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diff --git a/old/ylopl10.txt b/old/ylopl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07faac6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ylopl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7077 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush +Also known as "The Yellowplush Papers" + +#21 in our series by William Makepeace Thackeray + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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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 L3711 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 + ------------ + L14069 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. + L4700. + 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 he 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 he 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 Project Gutenberg Etext of Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush + diff --git a/old/ylopl10.zip b/old/ylopl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0011cbc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ylopl10.zip |