior from +another; and then she told him how Deuceace was always snearing at him +behind his back; how, in fact, he ought to hate him corjaly, and how it +was suttaly time to show his sperrit. + +Well, the poar little man beleaved all this from his hart, and was angry +or pleased, gentle or quarlsum, igsactly as my lady liked. There got +to be frequint rows betwigst him and master; sharp words flung at each +other across the dinner-table; dispewts about handing ladies their +smeling-botls, or seeing them to their carridge; or going in and out of +a roam fust, or any such nonsince. + +“For hevn's sake,” I heerd my lady, in the midl of one of these tiffs, +say, pail, and the tears trembling in her i's, “do, do be calm, Mr. +Deuceace. Monsieur de l'Orge, I beseech you to forgive him. You are, +both of you, so esteemed, lov'd, by members of this family, that for its +peace as well as your own, you should forbear to quarrel.” + +It was on the way to the Sally Mangy that this brangling had begun, and +it ended jest as they were seating themselves. I shall never forgit poar +little De l'Orge's eyes, when my lady said “both of you.” He stair'd +at my lady for a momint, turned pail, red, look'd wild, and then, going +round to master, shook his hand as if he would have wrung it off. Mr. +Deuceace only bow'd and grin'd, and turned away quite stately; Miss +heaved a loud O from her busm, and looked up in his face with an +igspreshn jest as if she could have eat him up with love; and the little +shevalliay sate down to his soop-plate, and wus so happy, that I'm blest +if he wasn't crying! He thought the widdow had made her declyration, and +would have him; and so thought Deuceace, who look'd at her for some time +mighty bitter and contempshus, and then fell a-talking with Miss. + +Now, though master didn't choose to marry Lady Griffin, as he might have +done, he yet thought fit to be very angry at the notion of her marrying +anybody else; and so, consquintly, was in a fewry at this confision +which she had made regarding her parshaleaty for the French shevaleer. + +And this I've perseaved in the cors of my expearants through life, that +when you vex him, a roag's no longer a roag: you find him out at onst +when he's in a passion, for he shows, as it ware, his cloven foot the +very instnt you tread on it. At least, this is what YOUNG roags do; it +requires very cool blood and long practis to get over this pint, and not +to show your pashn when you feel it and snarl when you are angry. Old +Crabs wouldn't do it; being like another noblemin, of whom I heard the +Duke of Wellington say, while waiting behind his graci's chair, that if +you were kicking him from behind, no one standing before him would know +it, from the bewtifle smiling igspreshn of his face. Young master hadn't +got so far in the thief's grammer, and, when he was angry, show'd it. +And it's also to be remarked (a very profownd observatin for a footmin, +but we have i's though we DO wear plush britchis), it's to be remarked, +I say, that one of these chaps is much sooner maid angry than another, +because honest men yield to other people, roags never do; honest men +love other people, roags only themselves; and the slightest thing which +comes in the way of thir beloved objects sets them fewrious. Master +hadn't led a life of gambling, swindling, and every kind of debotch to +be good-tempered at the end of it, I prommis you. + +He was in a pashun, and when he WAS in a pashn, a more insalent, +insuffrable, overbearing broot didn't live. + +This was the very pint to which my lady wished to bring him; for I must +tell you, that though she had been trying all her might to set master +and the shevalliay by the years, she had suxeaded only so far as to +make them hate each profowndly: but somehow or other, the 2 cox wouldn't +FIGHT. + +I doan't think Deuceace ever suspected any game on the part of her +ladyship, for she carried it on so admirally, that the quarls which +daily took place betwigst him and the Frenchman never seemed to come +from her; on the contry, she acted as the reglar pease-maker between +them, as I've just shown in the tiff which took place at the door of +the Sally Mangy. Besides, the 2 young men, though reddy enough to snarl, +were natrally unwilling to come to bloes. I'll tell you why: being +friends, and idle, they spent their mornins as young fashnabbles +genrally do, at billiads, fensing, riding, pistle-shooting, or some such +improoving study. In billiads, master beat the Frenchman hollow (and +had won a pretious sight of money from him: but that's neither here nor +there, or, as the French say, ontry noo); at pistle-shooting, master +could knock down eight immidges out of ten, and De l'Orge seven; and in +fensing, the Frenchman could pink the Honorable Algernon down evry one +of his weskit buttns. They'd each of them been out more than onst, for +every Frenchman will fight, and master had been obleag'd to do so in the +cors of his bisniss; and knowing each other's curridg, as well as the +fact that either could put a hundrid bolls running into a hat at 30 +yards, they wairnt very willing to try such exparrymence upon their own +hats with their own heads in them. So you see they kep quiet, and only +grould at each other. + +But to-day Deuceace was in one of his thundering black humers; and when +in this way he wouldn't stop for man or devvle. I said that he walked +away from the shevalliay, who had given him his hand in his sudden bust +of joyfle good-humor; and who, I do bleave, would have hugd a she-bear, +so very happy was he. Master walked away from him pale and hotty, and, +taking his seat at table, no moor mindid the brandishments of Miss +Griffin, but only replied to them with a pshaw, or a dam at one of us +servnts, or abuse of the soop, or the wine; cussing and swearing like a +trooper, and not like a well-bred son of a noble British peer. + +“Will your ladyship,” says he, slivering off the wing of a pully ally +bashymall, “allow me to help you?” + +“I thank you! no; but I will trouble Monsieur de l'Orge.” And towards +that gnlmn she turned, with a most tender and fasnating smile. + +“Your ladyship has taken a very sudden admiration for Mr. de l'Orge's +carving. You used to like mine once.” + +“You are very skilful; but to-day, if you will allow me, I will partake +of something a little simpler.” + +The Frenchman helped; and, being so happy, in cors, spilt the gravy. +A great blob of brown sos spurted on to master's chick, and myandrewed +down his shert-collar and virging-white weskit. + +“Confound you!” says he, “M. de l'Orge, you have done this on purpose.” + And down went his knife and fork, over went his tumbler of wine, a deal +of it into poar Miss Griffinses lap, who looked fritened and ready to +cry. + +My lady bust into a fit of laffin, peel upon peel, as if it was the best +joak in the world. De l'Orge giggled and grin'd too. “Pardong,” says he; +“meal pardong, mong share munseer.” * And he looked as if he would have +done it again for a penny. + + * In the long dialogues, we have generally ventured to + change the peculiar spelling of our friend Mr. Yellowplush. + +The little Frenchman was quite in extasis; he found himself all of a +suddn at the very top of the trea; and the laff for onst turned against +his rivle: he actialy had the ordassaty to propose to my lady in English +to take a glass of wine. + +“Veal you,” says he, in his jargin, “take a glas of Madere viz me, mi +ladi?” And he looked round, as if he'd igsackly hit the English manner +and pronunciation. + +“With the greatest pleasure,” says Lady G., most graciously nodding at +him, and gazing at him as she drank up the wine. She'd refused master +before, and THIS didn't increase his good-humer. + +Well, they went on, master snarling, snapping, and swearing, making +himself, I must confess, as much of a blaggard as any I ever see; and +my lady employing her time betwigst him and the shevalliay, doing every +think to irritate master, and flatter the Frenchmn. Desert came: and by +this time, Miss was stock-still with fright, the chevaleer half tipsy +with pleasure and gratafied vannaty, my lady puffickly raygent with +smiles and master bloo with rage. + +“Mr. Deuceace,” says my lady, in a most winning voice, after a little +chaffing (in which she only worked him up moar and moar), “may I trouble +you for a few of those grapes? they look delicious.” + +For answer, master seas'd hold of the grayp dish, and sent it sliding +down the table to De l'Orge; upsetting, in his way, fruit-plates, +glasses, dickanters, and heaven knows what. + +“Monsieur de l'Orge,” says he, shouting out at the top of his voice, +“have the goodness to help Lady Griffin. She wanted MY grapes long ago, +and has found out they are sour!” + + . . . . . . + +There was a dead paws of a moment or so. + + . . . . . . + +“Ah!” says my lady, “vous osez m'insulter, devant mes gens, dans ma +propre maison--c'est par trop fort, monsieur.” And up she got, and flung +out of the room. Miss followed her, screeching out, “Mamma--for God's +sake--Lady Griffin!” and here the door slammed on the pair. + +Her ladyship did very well to speak French. DE L'ORGE WOULD NOT HAVE +UNDERSTOOD HER ELSE; as it was he heard quite enough; and as the +door clikt too, in the presents of me, and Messeers Mortimer and +Fitzclarence, the family footmen, he walks round to my master, and hits +him a slap on the face, and says, “prends ca, menteur et lache!” which +means, “Take that, you liar and coward!”--rayther strong igspreshns for +one genlmn to use to another. + +Master staggered back and looked bewildered; and then he gave a kind +of a scream, and then he made a run at the Frenchman, and then me and +Mortimer flung ourselves upon him, whilst Fitzclarence embraced the +shevalliay. + +“A demain!” says he, clinching his little fist, and walking away, not +very sorry to git off. + +When he was fairly down stares, we let go of master: who swallowed +a goblit of water, and then pawsing a little and pullout his pus, he +presented to Messeers Mortimer and Fitzclarence a luydor each. “I will +give you five more to-morrow,” says he, “if you will promise to keep +this secrit.” + +And then he walked in to the ladies. “If you knew,” says he, going up +to Lady Griffin, and speaking very slow (in cors we were all at the +keyhole), “the pain I have endured in the last minute, in consequence of +the rudeness and insolence of which I have been guilty to your ladyship, +you would think my own remorse was punishment sufficient, and would +grant me pardon.” + +My lady bowed, and said she didn't wish for explanations. Mr. Deuceace +was her daughter's guest, and not hers; but she certainly would never +demean herself by sitting again at table with him. And so saying out she +boltid again. + +“Oh! Algernon! Algernon!” says Miss, in teers, “what is this dreadful +mystery--these fearful shocking quarrels? Tell me, has anything +happened? Where, where is the chevalier?” + +Master smiled and said, “Be under no alarm, my sweetest Matilda. De +l'Orge did not understand a word of the dispute; he was too much in +love for that. He is but gone away for half an hour, I believe; and will +return to coffee.” + +I knew what master's game was, for if miss had got a hinkling of the +quarrel betwigst him and the Frenchman, we should have had her screeming +at the “Hotel Mirabeu,” and the juice and all to pay. He only stopt +for a few minnits and cumfitted her, and then drove off to his friend, +Captain Bullseye, of the Rifles; with whom, I spose, he talked over this +unplesnt bisniss. We fownd, at our hotel, a note from De l'Orge, saying +where his secknd was to be seen. + +Two mornings after there was a parrowgraf in Gallynanny's Messinger, +which I hear beg leaf to transcribe:-- + + +“FEARFUL DUEL.--Yesterday morning, at six o'clock, a meeting took place, +in the Bois de Boulogne, between the Hon. A. P. D--ce-ce, a younger son +of the Earl of Cr-bs, and the Chevalier de l'O---. The chevalier was +attended by Major de M---, of the Royal Guard, and the Hon. Mr. D--- +by Captain B-lls-ye, of the British Rifle Corps. As far as we have been +able to learn the particulars of this deplorable affair, the dispute +originated in the house of a lovely lady (one of the most brilliant +ornaments of our embassy), and the duel took place on the morning +ensuing. + +“The chevalier (the challenged party, and the most accomplished amateur +swordsman in Paris) waived his right of choosing the weapons, and the +combat took place with pistols. + +“The combatants were placed at forty paces, with directions to advance +to a barrier which separated them only eight paces. Each was furnished +with two pistols. Monsieur de l'O--- fired almost immediately, and the +ball took effect in the left wrist of his antagonist, who dropped the +pistol which he held in that hand. He fired, however, directly with his +right, and the chevalier fell to the ground, we fear mortally wounded. A +ball has entered above his hip-joint, and there is very little hope that +he can recover. + +“We have heard that the cause of this desperate duel was a blow which +the chevalier ventured to give to the Hon. Mr. D. If so, there is some +reason for the unusual and determined manner in which the duel was +fought. + +“Mr. Deu--a-e returned to his hotel; whither his excellent father, the +Right Hon. Earl of Cr-bs, immediately hastened on hearing of the sad +news, and is now bestowing on his son the most affectionate parental +attention. The news only reached his lordship yesterday at noon, while +at breakfast with his Excellency Lord Bobtail, our ambassador. The noble +earl fainted on receiving the intelligence; but in spite of the shock to +his own nerves and health, persisted in passing last night by the couch +of his son.” + + +And so he did. “This is a sad business, Charles,” says my lord to me, +after seeing his son, and settling himself down in our salong. “Have you +any segars in the house? And hark ye, send me up a bottle of wine and +some luncheon. I can certainly not leave the neighborhood of my dear +boy.” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE CONSQUINSIES. + + +The shevalliay did not die, for the ball came out of its own accord, in +the midst of a violent fever and inflamayshn which was brot on by the +wound. He was kept in bed for 6 weeks though, and did not recover for a +long time after. + +As for master, his lot, I'm sorry to say, was wuss than that of his +advisary. Inflammation came on too; and, to make an ugly story short, +they were obliged to take off his hand at the rist. + +He bore it, in cors, like a Trojin, and in a month he too was well, and +his wound heel'd; but I never see a man look so like a devvle as he used +sometimes, when he looked down at the stump! + +To be sure, in Miss Griffinses eyes, this only indeerd him the mor. She +sent twenty noats a day to ask for him, calling him her beloved, her +unfortunat, her hero, her wictim, and I dono what. I've kep some of the +noats, as I tell you, and curiously sentimentle they are, beating the +sorrows of MacWhirter all to nothing. + +Old Crabs used to come offen, and consumed a power of wine and seagars +at our house. I bleave he was at Paris because there was an exycution +in his own house in England; and his son was a sure find (as they say) +during his illness, and couldn't deny himself to the old genlmn. His +eveninx my lord spent reglar at Lady Griffin's; where, as master was +ill, I didn't go any more now, and where the shevalier wasn't there to +disturb him. + +“You see how that woman hates you, Deuceace,” says my lord, one day, in +a fit of cander, after they had been talking about Lady Griffin: “SHE +HAS NOT DONE WITH YOU YET, I tell you fairly.” + +“Curse her,” says master, in a fury, lifting up his maim'd arm--“curse +her! but I will be even with her one day. I am sure of Matilda: I took +care to put that beyond the reach of a failure. The girl must marry me, +for her own sake.” + +“FOR HER OWN SAKE! O ho! Good, good!” My lord lifted his i's, and said +gravely, “I understand, my dear boy: it is an excellent plan.” + +“Well,” says master, grinning fearcely and knowingly at his exlent old +father, “as the girl is safe, what harm can I fear from the fiend of a +step-mother?” + +My lord only gev a long whizzle, and, soon after, taking up his hat, +walked off. I saw him sawnter down the Plas Vandome, and go in quite +calmly to the old door of Lady Griffinses hotel. Bless his old face! +such a puffickly good-natured, kind-hearted, merry, selfish old +scoundrel, I never shall see again. + +His lordship was quite right in saying to master that “Lady Griffin +hadn't done with him.” No moar she had. But she never would have thought +of the nex game she was going to play, IF SOMEBODY HADN'T PUT HER UP TO +IT. Who did? If you red the above passidge, and saw how a venrabble old +genlmn took his hat, and sauntered down the Plas Vandome (looking hard +and kind at all the nussary-maids--buns they call them in France--in +the way), I leave you to guess who was the author of the nex scheam: a +woman, suttnly, never would have pitcht on it. + +In the fuss payper which I wrote concerning Mr. Deuceace's adventers, +and his kind behayvior to Messrs. Dawkins and Blewitt, I had the honor +of laying before the public a skidewl of my master's detts, in witch was +the following itim: + + + “Bills of xchange and I.O.U.'s, 4963L. 0s. 0d.” + + +The I.O.U.se were trifling, say a thowsnd pound. The bills amountid to +four thowsnd moar. + +Now, the lor is in France, that if a genlmn gives these in England, and +a French genlmn gits them in any way, he can pursew the Englishman who +has drawn them, even though he should be in France. Master did not know +this fact--laboring under a very common mistak, that, when onst out of +England, he might wissle at all the debts he left behind him. + +My Lady Griffin sent over to her slissators in London, who made +arrangemints with the persons who possest the fine collection of +ortografs on stampt paper which master had left behind him; and they +were glad enuff to take any oppertunity of getting back their money. + +One fine morning, as I was looking about in the court-yard of our +hotel, talking to the servant-gals, as was my reglar custom, in order to +improve myself in the French languidge, one of them comes up to me and +says, “Tenez, Monsieur Charles, down below in the office there is +a bailiff, with a couple of gendarmes, who is asking for your +master--a-t-il des dettes par hasard?” + +I was struck all of a heap--the truth flasht on my mind's hi. +“Toinette,” says I, for that was the gal's name--“Toinette,” says +I, giving her a kiss, “keep them for two minits, as you valyou my +affeckshn;” and then I gave her another kiss, and ran up stares to our +chambers. Master had now pretty well recovered of his wound, and was +aloud to drive abowt: it was lucky for him that he had the strength to +move. “Sir, sir,” says I, “the bailiffs are after you, and you must run +for your life.” + +“Bailiff?” says he: “nonsense! I don't, thank heaven, owe a shilling to +any man.” + +“Stuff, sir,” says I, forgetting my respeck; “don't you owe money in +England? I tell you the bailiffs are here, and will be on you in a +moment.” + +As I spoke, cling cling, ling ling, goes the bell of the antyshamber, +and there they were sure enough! + +What was to be done? Quick as litening, I throws off my livry coat, +claps my goold lace hat on master's head, and makes him put on my livry. +Then I wraps myself up in his dressing-gown, and lolling down on the +sofa, bids him open the dor. + +There they were--the bailiff--two jondarms with him--Toinette, and an +old waiter. When Toinette sees master, she smiles, and says: “Dis donc, +Charles! ou est donc ton maitre? Chez lui, n'est-ce pas? C'est le jeune +a monsieur,” says she, curtsying to the bailiff. + +The old waiter was just a-going to blurt out, “Mais ce n'est pas!” when +Toinette stops him, and says, “Laissez donc passer ces messieurs, vieux +bete;” and in they walk, the 2 jon d'arms taking their post in the hall. + +Master throws open the salong doar very gravely, and touching MY hat +says, “Have you any orders about the cab, sir?” + +“Why, no, Chawls,” says I; “I shan't drive out to-day.” + +The old bailiff grinned, for he understood English (having had plenty +of English customers), and says in French, as master goes out, “I think, +sir, you had better let your servant get a coach, for I am under the +painful necessity of arresting you, au nom de la loi, for the sum of +ninety-eight thousand seven hundred francs, owed by you to the Sieur +Jacques Francois Lebrun, of Paris;” and he pulls out a number of bills, +with master's acceptances on them sure enough. + +“Take a chair, sir,” says I; and down he sits; and I began to chaff him, +as well as I could, about the weather, my illness, my sad axdent, having +lost one of my hands, which was stuck into my busum, and so on. + +At last, after a minnit or two, I could contane no longer, and bust out +in a horse laff. + +The old fellow turned quite pail, and began to suspect somethink. +“Hola!” says he; “gendarmes! a moi! a moi! Je suis floue, vole,” which +means, in English, that he was reglar sold. + +The jondarmes jumped into the room, and so did Toinette and the +waiter. Grasefly rising from my arm-chare, I took my hand from my +dressing-gownd, and, flinging it open, stuck up on the chair one of the +neatest legs ever seen. + +I then pinted majestickly--to what do you think?--to my PLUSH TITES! +those sellabrated inigspressables which have rendered me famous in +Yourope. + +Taking the hint, the jondarmes and the servnts rord out laffing; and +so did Charles Yellowplush, Esquire, I can tell you. Old Grippard the +bailiff looked as if he would faint in his chare. + +I heard a kab galloping like mad out of the hotel-gate, and knew then +that my master was safe. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE END OF MR. DEUCEACE'S HISTORY. LIMBO. + + +My tail is droring rabidly to a close; my suvvice with Mr. Deuceace +didn't continyou very long after the last chapter, in which I described +my admiral strattyjam, and my singlar self-devocean. There's very few +servnts, I can tell you, who'd have thought of such a contrivance, and +very few moar would have eggsycuted it when thought of. + +But, after all, beyond the trifling advantich to myself in selling +master's roab de sham, which you, gentle reader, may remember I woar, +and in dixcovering a fipun note in one of the pockets,--beyond this, +I say, there was to poar master very little advantich in what had been +done. It's true he had escaped. Very good. But Frans is not like Great +Brittin; a man in a livry coat, with 1 arm, is pretty easily known, and +caught, too, as I can tell you. + +Such was the case with master. He coodn leave Paris, moarover, if he +would. What was to become, in that case, of his bride--his unchbacked +hairis? He knew that young lady's temprimong (as the Parishers say) too +well to let her long out of his site. She had nine thousand a yer. +She'd been in love a duzn times befor, and mite be agin. The Honrabble +Algernon Deuceace was a little too wide awake to trust much to the +constnsy of so very inflammable a young creacher. Heavn bless us, it was +a marycle she wasn't earlier married! I do bleave (from suttn seans +that past betwigst us) that she'd have married me, if she hadn't been +sejuiced by the supearor rank and indianuity of the genlmn in whose +survace I was. + +Well, to use a commin igspreshn, the beaks were after him. How was he to +manitch? He coodn get away from his debts, and he wooden quit the fare +objict of his affeckshns. He was ableejd, then, as the French say, to +lie perdew,--going out at night, like a howl out of a hivy-bush, and +returning in the daytime to his roast. For its a maxum in France (and I +wood it were followed in Ingland), that after dark no man is lible for +his detts; and in any of the royal gardens--the Twillaries, the Pally +Roil, or the Lucksimbug, for example--a man may wander from sunrise to +evening, and hear nothing of the ojus dunns: they an't admitted into +these places of public enjyment and rondyvoo any more than dogs; the +centuries at the garden-gates having orders to shuit all such. + +Master, then, was in this uncomfrable situation--neither liking to go +nor to stay! peeping out at nights to have an interview with his miss; +ableagd to shuffle off her repeated questions as to the reason of all +this disgeise, and to talk of his two thowsnd a year jest as if he had +it and didn't owe a shilling in the world. + +Of course, now, he began to grow mighty eager for the marritch. + +He roat as many noats as she had done befor; swoar against delay and +cerymony; talked of the pleasures of Hyming, the ardship that the ardor +of two arts should be allowed to igspire, the folly of waiting for the +consent of Lady Griffin. She was but a step-mother, and an unkind one. +Miss was (he said) a major, might marry whom she liked; and suttnly had +paid Lady G. quite as much attention as she ought, by paying her the +compliment to ask her at all. + +And so they went on. The curious thing was, that when master was pressed +about his cause for not coming out till night-time, he was misterus; +and Miss Griffin, when asked why she wooden marry, igsprest, or rather, +DIDN'T igspress, a simlar secrasy. Wasn't it hard? the cup seemed to be +at the lip of both of 'em, and yet somehow, they could not manitch to +take a drink. + +But one morning, in reply to a most desprat epistol wrote by my master +over night, Deuceace, delighted, gits an answer from his soal's beluffd, +which ran thus:-- + + +MISS GRIFFIN TO THE HON. A. P. DEUCEACE. + +“DEAREST,--You say you would share a cottage with me; there is no need, +luckily, for that! You plead the sad sinking of your spirits at +our delayed union. Beloved, do you think MY heart rejoices at our +separation? You bid me disregard the refusal of Lady Griffin, and tell +me that I owe her no further duty. + +“Adored Algernon! I can refuse you no more. I was willing not to lose a +single chance of reconciliation with this unnatural step-mother. Respect +for the memory of my sainted father bid me do all in my power to gain +her consent to my union with you: nay, shall I own it? prudence dictated +the measure; for to whom should she leave the share of money accorded to +her by my father's will but to my father's child. + +“But there are bounds beyond which no forbearance can go; and, thank +heaven, we have no need of looking to Lady Griffin for sordid wealth: we +have a competency without her. Is it not so, dearest Algernon? + +“Be it as you wish, then, dearest, bravest, and best. Your poor Matilda +has yielded to you her heart long ago; she has no longer need to keep +back her name. Name the hour, and I will delay no more; but seek for +refuge in your arms from the contumely and insult which meet me ever +here. + +“MATILDA. + +“P.S. Oh, Algernon! if you did but know what a noble part your dear +father has acted throughout, in doing his best endeavors to further +our plans, and to soften Lady Griffin! It is not his fault that she is +inexorable as she is. I send you a note sent by her to Lord Crabs; we +will laugh at it soon, n'est-ce pas?” + + +II. + +“MY LORD,--In reply to your demand for Miss Griffin's hand, in favor of +your son, Mr. Algernon Deuceace, I can only repeat what I before have +been under the necessity of stating to you,--that I do not believe a +union with a person of Mr. Deuceace's character would conduce to my +stepdaughter's happiness, and therefore REFUSE MY CONSENT. I will +beg you to communicate the contents of this note to Mr. Deuceace; and +implore you no more to touch upon a subject which you must be aware is +deeply painful to me. + +“I remain your lordship's most humble servant, + +“L. E. GRIFFIN. + +“THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF CRABS.” + + +“Hang her ladyship!” says my master, “what care I for it?” As for the +old lord who'd been so afishous in his kindness and advice, master +recknsiled that pretty well, with thinking that his lordship knew he was +going to marry ten thousand a year, and igspected to get some share of +it; for he roat back the following letter to his father, as well as a +flaming one to Miss: + + +“Thank you, my dear father, for your kindness in that awkward business. +You know how painfully I am situated just now, and can pretty well guess +BOTH THE CAUSES of my disquiet. A marriage with my beloved Matilda will +make me the happiest of men. The dear girl consents, and laughs at +the foolish pretensions of her mother-in-law. To tell you the truth, I +wonder she yielded to them so long. Carry your kindness a step further, +and find for us a parson, a license, and make us two into one. We are +both major, you know; so that the ceremony of a guardian's consent is +unnecessary. + +“Your affectionate + +“ALGERNON DEUCEACE. + +“How I regret that difference between us some time back! Matters are +changed now, and shall be more still AFTER THE MARRIAGE.” + + +I knew what my master meant,--that he would give the old lord the money +after he was married; and as it was probble that miss would see the +letter he roat, he made it such as not to let her see two clearly into +his present uncomfrable situation. + +I took this letter along with the tender one for Miss, reading both +of 'em, in course, by the way. Miss, on getting hers, gave an +inegspressable look with the white of her i's, kist the letter, and +prest it to her busm. Lord Crabs read his quite calm, and then they +fell a-talking together; and told me to wait awhile, and I should git an +anser. + +After a deal of counseltation, my lord brought out a card, and there was +simply written on it, + + + To-morrow, at the Ambassador's, at Twelve. + + +“Carry that back to your master, Chawls,” says he, “and bid him not to +fail.” + +You may be sure I stept back to him pretty quick, and gave him the card +and the messinge. Master looked sattasfied with both; but suttnly +not over happy; no man is the day before his marridge; much more his +marridge with a hump-back, Harriss though she be. + +Well, as he was a-going to depart this bachelor life, he did what every +man in such suckmstances ought to do; he made his will,--that is, he +made a dispasition of his property, and wrote letters to his creditors +telling them of his lucky chance; and that after his marridge he would +sutnly pay them every stiver. BEFORE, they must know his povvaty well +enough to be sure that paymint was out of the question. + +To do him justas, he seam'd to be inclined to do the thing that was +right, now that it didn't put him to any inkinvenients to do so. + +“Chawls,” says he, handing me over a tenpun-note, “here's your wagis, +and thank you for getting me out of the scrape with the bailiffs: when +you are married, you shall be my valet out of liv'ry, and I'll treble +your salary.” + +His vallit! praps his butler! Yes, thought I, here's a chance--a vallit +to ten thousand a year. Nothing to do but to shave him, and read his +notes, and let my whiskers grow; to dress in spick and span black, and a +clean shut per day; muffings every night in the housekeeper's room; the +pick of the gals in the servants' hall; a chap to clean my boots for me, +and my master's opera bone reglar once a week. I knew what a vallit was +as well as any genlmn in service; and this I can tell you, he's genrally +a hapier, idler, handsomer, mor genlmnly man than his master. He +has more money to spend, for genlmn WILL leave their silver in their +waistcoat pockets; more suxess among the gals; as good dinners, and +as good wine--that is, if he's friends with the butler: and friends in +corse they will be if they know which way their interest lies. + +But these are only cassels in the air, what the French call shutter +d'Espang. It wasn't roat in the book of fate that I was to be Mr. +Deuceace's vallit. + +Days will pass at last--even days befor a wedding, (the longist and +unpleasantist day in the whole of a man's life, I can tell you, excep, +may be, the day before his hanging); and at length Aroarer dawned on +the suspicious morning which was to unite in the bonds of Hyming the +Honrable Algernon Percy Deuceace, Exquire, and Miss Matilda Griffin. My +master's wardrobe wasn't so rich as it had been; for he'd left the +whole of his nicknax and trumpry of dressing-cases and rob dy shams, his +bewtifle museum of varnished boots, his curous colleckshn of Stulz and +Staub coats, when he had been ableaged to quit so suddnly our pore dear +lodginx at the Hotel Mirabew; and being incog at a friend's house, +ad contentid himself with ordring a coople of shoots of cloves from a +common tailor, with a suffishnt quantaty of linning. + +Well, he put on the best of his coats--a blue; and I thought it my duty +to ask him whether he'd want his frock again: he was good natured and +said, “Take it and be hanged to you.” Half-past eleven o'clock came, +and I was sent to look out at the door, if there were any suspicious +charicters (a precious good nose I have to find a bailiff out, I can +tell you, and an i which will almost see one round a corner); and +presenly a very modest green glass coach droave up, and in master +stept. I didn't in corse, appear on the box; because, being known, my +appearints might have compromised master. But I took a short cut, and +walked as quick as posbil down to the Rue de Foburg St. Honore, where +his exlnsy the English ambasdor lives, and where marridges are always +performed betwigst English folk at Paris. + + . . . . . . + +There is, almost nex door to the ambasdor's hotel, another hotel, of +that lo kind which the French call cabbyrays, or wine-houses; and jest +as master's green glass-coach pulled up, another coach drove off, out of +which came two ladies, whom I knew pretty well,--suffiz, that one had +a humpback, and the ingenious reader will know why SHE came there; the +other was poor Miss Kicksey, who came to see her turned off. + +Well, master's glass-coach droav up, jest as I got within a few yards of +the door; our carridge, I say, droav up, and stopt. Down gits coachmin +to open the door, and comes I to give Mr. Deuceace an arm, when out +of the cabaray shoot four fellows, and draw up betwigst the coach and +embassy-doar; two other chaps go to the other doar of the carridge, and, +opening it, one says--“Rendez-vous, M. Deuceace! Je vous arrete au nom +de la loi!” (which means, “Get out of that, Mr. D.; you are nabbed and +no mistake.”) Master turned gashly pail, and sprung to the other side +of the coach, as if a serpint had stung him. He flung open the door, and +was for making off that way; but he saw the four chaps standing betwigst +libbarty and him. He slams down the front window, and screams out, +“Fouettez, cocher!” (which means, “Go it, coachmm!”) in a despert loud +voice; but coachmin wooden go it, and besides was off his box. + +The long and short of the matter was, that jest as I came up to the door +two of the bums jumped into the carridge. I saw all; I knew my duty, and +so very mornfly I got up behind. + +“Tiens,” says one of the chaps in the street; “c'est ce drole qui nous a +floure l'autre jour.” I knew 'em, but was too melumcolly to smile. + +“Ou irons-nous donc?” says coachmin to the genlmn who had got inside. + +A deep woice from the intearor shouted out, in reply to the coachmin, “A +SAINTE PELAGIE!” + + . . . . . . + +And now, praps, I ot to dixcribe to you the humors of the prizn of +Sainte Pelagie, which is the French for Fleat, or Queen's Bentch: but on +this subject I'm rather shy of writing, partly because the admiral Boz +has, in the history of Mr. Pickwick, made such a dixcripshun of a prizn, +that mine wooden read very amyousingly afterwids; and, also, because, +to tell you the truth, I didn't stay long in it, being not in a humer to +waist my igsistance by passing away the ears of my youth in such a dull +place. + +My fust errint now was, as you may phansy, to carry a noat from master +to his destined bride. The poar thing was sadly taken aback, as I can +tell you, when she found, after remaining two hours at the Embassy, that +her husband didn't make his appearance. And so, after staying on and on, +and yet seeing no husband, she was forsed at last to trudge dishconslit +home, where I was already waiting for her with a letter from my master. + +There was no use now denying the fact of his arrest, and so he confest +it at onst: but he made a cock-and-bull story of treachery of a friend, +infimous fodgery, and heaven knows what. However, it didn't matter much; +if he had told her that he had been betrayed by the man in the moon, she +would have bleavd him. + +Lady Griffin never used to appear now at any of my visits. She kep one +drawing-room, and Miss dined and lived alone in another; they quarld so +much that praps it was best they should live apart; only my Lord Crabs +used to see both, comforting each with that winning and innsnt way he +had. He came in as Miss, in tears, was lisning to my account of master's +seazure, and hoping that the prisn wasn't a horrid place, with a nasty +horrid dunjeon, and a dreadfle jailer, and nasty horrid bread and water. +Law bless us! she had borrod her ideers from the novvles she had been +reading! + +“O my lord, my lord,” says she, “have you heard this fatal story?” + +“Dearest Matilda, what? For heaven's sake, you alarm me! +What--yes--no--is it--no, it can't be! Speak!” says my lord, seizing me +by the choler of my coat. “What has happened to my boy?” + +“Please you, my lord,” says I, “he's at this moment in prisn, no +wuss,--having been incarserated about two hours ago.” + +“In prison! Algernon in prison! 'tis impossible! Imprisoned, for what +sum? Mention it, and I will pay to the utmost farthing in my power.” + +“I'm sure your lordship is very kind,” says I (recklecting the sean +betwixgst him and master, whom he wanted to diddil out of a thowsand +lb.); “and you'll be happy to hear he's only in for a trifle. Five +thousand pound is, I think, pretty near the mark.” + +“Five thousand pounds!--confusion!” says my lord, clasping his hands, +and looking up to heaven, “and I have not five hundred! Dearest Matilda, +how shall we help him?” + +“Alas, my lord, I have but three guineas, and you know how Lady Griffin +has the--” + +“Yes, my sweet child, I know what you would say; but be of good +cheer--Algernon, you know, has ample funds of his own.” + +Thinking my lord meant Dawkins's five thousand, of which, to be sure, a +good lump was left, I held my tung; but I cooden help wondering at Lord +Crabs's igstream compashn for his son, and Miss, with her 10,000L. a +year, having only 3 guineas is her pockit. + +I took home (bless us, what a home!) a long and very inflamble letter +from Miss, in which she dixscribed her own sorror at the disappointment; +swoar she lov'd him only the moar for his misfortns; made light of them; +as a pusson for a paltry sum of five thousand pound ought never to be +cast down, 'specially as he had a certain independence in view; and +vowed that nothing, nothing, should ever injuice her to part from him, +etsettler, etsettler. + +I told master of the conversation which had past betwigst me and my +lord, and of his handsome offers, and his horrow at hearing of his son's +being taken; and likewise mentioned how strange it was that Miss should +only have 3 guineas, and with such a fortn: bless us, I should have thot +that she would always have carried a hundred thowsnd lb. in her pockit! + +At this master only said Pshaw! But the rest of the story about his +father seemed to dixquiet him a good deal, and he made me repeat it over +agin. + +He walked up and down the room agytated, and it seam'd as if a new lite +was breaking in upon him. + +“Chawls,” says he, “did you observe--did Miss--did my father seem +PARTICULARLY INTIMATE with Miss Griffin?” + +“How do you mean, sir?” says I. + +“Did Lord Crabs appear very fond of Miss Griffin?” + +“He was suttnly very kind to her.” + +“Come, sir, speak at once: did Miss Griffin seem very fond of his +lordship?” + +“Why, to tell the truth, sir, I must say she seemed VERY fond of him.” + +“What did he call her?” + +“He called her his dearest gal.” + +“Did he take her hand?” + +“Yes, and he--” + +“And he what?” + +“He kist her, and told her not to be so wery down-hearted about the +misfortn which had hapnd to you.” + +“I have it now!” says he, clinching his fist, and growing gashly +pail--“I have it now--the infernal old hoary scoundrel! the wicked, +unnatural wretch! He would take her from me!” And he poured out a volley +of oaves which are impossbill to be repeatid here. + +I thot as much long ago: and when my lord kem with his vizits so +pretious affeckshnt at my Lady Griffinses, I expected some such game +was in the wind. Indeed, I'd heard a somethink of it from the Griffinses +servnts, that my lord was mighty tender with the ladies. + +One thing, however, was evident to a man of his intleckshal capassaties; +he must either marry the gal at onst, or he stood very small chance +of having her. He must get out of limbo immediantly, or his respectid +father might be stepping into his vaykint shoes. Oh! he saw it all +now--the fust attempt at arest, the marridge fixt at 12 o'clock, and +the bayliffs fixt to come and intarup the marridge!--the jewel, praps, +betwigst him and De l'Orge: but no, it was the WOMAN who did that--a +MAN don't deal such fowl blows, igspecially a father to his son: a woman +may, poar thing!--she's no other means of reventch, and is used to fight +with underhand wepns all her life through. + +Well, whatever the pint might be, this Deuceace saw pretty clear that +he'd been beat by his father at his own game--a trapp set for him +onst, which had been defitted by my presnts of mind--another trap set +afterwids, in which my lord had been suxesfle. Now, my lord, roag as he +was, was much too good-natured to do an unkind ackshn, mearly for +the sake of doing it. He'd got to that pich that he didn't mind +injaries--they were all fair play to him--he gave 'em, and reseav'd +them, without a thought of mallis. If he wanted to injer his son, it was +to benefick himself. And how was this to be done? By getting the hairiss +to himself, to be sure. The Honrabble Mr. D. didn't say so; but I knew +his feelinx well enough--he regretted that he had not given the old +genlmn the money he askt for. + +Poar fello! he thought he had hit it; but he was wide of the mark after +all. + +Well, but what was to be done? It was clear that he must marry the gal +at any rate--cootky coot, as the French say: that is, marry her, and +hang the igspence. + +To do so he must first git out of prisn--to get out of prisn he must +pay his debts--and to pay his debts, he must give every shilling he +was worth. Never mind: four thousand pound is a small stake to a reglar +gambler, igspecially when he must play it, or rot for life in prisn; and +when, if he plays it well, it will give him ten thousand a year. + +So, seeing there was no help for it, he maid up his mind, and +accordingly wrote the follying letter to Miss Griffin:-- + + +“MY ADORED MATILDA,--Your letter has indeed been a comfort to a poor +fellow, who had hoped that this night would have been the most blessed +in his life, and now finds himself condemned to spend it within a +prison wall! You know the accursed conspiracy which has brought these +liabilities upon me, and the foolish friendship which has cost me so +much. But what matters! We have, as you say, enough, even though I +must pay this shameful demand upon me; and five thousand pounds are as +nothing, compared to the happiness which I lose in being separated a +night from thee! Courage, however! If I make a sacrifice it is for you; +and I were heartless indeed if I allowed my own losses to balance for a +moment against your happiness. + +“Is it not so, beloved one? IS not your happiness bound up with mine, +in a union with me? I am proud to think so--proud, too, to offer such a +humble proof as this of the depth and purity of my affection. + +“Tell me that you will still be mine; tell me that you will be mine +tomorrow; and to-morrow these vile chains shall be removed, and I will +be free once more--or if bound, only bound to you! My adorable Matilda! +my betrothed bride! Write to me ere the evening closes, for I shall +never be able to shut my eyes in slumber upon my prison couch, until +they have been first blessed by the sight of a few words from thee! +Write to me, love! write to me! I languish for the reply which is to +make or mar me for ever. Your affectionate + +“A. P. D.” + + +Having polisht off this epistol, master intrustid it to me to carry, +and bade me at the same time to try and give it into Miss Griffin's hand +alone. I ran with it to Lady Griffinses. I found Miss, as I desired, in +a sollatary condition; and I presented her with master's pafewmed Billy. + +She read it, and the number of size to which she gave vint, and the +tears which she shed, beggar digscription. She wep and sighed until I +thought she would bust. She even claspt my hand in her's, and said, “O +Charles! is he very, very miserable?” + +“He is, ma'am,” says I; “very miserable indeed--nobody, upon my honor, +could be miserablerer.” + +On hearing this pethetic remark, her mind was made up at onst: and +sitting down to her eskrewtaw, she immediantly ableaged master with an +answer. Here it is in black and white: + + +“My prisoned bird shall pine no more, but fly home to its nest in these +arms! Adored Algernon, I will meet thee to-morrow, at the same place, at +the same hour. Then, then, it will be impossible for aught but death to +divide us. + +“M. G.” + + +This kind of flumry style comes, you see, of reading novvles, and +cultivating littery purshuits in a small way. How much better is it +to be puffickly ignorant of the hart of writing, and to trust to the +writing of the heart. This is MY style: artyfiz I despise, and trust +compleatly to natur: but revnong a no mootong, as our continential +friends remark: to that nice white sheep, Algernon Percy Deuceace, +Exquire; that wenrabble old ram, my Lord Crabs his father; and that +tender and dellygit young lamb, Miss Matilda Griffin. + +She had just foalded up into its proper triangular shape the noat +transcribed abuff, and I was just on the point of saying, according to +my master's orders, “Miss, if you please, the Honrabble Mr. Deuceace +would be very much ableaged to you to keep the seminary which is to take +place to-morrow a profound se--,” when my master's father entered, and I +fell back to the door. Miss, without a word, rusht into his arms, burst +into teers agin, as was her reglar way (it must be confest she was of +a very mist constitution), and showing to him his son's note, cried, +“Look, my dear lord, how nobly your Algernon, OUR Algernon, writes +to me. Who can doubt, after this, of the purity of his matchless +affection?” + +My lord took the letter, read it, seamed a good deal amyoused, and +returning it to its owner, said, very much to my surprise, “My dear Miss +Griffin, he certainly does seem in earnest; and if you choose to make +this match without the consent of your mother-in-law, you know the +consequence, and are of course your own mistress.” + +“Consequences!--for shame, my lord! A little money, more or less, what +matters it to two hearts like ours?” + +“Hearts are very pretty things, my sweet young lady, but Three-per-Cents +are better.” + +“Nay, have we not an ample income of our own, without the aid of Lady +Griffin?” + +My lord shrugged his shoulders. “Be it so, my love,” says he. “I'm sure +I can have no other reason to prevent a union which is founded upon such +disinterested affection.” + +And here the conversation dropt. Miss retired, clasping her hands, and +making play with the whites of her i's. My lord began trotting up and +down the room, with his fat hands stuck in his britchis pockits, his +countnince lighted up with igstream joy, and singing, to my inordnit +igstonishment: + + + “See the conquering hero comes! + Tiddy diddy doll--tiddy doll, doll, doll.” + + +He began singing this song, and tearing up and down the room like mad. +I stood amazd--a new light broke in upon me. He wasn't going, then, to +make love to Miss Griffin! Master might marry her! Had she not got the +for--? + +I say, I was just standing stock still, my eyes fixt, my hands +puppindicklar, my mouf wide open and these igstrordinary thoughts +passing in my mind, when my lord having got to the last “doll” of his +song, just as I came to the sillible “for” of my ventriloquism, or +inward speech--we had eatch jest reached the pint digscribed, when the +meditations of both were sudnly stopt, by my lord, in the midst of his +singin and trottin match, coming bolt up aginst poar me, sending me up +aginst one end of the room, himself flying back to the other: and it +was only after considrabble agitation that we were at length restored to +anything like a liquilibrium. + +“What, YOU here, you infernal rascal?” says my lord. + +“Your lordship's very kind to notus me,” says I; “I am here.” And I gave +him a look. + +He saw I knew the whole game. + +And after whisling a bit, as was his habit when puzzled (I bleave +he'd have only whisled if he had been told he was to be hanged in five +minits), after whisling a bit, he stops sudnly, and coming up to me, +says: + +“Hearkye, Charles, this marriage must take place to-morrow.” + +“Must it, sir?” says I; “now, for my part, I don't think--” + +“Stop, my good fellow; if it does not take place, what do you gain?” + +This stagger'd me. If it didn't take place, I only lost a situation, for +master had but just enough money to pay his detts; and it wooden soot my +book to serve him in prisn or starving. + +“Well,” says my lord, “you see the force of my argument. Now, look +here!” and he lugs out a crisp, fluttering, snowy HUNDRED-PUN NOTE! “If +my son and Miss Griffin are married to-morrow, you shall have this; and +I will, moreover, take you into my service, and give you double your +present wages.” + +Flesh and blood cooden bear it. “My lord,” says I, laying my hand upon +my busm, “only give me security, and I'm yours for ever.” + +The old noblemin grin'd, and pattid me on the shoulder. “Right, my +lad,” says he, “right--you're a nice promising youth. Here is the best +security.” And he pulls out his pockit-book, returns the hundred-pun +bill, and takes out one for fifty. “Here is half to-day; to-morrow you +shall have the remainder.” + +My fingers trembled a little as I took the pretty fluttering bit of +paper, about five times as big as any sum of money I had ever had in my +life. I cast my i upon the amount: it was a fifty sure enough--a bank +poss-bill, made payable to Leonora Emilia Griffin, and indorsed by her. +The cat was out of the bag. Now, gentle reader, I spose you begin to see +the game. + +“Recollect, from this day you are in my service.” + +“My lord, you overpoar me with your faviors.” + +“Go to the devil, sir,” says he: “do your duty, and hold your tongue.” + +And thus I went from the service of the Honorabble Algernon Deuceace to +that of his exlnsy the Right Honorabble Earl of Crabs. + + . . . . . . + +On going back to prisn, I found Deuceace locked up in that oajus place +to which his igstravygansies had deservedly led him; and felt for him, I +must say, a great deal of contemp. A raskle such as he--a swindler, who +had robbed poar Dawkins of the means of igsistance; who had cheated his +fellow-roag, Mr. Richard Blewitt, and who was making a musnary marridge +with a disgusting creacher like Miss Griffin, didn merit any compashn on +my purt; and I determined quite to keep secret the suckmstansies of my +privit intervew with his exlnsy my presnt master. + +I gev him Miss Griffinses trianglar, which he read with a satasfied air. +Then, turning to me, says he: “You gave this to Miss Griffin alone?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You gave her my message?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you are quite sure Lord Crabs was not there when you gave either +the message or the note?” + +“Not there upon my honor,” says I. + +“Hang your honor, sir! Brush my hat and coat, and go CALL A COACH--do +you hear?” + + . . . . . . + +I did as I was ordered; and on coming back found master in what's +called, I think, the greffe of the prisn. The officer in waiting had +out a great register, and was talking to master in the French tongue, in +coarse; a number of poar prisners were looking eagerly on. + +“Let us see, my lor,” says he; “the debt is 98,700 francs; there are +capture expenses, interest so much; and the whole sum amounts to a +hundred thousand francs, moins 13.” + +Deuceace, in a very myjestic way, takes out of his pocketbook four +thowsnd pun notes. “This is not French money, but I presume that you +know it, M. Greffier,” says he. + +The greffier turned round to old Solomon, a money-changer, who had one +or two clients in the prisn, and hapnd luckily to be there. “Les billets +sont bons,” says he. “Je les prendrai pour cent mille douze cent francs, +et j'espere, my lor, de vous revoir.” + +“Good,” says the greffier; “I know them to be good, and I will give my +lor the difference, and make out his release.” + +Which was done. The poar debtors gave a feeble cheer, as the great +dubble iron gates swung open and clang to again, and Deuceace stept out +and me after him, to breathe the fresh hair. + +He had been in the place but six hours, and was now free again--free, +and to be married to ten thousand a year nex day. But, for all that, he +lookt very faint and pale. He HAD put down his great stake; and when he +came out of Sainte Pelagie, he had but fifty pounds left in the world! + +Never mind--when onst the money's down, make your mind easy; and so +Deuceace did. He drove back to the Hotel Mirabew, where he ordered +apartmince infinately more splendid than befor; and I pretty soon told +Toinette, and the rest of the suvvants, how nobly he behayved, and how +he valyoud four thousnd pound no more than ditch water. And such was the +consquincies of my praises, and the poplarity I got for us boath, that +the delighted landlady immediantly charged him dubble what she would +have done, if it hadn been for my stoaries. + +He ordered splendid apartmince, then, for the nex week; a +carridge-and-four for Fontainebleau to-morrow at 12 precisely; and +having settled all these things, went quietly to the “Roshy de Cancale,” + where he dined: as well he might, for it was now eight o'clock. I +didn't spare the shompang neither that night, I can tell you; for when +I carried the note he gave me for Miss Griffin in the evening, informing +her of his freedom, that young lady remarked my hagitated manner of +walking and speaking, and said, “Honest Charles! he is flusht with the +events of the day. Here, Charles, is a napoleon; take it and drink to +your mistress.” + +I pockitid it; but, I must say, I didn't like the money--it went against +my stomick to take it. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE MARRIAGE. + + +Well, the nex day came: at 12 the carridge-and-four was waiting at the +ambasdor's doar; and Miss Griffin and the faithfle Kicksey were punctial +to the apintment. + +I don't wish to digscribe the marridge seminary--how the embasy chapling +jined the hands of this loving young couple--how one of the embasy +footmin was called in to witness the marridge--how Miss wep and fainted +as usial--and how Deuceace carried her, fainting, to the brisky, and +drove off to Fontingblo, where they were to pass the fust weak of the +honey-moon. They took no servnts, because they wisht, they said, to +be privit. And so, when I had shut up the steps, and bid the postilion +drive on, I bid ajew to the Honrabble Algernon, and went off strait to +his exlent father. + +“Is it all over, Chawls?” said he. + +“I saw them turned off at igsactly a quarter past 12, my lord,” says I. + +“Did you give Miss Griffin the paper, as I told you, before her +marriage?” + +“I did, my lord, in the presents of Mr. Brown, Lord Bobtail's man; who +can swear to her having had it.” + +I must tell you that my lord had made me read a paper which Lady Griffin +had written, and which I was comishnd to give in the manner menshnd +abuff. It ran to this effect:-- + + +“According to the authority given me by the will of my late dear +husband, I forbid the marriage of Miss Griffin with the Honorable +Algernon Percy Deuceace. If Miss Griffin persists in the union, I warn +her that she must abide by the consequences of her act. + +“LEONORA EMILIA GRIFFIN.” + +“RUE DE RIVOLI, May 8, 1818.” + + +When I gave this to Miss as she entered the cortyard, a minnit before my +master's arrivle, she only read it contemptiously, and said, “I laugh at +the threats of Lady Griffin;” and she toar the paper in two, and walked +on, leaning on the arm of the faithful and obleaging Miss Kicksey. + +I picked up the paper for fear of axdents, and brot it to my lord. +Not that there was any necessaty; for he'd kep a copy, and made me and +another witniss (my Lady Griffin's solissator) read them both, before he +sent either away. + +“Good!” says he; and he projuiced from his potfolio the fello of that +bewchus fifty-pun note, which he'd given me yesterday. “I keep my +promise, you see, Charles,” says he. “You are now in Lady Griffin's +service, in the place of Mr. Fitzclarence, who retires. Go to Froje's, +and get a livery.” + +“But, my lord,” says I, “I was not to go into Lady Griffnses service, +according to the bargain, but into--” + +“It's all the same thing,” says he; and he walked off. I went to Mr. +Froje's, and ordered a new livry; and found, likwise, that our coachmin +and Munseer Mortimer had been there too. My lady's livery was changed, +and was now of the same color as my old coat at Mr. Deuceace's; and I'm +blest if there wasn't a tremenjious great earl's corronit on the butins, +instid of the Griffin rampint, which was worn befoar. + +I asked no questions, however, but had myself measured; and slep that +night at the Plas Vandome. I didn't go out with the carridge for a day +or two, though; my lady only taking one footmin, she said, until HER NEW +CARRIDGE was turned out. + +I think you can guess what's in the wind NOW! + +I bot myself a dressing-case, a box of Ody colong, a few duzen lawn +sherts and neckcloths, and other things which were necessary for a +genlmn in my rank. Silk stockings was provided by the rules of the +house. And I completed the bisniss by writing the follying ginteel +letter to my late master:-- + + +“CHARLES YELLOWPLUSH, ESQUIRE, TO THE HONORABLE A. P. DEUCEACE. + +“SUR,--Suckmstansies have acurd sins I last had the honner of wating on +you, which render it impossbil that I should remane any longer in your +suvvice. I'll thank you to leave out my thinx, when they come home on +Sattady from the wash. + +“Your obeajnt servnt, + +“CHARLES YELLOWPLUSH.” + +“PLAS VENDOME.” + + +The athography of the abuv noat, I confess, is atrocious; but ke +voolyvoo? I was only eighteen, and hadn then the expearance in writing +which I've enjide sins. + +Having thus done my jewty in evry way, I shall prosead, in the nex +chapter, to say what hapnd in my new place. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE HONEY-MOON. + + +The weak at Fontingblow past quickly away; and at the end of it, our son +and daughter-in-law--a pare of nice young tuttle-duvs--returned to their +nest, at the Hotel Mirabew. I suspeck that the COCK turtle-dove was +preshos sick of his barging. + +When they arriv'd, the fust thing they found on their table was a large +parsle wrapt up in silver paper, and a newspaper, and a couple of cards, +tied up with a peace of white ribbing. In the parsle was a hansume piece +of plum-cake, with a deal of sugar. On the cards was wrote, in Goffick +characters, + + + Earl of Crabs. + + +And, in very small Italian, + + + Countess of Crabs. + + +And in the paper was the following parrowgraff:-- + + +“MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.--Yesterday, at the British embassy, the Right +Honorable John Augustus Altamont Plantagenet, Earl of Crabs, to Leonora +Emilia, widow of the late Lieutenant-General Sir George Griffin, K. C. +B. An elegant dejeune was given to the happy couple by his Excellency +Lord Bobtail, who gave away the bride. The elite of the foreign +diplomacy, the Prince Talleyrand and Marshal the Duke of Dalmatia on +behalf of H. M. the King of France, honored the banquet and the marriage +ceremony. Lord and Lady Crabs intend passing a few weeks at Saint +Cloud.” + + +The above dockyments, along with my own triffling billy, of which I have +also givn a copy, greated Mr. and Mrs. Deuceace on their arrivle from +Fontingblo. Not being present, I can't say what Deuceace said; but I can +fancy how he LOOKT, and how poor Mrs. Deuceace lookt. They weren't much +inclined to rest after the fiteeg of the junny; for, in 1/2 an hour +after their arrival at Paris, the hosses were put to the carridge +agen, and down they came thundering to our country-house at St. Cloud +(pronounst by those absud Frenchmin Sing Kloo), to interrup our chaste +loves and delishs marridge injyments. + +My lord was sittn in a crimson satan dressing-gown, lolling on a sofa at +an open windy, smoaking seagars, as ushle; her ladyship, who, to du her +justice, didn mind the smell, occupied another end of the room, and +was working, in wusted, a pare of slippers, or an umbrellore case, or a +coal-skittle, or some such nonsints. You would have thought to have sean +'em that they had been married a sentry, at least. Well, I bust in upon +this conjugal tator-tator, and said, very much alarmed, “My lord, here's +your son and daughter-in-law.” + +“Well,” says my lord, quite calm, “and what then?” + +“Mr. Deuceace!” says my lady, starting up, and looking fritened. + +“Yes, my love, my son; but you need not be alarmed. Pray, Charles, say +that Lady Crabs and I will be very happy to see Mr. and Mrs. Deuceace; +and that they must excuse us receiving them en famille. Sit still, my +blessing--take things coolly. Have you got the box with the papers?” + +My lady pointed to a great green box--the same from which she had taken +the papers, when Deuceace fust saw them,--and handed over to my lord a +fine gold key. I went out, met Deuceace and his wife on the stepps, gave +my messinge, and bowed them palitely in. + +My lord didn't rise, but smoaked away as usual (praps a little quicker, +but I can't say); my lady sat upright, looking handsum and strong. +Deuceace walked in, his left arm tied to his breast, his wife and hat on +the other. He looked very pale and frightened; his wife, poar thing! had +her head berried in her handkerchief, and sobd fit to break her heart. + +Miss Kicksey, who was in the room (but I didn't mention her, she was +less than nothink in our house), went up to Mrs. Deuceace at onst, and +held out her arms--she had a heart, that old Kicksey, and I respect her +for it. The poor hunchback flung herself into Miss's arms, with a kind +of whooping screech, and kep there for some time, sobbing in quite a +historical manner. I saw there was going to be a sean, and so, in cors, +left the door ajar. + +“Welcome to Saint Cloud, Algy my boy!” says my lord, in a loud, hearty +voice. “You thought you would give us the slip, eh, you rogue? But +we knew it, my dear fellow: we knew the whole affair--did we not, my +soul?--and you see, kept our secret better than you did yours.” + +“I must confess, sir,” says Deuceace, bowing, “that I had no idea of the +happiness which awaited me in the shape of a mother-in-law.” + +“No, you dog; no, no,” says my lord, giggling: “old birds, you know, not +to be caught with chaff, like young ones. But here we are, all spliced +and happy, at last. Sit down, Algernon; let us smoke a segar, and talk +over the perils and adventures of the last month. My love,” says my +lord, turning to his lady, “you have no malice against poor Algernon, I +trust? Pray shake HIS HAND.” (A grin.) + +But my lady rose and said, “I have told Mr. Deuceace, that I never +wished to see him, or speak to him, more. I see no reason, now, to +change my opinion.” And herewith she sailed out of the room, by the door +through which Kicksey had carried poor Mrs. Deuceace. + +“Well, well,” says my lord, as Lady Crabs swept by, “I was in hopes she +had forgiven you; but I know the whole story, and I must confess you +used her cruelly ill. Two strings to your bow!--that was your game, was +it, you rogue?” + +“Do you mean, my lord, that you know all that past between me and Lady +Grif--Lady Crabs, before our quarrel?” + +“Perfectly--you made love to her, and she was almost in love with +you; you jilted her for money, she got a man to shoot your hand off in +revenge: no more dice-boxes, now, Deuceace; no more sauter la coupe. I +can't think how the deuce you will manage to live without them.” + +“Your lordship is very kind; but I have given up play altogether,” says +Deuceace, looking mighty black and uneasy. + +“Oh, indeed! Benedick has turned a moral man, has he? This is better and +better. Are you thinking of going into the church, Deuceace?” + +“My lord, may I ask you to be a little more serious?” + +“Serious! a quoi bon? I am serious--serious in my surprise that, when +you might have had either of these women, you should have preferred that +hideous wife of yours.” + +“May I ask you, in turn, how you came to be so little squeamish about +a wife, as to choose a woman who had just been making love to your own +son?” says Deuceace, growing fierce. + +“How can you ask such a question? I owe forty thousand pounds--there +is an execution at Sizes Hall--every acre I have is in the hands of +my creditors; and that's why I married her. Do you think there was any +love? Lady Crabs is a dev'lish fine woman, but she's not a fool--she +married me for my coronet, and I married her for her money.” + +“Well, my lord, you need not ask me, I think, why I married the +daughter-in-law.” + +“Yes, but I DO, my dear boy. How the deuce are you to live? Dawkins's +five thousand pounds won't last forever; and afterwards?” + +“You don't mean, my lord--you don't--I mean, you can't-- D---!” says he, +starting up, and losing all patience, “you don't dare to say that Miss +Griffin had not a fortune of ten thousand a year?” + +My lord was rolling up, and wetting betwigst his lips, another segar; he +lookt up, after he had lighted it, and said quietly-- + +“Certainly, Miss Griffin had a fortune of ten thousand a year.” + +“Well, sir, and has she not got it now? Has she spent it in a week?” + +“SHE HAS NOT GOT A SIX-PENCE NOW: SHE MARRIED WITHOUT HER MOTHER'S +CONSENT!” + +Deuceace sunk down in a chair; and I never see such a dreadful picture +of despair as there was in the face of that retchid man!--he writhed, +and nasht his teeth, he tore open his coat, and wriggled madly the stump +of his left hand, until, fairly beat, he threw it over his livid pale +face, and sinking backwards, fairly wept alowd. + +Bah! it's a dreddfle thing to hear a man crying! his pashn torn up from +the very roots of his heart, as it must be before it can git such a +vent. My lord, meanwhile, rolled his segar, lighted it, and went on. + +“My dear boy, the girl has not a shilling. I wished to have left you +alone in peace, with your four thousand pounds: you might have lived +decently upon it in Germany, where money is at 5 per cent, where your +duns would not find you, and a couple of hundred a year would have kept +you and your wife in comfort. But, you see, Lady Crabs would not listen +to it. You had injured her; and, after she had tried to kill you and +failed, she determined to ruin you, and succeeded. I must own to you +that I directed the arresting business, and put her up to buying your +protested bills: she got them for a trifle, and as you have paid them, +has made a good two thousand pounds by her bargain. It was a painful +thing to be sure, for a father to get his son arrested; but que +voulez-vous! I did not appear in the transaction: she would have you +ruined; and it was absolutely necessary that YOU should marry before I +could, so I pleaded your cause with Miss Griffin, and made you the happy +man you are. You rogue, you rogue! you thought to match your old father, +did you? But, never mind; lunch will be ready soon. In the meantime, +have a segar, and drink a glass of Sauterne.” + +Deuceace, who had been listening to this speech, sprung up wildly. + +“I'll not believe it,” he said: “it's a lie, an infernal lie! forged +by you, you hoary villain, and by the murderess and strumpet you have +married. I'll not believe it; show me the will. Matilda! Matilda!” + shouted he, screaming hoarsely, and flinging open the door by which she +had gone out. + +“Keep your temper, my boy. You ARE vexed, and I feel for you: but don't +use such bad language: it is quite needless, believe me.” + +“Matilda!” shouted out Deuceace again; and the poor crooked thing came +trembling in, followed by Miss Kicksey. + +“Is this true, woman?” says he, clutching hold of her hand. + +“What, dear Algernon?” says she. + +“What?” screams out Deuceace,--“what? Why that you are a beggar, for +marrying without your mother's consent--that you basely lied to me, in +order to bring about this match--that you are a swindler, in conspiracy +with that old fiend yonder and the she-devil his wife?” + +“It is true,” sobbed the poor woman, “that I have nothing; but--” + +“Nothing but what? Why don't you speak, you drivelling fool?” + +“I have nothing!--but you, dearest, have two thousand a year. Is that +not enough for us? You love me for myself, don't you, Algernon? You have +told me so a thousand times--say so again, dear husband; and do not, do +not be so unkind.” And here she sank on her knees, and clung to him, and +tried to catch his hand, and kiss it. + +“How much did you say?” says my lord. + +“Two thousand a year, sir; he has told us so a thousand times.” + +“TWO THOUSAND! Two thou--ho, ho, ho!--haw! haw! haw!” roars my lord. +“That is, I vow, the best thing I ever heard in my life. My dear +creature, he has not a shilling--not a single maravedi, by all the gods +and goddesses.” And this exlnt noblemin began laffin louder than ever: a +very kind and feeling genlmn he was, as all must confess. + +There was a paws: and Mrs. Deuceace didn begin cussing and swearing at +her husband as he had done at her: she only said, “O Algernon! is this +true?” and got up, and went to a chair and wep in quiet. + +My lord opened the great box. “If you or your lawyers would like to +examine Sir George's will, it is quite at your service; you will see +here the proviso which I mentioned, that gives the entire fortune to +Lady Griffin--Lady Crabs that is: and here, my dear boy, you see the +danger of hasty conclusions. Her ladyship only showed you the FIRST PAGE +OF THE WILL, of course; she wanted to try you. You thought you made a +great stroke in at once proposing to Miss Griffin--do not mind it, my +love, he really loves you now very sincerely!--when, in fact, you +would have done much better to have read the rest of the will. You were +completely bitten, my boy--humbugged, bamboozled--ay, and by your old +father, you dog. I told you I would, you know, when you refused to lend +me a portion of your Dawkins money. I told you I would; and I DID. I had +you the very next day. Let this be a lesson to you, Percy my boy; don't +try your luck again against such old hands: look deuced well before you +leap: audi alteram partem, my lad, which means, read both sides of the +will. I think lunch is ready; but I see you don't smoke. Shall we go +in?” + +“Stop, my lord,” says Mr. Deuceace, very humble: “I shall not share your +hospitality--but--but you know my condition; I am penniless--you know +the manner in which my wife has been brought up--” + +“The Honorable Mrs. Deuceace, sir, shall always find a home here, as if +nothing had occurred to interrupt the friendship between her dear mother +and herself.” + +“And for me, sir,” says Deuceace, speaking faint, and very slow; “I +hope--I trust--I think, my lord, you will not forget me?” + +“Forget you, sir; certainly not.” + +“And that you will make some provision--?” + +“Algernon Deuceace,” says my lord, getting up from the sophy, and +looking at him with sich a jolly malignity, as I never see, “I declare, +before heaven, that I will not give you a penny!” + +Hereupon my lord held out his hand to Mrs. Deuceace, and said, “My dear, +will you join your mother and me? We shall always, as I said, have a +home for you.” + +“My lord,” said the poar thing, dropping a curtsy, “my home is with +HIM!” + + . . . . . . + +About three months after, when the season was beginning at Paris, and +the autumn leafs was on the ground, my lord, my lady, me and Mortimer, +were taking a stroal in the Boddy Balong, the carridge driving on slowly +ahead, and us as happy as possbill, admiring the pleasant woods and the +goldn sunset. + +My lord was expayshating to my lady upon the exquizit beauty of the +sean, and pouring forth a host of butifle and virtuous sentaments +sootable to the hour. It was dalitefle to hear him. “Ah!” said he, +“black must be the heart, my love, which does not feel the influence +of a scene like this; gathering as it were, from those sunlit skies, +a portion of their celestial gold, and gaining somewhat of heaven with +each pure draught of this delicious air!” + +Lady Crabs did not speak, but prest his arm and looked upwards. Mortimer +and I, too, felt some of the infliwents of the sean, and lent on our +goold sticks in silence. The carriage drew up close to us, and my lord +and my lady sauntered slowly tords it. + +Jest at the place was a bench, and on the bench sate a poorly drest +woman, and by her, leaning against a tree, was a man whom I thought I'd +sean befor. He was drest in a shabby blew coat, with white seems and +copper buttons; a torn hat was on his head, and great quantaties of +matted hair and whiskers disfiggared his countnints. He was not shaved, +and as pale as stone. + +My lord and lady didn tak the slightest notice of him, but past on to +the carridge. Me and Mortimer lickwise took OUR places. As we past, the +man had got a grip of the woman's shoulder, who was holding down her +head sobbing bitterly. + +No sooner were my lord and lady seated, than they both, with igstream +dellixy and good natur, burst into a ror of lafter, peal upon peal, +whooping and screaching enough to frighten the evening silents. + +DEUCEACE turned round. I see his face now--the face of a devvle of hell! +Fust, he lookt towards the carridge, and pinted to it with his maimed +arm; then he raised the other, AND STRUCK THE WOMAN BY HIS SIDE. She +fell, screaming. + +Poor thing! Poor thing! + + + + +MR. YELLOWPLUSH'S AJEW. + + +The end of Mr. Deuceace's history is going to be the end of my +corrispondince. I wish the public was as sory to part with me as I am +with the public; becaws I fansy reely that we've become frends, and feal +for my part a becoming greaf at saying ajew. + +It's imposbill for me to continyow, however, a-writin, as I have +done--violetting the rules of authography, and trampling upon the fust +princepills of English grammar. When I began, I knew no better: when I'd +carrid on these papers a little further, and grew accustmd to writin, I +began to smel out somethink quear in my style. Within the last sex weaks +I have been learning to spell: and when all the world was rejoicing at +the festivvaties of our youthful Quean--*when all i's were fixed upon +her long sweet of ambasdors and princes, following the splendid carridge +of Marshle the Duke of Damlatiar, and blinking at the pearls and dimince +of Prince Oystereasy--Yellowplush was in his loanly pantry--HIS eyes +were fixt upon the spelling-book--his heart was bent upon mastring the +diffickleties of the littery professhn. I have been, in fact, CONVERTID. + + +* This was written in 1838. + + +You shall here how. Ours, you know, is a Wig house; and ever sins his +third son has got a place in the Treasury, his secknd a captingsy in the +Guards, his fust, the secretary of embasy at Pekin, with a prospick +of being appinted ambasdor at Loo Choo--ever sins master's sons have +reseaved these attentions, and master himself has had the promis of a +pearitch, he has been the most reglar, consistnt, honrabble Libbaral, in +or out of the House of Commins. + +Well, being a Whig, it's the fashn, as you know, to reseave littery +pipple; and accordingly, at dinner, tother day, whose name do you think +I had to hollar out on the fust landing-place about a wick ago? After +several dukes and markises had been enounced, a very gentell fly drives +up to our doar, and out steps two gentlemen. One was pail, and wor +spektickles, a wig, and a white neckcloth. The other was slim with a +hook nose, a pail fase, a small waist, a pare of falling shoulders, a +tight coat, and a catarack of black satting tumbling out of his busm, +and falling into a gilt velvet weskit. The little genlmn settled his +wigg, and pulled out his ribbins; the younger one fluffed the dust of +his shoes, looked at his whiskers in a little pockit-glas, settled his +crevatt; and they both mounted upstairs. + +“What name, sir?” says I, to the old genlmn. + +“Name!--a! now, you thief o' the wurrld,” says he, “do you pretind +nat to know ME? Say it's the Cabinet Cyclopa--no, I mane the Litherary +Chran--psha!--bluthanowns!--say it's DOCTHOR DIOCLESIAN LARNER--I think +he'll know me now--ay, Nid?” But the genlmn called Nid was at the botm +of the stare, and pretended to be very busy with his shoo-string. So the +little genlmn went upstares alone. + +“DOCTOR DIOLESIUS LARNER!” says I. + +“DOCTOR ATHANASIUS LARDNER!” says Greville Fitz-Roy, our secknd footman, +on the fust landing-place. + +“DOCTOR IGNATIUS LOYOLA!” says the groom of the chambers, who pretends +to be a scholar; and in the little genlmn went. When safely housed, +the other chap came; and when I asked him his name, said, in a thick, +gobbling kind of voice: + +“Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig.” + +“Sir what?” says I, quite agast at the name. + +“Sawedwad--no, I mean MISTAWedwad Lyttn Bulwig.” + +My neas trembled under me, my i's fild with tiers, my voice shook, as +I past up the venrabble name to the other footman, and saw this fust of +English writers go up to the drawing-room! + +It's needless to mention the names of the rest of the compny, or to +dixcribe the suckmstansies of the dinner. Suffiz to say that the two +littery genlmn behaved very well, and seamed to have good appytights; +igspecially the little Irishman in the whig, who et, drunk, and talked +as much as a duzn. He told how he'd been presented at cort by his +friend, Mr. Bulwig, and how the Quean had received 'em both, with a +dignity undigscribable; and how her blessid Majisty asked what was the +bony fidy sale of the Cabinit Cyclopaedy, and how be (Doctor Larner) +told her that, on his honner, it was under ten thowsnd. + +You may guess that the Doctor, when he made this speach, was pretty far +gone. The fact is, that whether it was the coronation, or the goodness +of the wine (cappitle it is in our house, I can tell you), or the natral +propensaties of the gests assembled, which made them so igspecially +jolly, I don't know; but they had kep up the meating pretty late, and +our poar butler was quite tired with the perpechual baskits of clarrit +which he'd been called upon to bring up. So that about 11 o'clock, if I +were to say they were merry, I should use a mild term; if I wer to say +they were intawsicated, I should use a nigspresshn more near to the +truth, but less rispeckful in one of my situashn. + +The cumpany reseaved this annountsmint with mute extonishment. + +“Pray, Doctor Larnder,” says a spiteful genlmn, willing to keep up the +littery conversation, “what is the Cabinet Cyclopaedia?” + +“It's the littherary wontherr of the wurrld,” says he; “and sure your +lordship must have seen it; the latther numbers ispicially--cheap as +durrt, bound in gleezed calico, six shillings a vollum. The illusthrious +neems of Walther Scott, Thomas Moore, Docther Southey, Sir James +Mackintosh, Docther Donovan, and meself, are to be found in the list of +conthributors. It's the Phaynix of Cyclopajies--a litherary Bacon.” + +“A what?” says the genlmn nex to him. + +“A Bacon, shining in the darkness of our age; fild wid the pure end +lambent flame of science, burning with the gorrgeous scintillations of +divine litherature--a monumintum, in fact, are perinnius, bound in pink +calico, six shillings a vollum.” + +“This wigmawole,” said Mr. Bulwig (who seemed rather disgusted that his +friend should take up so much of the convassation), “this wigmawole +is all vewy well; but it's cuwious that you don't wemember, in +chawactewising the litewawy mewits of the vawious magazines, cwonicles, +weviews, and encyclopaedias, the existence of a cwitical weview and +litewary chwonicle, which, though the aewa of its appeawance is +dated only at a vewy few months pwevious to the pwesent pewiod, is, +nevertheless, so wemarkable for its intwinsic mewits as to be wead, not +in the metwopolis alone, but in the countwy--not in Fwance merely, +but in the west of Euwope--whewever our pure Wenglish is spoken, it +stwetches its peaceful sceptre--pewused in Amewica, fwom New York to +Ningawa--wepwinted in Canada, from Montweal to Towonto--and, as I am +gwatified to hear fwom my fwend the governor of Cape Coast Castle, +wegularly weceived in Afwica, and twanslated into the Mandingo +language by the missionawies and the bushwangers. I need not say, +gentlemen--sir--that is, Mr. Speaker--I mean, Sir John--that I allude +to the Litewary Chwonicle, of which I have the honor to be pwincipal +contwibutor.” + +“Very true; my dear Mr. Bullwig,” says my master: “you and I being +Whigs, must of course stand by our own friends; and I will agree, +without a moment's hesitation, that the Literary what-d'ye-call'em is +the prince of periodicals.” + +“The pwince of pewiodicals?” says Bullwig; “my dear Sir John, it's the +empewow of the pwess.” + +“Soit,--let it be the emperor of the press, as you poetically call it: +but, between ourselves, confess it,--Do not the Tory writers beat your +Whigs hollow? You talk about magazines. Look at--” + +“Look at hwat?” shouts out Larder. “There's none, Sir Jan, compared to +ourrs.” + +“Pardon me, I think that--” + +“It is 'Bentley's Mislany' you mane?” says Ignatius, as sharp as a +niddle. + +“Why, no; but--” + +“O thin, it's Co'burn, sure! and that divvle Thayodor--a pretty paper, +sir, but light--thrashy, milk-and-wathery--not sthrong, like the +Litherary Chran--good luck to it.” + +“Why, Doctor Lander, I was going to tell at once the name of the +periodical, it's FRASER'S MAGAZINE.” + +“FRESER!” says the Doctor. “O thunder and turf!” + +“FWASER!” says Bullwig. “O--ah--hum--haw--yes--no--why,--that is +weally--no, weally, upon my weputation, I never before heard the name +of the pewiodical. By the by, Sir John, what wemarkable good clawet this +is; is it Lawose or Laff--?” + +Laff, indeed! he cooden git beyond laff; and I'm blest if I could kip +it neither,--for hearing him pretend ignurnts, and being behind the +skreend, settlin somethink for the genlmn, I bust into such a raw of +laffing as never was igseeded. + +“Hullo!” says Bullwig, turning red. “Have I said anything impwobable, +aw widiculous? for, weally, I never befaw wecollect to have heard in +society such a twemendous peal of cachinnation--that which the twagic +bard who fought at Mawathon has called an anewithmon gelasma.” + +“Why, be the holy piper,” says Larder, “I think you are dthrawing a +little on your imagination. Not read Fraser! Don't believe him, my lord +duke; he reads every word of it, the rogue! The boys about that magazine +baste him as if he was a sack of oatmale. My reason for crying out, Sir +Jan, was because you mintioned Fraser at all. Bullwig has every +syllable of it be heart--from the pailitix down to the 'Yellowplush +Correspondence.'” + +“Ha, ha!” says Bullwig, affecting to laff (you may be sure my ears +prickt up when I heard the name of the “Yellowplush Correspondence”). +“Ha, ha! why, to tell truth, I HAVE wead the cowespondence to which you +allude: it's a gweat favowite at court. I was talking with Spwing Wice +and John Wussell about it the other day.” + +“Well, and what do you think of it?” says Sir John, looking mity +waggish--for he knew it was me who roat it. + +“Why, weally and twuly, there's considewable cleverness about the +cweature; but it's low, disgustingly low: it violates pwabability, and +the orthogwaphy is so carefully inaccuwate, that it requires a positive +study to compwehend it.” + +“Yes, faith,” says Larner; “the arthagraphy is detestible; it's as bad +for a man to write bad spillin as it is for 'em to speak wid a brrogue. +Iducation furst, and ganius afterwards. Your health, my lord, and good +luck to you.” + +“Yaw wemark,” says Bullwig, “is vewy appwopwiate. You will wecollect, +Sir John, in Hewodotus (as for you, Doctor, you know more about Iwish +than about Gweek),--you will wecollect, without doubt, a stowy nawwated +by that cwedulous though fascinating chwonicler, of a certain kind of +sheep which is known only in a certain distwict of Awabia, and of which +the tail is so enormous, that it either dwaggles on the gwound, or is +bound up by the shepherds of the country into a small wheelbawwow, or +cart, which makes the chwonicler sneewingly wemark that thus 'the sheep +of Awabia have their own chawiots.' I have often thought, sir (this +clawet is weally nectaweous)--I have often, I say, thought that the +wace of man may be compawed to these Awabian sheep--genius is our tail, +education our wheelbawwow. Without art and education to pwop it, this +genius dwops on the gwound, and is polluted by the mud, or injured +by the wocks upon the way: with the wheelbawwow it is stwengthened, +incweased, and supported--a pwide to the owner, a blessing to mankind.” + +“A very appropriate simile,” says Sir John; “and I am afraid that the +genius of our friend Yellowplush has need of some such support.” + +“Apropos,” said Bullwig, “who IS Yellowplush? I was given to understand +that the name was only a fictitious one, and that the papers were +written by the author of the 'Diary of a Physician;' if so, the man has +wonderfully improved in style, and there is some hope of him.” + +“Bah!” says the Duke of Doublejowl; “everybody knows it's Barnard, the +celebrated author of 'Sam Slick.'” + +“Pardon, my dear duke,” says Lord Bagwig; “it's the authoress of 'High +Life,' 'Almack's,' and other fashionable novels.” + +“Fiddlestick's end!” says Doctor Larner; “don't be blushing and +pretinding to ask questions; don't we know you, Bullwig? It's +you yourself, you thief of the world: we smoked you from the very +beginning.” + +Bullwig was about indignantly to reply, when Sir John interrupted them, +and said,--“I must correct you all, gentlemen; Mr. Yellowplush is no +other than Mr. Yellowplush: he gave you, my dear Bullwig, your last +glass of champagne at dinner, and is now an inmate of my house, and an +ornament of my kitchen!” + +“Gad!” says Doublejowl, “let's have him up.” + +“Hear, hear!” says Bagwig. + +“Ah, now,” says Larner, “your grace is not going to call up and talk to +a footman, sure? Is it gintale?” + +“To say the least of it,” says Bullwig, “the pwactice is iwwegular, and +indecowous; and I weally don't see how the interview can be in any way +pwofitable.” + +But the vices of the company went against the two littery men, and +everybody excep them was for having up poor me. The bell was wrung; +butler came. “Send up Charles,” says master; and Charles, who was +standing behind the skreand, was persnly abliged to come in. + +“Charles,” says master, “I have been telling these gentlemen who is the +author of the 'Yellowplush Correspondence' in Fraser's Magazine.” + +“It's the best magazine in Europe,” says the duke. + +“And no mistake,” says my lord. + +“Hwhat!” says Larner; “and where's the Litherary Chran?” + +I said myself nothink, but made a bough, and blusht like +pickle-cabbitch. + +“Mr. Yellowplush,” says his grace, “will you, in the first place, drink +a glass of wine?” + +I boughed agin. + +“And what wine do you prefer, sir? humble port or imperial burgundy?” + +“Why, your grace,” says I, “I know my place, and ain't above kitchin +wines. I will take a glass of port, and drink it to the health of this +honrabble compny.” + +When I'd swigged off the bumper, which his grace himself did me the +honor to pour out for me, there was a silints for a minnit; when my +master said:-- + +“Charles Yellowplush, I have perused your memoirs in Fraser's Magazine +with so much curiosity, and have so high an opinion of your talents as a +writer, that I really cannot keep you as a footman any longer, or allow +you to discharge duties for which you are now quite unfit. With all my +admiration for your talents, Mr. Yellowplush, I still am confident that +many of your friends in the servants'-hall will clean my boots a great +deal better than a gentleman of your genius can ever be expected to +do--it is for this purpose I employ footmen, and not that they may be +writing articles in magazines. But--you need not look so red, my good +fellow, and had better take another glass of port--I don't wish to throw +you upon the wide world without the means of a livelihood, and have made +interest for a little place which you will have under government, and +which will give you an income of eighty pounds per annum; which you can +double, I presume, by your literary labors.” + +“Sir,” says I, clasping my hands, and busting into tears, “do not--for +heaven's sake, do not!--think of any such think, or drive me from your +suvvice, because I have been fool enough to write in magaseens. Glans +but one moment at your honor's plate--every spoon is as bright as a +mirror; condysend to igsamine your shoes--your honor may see reflected +in them the fases of every one in the company. I blacked them shoes, I +cleaned that there plate. If occasionally I've forgot the footman in +the litterary man, and committed to paper my remindicences of fashnabble +life, it was from a sincere desire to do good, and promote nollitch: and +I appeal to your honor,--I lay my hand on my busm, and in the fase of +this noble company beg you to say, When you rung your bell, who came to +you fust? When you stopt out at Brooke's till morning, who sat up for +you? When you was ill, who forgot the natral dignities of his station, +and answered the two-pair bell? Oh, sir,” says I, “I know what's what; +don't send me away. I know them littery chaps, and, beleave me, I'd +rather be a footman. The work's not so hard--the pay is better: the +vittels incompyrably supearor. I have but to clean my things, and run my +errints, and you put clothes on my back, and meat in my mouth. Sir! Mr. +Bullwig! an't I right? shall I quit MY station and sink--that is to say, +rise--to YOURS?” + +Bullwig was violently affected; a tear stood in his glistening i. +“Yellowplush,” says he, seizing my hand, “you ARE right. Quit not your +present occupation; black boots, clean knives, wear plush, all your +life, but don't turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first novelist +in Europe. I have ranged with eagle wing over the wide regions of +literature, and perched on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with +eagle eyes on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the mysterious depths +of the human mind. All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are +known to me, all men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom from +the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of +Acadames--wisdom, too, from the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked +our 'backy in Seven Dials. Such must be the studies, and such is the +mission, in this world, of the Poet-Philosopher. But the knowledge +is only emptiness; the initiation is but misery; the initiated, a man +shunned and bann'd by his fellows. Oh,” said Bullwig, clasping his +hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the chandelier, “the curse of +Pwometheus descends upon his wace. Wath and punishment pursue them +from genewation to genewation! Wo to genius, the heaven-scaler, the +fire-stealer! Wo and thrice bitter desolation! Earth is the wock on +which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing victim--men, the vultures +that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is agony eternal--gwoaning and +solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies: +you would waise the awful veil, and stand in the twemendous Pwesence. +Beware; as you value your peace, beware! Withdwaw, wash Neophyte! +For heaven's sake--O for heaven's sake!”--here he looked round with +agony--“give me a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning +to disagwee with me.” + +Bullwig having concluded this spitch, very much to his own +sattasfackshn, looked round to the compny for aplaws, and then swigged +off the glass of brandy-and-water, giving a sollum sigh as he took the +last gulph; and then Doctor Ignatius, who longed for a chans, and, in +order to show his independence, began flatly contradicting his friend, +addressed me, and the rest of the genlmn present, in the following +manner:-- + +“Hark ye,” says he, “my gossoon, doan't be led asthray by the nonsinse +of that divil of a Bullwig. He's jillous of ye, my bhoy: that's the +rale, undoubted thruth; and it's only to keep you out of litherary +life that he's palavering you in this way. I'll tell you what--Plush ye +blackguard,--my honorable frind the mimber there has told me a hunder +times by the smallest computation, of his intense admiration of your +talents, and the wonderful sthir they were making in the world. He can't +bear a rival. He's mad with envy, hatred, oncharatableness. Look at +him, Plush, and look at me. My father was not a juke exactly, nor aven +a markis, and see, nevertheliss, to what a pitch I am come. I spare no +ixpinse; I'm the iditor of a cople of pariodicals; I dthrive about in me +carridge: I dine wid the lords of the land; and why--in the name of the +piper that pleed before Mosus, hwy? Because I'm a litherary man. Because +I know how to play me cards. Because I'm Docther Larner, in fact, and +mimber of every society in and out of Europe. I might have remained +all my life in Thrinity Colledge, and never made such an incom as that +offered you by Sir Jan; but I came to London--to London, my boy, and now +see! Look again at me friend Bullwig. He IS a gentleman, to be sure, and +bad luck to 'im, say I; and what has been the result of his litherary +labor? I'll tell you what; and I'll tell this gintale society, by the +shade of Saint Patrick, they're going to make him a BARINET.” + +“A BARNET, Doctor!” says I; “you don't mean to say they're going to make +him a barnet!” + +“As sure as I've made meself a docthor,” says Larner. + +“What, a baronet, like Sir John?” + +“The divle a bit else.” + +“And pray what for?” + +“What faw?” says Bullwig. “Ask the histowy of litwatuwe what faw? Ask +Colburn, ask Bentley, ask Saunders and Otley, ask the gweat Bwitish +nation, what faw? The blood in my veins comes puwified thwough ten +thousand years of chivalwous ancestwy; but that is neither here +nor there: my political principles--the equal wights which I have +advocated--the gweat cause of fweedom that I have celebwated, are known +to all. But this, I confess, has nothing to do with the question. No, +the question is this--on the thwone of litewature I stand unwivalled, +pwe-eminent; and the Bwitish government, honowing genius in me, +compliments the Bwitish nation by lifting into the bosom of the +heweditawy nobility, the most gifted member of the democwacy.” (The +honrabble genlm here sunk down amidst repeated cheers.) + +“Sir John,” says I, “and my lord duke, the words of my rivrint frend +Ignatius, and the remarks of the honrabble genlmn who has just sate +down, have made me change the detummination which I had the honor of +igspressing just now. + +“I igsept the eighty pound a year; knowing that I shall ave plenty of +time for pursuing my littery career, and hoping some day to set on that +same bentch of barranites, which is deckarated by the presnts of my +honrabble friend. + +“Why shooden I? It's trew I ain't done anythink as YET to deserve +such an honor; and it's very probable that I never shall. But +what then?--quaw dong, as our friends say? I'd much rayther have a +coat-of-arms than a coat of livry. I'd much rayther have my blud-red +hand spralink in the middle of a shield, than underneath a tea-tray. A +barranit I will be; and, in consiquints, must cease to be a footmin. + +“As to my politticle princepills, these, I confess, ain't settled: +they are, I know, necessary; but they ain't necessary UNTIL ASKT FOR; +besides, I reglar read the Sattarist newspaper, and so ignirince on this +pint would be inigscusable. + +“But if one man can git to be a doctor, and another a barranit, and +another a capting in the navy, and another a countess, and another the +wife of a governor of the Cape of Good Hope, I begin to perseave that +the littery trade ain't such a very bad un; igspecially if you're up to +snough, and know what's o'clock. I'll learn to make myself usefle, in +the fust place; then I'll larn to spell; and, I trust, by reading the +novvles of the honrabble member, and the scientafick treatiseses of the +reverend doctor, I may find the secrit of suxess, and git a litell for +my own share. I've sevral frends in the press, having paid for many of +those chaps' drink, and given them other treets; and so I think I've got +all the emilents of suxess; therefore, I am detummined, as I said, to +igsept your kind offer, and beg to withdraw the wuds which I made yous +of when I refyoused your hoxpatable offer. I must, however--” + +“I wish you'd withdraw yourself,” said Sir John, bursting into a most +igstrorinary rage, “and not interrupt the company with your infernal +talk! Go down, and get us coffee: and, hark ye! hold your impertinent +tongue, or I'll break every bone in your body. You shall have the place +as I said; and while you're in my service, you shall be my servant; but +you don't stay in my service after to-morrow. Go down stairs, sir; and +don't stand staring here!” + + . . . . . . + +In this abrupt way, my evening ended; it's with a melancholy regret that +I think what came of it. I don't wear plush any more. I am an altered, a +wiser, and, I trust, a better man. + +I'm about a novvle (having made great progriss in spelling), in the +style of my friend Bullwig; and preparing for publigation, in the +Doctor's Cyclopedear, “The Lives of Eminent British and Foring +Wosherwomen.” + + + +SKIMMINGS FROM “THE DAIRY OF GEORGE IV.” + + +CHARLES YELLOWPLUSH, ESQ, TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ.* + +DEAR WHY,--Takin advantage of the Crismiss holydays, Sir John and me +(who is a member of parlyment) had gone down to our place in Yorkshire +for six wicks, to shoot grows and woodcox, and enjoy old English +hospitalaty. This ugly Canady bisniss unluckaly put an end to our +sports in the country, and brot us up to Buckly Square as fast as four +posterses could gallip. When there, I found your parcel, containing the +two vollumes of a new book; which, as I have been away from the literary +world, and emplied solely in athlatic exorcises, have been laying +neglected in my pantry, among my knife-cloaths, and dekanters, and +blacking-bottles, and bed-room candles, and things. + + +* These Memoirs were originally published in Fraser's Magazine, and it +may be stated for the benefit of the unlearned in such matters, that +“Oliver Yorke” is the assumed name of the editor of that periodical. + + +This will, I'm sure, account for my delay in notussing the work. I see +sefral of the papers and magazeens have been befoarhand with me, and +have given their apinions concerning it: specially the Quotly Revew, +which has most mussilessly cut to peases the author of this Dairy of the +Times of George IV.* + + +* Diary illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth, interspersed +with Original Letters from the late Queen Caroline, and from various +other distinguished Persons. + + “Tot ou tard, tout se scait.”--MAINTENON. + +In 2 vols. London, 1838. Henry Colburn. + + +That it's a woman who wrote it is evydent from the style of the writing, +as well as from certain proofs in the book itself. Most suttnly a femail +wrote this Dairy; but who this Dairy-maid may be, I, in coarse, can't +conjecter: and indeed, common galliantry forbids me to ask. I can only +judge of the book itself; which, it appears to me, is clearly trenching +upon my ground and favrite subjicks, viz. fashnabble life, as igsibited +in the houses of the nobility, gentry, and rile fammly. + +But I bare no mallis--infamation is infamation, and it doesn't matter +where the infamy comes from; and whether the Dairy be from that +distinguished pen to which it is ornarily attributed--whether, I say, +it comes from a lady of honor to the late quean, or a scullion to that +diffunct majisty, no matter: all we ask is nollidge; never mind how we +have it. Nollidge, as our cook says, is like trikel-possit--it's always +good, though you was to drink it out of an old shoo. + +Well, then, although this Dairy is likely searusly to injur my pussonal +intrests, by fourstalling a deal of what I had to say in my private +memoars--though many, many guineas, is taken from my pockit, by +cuttin short the tail of my narratif--though much that I had to say in +souperior languidge, greased with all the ellygance of my orytory, the +benefick of my classcle reading, the chawms of my agreble wit, is thus +abruply brot befor the world by an inferior genus, neither knowing nor +writing English; yet I say, that nevertheless I must say, what I am +puffickly prepaired to say, to gainsay which no man can say a word--yet +I say, that I say I consider this publication welkom. Far from viewing +it with enfy, I greet it with applaws; because it increases that most +exlent specious of nollidge, I mean “FASHNABBLE NOLLIDGE:” compayred +to witch all other nollidge is nonsince--a bag of goold to a pare of +snuffers. + +Could Lord Broom, on the Canady question, say moar? or say what he had +tu say better? We are marters, both of us, to prinsple; and every body +who knows eather knows that we would sacrafice anythink rather than +that. Fashion is the goddiss I adoar. This delightful work is an offring +on her srine; and as sich all her wushippers are bound to hail it. +Here is not a question of trumpry lords and honrabbles, generals and +barronites, but the crown itself, and the king and queen's actions; +witch may be considered as the crown jewels. Here's princes, and +grand-dukes and airsparent, and heaven knows what; all with blood-royal +in their veins, and their names mentioned in the very fust page of the +peeridge. In this book you become so intmate with the Prince of Wales, +that you may follow him, if you please, to his marridge-bed: or, if +you prefer the Princiss Charlotte, you may have with her an hour's +tator-tator.* + + +* Our estimable correspondent means, we presume, tete-a-tete.--O. Y. + + +Now, though most of the remarkable extrax from this book have been given +already (the cream of the Dairy, as I wittily say,) I shall trouble +you, nevertheless, with a few; partly because they can't be repeated +too often, and because the toan of obsyvation with which they have been +genrally received by the press, is not igsackly such as I think they +merit. How, indeed, can these common magaseen and newspaper pipple know +anythink of fashnabble life, let alone ryal? + +Conseaving, then, that the publication of the Dairy has done reel good +on this scoar, and may probly do a deal moor, I shall look through it, +for the porpus of selecting the most ellygant passidges, and which I +think may be peculiarly adapted to the reader's benefick. + +For you see, my dear Mr. Yorke, that in the fust place, that this is +no common catchpny book, like that of most authors and authoresses, who +write for the base looker of gain. Heaven bless you! the Dairy-maid is +above anything musnary. She is a woman of rank, and no mistake; and is +as much above doin a common or vulgar action as I am superaor to taking +beer after dinner with my cheese. She proves that most satisfackarily, +as we see in the following passidge:-- + + +“Her royal highness came to me, and having spoken a few phrases +on different subjects, produced all the papers she wishes to have +published: her whole correspondence with the prince relative to Lady +J---'s dismissal; his subsequent neglect of the princess; and, finally, +the acquittal of her supposed guilt, signed by the Duke of Portland, +&c., at the time of the secret inquiry: when, if proof could have +been brought against her, it certainly would have been done; and which +acquittal, to the disgrace of all parties concerned, as well as to the +justice of the nation in general, was not made public at the time. A +common criminal is publicly condemned or acquitted. Her royal highness +commanded me to have these letters published forthwith, saying, 'You may +sell them for a great sum.' At first (for she had spoken to me +before concerning this business), I thought of availing myself of the +opportunity; but upon second thoughts, I turned from this idea with +detestation: for, if I do wrong by obeying her wishes and endeavoring +to serve her, I will do so at least from good and disinterested motives, +not from any sordid views. The princess commands me, and I will obey +her, whatever may be the issue; but not for fare or fee. I own I +tremble, not so much for myself, as for the idea that she is not taking +the best and most dignified way of having these papers published. Why +make a secret of it at all? If wrong, it should not be done; if right +it should be done openly, and in the face of her enemies. In her royal +highness's case, as in that of wronged princes in general, why do +they shrink from straightforward dealings, and rather have recourse to +crooked policy? I wish, in this particular instance, I could make +her royal highness feel thus: but she is naturally indignant at being +falsely accused, and will not condescend to an avowed explanation.” + + +Can anythink be more just and honrabble than this? The Dairy-lady is +quite fair and abovebored. A clear stage, says she, and no favior! “I +won't do behind my back what I am ashamed of before my face: not I!” No +more she does; for you see that, though she was offered this manyscrip +by the princess FOR NOTHINK, though she knew that she could actially get +for it a large sum of money, she was above it, like an honest, noble, +grateful, fashnabble woman, as she was. She aboars secrecy, and never +will have recors to disguise or crookid polacy. This ought to be an +ansure to them RADICLE SNEERERS, who pretend that they are the equals +of fashnabble pepple; wheras it's a well-known fact, that the vulgar +roagues have no notion of honor. + +And after this positif declaration, which reflex honor on her ladyship +(long life to her! I've often waited behind her chair!)--after this +positif declaration, that, even for the porpus of DEFENDING her +missis, she was so hi-minded as to refuse anythink like a peculiarly +consideration, it is actially asserted in the public prints by a +booxeller, that he has given her A THOUSAND POUND for the Dairy. A +thousand pound! nonsince!--it's a phigment! a base lible! This woman +take a thousand pound, in a matter where her dear mistriss, friend, and +benyfactriss was concerned! Never! A thousand baggonits would be more +prefrabble to a woman of her xqizzit feelins and fashion. + +But to proseed. It's been objected to me, when I wrote some of my +expearunces in fashnabble life, that my languidge was occasionally +vulgar, and not such as is genrally used in those exqizzit famlies which +I frequent. Now, I'll lay a wager that there is in this book, wrote as +all the world knows, by a rele lady, and speakin of kings and queens +as if they were as common as sand-boys--there is in this book more +wulgarity than ever I displayed, more nastiness than ever I would dare +TO THINK ON, and more bad grammar than ever I wrote since I was a boy at +school. As for authografy, evry genlmn has his own: never mind spellin, +I say, so long as the sence is right. + +Let me here quot a letter from a corryspondent of this charming lady of +honor; and a very nice corryspondent he is, too, without any mistake: + + +“Lady O---, poor Lady O---! knows the rules of prudence, I fear me, as +imperfectly as she doth those of the Greek and Latin Grammars: or she +hath let her brother, who is a sad swine, become master of her secrets, +and then contrived to quarrel with him. You would see the outline of the +melange in the newspapers; but not the report that Mr. S--- is about to +publish a pamphlet, as an addition to the Harleian Tracts, setting forth +the amatory adventures of his sister. We shall break our necks in haste +to buy it, of course crying 'Shameful' all the while; and it is said +that Lady O--- is to be cut, which I cannot entirely believe. Let her +tell two or three old women about town that they are young and handsome, +and give some well-timed parties, and she may still keep the society +which she hath been used to. The times are not so hard as they once +were, when a woman could not construe Magna Charta with anything like +impunity. People were full as gallant many years ago. But the days are +gone by wherein my lord-protector of the commonwealth of England was +wont to go a lovemaking to Mrs. Fleetwood, with the Bible under his arm. + +“And so Miss Jacky Gordon is really clothed with a husband at last, and +Miss Laura Manners left without a mate! She and Lord Stair should marry +and have children in mere revenge. As to Miss Gordon, she's a Venus well +suited for such a Vulcan,--whom nothing but money and a title could +have rendered tolerable, even to a kitchen wench. It is said that the +matrimonial correspondence between this couple is to be published, full +of sad scandalous relations, of which you may be sure scarcely a word +is true. In former times, the Duchess of St. A---s made use of these +elegant epistles in order to intimidate Lady Johnstone: but that ruse +would not avail; so in spite, they are to be printed. What a cargo +of amiable creatures! Yet will some people scarcely believe in the +existence of Pandemonium. + +“Tuesday Morning.--You are perfectly right respecting the hot rooms +here, which we all cry out against, and all find very comfortable--much +more so than the cold sands and bleak neighborhood of the sea; which +looks vastly well in one of Vander Velde's pictures hung upon crimson +damask, but hideous and shocking in reality. H--- and his 'elle' +(talking of parties) were last night at Cholmondeley House, but seem +not to ripen in their love. He is certainly good-humored, and I believe, +good-hearted, so deserves a good wife; but his cara seems a genuine +London miss made up of many affectations. Will she form a comfortable +helpmate? For me, I like not her origin, and deem many strange things to +run in blood, besides madness and the Hanoverian evil. + +“Thursday.--I verily do believe that I shall never get to the end of +this small sheet of paper, so many unheard of interruptions have I had; +and now I have been to Vauxhall, and caught the toothache. I was of Lady +E. B---m and H---'s party: very dull--the Lady giving us all a supper +after our promenade-- + + + 'Much ado was there, God wot + She would love, but he would not.' + + +He ate a great deal of ice, although he did not seem to require it: and +she 'faisoit les yeux doux' enough not only to have melted all the ice +which he swallowed, but his own hard heart into the bargain. The thing +will not do. In the meantime, Miss Long hath become quite cruel to +Wellesley Pole, and divides her favor equally between Lords Killeen and +Kilworth, two as simple Irishmen as ever gave birth to a bull. I wish +to Hymen that she were fairly married, for all this pother gives one a +disgusting picture of human nature.” + + +A disgusting pictur of human nature, indeed--and isn't he who moralizes +about it, and she to whom he writes, a couple of pretty heads in +the same piece? Which, Mr. Yorke, is the wust, the scandle or the +scandle-mongers? See what it is to be a moral man of fashn. Fust, +he scrapes togither all the bad stoaries about all the people of +his acquentance--he goes to a ball, and laffs or snears at everybody +there--he is asked to a dinner, and brings away, along with meat and +wine to his heart's content, a sour stomick filled with nasty stories of +all the people present there. He has such a squeamish appytite, that all +the world seems to DISAGREE with him. And what has he got to say to his +delicate female frend? Why that-- + +Fust. Mr. S. is going to publish indescent stoaries about Lady O---, his +sister, which everybody's goin to by. + +Nex. That Miss Gordon is going to be cloathed with an usband; and that +all their matrimonial corryspondins is to be published too. + +3. That Lord H. is going to be married; but there's some thing rong in +his wife's blood. + +4. Miss Long has cut Mr. Wellesley, and is gone after two Irish lords. + +Wooden you phancy, now, that the author of such a letter, instead of +writin about pipple of tip-top qualaty, was describin Vinegar Yard? +Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin to was a chased, modist +lady of honor, and mother of a famly? O trumpery! O morris! as Homer +says: this is a higeous pictur of manners, such as I weap to think of, +as evry morl man must weap. + +The above is one pritty pictur of mearly fashnabble life: what follows +is about families even higher situated than the most fashnabble. Here +we have the princessregient, her daughter the Princess Sharlot, +her grandmamma the old quean, and her madjisty's daughters the two +princesses. If this is not high life, I don't know where it is to be +found; and it's pleasing to see what affeckshn and harmny rains in such +an exolted spear. + + +“Sunday 24th.--Yesterday, the princess went to meet the Princess +Charlotte at Kensington. Lady ---- told me that, when the latter +arrived, she rushed up to her mother, and said, 'For God's sake, be +civil to her,' meaning the Duchess of Leeds, who followed her. Lady +---- said she felt sorry for the latter; but when the Princess of Wales +talked to her, she soon became so free and easy, that one could not +have any FEELING about her FEELINGS. Princess Charlotte, I was told, was +looking handsome, very pale, but her head more becomingly dressed,--that +is to say, less dressed than usual. Her figure is of that full round +shape which is now in its prime; but she disfigures herself by wearing +her bodice so short, that she literally has no waist. Her feet are very +pretty; and so are her hands and arms, and her ears, and the shape of +her head. Her countenance is expressive, when she allows her passions to +play upon it; and I never saw any face, with so little shade, express so +many powerful and varied emotions. Lady ---- told me that the Princess +Charlotte talked to her about her situation, and said, in a very +quiet, but determined way, she WOULD NOT BEAR IT, and that as soon as +parliament met, she intended to come to Warwick House, and remain there; +that she was also determined not to consider the Duchess of Leeds as +her GOVERNESS but only as her FIRST LADY. She made many observations +on other persons and subjects; and appears to be very quick, very +penetrating, but imperious and wilful. There is a tone of romance, too, +in her character, which will only serve to mislead her. + +“She told her mother that there had been a great battle at Windsor +between the queen and the prince, the former refusing to give up +Miss Knight from her own person to attend on Princess Charlotte as +sub-governess. But the prince-regent had gone to Windsor himself, and +insisted on her doing so; and the 'old Beguin' was forced to submit, +but has been ill ever since: and Sir Henry Halford declared it was a +complete breaking up of her constitution--to the great delight of the +two princesses, who were talking about this affair. Miss Knight was the +very person they wished to have; they think they can do as they like +with her. It has been ordered that the Princess Charlotte should not see +her mother alone for a single moment; but the latter went into her room, +stuffed a pair of large shoes full of papers, and having given them to +her daughter, she went home. Lady ---- told me everything was written +down and sent to Mr. Brougham NEXT DAY.” + + +See what discord will creap even into the best regulated famlies. Here +are six of 'em--viz., the quean and her two daughters, her son, and his +wife and daughter; and the manner in which they hate one another is a +compleat puzzle. + + {his mother. + The Prince hates... {his wife. + {his daughter. + + Princess Charlotte hates her father. + + Princess of Wales hates her husband. + +The old quean, by their squobbles, is on the pint of death; and her two +jewtiful daughters are delighted at the news. What a happy, fashnabble, +Christian famly! O Mr. Yorke, Mr. Yorke, if this is the way in the +drawin-rooms, I'm quite content to live below, in pease and charaty with +all men; writin, as I am now, in my pantry, or els havin a quiet game at +cards in the servants-all. With US there's no bitter, wicked, quarling +of this sort. WE don't hate our children, or bully our mothers, or wish +'em ded when they're sick, as this Dairywoman says kings and queens +do. When we're writing to our friends or sweethearts, WE don't fill +our letters with nasty stoaries, takin away the carricter of our +fellow-servants, as this maid of honor's amusin' moral frend does. But, +in coarse, it's not for us to judge of our betters;--these great people +are a supeerur race, and we can't comprehend their ways. + +Do you recklect--it's twenty years ago now--how a bewtiffle princess +died in givin buth to a poar baby, and how the whole nation of Hengland +wep, as though it was one man, over that sweet woman and child, in which +were sentered the hopes of every one of us, and of which each was as +proud as of his own wife or infnt? Do you recklect how pore fellows +spent their last shillin to buy a black crape for their hats, and +clergymen cried in the pulpit, and the whole country through was no +better than a great dismal funeral? Do you recklet, Mr. Yorke, who +was the person that we all took on so about? We called her the Princis +Sharlot of Wales; and we valyoud a single drop of her blood more than +the whole heartless body of her father. Well, we looked up to her as a +kind of saint or angle, and blest God (such foolish loyal English pipple +as we ware in those days) who had sent this sweet lady to rule over us. +But heaven bless you! it was only souperstition. She was no better than +she should be, as it turns out--or at least the Dairy-maid says so. No +better?--if my daughters or yours was 1/2 so bad, we'd as leaf be dead +ourselves, and they hanged. But listen to this pritty charritable story, +and a truce to reflexshuns:-- + + +“Sunday, January, 9, 1814.--Yesterday, according to appointment, I went +to Princess Charlotte. Found at Warwick House the harp-player, Dizzi; +was asked to remain and listen to his performance, but was talked to +during the whole time, which completely prevented all possibility of +listening to the music. The Duchess of Leeds and her daughter were in +the room, but left it soon. Next arrived Miss Knight, who remained all +the time I was there. Princess Charlotte was very gracious--showed me +all her bonny dyes, as B---would have called them--pictures, and cases, +and jewels, &c. She talked in a very desultory way, and it would be +difficult to say of what. She observed her mother was in very low +spirits. I asked her how she supposed she could be otherwise? This +QUESTIONING answer saves a great deal of trouble, and serves two +purposes--i.e. avoids committing oneself, or giving offence by silence. +There was hung in the apartment one portrait, amongst others, that +very much resembled the Duke of D---. I asked Miss Knight whom it +represented. She said that was not known; it had been supposed a +likeness of the Pretender, when young. This answer suited my thoughts so +comically I could have laughed, if one ever did at courts anything but +the contrary of what one was inclined to do. + +“Princess Charlotte has a very great variety of expression in her +countenance--a play of features, and a force of muscle, rarely seen in +connection with such soft and shadeless coloring. Her hands and arms +are beautiful; but I think her figure is already gone, and will soon be +precisely like her mother's: in short it is the very picture of her, and +NOT IN MINIATURE. I could not help analyzing my own sensations during +the time I was with her, and thought more of them than I did of her. Why +was I at all flattered, at all more amused, at all more supple to this +young princess, than to her who is only the same sort of person set +in the shade of circumstances and of years? It is that youth, and the +approach of power, and the latent views of self-interest, sway the heart +and dazzle the understanding. If this is so with a heart not, I trust, +corrupt, and a head not particularly formed for interested calculations, +what effect must not the same causes produce on the generality of +mankind? + +“In the course of the conversation, the Princess Charlotte contrived to +edge in a good deal of tum-de-dy, and would, if I had entered into +the thing, have gone on with it, while looking at a little picture of +herself, which had about thirty or forty different dresses to put over +it, done on isinglass, and which allowed the general coloring of the +picture to be seen through its transparency. It was, I thought, a pretty +enough conceit, though rather like dressing up a doll. 'Ah!,' said Miss +Knight, 'I am not content though, madame--for I yet should have liked +one more dress--that of the favorite Sultana.' + +“'No, no!' said the princess, 'I never was a favorite, and never can be +one,'--looking at a picture which she said was her father's, but which +I do not believe was done for the regent any more than for me, but +represented a young man in a hussar's dress--probably a former favorite. + +“The Princess Charlotte seemed much hurt at the little notice that was +taken of her birthday. After keeping me for two hours and a half she +dismissed me; and I am sure I could not say what she said, except that +it was an olio of decousus and heterogeneous things, partaking of the +characteristics of her mother, grafted on a younger scion. I dined +tete-a-tete with my dear old aunt: hers is always a sweet and soothing +society to me.” + + +There's a pleasing, lady-like, moral extract for you! An innocent young +thing of fifteen has picturs of TWO lovers in her room, and expex a +good number more. This dellygate young creature EDGES in a good deal of +TUMDEDY (I can't find it in Johnson's Dixonary), and would have GONE ON +WITH THE THING (ellygence of languidge), if the dairy-lady would have +let her. + +Now, to tell you the truth, Mr. Yorke, I doan't beleave a single +syllible of this story. This lady of honner says, in the fust place, +that the princess would have talked a good deal of TUMDEDY: which means, +I suppose, indeasnsy, if she, the lady of honner WOULD HAVE LET HER. +This IS a good one! Why, she lets every body else talk tumdedy to their +hearts' content; she lets her friends WRITE tumdedy, and, after keeping +it for a quarter of a sentry, she PRINTS it. Why then, be so squeamish +about HEARING a little! And, then, there's the stoary of the two +portricks. This woman has the honner to be received in the frendlyest +manner by a British princess; and what does the grateful loyal creature +do? 2 picturs of the princess's relations are hanging in her room, and +the Dairy-woman swears away the poor young princess's carrickter, by +swearing they are picturs of her LOVERS. For shame, oh, for shame! you +slanderin backbitin dairy-woman you! If you told all them things to +your “dear old aunt,” on going to dine with her, you must have had very +“sweet and soothing society” indeed. + +I had marked out many more extrax, which I intended to write about; but +I think I have said enough about this Dairy: in fack, the butler, and +the gals in the servants'-hall are not well pleased that I should go +on reading this naughty book; so we'll have no more of it, only one +passidge about Pollytics, witch is sertnly quite new:-- + + +“No one was so likely to be able to defeat Bonaparte as the Crown +Prince, from the intimate knowledge he possessed of his character. +Bernadotte was also instigated against Bonaparte by one who not only +owed him a personal hatred, but who possessed a mind equal to his, and +who gave the Crown Prince both information and advice how to act. This +was no less a person than Madame de Stael. It was not, as some have +asserted, THAT SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH BERNADOTTE; for, at the time of +their intimacy, MADAME DE STAEL WAS IN LOVE WITH ROCCA. But she used her +influence (which was not small) with the Crown Prince, to make him +fight against Bonaparte, and to her wisdom may be attributed much of the +success which accompanied his attack upon him. Bernadotte has raised the +flame of liberty, which seems fortunately to blaze all around. May it +liberate Europe; and from the ashes of the laurel may olive branches +spring up, and overshadow the earth!” + + +There's a discuvery! that the overthrow of Boneypart is owing to MADAME +DE STAEL! What nonsince for Colonel Southey or Doctor Napier to write +histories of the war with that Capsican hupstart and murderer, when here +we have the whole affair explaned by the lady of honor! + + +“Sunday, April 10, 1814.--The incidents which take place every hour are +miraculous. Bonaparte is deposed, but alive; subdued, but allowed to +choose his place of residence. The island of Elba is the spot he has +selected for his ignominious retreat. France is holding forth repentant +arms to her banished sovereign. The Poissardes who dragged Louis XVI. +to the scaffold are presenting flowers to the Emperor of Russia, +the restorer of their legitimate king! What a stupendous field for +philosophy to expatiate in! What an endless material for thought! What +humiliation to the pride of mere human greatness! How are the mighty +fallen! Of all that was great in Napoleon, what remains? Despoiled +of his usurped power, he sinks to insignificance. There was no +moral greatness in the man. The meteor dazzled, scorched, is put +out,--utterly, and for ever. But the power which rests in those who have +delivered the nations from bondage, is a power that is delegated to them +from heaven; and the manner in which they have used it is a guarantee +for its continuance. The Duke of Wellington has gained laurels unstained +by any useless flow of blood. He has done more than conquer others--he +has conquered himself: and in the midst of the blaze and flush of +victory, surrounded by the homage of nations, he has not been betrayed +into the commission of any act of cruelty or wanton offence. He was as +cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common +man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his +home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for +scorn to point the finger of derision at: and humanity shudders as it +remembers the scourge with which this man's ambition was permitted to +devastate every home tie, and every heartfelt joy.” + + +And now, after this sublime passidge, as full of awfle reflections and +pious sentyments as those of Mrs. Cole in the play, I shall only quot +one little extrak more:-- + + +“All goes gloomily with the poor princess. Lady Charlotte Campbell told +me she regrets not seeing all these curious personages; but she says, +the more the princess is forsaken, the more happy she is at having +offered to attend her at this time. THIS IS VERY AMIABLE IN HER, and +cannot fail to be gratifying to the princess.” + + +So it is--wery amiable, wery kind and considerate in her, indeed. Poor +Princess! how lucky you was to find a frend who loved you for your own +sake, and when all the rest of the wuld turned its back kep steady to +you. As for believing that Lady Sharlot had any hand in this book,* +heaven forbid! she is all gratitude, pure gratitude, depend upon it. SHE +would not go for to blacken her old frend and patron's carrickter, after +having been so outrageously faithful to her; SHE wouldn't do it, at no +price, depend upon it. How sorry she must be that others an't quite +so squemish, and show up in this indesent way the follies of her kind, +genrus, foolish bennyfactris! + + +* The “authorized” announcement, in the John Bull newspaper, sets this +question at rest. It is declared that her ladyship is not the writer of +the Diary.--O. Y. + + + + +EPISTLES TO THE LITERATI. + + +CH-S Y-LL-WPL-SH, ESQ., TO SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, BT. + +JOHN THOMAS SMITH, ESQ., TO C--S Y--H, ESQ. + + +NOTUS. + + +The suckmstansies of the following harticle are as follos:--Me and +my friend, the sellabrated Mr. Smith, reckonized each other in the +Haymarket Theatre, during the performints of the new play. I was settn +in the gallery, and sung out to him (he was in the pit), to jine us +after the play, over a glass of bear and a cold hoyster, in my pantry, +the family being out. + +Smith came as appinted. We descorsed on the subjick of the comady; +and, after sefral glases, we each of us agreed to write a letter to the +other, giving our notiums of the pease. Paper was brought that momint; +and Smith writing his harticle across the knife-bord, I dasht off mine +on the dresser. + +Our agreement was, that I (being remarkabble for my style of riting) +should cretasize the languidge, whilst he should take up with the plot +of the play; and the candied reader will parding me for having holtered +the original address of my letter, and directed it to Sir Edward +himself; and for having incopperated Smith's remarks in the midst of my +own:-- + + +MAYFAIR, Nov. 30, 1839. Midnite. + +HONRABBLE BARNET!--Retired from the littery world a year or moar, I +didn't think anythink would injuice me to come forrards again: for I +was content with my share of reputation, and propoas'd to add nothink to +those immortial wux which have rendered this Magaseen so sallybrated. + +Shall I tell you the reazn of my re-appearants?--a desire for the +benefick of my fellow-creatures? Fiddlestick! A mighty truth with which +my busm labored, and which I must bring forth or die? Nonsince--stuff: +money's the secret, my dear Barnet,--money--l'argong, gelt, spicunia. +Here's quarter-day coming, and I'm blest if I can pay my landlud, unless +I can ad hartificially to my inkum. + +This is, however, betwigst you and me. There's no need to blacard the +streets with it, or to tell the British public that Fitzroy Y-ll-wpl-sh +is short of money, or that the sallybrated hauthor of the Y--- Papers is +in peskewniary difficklties, or is fiteagued by his superhuman littery +labors, or by his famly suckmstansies, or by any other pusnal matter: +my maxim, dear B, is on these pints to be as quiet as posbile. What +the juice does the public care for you or me? Why must we always, in +prefizzes and what not, be a-talking about ourselves and our igstrodnary +merrats, woas, and injaries? It is on this subjick that I porpies, my +dear Barnet, to speak to you in a frendly way; and praps you'll find my +advise tolrabbly holesum. + +Well, then,--if you care about the apinions, fur good or evil, of us +poor suvvants, I tell you, in the most candied way, I like you, Barnet. +I've had my fling at you in my day (for, entry nou, that last stoary I +roat about you and Larnder was as big a bownsir as ever was)--I've had +my fling at you; but I like you. One may objeck to an immense deal of +your writings, which, betwigst you and me, contain more sham scentiment, +sham morallaty, sham poatry, than you'd like to own; but, in spite of +this, there's the STUFF in you: you've a kind and loyal heart in you, +Barnet--a trifle deboshed, perhaps; a kean i, igspecially for what's +comic (as for your tradgady, it's mighty flatchulent), and a ready +plesnt pen. The man who says you are an As is an As himself. Don't +believe him, Barnet! not that I suppose you wil,--for, if I've formed +a correck apinion of you from your wucks, you think your small-beear as +good as most men's: every man does,--and why not? We brew, and we love +our own tap--amen; but the pint betwigst us, is this stewpid, absudd way +of crying out, because the public don't like it too. Why shood they, +my dear Barnet? You may vow that they are fools; or that the critix are +your enemies; or that the wuld should judge your poams by your critticle +rules, and not their own: you may beat your breast, and vow you are a +marter, and you won't mend the matter. Take heart, man! you're not so +misrabble after all: your spirits need not be so VERY cast down; you are +not so VERY badly paid. I'd lay a wager that you make, with one thing +or another--plays, novvles, pamphlicks, and little odd jobbs here and +there--your three thowsnd a year. There's many a man, dear Bullwig that +works for less, and lives content. Why shouldn't you? Three thowsnd a +year is no such bad thing,--let alone the barnetcy: it must be a great +comfort to have that bloody hand in your skitching. + +But don't you sea, that in a wuld naturally envius, wickid, and fond +of a joak, this very barnetcy, these very cumplaints,--this ceaseless +groning, and moning, and wining of yours, is igsackly the thing which +makes people laff and snear more? If you were ever at a great school, +you must recklect who was the boy most bullid, and buffited, and +purshewd--he who minded it most. He who could take a basting got but +few; he who rord and wep because the knotty boys called him nicknames, +was nicknamed wuss and wuss. I recklect there was at our school, in +Smithfield, a chap of this milksop, spoony sort, who appeared among the +romping, ragged fellers in a fine flanning dressing-gownd, that his mama +had given him. That pore boy was beaten in a way that his dear ma and +aunts didn't know him; his fine flanning dressing-gownd was torn all to +ribbings, and he got no pease in the school ever after, but was abliged +to be taken to some other saminary, where, I make no doubt, he was paid +off igsactly in the same way. + +Do you take the halligory, my dear Barnet? Mutayto nominy--you know what +I mean. You are the boy, and your barnetcy is the dressing-gownd. You +dress yourself out finer than other chaps and they all begin to sault +and hustle you; it's human nature, Barnet. You show weakness, think +of your dear ma, mayhap, and begin to cry: it's all over with you; +the whole school is at you--upper boys and under, big and little; the +dirtiest little fag in the place will pipe out blaggerd names at you, +and takes his pewny tug at your tail. + +The only way to avoid such consperracies is to put a pair of stowt +shoalders forrards, and bust through the crowd of raggymuffins. A good +bold fellow dubls his fistt, and cries, “Wha dares meddle wi' me?” When +Scott got HIS barnetcy, for instans, did any one of us cry out? No, by +the laws, he was our master; and wo betide the chap that said neigh to +him! But there's barnets and barnets. Do you recklect that fine chapter +in “Squintin Durward,” about the too fellos and cups, at the siege of +the bishop's castle? One of them was a brave warner, and kep HIS cup; +they strangled the other chap--strangled him, and laffed at him too. + +With respeck, then, to the barnetcy pint, this is my advice: brazen it +out. Us littery men I take to be like a pack of schoolboys--childish, +greedy, envius, holding by our friends, and always ready to fight. What +must be a man's conduck among such? He must either take no notis, and +pass on myjastick, or else turn round and pummle soundly--one, two, +right and left, ding dong over the face and eyes; above all, never +acknowledge that he is hurt. Years ago, for instans (we've no ill-blood, +but only mention this by way of igsample), you began a sparring with +this Magaseen. Law bless you, such a ridicklus gaym I never see: a man +so belaybord, beflustered, bewolloped, was never known; it was the laff +of the whole town. Your intelackshal natur, respected Barnet, is not +fizzickly adapted, so to speak, for encounters of this sort. You must +not indulge in combats with us course bullies of the press: you have not +the STAMINY for a reglar set-to. What, then, is your plan? In the midst +of the mob to pass as quiet as you can: you won't be undistubbed. Who +is? Some stray kix and buffits will fall to you--mortial man is subjick +to such; but if you begin to wins and cry out, and set up for a marter, +wo betide you! + +These remarks, pusnal as I confess them to be, are yet, I assure you, +written in perfick good-natur, and have been inspired by your play of +the “Sea Capting,” and prefiz to it; which latter is on matters intirely +pusnal, and will, therefore, I trust, igscuse this kind of ad hominam +(as they say) disk-cushion. I propose, honrabble Barnit, to cumsider +calmly this play and prephiz, and to speak of both with that honisty +which, in the pantry or studdy, I've been always phamous for. Let us, +in the first place, listen to the opening of the “Preface of the Fourth +Edition:” + + +“No one can be more sensible than I am of the many faults and +deficiencies to be found in this play; but, perhaps, when it is +considered how very rarely it has happened in the history of our +dramatic literature that good acting plays have been produced, except by +those who have either been actors themselves, or formed their habits of +literature, almost of life, behind the scenes, I might have looked for +a criticism more generous, and less exacting and rigorous, than that +by which the attempts of an author accustomed to another class of +composition have been received by a large proportion of the periodical +press. + +“It is scarcely possible, indeed, that this play should not contain +faults of two kinds, first, the faults of one who has necessarily much +to learn in the mechanism of his art; and, secondly, of one who, having +written largely in the narrative style of fiction, may not unfrequently +mistake the effects of a novel for the effects of a drama. I may add to +these, perhaps, the deficiencies that arise from uncertain health and +broken spirits, which render the author more susceptible than he might +have been some years since to that spirit of depreciation and hostility +which it has been his misfortune to excite amongst the general +contributors to the periodical press for the consciousness that every +endeavor will be made to cavil, to distort, to misrepresent, and, in +fine, if possible, to RUN DOWN, will occasionally haunt even the hours +of composition, to check the inspiration, and damp the ardor. + +“Having confessed thus much frankly and fairly, and with a hope that +I may ultimately do better, should I continue to write for the stage +(which nothing but an assurance that, with all my defects, I may yet +bring some little aid to the drama, at a time when any aid, however +humble, ought to be welcome to the lovers of the art, could induce me to +do), may I be permitted to say a few words as to some of the objections +which have been made against this play?” + + +Now, my dear sir, look what a pretty number of please you put forrards +here, why your play shouldn't be good. + +First. Good plays are almost always written by actors. + +Secknd. You are a novice to the style of composition. + +Third. You MAY be mistaken in your effects, being a novelist by trade, +and not a play-writer. + +Fourthly. Your in such bad helth and sperrits. + +Fifthly. Your so afraid of the critix, that they damp your arder. + +For shame, for shame, man! What confeshns is these,--what painful +pewling and piping! Your not a babby. I take you to be some seven or +eight and thutty years old--“in the morning of youth,” as the flosofer +says. Don't let any such nonsince take your reazn prisoner. What, +you, an old hand amongst us,--an old soljer of our sovring quean the +press,--you, who have had the best pay, have held the topmost rank (ay, +and DESERVED them too!--I gif you lef to quot me in sasiaty, and say, “I +AM a man of genius: Y-ll-wpl-sh says so”),--you to lose heart, and cry +pickavy, and begin to howl, because little boys fling stones at you! +Fie, man! take courage; and, bearing the terrows of your blood-red hand, +as the poet says, punish us, if we've ofended you: punish us like a man, +or bear your own punishment like a man. Don't try to come off with such +misrabble lodgic as that above. + +What do you? You give four satisfackary reazns that the play is bad (the +secknd is naught,--for your no such chicking at play-writing, this being +the forth). You show that the play must be bad, and THEN begin to deal +with the critix for finding folt! + +Was there ever wuss generalship? The play IS bad,--your right--a wuss I +never see or read. But why kneed YOU say so? If it was so VERY bad, why +publish it? BECAUSE YOU WISH TO SERVE THE DRAMA! O fie! don't lay that +flattering function to your sole, as Milton observes. Do you believe +that this “Sea Capting” can serve the drama? Did you never intend that +it should serve anything, or anybody ELSE? Of cors you did! You wrote it +for money,--money from the maniger, money from the bookseller,--for the +same reason that I write this. Sir, Shakspeare wrote for the very same +reasons, and I never heard that he bragged about serving the drama. Away +with this canting about great motifs! Let us not be too prowd, my dear +Barnet, and fansy ourselves marters of the truth, marters or apostels. +We are but tradesmen, working for bread, and not for righteousness' +sake. Let's try and work honestly; but don't let us be prayting pompisly +about our “sacred calling.” The taylor who makes your coats (and very +well they are made too, with the best of velvit collars)--I say Stulze, +or Nugee, might cry out that THEIR motifs were but to assert the eturnle +truth of tayloring, with just as much reazn; and who would believe them? + +Well; after this acknollitchmint that the play is bad, come sefral pages +of attack on the critix, and the folt those gentry have found with it. +With these I shan't middle for the presnt. You defend all the characters +1 by 1, and conclude your remarks as follows:-- + + +“I must be pardoned for this disquisition on my own designs. When every +means is employed to misrepresent, it becomes, perhaps, allowable to +explain. And if I do not think that my faults as a dramatic author are +to be found in the study and delineation of character, it is precisely +because THAT is the point on which all my previous pursuits in +literature and actual life would be most likely to preserve me from the +errors I own elsewhere, whether of misjudgment or inexperience. + +“I have now only to add my thanks to the actors for the zeal and talent +with which they have embodied the characters entrusted to them. The +sweetness and grace with which Miss Faucit embellished the part of +Violet, which, though only a sketch, is most necessary to the coloring +and harmony of the play, were perhaps the more pleasing to the audience +from the generosity, rare with actors, which induced her to take a +part so far inferior to her powers. The applause which attends the +performance of Mrs. Warner and Mr. Strickland attests their success +in characters of unusual difficulty; while the singular beauty and +nobleness, whether of conception or execution, with which the greatest +of living actors has elevated the part of Norman (so totally different +from his ordinary range of character), is a new proof of his versatility +and accomplishment in all that belongs to his art. It would be scarcely +gracious to conclude these remarks without expressing my acknowledgment +of that generous and indulgent sense of justice which, forgetting all +political differences in a literary arena, has enabled me to appeal to +approving audiences--from hostile critics. And it is this which alone +encourages me to hope that, sooner or later, I may add to the dramatic +literature of my country something that may find, perhaps, almost as +many friends in the next age as it has been the fate of the author to +find enemies in this.” + + +See, now, what a good comfrabble vanaty is! Pepple have quarld with the +dramatic characters of your play. “No,” says you; “if I AM remarkabble +for anythink, it's for my study and delineation of character; THAT is +presizely the pint to which my littery purshuits have led me.” Have you +read “Jil Blaw,” my dear sir? Have you pirouzed that exlent tragady, the +“Critic?” There's something so like this in Sir Fretful Plaguy, and the +Archbishop of Granadiers, that I'm blest if I can't laff till my sides +ake. Think of the critix fixing on the very pint for which you are +famus!--the roags! And spose they had said the plot was absudd, or the +langwitch absudder still, don't you think you would have had a word in +defens of them too--you who hope to find frends for your dramatic wux +in the nex age? Poo! I tell thee, Barnet, that the nex age will be +wiser and better than this; and do you think that it will imply itself a +reading of your trajadies? This is misantrofy, Barnet--reglar Byronism; +and you ot to have a better apinian of human natur. + +Your apinion about the actors I shan't here meddle with. They all acted +exlently as far as my humbile judgement goes, and your write in giving +them all possible prays. But let's consider the last sentence of the +prefiz, my dear Barnet, and see what a pretty set of apiniuns you lay +down. + +1. The critix are your inymies in this age. + +2. In the nex, however, you hope to find newmrous frends. + +3. And it's a satisfackshn to think that, in spite of politticle +diffrances, you have found frendly aujences here. + +Now, my dear Barnet, for a man who begins so humbly with what my friend +Father Prout calls an argamantum ad misericorjam, who ignowledges that +his play is bad, that his pore dear helth is bad, and those cussid +critix have played the juice with him--I say, for a man who beginns in +such a humbill toan, it's rather RICH to see how you end. + +My dear Barnet, DO you suppose that POLITTICLE DIFFRANCES prejudice +pepple against YOU? What ARE your politix? Wig, I presume--so are mine, +ontry noo. And what if they ARE Wig, or Raddiccle, or Cumsuvvative? Does +any mortial man in England care a phig for your politix? Do you think +yourself such a mity man in parlymint, that critix are to be angry with +you, and aujences to be cumsidered magnanamous because they treat you +fairly? There, now, was Sherridn, he who roat the “Rifles” and “School +for Scandle” (I saw the “Rifles” after your play, and, O Barnet, if +you KNEW what a relief it was!)--there, I say, was Sherridn--he WAS a +politticle character, if you please--he COULD make a spitch or two--do +you spose that Pitt, Purseyvall, Castlerag, old George the Third +himself, wooden go to see the “Rivles”--ay, and clap hands too, and +laff and ror, for all Sherry's Wiggery? Do you spose the critix wouldn't +applaud too? For shame, Barnet! what ninnis, what hartless raskles, you +must beleave them to be,--in the fust plase, to fancy that you are a +politticle genus; in the secknd, to let your politix interfear with +their notiums about littery merits! + +“Put that nonsince out of your head,” as Fox said to Bonypart. Wasn't +it that great genus, Dennis, that wrote in Swiff and Poop's time, +who fansid that the French king wooden make pease unless Dennis +was delivered up to him? Upon my wud, I doan't think he carrid +his diddlusion much further than a serting honrabble barnet of my +aquentance. + +And then for the nex age. Respected sir, this is another diddlusion; +a gross misteak on your part, or my name is not Y--sh. These plays +immortial? Ah, parrysampe, as the French say, this is too strong--the +small-beer of the “Sea Capting,” or of any suxessor of the “Sea +Capting,” to keep sweet for sentries and sentries! Barnet, Barnet! do +you know the natur of bear? Six weeks is not past, and here your last +casque is sour--the public won't even now drink it; and I lay a wager +that, betwigst this day (the thuttieth November) and the end of the +year, the barl will be off the stox altogether, never, never to return. + +I've notted down a few frazes here and there, which you will do well do +igsamin:-- + + + NORMAN. + + “The eternal Flora + Woos to her odorous haunts the western wind; + While circling round and upwards from the boughs, + Golden with fruits that lure the joyous birds, + Melody, like a happy soul released, + Hangs in the air, and from invisible plumes + Shakes sweetness down!” + + + NORMAN. + + “And these the lips + Where, till this hour, the sad and holy kiss + Of parting linger'd, as the fragrance left + By ANGELS when they touch the earth and vanish.” + + + NORMAN. + + “Hark! she has blessed her son! I bid ye witness, + Ye listening heavens--thou circumambient air: + The ocean sighs it back--and with the murmur + Rustle the happy leaves. All nature breathes + Aloud--aloft--to the Great Parent's ear, + The blessing of the mother on her child.” + + + NORMAN. + + “I dream of love, enduring faith, a heart + Mingled with mine--a deathless heritage, + Which I can take unsullied to the STARS, + When the Great Father calls his children home.” + + + NORMAN. + + “The blue air, breathless in the STARRY peace, + After long silence hushed as heaven, but filled + With happy thoughts as heaven with ANGELS.” + + + NORMAN. + + “Till one calm night, when over earth and wave + Heaven looked its love from all its numberless STARS.” + + + NORMAN. + + “Those eyes, the guiding STARS by which I steered.” + + + NORMAN. + + “That great mother + (The only parent I have known), whose face + Is bright with gazing ever on the STARS-- + The mother-sea.” + + + NORMAN. + + “My bark shall be our home; + The STARS that light the ANGEL palaces + Of air, our lamps.” + + + NORMAN. + + “A name that glitters, like a STAR, amidst + The galaxy of England's loftiest born.” + + + LADY ARUNDEL. + + “And see him princeliest of the lion tribe, + Whose swords and coronals gleam around the throne, + The guardian STARS of the imperial isle.” + + +The fust spissymen has been going the round of all the papers, as real, +reglar poatry. Those wickid critix! they must have been laffing in their +sleafs when they quoted it. Malody, suckling round and uppards from the +bows, like a happy soul released, hangs in the air, and from invizable +plumes shakes sweetness down. Mighty fine, truly! but let mortial man +tell the meannink of the passidge. Is it MUSICKLE sweetniss that Malody +shakes down from its plumes--its wings, that is, or tail--or some +pekewliar scent that proceeds from happy souls released, and which they +shake down from the trees when they are suckling round and uppards? IS +this poatry, Barnet? Lay your hand on your busm, and speak out boldly: +Is it poatry, or sheer windy humbugg, that sounds a little melojous, and +won't bear the commanest test of comman sence? + +In passidge number 2, the same bisniss is going on, though in a more +comprehensable way: the air, the leaves, the otion, are fild with +emocean at Capting Norman's happiness. Pore Nature is dragged in to +partisapate in his joys, just as she has been befor. Once in a poem, +this universle simfithy is very well; but once is enuff, my dear Barnet: +and that once should be in some great suckmstans, surely,--such as the +meeting of Adam and Eve, in “Paradice Lost,” or Jewpeter and Jewno, in +Hoamer, where there seems, as it were, a reasn for it. But sea-captings +should not be eternly spowting and invoking gods, hevns, starrs, angels, +and other silestial influences. We can all do it, Barnet; nothing in +life is esier. I can compare my livry buttons to the stars, or the +clouds of my backopipe to the dark vollums that ishew from Mount Hetna; +or I can say that angels are looking down from them, and the tobacco +silf, like a happy sole released, is circling round and upwards, and +shaking sweetness down. All this is as esy as drink; but it's not +poatry, Barnet, nor natural. People, when their mothers reckonize them, +don't howl about the suckumambient air, and paws to think of the happy +leaves a-rustling--at least, one mistrusts them if they do. Take +another instans out of your own play. Capting Norman (with his eternil +SLACK-JAW!) meets the gal of his art:-- + + + “Look up, look up, my Violet--weeping? fie! + And trembling too--yet leaning on my breast. + In truth, thou art too soft for such rude shelter. + Look up! I come to woo thee to the seas, + My sailor's bride! Hast thou no voice but blushes? + Nay--From those roses let me, like the bee, + Drag forth the secret sweetness! + + + VIOLET. + + “Oh what thoughts + Were kept for SPEECH when we once more should meet, + Now blotted from the PAGE; and all I feel + Is--THOU art with me!” + + +Very right, Miss Violet--the scentiment is natral, affeckshnit, +pleasing, simple (it might have been in more grammaticle languidge, and +no harm done); but never mind, the feeling is pritty; and I can fancy, +my dear Barnet, a pritty, smiling, weeping lass, looking up in a man's +face and saying it. But the capting!--oh, this capting!--this windy, +spouting captain, with his prittinesses, and conseated apollogies for +the hardness of his busm, and his old, stale, vapid simalies, and his +wishes to be a bee! Pish! Men don't make love in this finniking +way. It's the part of a sentymentle, poeticle taylor, not a galliant +gentleman, in command of one of her Madjisty's vessels of war. + +Look at the remaining extrac, honored Barnet, and acknollidge that +Capting Norman is eturnly repeating himself, with his endless jabber +about stars and angels. Look at the neat grammaticle twist of Lady +Arundel's spitch, too, who, in the corse of three lines, has made her +son a prince, a lion, with a sword and coronal, and a star. Why jumble +and sheak up metafors in this way? Barnet, one simily is quite enuff in +the best of sentenses (and I preshume I kneedn't tell you that it's as +well to have it LIKE, when you are about it). Take my advise, honrabble +sir--listen to a humble footmin: it's genrally best in poatry to +understand puffickly what you mean yourself, and to ingspress your +meaning clearly afterwoods--in the simpler words the better, praps. You +may, for instans, call a coronet a coronal (an “ancestral coronal,” p. +74) if you like, as you might call a hat a “swart sombrero,” “a glossy +four-and-nine,” “a silken helm, to storm impermeable, and lightsome as +the breezy gossamer;” but, in the long run, it's as well to call it +a hat. It IS a hat; and that name is quite as poetticle as another. I +think it's Playto, or els Harrystottle, who observes that what we call a +rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Confess, now, dear Barnet, +don't you long to call it a Polyanthus? + +I never see a play more carelessly written. In such a hurry you seem to +have bean, that you have actially in some sentences forgot to put in the +sence. What is this, for instance?-- + + + “This thrice precious one + Smiled to my eyes--drew being from my breast-- + Slept in my arms;--the very tears I shed + Above my treasures were to men and angels + Alike such holy sweetness!” + + +In the name of all the angels that ever you invoked--Raphael, Gabriel, +Uriel, Zadkiel, Azrael--what does this “holy sweetness” mean? We're not +spinxes to read such durk conandrums. If you knew my state sins I came +upon this passidg--I've neither slep nor eton; I've neglected my pantry; +I've been wandring from house to house with this riddl in my hand, and +nobody can understand it. All Mr. Frazier's men are wild, looking gloomy +at one another, and asking what this may be. All the cumtributors have +been spoak to. The Doctor, who knows every languitch, has tried and +giv'n up; we've sent to Docteur Pettigruel, who reads horyglifics a +deal ezier than my way of spellin'--no anser. Quick! quick with a +fifth edition, honored Barnet, and set us at rest! While your about it, +please, too, to igsplain the two last lines:-- + + + “His merry bark with England's flag to crown her.” + + +See what dellexy of igspreshn, “a flag to crown her!” + + + “His merry bark with England's flag to crown her, + Fame for my hopes, and woman in my cares.” + + +Likewise the following:-- + + + “Girl, beware, + THE LOVE THAT TRIFLES ROUND THE CHARMS IT GILDS + OFT RUINS WHILE IT SHINES.” + + +Igsplane this, men and angels! I've tried every way; backards, forards, +and in all sorts of trancepositions, as thus:-- + + + The love that ruins round the charms it shines, + Gilds while it trifles oft; + +Or, + + The charm that gilds around the love it ruins, + Oft trifles while it shines; + +Or, + + The ruins that love gilds and shines around, + Oft trifles where it charms; + +Or, + + Love, while it charms, shines round, and ruins oft, + The trifles that it gilds; + +Or, + + The love that trifles, gilds and ruins oft, + While round the charms it shines. + + +All which are as sensable as the fust passidge. + +And with this I'll alow my friend Smith, who has been silent all this +time, to say a few words. He has not written near so much as me (being +an infearor genus, betwigst ourselves), but he says he never had such +mortial difficklty with anything as with the dixcripshn of the plott of +your pease. Here his letter:-- + + +To CH-RL-S F-TZR-Y PL-NT-G-N-T Y-LL-WPL-SH, ESQ., &c. &c. + +30th Nov. 1839. + +MY DEAR AND HONORED SIR,--I have the pleasure of laying before you the +following description of the plot, and a few remarks upon the style of +the piece called “The Sea Captain.” + +Five-and-twenty years back, a certain Lord Arundel had a daughter, +heiress of his estates and property; a poor cousin, Sir Maurice Beevor +(being next in succession); and a page, Arthur Le Mesnil by name. + +The daughter took a fancy for the page, and the young persons were +married unknown to his lordship. + +Three days before her confinement (thinking, no doubt, that period +favorable for travelling), the young couple had agreed to run away +together, and had reached a chapel near on the sea-coast, from which +they were to embark, when Lord Arundel abruptly put a stop to their +proceedings by causing one Gaussen, a pirate, to murder the page. + +His daughter was carried back to Arundel House, and, in three days, gave +birth to a son. Whether his lordship knew of this birth I cannot say; +the infant, however, was never acknowledged, but carried by Sir Maurice +Beevor to a priest, Onslow by name, who educated the lad and kept him +for twelve years in profound ignorance of his birth. The boy went by the +name of Norman. + +Lady Arundel meanwhile married again, again became a widow, but had a +second son, who was the acknowledged heir, and called Lord Ashdale. Old +Lord Arundel died, and her ladyship became countess in her own right. + +When Norman was about twelve years of age, his mother, who wished to +“WAFT young Arthur to a distant land,” had him sent on board ship. Who +should the captain of the ship be but Gaussen, who received a smart +bribe from Sir Maurice Beevor to kill the lad. Accordingly, Gaussen tied +him to a plank, and pitched him overboard. + + . . . . . . + +About thirteen years after these circumstances, Violet, an orphan niece +of Lady Arundel's second husband, came to pass a few weeks with her +ladyship. She had just come from a sea-voyage, and had been saved from a +wicked Algerine by an English sea captain. This sea captain was no other +than Norman, who had been picked up off his plank, and fell in love +with, and was loved by, Miss Violet. + +A short time after Violet's arrival at her aunt's the captain came to +pay her a visit, his ship anchoring off the coast, near Lady Arundel's +residence. By a singular coincidence, that rogue Gaussen's ship anchored +in the harbor too. Gaussen at once knew his man, for he had “tracked” + him, (after drowning him,) and he informed Sir Maurice Beevor that young +Norman was alive. + +Sir Maurice Beevor informed her ladyship. How should she get rid of him? +In this wise. He was in love with Violet, let him marry her and be off; +for Lord Ashdale was in love with his cousin too; and, of course, could +not marry a young woman in her station of life. “You have a chaplain on +board,” says her ladyship to Captain Norman; “let him attend to-night +in the ruined chapel, marry Violet, and away with you to sea.” By this +means she hoped to be quit of him forever. + +But unfortunately the conversation had been overheard by Beevor, and +reported to Ashdale. Ashdale determined to be at the chapel and carry +off Violet; as for Beevor, he sent Gaussen to the chapel to kill both +Ashdale and Norman; thus there would only be Lady Arundel between him +and the title. + +Norman, in the meanwhile, who had been walking near the chapel, had just +seen his worthy old friend, the priest, most barbarously murdered there. +Sir Maurice Beevor had set Gaussen upon him; his reverence was coming +with the papers concerning Norman's birth, which Beevor wanted in order +to extort money from the countess. Gaussen was, however, obliged to run +before he got the papers; and the clergyman had time, before he died, +to tell Norman the story, and give him the documents, with which Norman +sped off to the castle to have an interview with his mother. + +He lays his white cloak and hat on the table, and begs to be left alone +with her ladyship. Lord Ashdale, who is in the room, surlily quits it; +but, going out, cunningly puts on Norman's cloak. “It will be dark,” + says he, “down at the chapel; Violet won't know me; and, egad! I'll run +off with her!” + +Norman has his interview. Her ladyship acknowledges him, for she cannot +help it; but will not embrace him, love him, or have anything to do with +him. + +Away he goes to the chapel. His chaplain was there waiting to marry him +to Violet, his boat was there to carry him on board his ship, and Violet +was there, too. + +“Norman,” says she, in the dark, “dear Norman, I knew you by your white +cloak; here I am.” And she and the man in a cloak go off to the inner +chapel to be married. + +There waits Master Gaussen; he has seized the chaplain and the boat's +crew, and is just about to murder the man in the cloak, when-- + +NORMAN rushes in and cuts him down, much to the surprise of Miss, for +she never suspected it was sly Ashdale who had come, as we have seen, +disguised, and very nearly paid for his masquerading. + +Ashdale is very grateful; but, when Norman persists in marrying Violet, +he says--no, he shan't. He shall fight; he is a coward if he doesn't +fight. Norman flings down his sword, and says he WON'T fight; and-- + +Lady Arundel, who has been at prayers all this time, rushing in, says, +“Hold! this is your brother, Percy--your elder brother!” Here is some +restiveness on Ashdale's part, but he finishes by embracing his brother. + +Norman burns all the papers; vows he will never peach; reconciles +himself with his mother; says he will go loser; but, having ordered his +ship to “veer” round to the chapel, orders it to veer back again, for he +will pass the honeymoon at Arundel Castle. + +As you have been pleased to ask my opinion, it strikes me that there are +one or two very good notions in this plot. But the author does not fail, +as he would modestly have us believe, from ignorance of stage-business; +he seems to know too much, rather than too little, about the stage; to +be too anxious to cram in effects, incidents, perplexities. There is +the perplexity concerning Ashdale's murder, and Norman's murder, and the +priest's murder, and the page's murder, and Gaussen's murder. There is +the perplexity about the papers, and that about the hat and cloak, (a +silly, foolish obstacle,) which only tantalize the spectator, and retard +the march of the drama's action: it is as if the author had said, +“I must have a new incident in every act, I must keep tickling the +spectator perpetually, and never let him off until the fall of the +curtain.” + +The same disagreeable bustle and petty complication of intrigue you may +remark in the author's drama of “Richelieu.” “The Lady of Lyons” was a +much simpler and better wrought plot; the incidents following each other +either not too swiftly or startlingly. In “Richelieu,” it always seemed +to me as if one heard doors perpetually clapping and banging; one +was puzzled to follow the train of conversation, in the midst of the +perpetual small noises that distracted one right and left. + +Nor is the list of characters of “The Sea Captain” to be despised. The +outlines of all of them are good. A mother, for whom one feels a proper +tragic mixture of hatred and pity; a gallant single-hearted son, whom +she disdains, and who conquers her at last by his noble conduct; a +dashing haughty Tybalt of a brother; a wicked poor cousin, a pretty +maid, and a fierce buccaneer. These people might pass three hours very +well on the stage, and interest the audience hugely; but the author +fails in filling up the outlines. His language is absurdly stilted, +frequently careless; the reader or spectator hears a number of loud +speeches, but scarce a dozen lines that seem to belong of nature to the +speakers. + +Nothing can be more fulsome or loathsome to my mind than the continual +sham-religious clap-traps which the author has put into the mouth of +his hero; nothing more unsailor-like than his namby-pamby starlit +descriptions, which my ingenious colleague has, I see, alluded to. “Thy +faith my anchor, and thine eyes my haven,” cries the gallant captain to +his lady. See how loosely the sentence is constructed, like a thousand +others in the book. The captain is to cast anchor with the girl's faith +in her own eyes; either image might pass by itself, but together, like +the quadrupeds of Kilkenny, they devour each other. The captain tells +his lieutenant to BID HIS BARK VEER ROUND to a point in the harbor. Was +ever such language? My lady gives Sir Maurice a thousand pounds to WAFT +him (her son) to some distant shore. Nonsense, sheer nonsense; and what +is worse, affected nonsense! + +Look at the comedy of the poor cousin. “There is a great deal of game on +the estate--partridges, hares, wild-geese, snipes, and plovers (SMACKING +HIS LIPS)--besides a magnificent preserve of sparrows, which I can sell +TO THE LITTLE BLACKGUARDS in the streets at a penny a hundred. But I am +very poor--a very poor old knight!” + +Is this wit or nature? It is a kind of sham wit; it reads as if it were +wit, but it is not. What poor, poor stuff, about the little blackguard +boys! what flimsy ecstasies and silly “smacking of lips” about the +plovers. Is this the man who writes for the next age? O fie! Here is +another joke:-- + + + “Sir Maurice. Mice! zounds, how can I + Keep mice! I can't afford it! They were starved + To death an age ago. The last was found + Come Christmas three years, stretched beside a bone + In that same larder, so consumed and worn + By pious fast, 'twas awful to behold it! + I canonized its corpse in spirits of wine, + And set it in the porch--a solemn warning + To thieves and beggars!” + + +Is not this rare wit? “Zounds! how can I keep mice?” is well enough for +a miser; not too new, or brilliant either; but this miserable dilution +of a thin joke, this wretched hunting down of the poor mouse! It is +humiliating to think of a man of esprit harping so long on such a mean, +pitiful string. A man who aspires to immortality, too! I doubt whether +it is to be gained thus; whether our author's words are not too loosely +built to make “starry pointing pyramids of.” Horace clipped and squared +his blocks more carefully before he laid the monument which imber edax, +or aquila impotens, or fuga temporum might assail in vain. Even old +Ovid, when he raised his stately, shining heathen temple, had placed +some columns in it, and hewn out a statue or two which deserved the +immortality that he prophesied (somewhat arrogantly) for himself. But +let not all be looking forward to a future, and fancying that, “incerti +spatium dum finiat aevi,” our books are to be immortal. Alas! the way to +immortality is not so easy, nor will our “Sea Captain” be permitted such +an unconscionable cruise. If all the immortalities were really to have +their wish, what a work would our descendants have to study them all! + +Not yet, in my humble opinion, has the honorable baronet achieved this +deathless consummation. There will come a day (may it be long distant!) +when the very best of his novels will be forgotten; and it is reasonable +to suppose that his dramas will pass out of existence, some time or +other, in the lapse of the secula seculorum. In the meantime, my dear +Plush, if you ask me what the great obstacle is towards the dramatic +fame and merit of our friend, I would say that it does not lie so much +in hostile critics or feeble health, as in a careless habit of writing, +and a peevish vanity which causes him to shut his eyes to his faults. +The question of original capacity I will not moot; one may think very +highly of the honorable baronet's talent, without rating it quite so +high as he seems disposed to do. + +And to conclude: as he has chosen to combat the critics in person, the +critics are surely justified in being allowed to address him directly. + + With best compliments to Mrs. Yellowplush, + I have the honor to be, dear Sir, + Your most faithful and obliged + humble servant, + JOHN THOMAS SMITH. + + +And now, Smith having finisht his letter, I think I can't do better than +clothes mine lickwise; for though I should never be tired of talking, +praps the public may of hearing, and therefore it's best to shut up +shopp. + +What I've said, respected Barnit, I hoap you woan't take unkind. A +play, you see, is public property for every one to say his say on; and +I think, if you read your prefez over agin, you'll see that it ax as a +direct incouridgment to us critix to come forrard and notice you. But +don't fansy, I besitch you, that we are actiated by hostillaty; fust +write a good play, and you'll see we'll prays it fast enuff. Waiting +which, Agray, Munseer le Chevaleer, l'ashurance de ma hot cumsideratun. + +Voter distangy, + +Y. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF MR. 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