summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
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<h2>
<a href="#startoftext">Sketches by Boz, by Charles Dickens</a>
</h2>
<pre>
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Title: Sketches by Boz

Author: Charles Dickens

Release Date: April, 1997  [EBook #882]
[This file was first posted on April 10, 1997]
[Most recently updated: May 7, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
<p>Transcribed from the 1903 edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h1>SKETCHES BY BOZ</h1>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>OUR PARISH</h2>
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<h3>CHAPTER I&mdash;THE BEADLE.&nbsp; THE PARISH ENGINE.&nbsp; THE SCHOOLMASTER</h3>
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<p>How much is conveyed in those two short words&mdash;&lsquo;The Parish!&rsquo;&nbsp;
And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and
ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery,
are they associated!&nbsp; A poor man, with small earnings, and a large
family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food
from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings
of nature, and can take no heed of the future.&nbsp; His taxes are in
arrear, quarter-day passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure
no more quarter for himself, and is summoned by&mdash;the parish.&nbsp;
His goods are distrained, his children are crying with cold and hunger,
and the very bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath
her.&nbsp; What can he do?&nbsp; To whom is he to apply for relief?&nbsp;
To private charity?&nbsp; To benevolent individuals?&nbsp; Certainly
not&mdash;there is his parish.&nbsp; There are the parish vestry, the
parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish
beadle.&nbsp; Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men.&nbsp;
The woman dies&mdash;she is buried by the parish.&nbsp; The children
have no protector&mdash;they are taken care of by the parish.&nbsp;
The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work&mdash;he
is relieved by the parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done
their work upon him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in
the parish asylum.</p>
<p>The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps <i>the</i> most, important
member of the local administration.&nbsp; He is not so well off as the
churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk,
nor does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them.&nbsp;
But his power is very great, notwithstanding; and the dignity of his
office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain
it.&nbsp; The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow.&nbsp; It is
quite delightful to hear him, as he explains the state of the existing
poor laws to the deaf old women in the board-room passage on business
nights; and to hear what he said to the senior churchwarden, and what
the senior churchwarden said to him; and what &lsquo;we&rsquo; (the
beadle and the other gentlemen) came to the determination of doing.&nbsp;
A miserable-looking woman is called into the boardroom, and represents
a case of extreme destitution, affecting herself&mdash;a widow, with
six small children.&nbsp; &lsquo;Where do you live?&rsquo; inquires
one of the overseers.&nbsp; &lsquo;I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen,
at Mrs. Brown&rsquo;s, Number 3, Little King William&rsquo;s-alley,
which has lived there this fifteen year, and knows me to be very hard-working
and industrious, and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died
in the hospital&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Well, well,&rsquo; interrupts the
overseer, taking a note of the address, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll send Simmons,
the beadle, to-morrow morning, to ascertain whether your story is correct;
and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the House&mdash;Simmons,
go to this woman&rsquo;s the first thing to-morrow morning, will you?&rsquo;&nbsp;
Simmons bows assent, and ushers the woman out.&nbsp; Her previous admiration
of &lsquo;the board&rsquo; (who all sit behind great books, and with
their hats on) fades into nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed
conductor; and her account of what has passed inside, increases&mdash;if
that be possible&mdash;the marks of respect, shown by the assembled
crowd, to that solemn functionary.&nbsp; As to taking out a summons,
it&rsquo;s quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it, on behalf of
the parish.&nbsp; He knows all the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart;
states the case without a single stammer: and it is even reported that
on one occasion he ventured to make a joke, which the Lord Mayor&rsquo;s
head footman (who happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate
friend, confidentially, was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>See him again on Sunday in his state-coat and cocked-hat, with a
large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a small cane for use
in his right.&nbsp; How pompously he marshals the children into their
places! and how demurely the little urchins look at him askance as he
surveys them when they are all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar
to beadles! The churchwardens and overseers being duly installed in
their curtained pews, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket, erected
expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his attention
between his prayer-book and the boys.&nbsp; Suddenly, just at the commencement
of the communion service, when the whole congregation is hushed into
a profound silence, broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman,
a penny is heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding
clearness.&nbsp; Observe the generalship of the beadle.&nbsp; His involuntary
look of horror is instantly changed into one of perfect indifference,
as if he were the only person present who had not heard the noise.&nbsp;
The artifice succeeds.&nbsp; After putting forth his right leg now and
then, as a feeler, the victim who dropped the money ventures to make
one or two distinct dives after it; and the beadle, gliding softly round,
salutes his little round head, when it again appears above the seat,
with divers double knocks, administered with the cane before noticed,
to the intense delight of three young men in an adjacent pew, who cough
violently at intervals until the conclusion of the sermon.</p>
<p>Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle&mdash;a
gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has come under
our observation, except when the services of that particularly useful
machine, a parish fire-engine, are required: then indeed all is bustle.&nbsp;
Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them,
and report from their own personal observation that some neighbouring
chimney is on fire; the engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply
of boys being obtained, and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle
over the pavement, the beadle, running&mdash;we do not exaggerate&mdash;running
at the side, until they arrive at some house, smelling strongly of soot,
at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for
half-an-hour.&nbsp; No attention being paid to these manual applications,
and the turn-cock having turned on the water, the engine turns off amidst
the shouts of the boys; it pulls up once more at the work-house, and
the beadle &lsquo;pulls up&rsquo; the unfortunate householder next day,
for the amount of his legal reward.&nbsp; We never saw a parish engine
at a regular fire but once.&nbsp; It came up in gallant style&mdash;three
miles and a half an hour, at least; there was a capital supply of water,
and it was first on the spot.&nbsp; Bang went the pumps&mdash;the people
cheered&mdash;the beadle perspired profusely; but it was unfortunately
discovered, just as they were going to put the fire out, that nobody
understood the process by which the engine was filled with water; and
that eighteen boys, and a man, had exhausted themselves in pumping for
twenty minutes, without producing the slightest effect!</p>
<p>The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of
the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster.&nbsp; The vestry-clerk, as
everybody knows, is a short, pudgy little man, in black, with a thick
gold watch-chain of considerable length, terminating in two large seals
and a key.&nbsp; He is an attorney, and generally in a bustle; at no
time more so, than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with
his gloves crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other
arm.&nbsp; As to the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether,
because all we know of them is, that they are usually respectable tradesmen,
who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally
testify in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of
the church, to the important fact of a gallery having being enlarged
and beautified, or an organ rebuilt.</p>
<p>The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish&mdash;nor is he
usually in any other&mdash;one of that class of men the better part
of whose existence has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in
some inferior situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel
degraded by, and discontented with the present.&nbsp; We are unable
to guess precisely to our own satisfaction what station the man can
have occupied before; we should think he had been an inferior sort of
attorney&rsquo;s clerk, or else the master of a national school&mdash;whatever
he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the better.&nbsp;
His income is small certainly, as the rusty black coat and threadbare
velvet collar demonstrate: but then he lives free of house-rent, has
a limited allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance
of authority in his petty kingdom.&nbsp; He is a tall, thin, bony man;
always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and
eyes you, as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a
pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power.&nbsp; He is an admirable
specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying
to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence
and authority of the beadle.</p>
<p>Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official.&nbsp;
He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune
seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in,
appears to have prospered.&nbsp; A rich old relation who had brought
him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left
him 10,000<i>l</i>. in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil.&nbsp;
Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself,
he procured a situation in a public office.&nbsp; The young clerks below
him, died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows
over his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting,
lived on and on, as if they were immortal.&nbsp; He speculated and lost.&nbsp;
He speculated again and won&mdash;but never got his money.&nbsp; His
talents were great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal.&nbsp;
His friends profited by the one, and abused the other.&nbsp; Loss succeeded
loss; misfortune crowded on misfortune; each successive day brought
him nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who
had been warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent.&nbsp;
He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted.&nbsp; The
former turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted.&nbsp;
He went with the stream&mdash;it had ever been his failing, and he had
not courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks&mdash;he had
never cared for himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in
his poverty and distress, was spared to him no longer.&nbsp; It was
at this period that he applied for parochial relief.&nbsp; Some kind-hearted
man who had known him in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that
year, and through his interest he was appointed to his present situation.</p>
<p>He is an old man now.&nbsp; Of the many who once crowded round him
in all the hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died,
some have fallen like himself, some have prospered&mdash;all have forgotten
him.&nbsp; Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair
his memory, and use has habituated him to his present condition.&nbsp;
Meek, uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he
has been allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual period;
and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him
incapable, or death releases him.&nbsp; As the grey-headed old man feebly
paces up and down the sunny side of the little court-yard between school
hours, it would be difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former
friends to recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person
of the Pauper Schoolmaster.</p>
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<h3>CHAPTER II&mdash;THE CURATE.&nbsp; THE OLD LADY.&nbsp; THE HALF-PAY
CAPTAIN</h3>
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<p>We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because
we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office.&nbsp;
We will begin the present, with the clergyman.&nbsp; Our curate is a
young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners,
that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half
the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other
half, desponding with love.&nbsp; Never were so many young ladies seen
in our parish church on Sunday before; and never had the little round
angels&rsquo; faces on Mr. Tomkins&rsquo;s monument in the side aisle,
beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited.&nbsp; He was about
five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners.&nbsp;
He parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman
arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his
left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers),
and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity.&nbsp; Innumerable
were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new curate, and innumerable
the invitations with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice,
he readily accepted.&nbsp; If his manner in the pulpit had created an
impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold, by his
appearance in private circles.&nbsp; Pews in the immediate vicinity
of the pulpit or reading-desk rose in value; sittings in the centre
aisle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery
could not be procured for love or money; and some people even went so
far as to assert, that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family
pew just behind the churchwardens&rsquo;, were detected, one Sunday,
in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for
the curate as he passed to the vestry!&nbsp; He began to preach extempore
sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection.&nbsp; He got out
of bed at half-past twelve o&rsquo;clock one winter&rsquo;s night, to
half-baptise a washerwoman&rsquo;s child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude
of the parishioners knew no bounds&mdash;the very churchwardens grew
generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box
on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself, to perform
the funeral service in, in wet weather.&nbsp; He sent three pints of
gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought
to bed of four small children, all at once&mdash;the parish were charmed.&nbsp;
He got up a subscription for her&mdash;the woman&rsquo;s fortune was
made.&nbsp; He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes, at an anti-slavery
meeting at the Goat and Boots&mdash;the enthusiasm was at its height.&nbsp;
A proposal was set on foot for presenting the curate with a piece of
plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the
parish.&nbsp; The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time; the
contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should
be the foremost to subscribe.&nbsp; A splendid silver inkstand was made,
and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the curate was invited
to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat and Boots; the inkstand
was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden,
and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes
of all present&mdash;the very waiters were melted.</p>
<p>One would have supposed that, by this time, the theme of universal
admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity.&nbsp; No such
thing.&nbsp; The curate began to cough; four fits of coughing one morning
between the Litany and the Epistle, and five in the afternoon service.&nbsp;
Here was a discovery&mdash;the curate was consumptive.&nbsp; How interestingly
melancholy!&nbsp; If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy
and solicitude now knew no bounds.&nbsp; Such a man as the curate&mdash;such
a dear&mdash;such a perfect love&mdash;to be consumptive!&nbsp; It was
too much.&nbsp; Anonymous presents of black-currant jam, and lozenges,
elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon
the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing,
as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole: verbal
bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the
parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was in the very zenith
of his popularity.</p>
<p>About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish.&nbsp;
A very quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman, who had officiated
in our chapel-of-ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning,
without having given any notice whatever of his intention.&nbsp; This
circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival
of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second.&nbsp; He was
a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling
black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme, his manner ungainly,
his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes
of the curate.&nbsp; Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear
him; at first, because he was <i>so</i> odd-looking, then because his
face was <i>so</i> expressive, then because he preached <i>so</i> well;
and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was
something about him which it was quite impossible to describe.&nbsp;
As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there
was no denying that&mdash;that&mdash;in short, the curate wasn&rsquo;t
a novelty, and the other clergyman was.&nbsp; The inconstancy of public
opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one.&nbsp; The
curate coughed till he was black in the face&mdash;it was in vain.&nbsp;
He respired with difficulty&mdash;it was equally ineffectual in awakening
sympathy.&nbsp; Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish
church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded
to suffocation every Sunday!</p>
<p>The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old
lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was registered
in the list of baptisms.&nbsp; Our parish is a suburban one, and the
old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant
part of it.&nbsp; The house is her own; and it, and everything about
it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did
ten years ago, is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was
living.&nbsp; The little front parlour, which is the old lady&rsquo;s
ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness; the carpet
is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully
enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except
when the leaves are turpentined and bees&rsquo;-waxed, an operation
which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o&rsquo;clock&mdash;and
the little nicknacks are always arranged in precisely the same manner.&nbsp;
The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents
live in the same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned
watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter
of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the
little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they
appeared in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same
class, have been in the old lady&rsquo;s possession for many years.&nbsp;
Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needlework&mdash;near
the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps,
and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street-door
for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot
walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert
yourself by talking.&nbsp; If you call in the evening you will find
her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible
on the table, before her, of which &lsquo;Sarah,&rsquo; who is just
as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three
chapters in the parlour aloud.</p>
<p>The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before
noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical
tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest
treat of its existence.&nbsp; She seldom visits at a greater distance
than the next door but one on either side; and when she drinks tea here,
Sarah runs out first and knocks a double-knock, to prevent the possibility
of her &lsquo;Missis&rsquo;s&rsquo; catching cold by having to wait
at the door.&nbsp; She is very scrupulous in returning these little
invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, to meet Mr. and
Mrs. Somebody-else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china tea-service,
and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing-room
in great state.&nbsp; She has but few relations, and they are scattered
about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them.&nbsp;
She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine,
handsome fellow&mdash;so like the profile of his poor dear father over
the sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head,
that he has always been one of her greatest trials; and that indeed
he once almost broke her heart; but it pleased God to enable her to
get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the
subject to her again.&nbsp; She has a great number of pensioners: and
on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee
of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity.&nbsp;
Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and
hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup
Distribution Society.&nbsp; She subscribed twenty pounds towards the
erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first
Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out
by the pew-opener.&nbsp; Her entrance into church on Sunday is always
the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general
rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsey until the pew-opener
has ushered the old lady into her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful
curtsey, and shut the door: and the same ceremony is repeated on her
leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one,
and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation
by asking the youngest boy where the text was.</p>
<p>Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on
the sea-coast, passes the old lady&rsquo;s life.&nbsp; It has rolled
on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and
must at no distant period be brought to its final close.&nbsp; She looks
forward to its termination, with calmness and without apprehension.&nbsp;
She has everything to hope and nothing to fear.</p>
<p>A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very
conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady&rsquo;s next-door
neighbours.&nbsp; He is an old naval officer on half-pay, and his bluff
and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady&rsquo;s domestic economy,
not a little.&nbsp; In the first place, he <i>will</i> smoke cigars
in the front court, and when he wants something to drink with them&mdash;which
is by no means an uncommon circumstance&mdash;he lifts up the old lady&rsquo;s
knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table
ale, handed over the rails.&nbsp; In addition to this cool proceeding,
he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, &lsquo;a
regular Robinson Crusoe;&rsquo; and nothing delights him better than
to experimentalise on the old lady&rsquo;s property.&nbsp; One morning
he got up early, and planted three or four roots of full-grown marigolds
in every bed of her front garden, to the inconceivable astonishment
of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out
of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out
in the night.&nbsp; Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock
on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the works, which he
put together again, by some undiscovered process, in so wonderful a
manner, that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little
one ever since.&nbsp; Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he
<i>would</i> bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes,
to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit.&nbsp;
The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered
in the act of walking up-stairs&mdash;probably with the view of inquiring
after his friends, for, on further inspection, it appeared that some
of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house.&nbsp;
The old lady went to the seaside in despair, and during her absence
he completely effaced the name from her brass door-plate, in his attempts
to polish it with aqua-fortis.</p>
<p>But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life.&nbsp;
He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the constituted
authorities of the parish, denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens,
contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gatherer
call for his money till he won&rsquo;t call any longer, and then he
sends it: finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist
ought to be ashamed of himself, offers to back himself for any amount
to sing the psalms better than all the children put together, male and
female; and, in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious
manner.&nbsp; The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the
old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore
walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks
violent politics by the hour.&nbsp; He is a charitable, open-hearted
old fellow at bottom, after all; so, although he puts the old lady a
little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main, and she laughs
as much at each feat of his handiwork when it is all over, as anybody
else.</p>
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<h3>CHAPTER III&mdash;THE FOUR SISTERS</h3>
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<p>The row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbour
reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters
within its circumscribed limits, than all the rest of the parish put
together.&nbsp; As we cannot, consistently with our present plan, however,
extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be better
perhaps, to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at once
without further preface.</p>
<p>The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years
ago.&nbsp; It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, &lsquo;time
and tide wait for no man,&rsquo; applies with equal force to the fairer
portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that
even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile.&nbsp;
Our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to
every other consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen
years since, the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest
Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was
positively given over, as being far beyond all human hope.&nbsp; Well,
the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and
papered from top to bottom: the paint inside was all wainscoted, the
marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves,
you could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back
garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one,
vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the
windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations,
alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different
maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which
the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their &lsquo;Missises,&rsquo;
the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout
the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden
ladies of immense property.</p>
<p>At last, the Miss Willises moved in; and then the &lsquo;calling&rsquo;
began.&nbsp; The house was the perfection of neatness&mdash;so were
the four Miss Willises.&nbsp; Everything was formal, stiff, and cold&mdash;so
were the four Miss Willises.&nbsp; Not a single chair of the whole set
was ever seen out of its place&mdash;not a single Miss Willis of the
whole four was ever seen out of hers.&nbsp; There they always sat, in
the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour.&nbsp;
The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others
to play duets on the piano.&nbsp; They seemed to have no separate existence,
but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together.&nbsp;
They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition, like a school-dinner,
of another long grace afterwards&mdash;the three fates with another
sister&mdash;the Siamese twins multiplied by two.&nbsp; The eldest Miss
Willis grew bilious&mdash;the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately.&nbsp;
The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious&mdash;the four
Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly.&nbsp; Whatever
the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they
all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated&mdash;living in Polar harmony
among themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company &lsquo;in
a quiet-way&rsquo; at home, occasionally icing the neighbours.&nbsp;
Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked for and extraordinary
phenomenon occurred.&nbsp; The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer,
the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place.&nbsp; Was
it possible? one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married!</p>
<p>Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor
man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four
Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible
for a man to marry one of them, without marrying them all, are questions
too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits
of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a good salary
and a little property of his own, besides) were received&mdash;that
the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr Robinson&mdash;that
the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which
of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the difficulty
they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the
announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,&mdash;&lsquo;<i>We</i> are going
to marry Mr. Robinson.&rsquo;</p>
<p>It was very extraordinary.&nbsp; They were so completely identified,
the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row&mdash;even
of the old lady herself&mdash;was roused almost beyond endurance.&nbsp;
The subject was discussed at every little card-table and tea-drinking.&nbsp;
The old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety did not hesitate to express
his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated
marrying the whole family at once; and the row, generally, shook their
heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very
mysterious.&nbsp; They hoped it might all end well;&mdash;it certainly
had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to
express any opinion without good grounds to go upon, and certainly the
Miss Willises were <i>quite</i> old enough to judge for themselves,
and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so
forth.</p>
<p>At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o&rsquo;clock,
A.M., two glass-coaches drove up to the Miss Willises&rsquo; door, at
which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed
in a light-blue coat and double-milled kersey pantaloons, white neckerchief,
pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence
of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time,
a considerable degree of nervous excitement.&nbsp; It was also hastily
reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the door, wore
a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress
than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted
the somewhat excursive tastes of female servants in general.</p>
<p>The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house.&nbsp; It was
quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole
row stationed themselves behind their first and second floor blinds,
and waited the result in breathless expectation.</p>
<p>At last the Miss Willises&rsquo; door opened; the door of the first
glass-coach did the same.&nbsp; Two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies
to correspond&mdash;friends of the family, no doubt; up went the steps,
bang went the door, off went the first class-coach, and up came the
second.</p>
<p>The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased&mdash;Mr.
Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis.&nbsp; &lsquo;I thought so,&rsquo;
said the lady at No. 19; &lsquo;I always said it was <i>Miss</i> Willis!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Well,
I never!&rsquo; ejaculated the young lady at No. 18 to the young lady
at No. 17.&mdash;&lsquo;Did you ever, dear!&rsquo; responded the young
lady at No. 17 to the young lady at No. 18.&nbsp; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
too ridiculous!&rsquo; exclaimed a spinster of an <i>un</i>certain age,
at No. 16, joining in the conversation.&nbsp; But who shall portray
the astonishment of Gordon-place, when Mr. Robinson handed in <i>all</i>
the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into
an acute angle of the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk
pace, after the other glass-coach, which other glass-coach had itself
proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the direction of the parish church!&nbsp;
Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergyman, when <i>all</i> the
Miss Willises knelt down at the communion-table, and repeated the responses
incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice&mdash;or who
shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when&mdash;even after
the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted&mdash;<i>all</i>
the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony,
until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings!</p>
<p>As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same
house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever
she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not
quite clear that the neighbours ever would have discovered the real
Mrs. Robinson, but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description,
which <i>will</i> happen occasionally in the best-regulated families.&nbsp;
Three quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared
to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied
confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson&mdash;the
youngest Miss Willis that was&mdash;got on; and servants might be seen
running up the steps, about nine or ten o&rsquo;clock every morning,
with &lsquo;Missis&rsquo;s compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs.
Robinson finds herself this morning?&rsquo;&nbsp; And the answer always
was, &lsquo;Mrs. Robinson&rsquo;s compliments, and she&rsquo;s in very
good spirits, and doesn&rsquo;t find herself any worse.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The piano was heard no longer, the knitting-needles were laid aside,
drawing was neglected, and mantua-making and millinery, on the smallest
scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of
the whole family.&nbsp; The parlour wasn&rsquo;t quite as tidy as it
used to be, and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on
a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three
particularly small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for
a moderate-sized doll, with a small piece of lace, in the shape of a
horse-shoe, let in behind: or perhaps a white robe, not very large in
circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with
a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once
when we called, we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin
down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss to conjecture.&nbsp;
Then we fancied that Dr. Dawson, the surgeon, &amp;c., who displays
a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the
corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used
to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney-coach
stop at Mrs. Robinson&rsquo;s door, at half-past two o&rsquo;clock in
the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman, in a cloak
and night-cap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of pattens in the
other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed
for some very special purpose.</p>
<p>When we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up
in an old white kid glove; and we, in our innocence (we were in a state
of bachelorship then), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we
heard the eldest Miss Willis, <i>in propri&acirc; person&acirc;</i>
say, with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, <i>&lsquo;My</i>
compliments, and Mrs. Robinson&rsquo;s doing as well as can be expected,
and the little girl thrives wonderfully.&rsquo;&nbsp; And then, in common
with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began
to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was, before.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV&mdash;THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A great event has recently occurred in our parish.&nbsp; A contest
of paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial convulsion has
taken place.&nbsp; It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which
the country&mdash;or at least the parish&mdash;it is all the same&mdash;will
long remember.&nbsp; We have had an election; an election for beadle.&nbsp;
The supporters of the old beadle system have been defeated in their
stronghold, and the advocates of the great new beadle principles have
achieved a proud victory.</p>
<p>Our parish, which, like all other parishes, is a little world of
its own, has long been divided into two parties, whose contentions,
slumbering for a while, have never failed to burst forth with unabated
vigour, on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed.&nbsp;
Watching-rates, lighting-rates, paving-rates, sewer&rsquo;s-rates, church-rates,
poor&rsquo;s-rates&mdash;all sorts of rates, have been in their turns
the subjects of a grand struggle; and as to questions of patronage,
the asperity and determination with which they have been contested is
scarcely credible.</p>
<p>The leader of the official party&mdash;the steady advocate of the
churchwardens, and the unflinching supporter of the overseers&mdash;is
an old gentleman who lives in our row.&nbsp; He owns some half a dozen
houses in it, and always walks on the opposite side of the way, so that
he may be able to take in a view of the whole of his property at once.&nbsp;
He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little
restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole
purpose of peeping into other people&rsquo;s affairs with.&nbsp; He
is deeply impressed with the importance of our parish business, and
prides himself, not a little, on his style of addressing the parishioners
in vestry assembled.&nbsp; His views are rather confined than extensive;
his principles more narrow than liberal.&nbsp; He has been heard to
declaim very loudly in favour of the liberty of the press, and advocates
the repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers, because the daily journals
who now have a monopoly of the public, never give <i>verbatim</i> reports
of vestry meetings.&nbsp; He would not appear egotistical for the world,
but at the same time he must say, that there are <i>speeches</i>&mdash;that
celebrated speech of his own, on the emoluments of the sexton, and the
duties of the office, for instance&mdash;which might be communicated
to the public, greatly to their improvement and advantage.</p>
<p>His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval
officer on half-pay, to whom we have already introduced our readers.&nbsp;
The captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities,
whoever they may chance to be, and our other friend being their steady
supporter, with an equal disregard of their individual merits, it will
readily be supposed, that occasions for their coming into direct collision
are neither few nor far between.&nbsp; They divided the vestry fourteen
times on a motion for heating the church with warm water instead of
coals: and made speeches about liberty and expenditure, and prodigality
and hot water, which threw the whole parish into a state of excitement.&nbsp;
Then the captain, when he was on the visiting committee, and his opponent
overseer, brought forward certain distinct and specific charges relative
to the management of the workhouse, boldly expressed his total want
of confidence in the existing authorities, and moved for &lsquo;a copy
of the recipe by which the paupers&rsquo; soup was prepared, together
with any documents relating thereto.&rsquo;&nbsp; This the overseer
steadily resisted; he fortified himself by precedent, appealed to the
established usage, and declined to produce the papers, on the ground
of the injury that would be done to the public service, if documents
of a strictly private nature, passing between the master of the workhouse
and the cook, were to be thus dragged to light on the motion of any
individual member of the vestry.&nbsp; The motion was lost by a majority
of two; and then the captain, who never allows himself to be defeated,
moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject.&nbsp; The affair
grew serious: the question was discussed at meeting after meeting, and
vestry after vestry; speeches were made, attacks repudiated, personal
defiances exchanged, explanations received, and the greatest excitement
prevailed, until at last, just as the question was going to be finally
decided, the vestry found that somehow or other, they had become entangled
in a point of form, from which it was impossible to escape with propriety.&nbsp;
So, the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important,
and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the whole
proceeding.</p>
<p>This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since,
when Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died.&nbsp; The lamented deceased
had over-exerted himself, a day or two previously, in conveying an aged
female, highly intoxicated, to the strong room of the work-house.&nbsp;
The excitement thus occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this indefatigable
officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish engine,
by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire, proved too
much for a constitution already enfeebled by age; and the intelligence
was conveyed to the Board one evening that Simmons had died, and left
his respects.</p>
<p>The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary,
when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office, each
of whom rested his claims to public support, entirely on the number
and extent of his family, as if the office of beadle were originally
instituted as an encouragement for the propagation of the human species.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Bung for Beadle.&nbsp; Five small children!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Hopkins
for Beadle.&nbsp; Seven small children!!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Timkins
for Beadle.&nbsp; Nine small children!!!&rsquo;&nbsp; Such were the
placards in large black letters on a white ground, which were plentifully
pasted on the walls, and posted in the windows of the principal shops.&nbsp;
Timkins&rsquo;s success was considered certain: several mothers of families
half promised their votes, and the nine small children would have run
over the course, but for the production of another placard, announcing
the appearance of a still more meritorious candidate.&nbsp; &lsquo;Spruggins
for Beadle.&nbsp; Ten small children (two of them twins), and a wife!!!&rsquo;&nbsp;
There was no resisting this; ten small children would have been almost
irresistible in themselves, without the twins, but the touching parenthesis
about that interesting production of nature, and the still more touching
allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must ensure success.&nbsp; Spruggins was
the favourite at once, and the appearance of his lady, as she went about
to solicit votes (which encouraged confident hopes of a still further
addition to the house of Spruggins at no remote period), increased the
general prepossession in his favour.&nbsp; The other candidates, Bung
alone excepted, resigned in despair.&nbsp; The day of election was fixed;
and the canvass proceeded with briskness and perseverance on both sides.</p>
<p>The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the contagious
excitement inseparable from the occasion.&nbsp; The majority of the
lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins; and the
<i>quondam</i> overseer took the same side, on the ground that men with
large families always had been elected to the office, and that although
he must admit, that, in other respects, Spruggins was the least qualified
candidate of the two, still it was an old practice, and he saw no reason
why an old practice should be departed from.&nbsp; This was enough for
the captain.&nbsp; He immediately sided with Bung, canvassed for him
personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins, and got his
butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in his shop-front; frightened
his neighbour, the old lady, into a palpitation of the heart, by his
awful denunciations of Spruggins&rsquo;s party; and bounced in and out,
and up and down, and backwards and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants
of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain fever,
long before the election began.</p>
<p>The day of election arrived.&nbsp; It was no longer an individual
struggle, but a party contest between the ins and outs.&nbsp; The question
was, whether the withering influence of the overseers, the domination
of the churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry-clerk,
should be allowed to render the election of beadle a form&mdash;a nullity:
whether they should impose a vestry-elected beadle on the parish, to
do their bidding and forward their views, or whether the parishioners,
fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an independent
beadle of their own.</p>
<p>The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so great
was the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found necessary to
adjourn to the church, where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity.&nbsp;
The appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens
and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general attention.&nbsp;
Spruggins was a little thin man, in rusty black, with a long pale face,
and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue, which might either
be attributed to the extent of his family or the anxiety of his feelings.&nbsp;
His opponent appeared in a cast-off coat of the captain&rsquo;s&mdash;a
blue coat with bright buttons; white trousers, and that description
of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of &lsquo;high-lows.&rsquo;&nbsp;
There was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung&mdash;a kind of
moral dignity in his confident air&mdash;an &lsquo;I wish you may get
it&rsquo; sort of expression in his eye&mdash;which infused animation
into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents.</p>
<p>The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle.&nbsp;
He had known him long.&nbsp; He had had his eye upon him closely for
years; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months.&nbsp; (A
parishioner here suggested that this might be termed &lsquo;taking a
double sight,&rsquo; but the observation was drowned in loud cries of
&lsquo;Order!&rsquo;)&nbsp; He would repeat that he had had his eye
upon him for years, and this he would say, that a more well-conducted,
a more well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated
mind, he had never met with.&nbsp; A man with a larger family he had
never known (cheers).&nbsp; The parish required a man who could be depended
on (&lsquo;Hear!&rsquo; from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical
cheers from the Bung party).&nbsp; Such a man he now proposed (&lsquo;No,&rsquo;
&lsquo;Yes&rsquo;).&nbsp; He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden
continued, in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers).&nbsp;
He would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in
the service of his majesty; he would not say, that that gentleman was
no gentleman; he would not assert, that that man was no man; he would
not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner; he would not say, that
he had grossly misbehaved himself, not only on this, but on all former
occasions; he would not say, that he was one of those discontented and
treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and disorder wherever they
went; he would not say, that he harboured in his heart envy, and hatred,
and malice, and all uncharitableness.&nbsp; No!&nbsp; He wished to have
everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, he would say&mdash;nothing
about him (cheers).</p>
<p>The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style.&nbsp; He would
not say, he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would
not say, he was disgusted (cheers).&nbsp; He would not retort the epithets
which had been hurled against him (renewed cheering); he would not allude
to men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged
the workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the
bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup (tremendous
cheers).&nbsp; He would not ask what such men deserved (a voice, &lsquo;Nothing
a-day, and find themselves!&rsquo;).&nbsp; He would not say, that one
burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they
polluted with their presence (&lsquo;Give it him!&rsquo;).&nbsp; He
would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed&mdash;he
would not say, as the vestry&rsquo;s tool, but as Beadle.&nbsp; He would
not advert to that individual&rsquo;s family; he would not say, that
nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for pauper
imitation (loud cheers).&nbsp; He would not advert in detail to the
qualifications of Bung.&nbsp; The man stood before him, and he would
not say in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him, if
he were absent.&nbsp; (Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him,
under cover of his hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his
right thumb to the tip of his nose).&nbsp; It had been objected to Bung
that he had only five children (&lsquo;Hear, hear!&rsquo; from the opposition).&nbsp;
Well; he had yet to learn that the legislature had affixed any precise
amount of infantine qualification to the office of beadle; but taking
it for granted that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated
them to look to facts, and compare <i>data</i>, about which there could
be no mistake.&nbsp; Bung was 35 years of age.&nbsp; Spruggins&mdash;of
whom he wished to speak with all possible respect&mdash;was 50.&nbsp;
Was it not more than possible&mdash;was it not very probable&mdash;that
by the time Bung attained the latter age, he might see around him a
family, even exceeding in number and extent, that to which Spruggins
at present laid claim (deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs)?&nbsp;
The captain concluded, amidst loud applause, by calling upon the parishioners
to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves from dictation,
or be slaves for ever.</p>
<p>On the following day the polling began, and we never have had such
a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition,
which was such an important one, that the House of Commons ordered it
to be printed, on the motion of the member for the district.&nbsp; The
captain engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung&rsquo;s people&mdash;the
cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies,
the greater portion of whom, owing to the captain&rsquo;s impetuosity,
were driven up to the poll and home again, before they recovered from
their flurry sufficiently to know, with any degree of clearness, what
they had been doing.&nbsp; The opposite party wholly neglected these
precautions, and the consequence was, that a great many ladies who were
walking leisurely up to the church&mdash;for it was a very hot day&mdash;to
vote for Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted
for Bung.&nbsp; The captain&rsquo;s arguments, too, had produced considerable
effect: the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater.&nbsp;
A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk&mdash;a
case of heartless and profligate atrocity.&nbsp; It appeared that the
delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penn&rsquo;orth of
muffins, weekly, from an old woman who rents a small house in the parish,
and resides among the original settlers; on her last weekly visit, a
message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook, couched
in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient clearness, that
the vestry-clerk&rsquo;s appetite for muffins, in future, depended entirely
on her vote on the beadleship.&nbsp; This was sufficient: the stream
had been turning previously, and the impulse thus administered directed
its final course.&nbsp; The Bung party ordered one shilling&rsquo;s-worth
of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman&rsquo;s natural
life; the parishioners were loud in their exclamations; and the fate
of Spruggins was sealed.</p>
<p>It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same
pattern, and night-caps, to match, at the church door: the boy in Mrs.
Spruggins&rsquo;s right arm, and the girl in her left&mdash;even Mrs.
Spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer.&nbsp;
The majority attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and
twenty-eight, and the cause of the parishioners triumphed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V&mdash;THE BROKER&rsquo;S MAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The excitement of the late election has subsided, and our parish
being once again restored to a state of comparative tranquillity, we
are enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little
share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public life.&nbsp;
And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in collecting
materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by Mr. Bung himself,
who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear we can never
repay.&nbsp; The life of this gentleman has been one of a very chequered
description: he has undergone transitions&mdash;not from grave to gay,
for he never was grave&mdash;not from lively to severe, for severity
forms no part of his disposition; his fluctuations have been between
poverty in the extreme, and poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic
language, &lsquo;between nothing to eat and just half enough.&rsquo;&nbsp;
He is not, as he forcibly remarks, &lsquo;one of those fortunate men
who, if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark-naked, would
come up on the other with a new suit of clothes on, and a ticket for
soup in the waistcoat-pocket:&rsquo; neither is he one of those, whose
spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want.&nbsp;
He is just one of the careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who
float, cork-like, on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with:
knocked here, and there, and everywhere: now to the right, then to the
left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing
and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily along.&nbsp; Some
few months before he was prevailed upon to stand a contested election
for the office of beadle, necessity attached him to the service of a
broker; and on the opportunities he here acquired of ascertaining the
condition of most of the poorer inhabitants of the parish, his patron,
the captain, first grounded his claims to public support.&nbsp; Chance
threw the man in our way a short time since.&nbsp; We were, in the first
instance, attracted by his prepossessing impudence at the election;
we were not surprised, on further acquaintance, to find him a shrewd,
knowing fellow, with no inconsiderable power of observation; and, after
conversing with him a little, were somewhat struck (as we dare say our
readers have frequently been in other cases) with the power some men
seem to have, not only of sympathising with, but to all appearance of
understanding feelings to which they themselves are entire strangers.&nbsp;
We had been expressing to the new functionary our surprise that he should
ever have served in the capacity to which we have just adverted, when
we gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes.&nbsp; As
we are induced to think, on reflection, that they will tell better in
nearly his own words, than with any attempted embellishments of ours,
we will at once entitle them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>MR BUNG&rsquo;S NARRATIVE</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s very true, as you say, sir,&rsquo; Mr. Bung commenced,
&lsquo;that a broker&rsquo;s man&rsquo;s is not a life to be envied;
and in course you know as well as I do, though you don&rsquo;t say it,
that people hate and scout &rsquo;em because they&rsquo;re the ministers
of wretchedness, like, to poor people.&nbsp; But what could I do, sir?&nbsp;
The thing was no worse because I did it, instead of somebody else; and
if putting me in possession of a house would put me in possession of
three and sixpence a day, and levying a distress on another man&rsquo;s
goods would relieve my distress and that of my family, it can&rsquo;t
be expected but what I&rsquo;d take the job and go through with it.&nbsp;
I never liked it, God knows; I always looked out for something else,
and the moment I got other work to do, I left it.&nbsp; If there is
anything wrong in being the agent in such matters&mdash;not the principal,
mind you&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure the business, to a beginner like I was,
at all events, carries its own punishment along with it.&nbsp; I wished
again and again that the people would only blow me up, or pitch into
me&mdash;that I wouldn&rsquo;t have minded, it&rsquo;s all in my way;
but it&rsquo;s the being shut up by yourself in one room for five days,
without so much as an old newspaper to look at, or anything to see out
o&rsquo; the winder but the roofs and chimneys at the back of the house,
or anything to listen to, but the ticking, perhaps, of an old Dutch
clock, the sobbing of the missis, now and then, the low talking of friends
in the next room, who speak in whispers, lest &ldquo;the man&rdquo;
should overhear them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the door,
as a child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half-frightened away&mdash;it&rsquo;s
all this, that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself;
and then, if it&rsquo;s wintertime, they just give you fire enough to
make you think you&rsquo;d like more, and bring in your grub as if they
wished it &rsquo;ud choke you&mdash;as I dare say they do, for the matter
of that, most heartily.&nbsp; If they&rsquo;re very civil, they make
you up a bed in the room at night, and if they don&rsquo;t, your master
sends one in for you; but there you are, without being washed or shaved
all the time, shunned by everybody, and spoken to by no one, unless
some one comes in at dinner-time, and asks you whether you want any
more, in a tone as much to say, &ldquo;I hope you don&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
or, in the evening, to inquire whether you wouldn&rsquo;t rather have
a candle, after you&rsquo;ve been sitting in the dark half the night.&nbsp;
When I was left in this way, I used to sit, think, think, thinking,
till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the
lid on; but I believe the old brokers&rsquo; men who are regularly trained
to it, never think at all.&nbsp; I have heard some on &rsquo;em say,
indeed, that they don&rsquo;t know how!</p>
<p>&lsquo;I put in a good many distresses in my time (continued Mr.
Bung), and in course I wasn&rsquo;t long in finding, that some people
are not as much to be pitied as others are, and that people with good
incomes who get into difficulties, which they keep patching up day after
day and week after week, get so used to these sort of things in time,
that at last they come scarcely to feel them at all.&nbsp; I remember
the very first place I was put in possession of, was a gentleman&rsquo;s
house in this parish here, that everybody would suppose couldn&rsquo;t
help having money if he tried.&nbsp; I went with old Fixem, my old master,
&rsquo;bout half arter eight in the morning; rang the area-bell; servant
in livery opened the door: &ldquo;Governor at home?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Yes,
he is,&rdquo; says the man; &ldquo;but he&rsquo;s breakfasting just
now.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; says Fixem, &ldquo;just
you tell him there&rsquo;s a gentleman here, as wants to speak to him
partickler.&rdquo;&nbsp; So the servant he opens his eyes, and stares
about him all ways&mdash;looking for the gentleman, as it struck me,
for I don&rsquo;t think anybody but a man as was stone-blind would mistake
Fixem for one; and as for me, I was as seedy as a cheap cowcumber.&nbsp;
Hows&rsquo;ever, he turns round, and goes to the breakfast-parlour,
which was a little snug sort of room at the end of the passage, and
Fixem (as we always did in that profession), without waiting to be announced,
walks in arter him, and before the servant could get out, &ldquo;Please,
sir, here&rsquo;s a man as wants to speak to you,&rdquo; looks in at
the door as familiar and pleasant as may be.&nbsp; &ldquo;Who the devil
are you, and how dare you walk into a gentleman&rsquo;s house without
leave?&rdquo; says the master, as fierce as a bull in fits.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
name,&rdquo; says Fixem, winking to the master to send the servant away,
and putting the warrant into his hands folded up like a note, &ldquo;My
name&rsquo;s Smith,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and I called from Johnson&rsquo;s
about that business of Thompson&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo;
says the other, quite down on him directly, &ldquo;How <i>is</i> Thompson?&rdquo;
says he; &ldquo;Pray sit down, Mr. Smith: John, leave the room.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Out went the servant; and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another
till they couldn&rsquo;t look any longer, and then they varied the amusements
by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Hundred and fifty pounds, I see,&rdquo; said the gentleman at
last.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hundred and fifty pound,&rdquo; said Fixem, &ldquo;besides
cost of levy, sheriff&rsquo;s poundage, and all other incidental expenses.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Um,&rdquo;
says the gentleman, &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t be able to settle this before
to-morrow afternoon.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Very sorry; but I shall be
obliged to leave my man here till then,&rdquo; replies Fixem, pretending
to look very miserable over it.&nbsp; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very unfort&rsquo;nate,&rdquo;
says the gentleman, &ldquo;for I have got a large party here to-night,
and I&rsquo;m ruined if those fellows of mine get an inkling of the
matter&mdash;just step here, Mr. Smith,&rdquo; says he, after a short
pause.&nbsp; So Fixem walks with him up to the window, and after a good
deal of whispering, and a little chinking of suverins, and looking at
me, he comes back and says, &ldquo;Bung, you&rsquo;re a handy fellow,
and very honest I know.&nbsp; This gentleman wants an assistant to clean
the plate and wait at table to-day, and if you&rsquo;re not particularly
engaged,&rdquo; says old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a couple
of suverins into my hand, &ldquo;he&rsquo;ll be very glad to avail himself
of your services.&rdquo;&nbsp; Well, I laughed: and the gentleman laughed,
and we all laughed; and I went home and cleaned myself, leaving Fixem
there, and when I went back, Fixem went away, and I polished up the
plate, and waited at table, and gammoned the servants, and nobody had
the least idea I was in possession, though it very nearly came out after
all; for one of the last gentlemen who remained, came down-stairs into
the hall where I was sitting pretty late at night, and putting half-a-crown
into my hand, says, &ldquo;Here, my man,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;run
and get me a coach, will you?&rdquo;&nbsp; I thought it was a do, to
get me out of the house, and was just going to say so, sulkily enough,
when the gentleman (who was up to everything) came running down-stairs,
as if he was in great anxiety.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bung,&rdquo; says he, pretending
to be in a consuming passion.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Why the devil an&rsquo;t you looking after that plate?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I
was just going to send him for a coach for me,&rdquo; says the other
gentleman.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I was just a-going to say,&rdquo; says I&mdash;&ldquo;Anybody
else, my dear fellow,&rdquo; interrupts the master of the house, pushing
me down the passage to get out of the way&mdash;&ldquo;anybody else;
but I have put this man in possession of all the plate and valuables,
and I cannot allow him on any consideration whatever, to leave the house.&nbsp;
Bung, you scoundrel, go and count those forks in the breakfast-parlour
instantly.&rdquo;&nbsp; You may be sure I went laughing pretty hearty
when I found it was all right.&nbsp; The money was paid next day, with
the addition of something else for myself, and that was the best job
that I (and I suspect old Fixem too) ever got in that line.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all,&rsquo;
resumed Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look and flash air, with
which he had repeated the previous anecdote&mdash;&lsquo;and I&rsquo;m
sorry to say, it&rsquo;s the side one sees very, very seldom, in comparison
with the dark one.&nbsp; The civility which money will purchase, is
rarely extended to those who have none; and there&rsquo;s a consolation
even in being able to patch up one difficulty, to make way for another,
to which very poor people are strangers.&nbsp; I was once put into a
house down George&rsquo;s-yard&mdash;that little dirty court at the
back of the gas-works; and I never shall forget the misery of them people,
dear me!&nbsp; It was a distress for half a year&rsquo;s rent&mdash;two
pound ten, I think.&nbsp; There was only two rooms in the house, and
as there was no passage, the lodgers up-stairs always went through the
room of the people of the house, as they passed in and out; and every
time they did so&mdash;which, on the average, was about four times every
quarter of an hour&mdash;they blowed up quite frightful: for their things
had been seized too, and included in the inventory.&nbsp; There was
a little piece of enclosed dust in front of the house, with a cinder-path
leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side.&nbsp;
A dirty striped curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window,
and a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill
inside.&nbsp; I suppose it was meant for the people&rsquo;s use, but
their appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I&rsquo;m certain
they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face
a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once.&nbsp; There
was two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days,
from eightpence to a shilling a-piece; a small deal table, an old corner
cupboard with nothing in it, and one of those bedsteads which turn up
half way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your
head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no bedding.&nbsp; There
was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fireplace, and four or five
children were grovelling about, among the sand on the floor.&nbsp; The
execution was only put in, to get &rsquo;em out of the house, for there
was nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three
days, though that was a mere form too: for, in course, I knew, and we
all knew, they could never pay the money.&nbsp; In one of the chairs,
by the side of the place where the fire ought to have been, was an old
&rsquo;ooman&mdash;the ugliest and dirtiest I ever see&mdash;who sat
rocking herself backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, without
once stopping, except for an instant now and then, to clasp together
the withered hands which, with these exceptions, she kept constantly
rubbing upon her knees, just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively,
in time to the rocking of the chair.&nbsp; On the other side sat the
mother with an infant in her arms, which cried till it cried itself
to sleep, and when it &rsquo;woke, cried till it cried itself off again.&nbsp;
The old &rsquo;ooman&rsquo;s voice I never heard: she seemed completely
stupefied; and as to the mother&rsquo;s, it would have been better if
she had been so too, for misery had changed her to a devil.&nbsp; If
you had heard how she cursed the little naked children as was rolling
on the floor, and seen how savagely she struck the infant when it cried
with hunger, you&rsquo;d have shuddered as much as I did.&nbsp; There
they remained all the time: the children ate a morsel of bread once
or twice, and I gave &rsquo;em best part of the dinners my missis brought
me, but the woman ate nothing; they never even laid on the bedstead,
nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time.&nbsp; The neighbours
were all too poor themselves to take any notice of &rsquo;em, but from
what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-stairs, it seemed
the husband had been transported a few weeks before.&nbsp; When the
time was up, the landlord and old Fixem too, got rather frightened about
the family, and so they made a stir about it, and had &rsquo;em taken
to the workhouse.&nbsp; They sent the sick couch for the old &rsquo;ooman,
and Simmons took the children away at night.&nbsp; The old &rsquo;ooman
went into the infirmary, and very soon died.&nbsp; The children are
all in the house to this day, and very comfortable they are in comparison.&nbsp;
As to the mother, there was no taming her at all.&nbsp; She had been
a quiet, hard-working woman, I believe, but her misery had actually
drove her wild; so after she had been sent to the house of correction
half-a-dozen times, for throwing inkstands at the overseers, blaspheming
the churchwardens, and smashing everybody as come near her, she burst
a blood-vessel one mornin&rsquo;, and died too; and a happy release
it was, both for herself and the old paupers, male and female, which
she used to tip over in all directions, as if they were so many skittles,
and she the ball.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now this was bad enough,&rsquo; resumed Mr. Bung, taking a
half-step towards the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded.&nbsp;
&lsquo;This was bad enough, but there was a sort of quiet misery&mdash;if
you understand what I mean by that, sir&mdash;about a lady at one house
I was put into, as touched me a good deal more.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t
matter where it was exactly: indeed, I&rsquo;d rather not say, but it
was the same sort o&rsquo; job.&nbsp; I went with Fixem in the usual
way&mdash;there was a year&rsquo;s rent in arrear; a very small servant-girl
opened the door, and three or four fine-looking little children was
in the front parlour we were shown into, which was very clean, but very
scantily furnished, much like the children themselves.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bung,&rdquo;
says Fixem to me, in a low voice, when we were left alone for a minute,
&ldquo;I know something about this here family, and my opinion is, it&rsquo;s
no go.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Do you think they can&rsquo;t settle?&rdquo;
says I, quite anxiously; for I liked the looks of them children.&nbsp;
Fixem shook his head, and was just about to reply, when the door opened,
and in come a lady, as white as ever I see any one in my days, except
about the eyes, which were red with crying.&nbsp; She walked in, as
firm as I could have done; shut the door carefully after her, and sat
herself down with a face as composed as if it was made of stone.&nbsp;
&ldquo;What is the matter, gentlemen?&rdquo; says she, in a surprisin&rsquo;
steady voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>Is</i> this an execution?&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;It is, mum,&rdquo; says Fixem.&nbsp; The lady looked at him as
steady as ever: she didn&rsquo;t seem to have understood him.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It is, mum,&rdquo; says Fixem again; &ldquo;this is my warrant
of distress, mum,&rdquo; says he, handing it over as polite as if it
was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The lady&rsquo;s lip trembled as she took the printed paper.&nbsp;
She cast her eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the form, but
saw she wasn&rsquo;t reading it, plain enough, poor thing.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,
my God!&rdquo; says she, suddenly a-bursting out crying, letting the
warrant fall, and hiding her face in her hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh, my
God! what will become of us!&rdquo;&nbsp; The noise she made, brought
in a young lady of about nineteen or twenty, who, I suppose, had been
a-listening at the door, and who had got a little boy in her arms: she
sat him down in the lady&rsquo;s lap, without speaking, and she hugged
the poor little fellow to her bosom, and cried over him, till even old
Fixem put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears, that was a-trickling
down, one on each side of his dirty face.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now, dear ma,&rdquo;
says the young lady, &ldquo;you know how much you have borne.&nbsp;
For all our sakes&mdash;for pa&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t
give way to this!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;No, no, I won&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
says the lady, gathering herself up, hastily, and drying her eyes; &ldquo;I
am very foolish, but I&rsquo;m better now&mdash;much better.&rdquo;&nbsp;
And then she roused herself up, went with us into every room while we
took the inventory, opened all the drawers of her own accord, sorted
the children&rsquo;s little clothes to make the work easier; and, except
doing everything in a strange sort of hurry, seemed as calm and composed
as if nothing had happened.&nbsp; When we came down-stairs again, she
hesitated a minute or two, and at last says, &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo;
says she, &ldquo;I am afraid I have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring
you into trouble.&nbsp; I secreted just now,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;the
only trinket I have left in the world&mdash;here it is.&rdquo;&nbsp;
So she lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a miniature,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;of my poor dear
father!&nbsp; I little thought once, that I should ever thank God for
depriving me of the original, but I do, and have done for years back,
most fervently.&nbsp; Take it away, sir,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
a face that never turned from me in sickness and distress, and I can
hardly bear to turn from it now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no
ordinary degree.&rdquo;&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t say nothing, but I raised
my head from the inventory which I was filling up, and looked at Fixem;
the old fellow nodded to me significantly, so I ran my pen through the
&ldquo;<i>Mini</i>&rdquo; I had just written, and left the miniature
on the table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in possession,
and in possession I remained; and though I was an ignorant man, and
the master of the house a clever one, I saw what he never did, but what
he would give worlds now (if he had &rsquo;em) to have seen in time.&nbsp;
I saw, sir, that his wife was wasting away, beneath cares of which she
never complained, and griefs she never told.&nbsp; I saw that she was
dying before his eyes; I knew that one exertion from him might have
saved her, but he never made it.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t blame him: I don&rsquo;t
think he <i>could</i> rouse himself.&nbsp; She had so long anticipated
all his wishes, and acted for him, that he was a lost man when left
to himself.&nbsp; I used to think when I caught sight of her, in the
clothes she used to wear, which looked shabby even upon her, and would
have been scarcely decent on any one else, that if I was a gentleman
it would wring my very heart to see the woman that was a smart and merry
girl when I courted her, so altered through her love for me.&nbsp; Bitter
cold and damp weather it was, yet, though her dress was thin, and her
shoes none of the best, during the whole three days, from morning to
night, she was out of doors running about to try and raise the money.&nbsp;
The money <i>was</i> raised and the execution was paid out.&nbsp; The
whole family crowded into the room where I was, when the money arrived.&nbsp;
The father was quite happy as the inconvenience was removed&mdash;I
dare say he didn&rsquo;t know how; the children looked merry and cheerful
again; the eldest girl was bustling about, making preparations for the
first comfortable meal they had had since the distress was put in; and
the mother looked pleased to see them all so.&nbsp; But if ever I saw
death in a woman&rsquo;s face, I saw it in hers that night.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I was right, sir,&rsquo; continued Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing
his coat-sleeve over his face; &lsquo;the family grew more prosperous,
and good fortune arrived.&nbsp; But it was too late.&nbsp; Those children
are motherless now, and their father would give up all he has since
gained&mdash;house, home, goods, money: all that he has, or ever can
have, to restore the wife he has lost.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VI&mdash;THE LADIES&rsquo; SOCIETIES</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Our Parish is very prolific in ladies&rsquo; charitable institutions.&nbsp;
In winter, when wet feet are common, and colds not scarce, we have the
ladies&rsquo; soup distribution society, the ladies&rsquo; coal distribution
society, and the ladies&rsquo; blanket distribution society; in summer,
when stone fruits flourish and stomach aches prevail, we have the ladies&rsquo;
dispensary, and the ladies&rsquo; sick visitation committee; and all
the year round we have the ladies&rsquo; child&rsquo;s examination society,
the ladies&rsquo; bible and prayer-book circulation society, and the
ladies&rsquo; childbed-linen monthly loan society.&nbsp; The two latter
are decidedly the most important; whether they are productive of more
benefit than the rest, it is not for us to say, but we can take upon
ourselves to affirm, with the utmost solemnity, that they create a greater
stir and more bustle, than all the others put together.</p>
<p>We should be disposed to affirm, on the first blush of the matter,
that the bible and prayer-book society is not so popular as the childbed-linen
society; the bible and prayer-book society has, however, considerably
increased in importance within the last year or two, having derived
some adventitious aid from the factious opposition of the child&rsquo;s
examination society; which factious opposition originated in manner
following:- When the young curate was popular, and all the unmarried
ladies in the parish took a serious turn, the charity children all at
once became objects of peculiar and especial interest.&nbsp; The three
Miss Browns (enthusiastic admirers of the curate) taught, and exercised,
and examined, and re-examined the unfortunate children, until the boys
grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and fatigue.&nbsp; The
three Miss Browns stood it out very well, because they relieved each
other; but the children, having no relief at all, exhibited decided
symptoms of weariness and care.&nbsp; The unthinking part of the parishioners
laughed at all this, but the more reflective portion of the inhabitants
abstained from expressing any opinion on the subject until that of the
curate had been clearly ascertained.</p>
<p>The opportunity was not long wanting.&nbsp; The curate preached a
charity sermon on behalf of the charity school, and in the charity sermon
aforesaid, expatiated in glowing terms on the praiseworthy and indefatigable
exertions of certain estimable individuals.&nbsp; Sobs were heard to
issue from the three Miss Browns&rsquo; pew; the pew-opener of the division
was seen to hurry down the centre aisle to the vestry door, and to return
immediately, bearing a glass of water in her hand.&nbsp; A low moaning
ensued; two more pew-openers rushed to the spot, and the three Miss
Browns, each supported by a pew-opener, were led out of the church,
and led in again after the lapse of five minutes with white pocket-handkerchiefs
to their eyes, as if they had been attending a funeral in the churchyard
adjoining.&nbsp; If any doubt had for a moment existed, as to whom the
allusion was intended to apply, it was at once removed.&nbsp; The wish
to enlighten the charity children became universal, and the three Miss
Browns were unanimously besought to divide the school into classes,
and to assign each class to the superintendence of two young ladies.</p>
<p>A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage is
more so; the three Miss Browns appointed all the old maids, and carefully
excluded the young ones.&nbsp; Maiden aunts triumphed, mammas were reduced
to the lowest depths of despair, and there is no telling in what act
of violence the general indignation against the three Miss Browns might
have vented itself, had not a perfectly providential occurrence changed
the tide of public feeling.&nbsp; Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of
seven extremely fine girls&mdash;all unmarried&mdash;hastily reported
to several other mammas of several other unmarried families, that five
old men, six old women, and children innumerable, in the free seats
near her pew, were in the habit of coming to church every Sunday, without
either bible or prayer-book.&nbsp; Was this to be borne in a civilised
country?&nbsp; Could such things be tolerated in a Christian land?&nbsp;
Never!&nbsp; A ladies&rsquo; bible and prayer-book distribution society
was instantly formed: president, Mrs. Johnson Parker; treasurers, auditors,
and secretary, the Misses Johnson Parker: subscriptions were entered
into, books were bought, all the free-seat people provided therewith,
and when the first lesson was given out, on the first Sunday succeeding
these events, there was such a dropping of books, and rustling of leaves,
that it was morally impossible to hear one word of the service for five
minutes afterwards.</p>
<p>The three Miss Browns, and their party, saw the approaching danger,
and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm.&nbsp; Neither the
old men nor the old women could read their books, now they had got them,
said the three Miss Browns.&nbsp; Never mind; they could learn, replied
Mrs. Johnson Parker.&nbsp; The children couldn&rsquo;t read either,
suggested the three Miss Browns.&nbsp; No matter; they could be taught,
retorted Mrs. Johnson Parker.&nbsp; A balance of parties took place.&nbsp;
The Miss Browns publicly examined&mdash;popular feeling inclined to
the child&rsquo;s examination society.&nbsp; The Miss Johnson Parkers
publicly distributed&mdash;a reaction took place in favour of the prayer-book
distribution.&nbsp; A feather would have turned the scale, and a feather
did turn it.&nbsp; A missionary returned from the West Indies; he was
to be presented to the Dissenters&rsquo; Missionary Society on his marriage
with a wealthy widow.&nbsp; Overtures were made to the Dissenters by
the Johnson Parkers.&nbsp; Their object was the same, and why not have
a joint meeting of the two societies?&nbsp; The proposition was accepted.&nbsp;
The meeting was duly heralded by public announcement, and the room was
crowded to suffocation.&nbsp; The Missionary appeared on the platform;
he was hailed with enthusiasm.&nbsp; He repeated a dialogue he had heard
between two negroes, behind a hedge, on the subject of distribution
societies; the approbation was tumultuous.&nbsp; He gave an imitation
of the two negroes in broken English; the roof was rent with applause.&nbsp;
From that period we date (with one trifling exception) a daily increase
in the popularity of the distribution society, and an increase of popularity,
which the feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party, has
only tended to augment.</p>
<p>Now, the great points about the childbed-linen monthly loan society
are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion
than either the distribution or the child&rsquo;s examination; and that,
come what may, there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise
its benevolence.&nbsp; Our parish is a very populous one, and, if anything,
contributes, we should be disposed to say, rather more than its due
share to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its environs.&nbsp;
The consequence is, that the monthly loan society flourishes, and invests
its members with a most enviable amount of bustling patronage.&nbsp;
The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would appear to be
its allotment into months) holds monthly tea-drinkings, at which the
monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing,
and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for
the month, carefully examined.</p>
<p>We were never present at one of these meetings, from all of which
it is scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen are carefully excluded; but
Mr. Bung has been called before the board once or twice, and we have
his authority for stating, that its proceedings are conducted with great
order and regularity: not more than four members being allowed to speak
at one time on any pretence whatever.&nbsp; The regular committee is
composed exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of young unmarried
ladies of from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, respectively, are
admitted as honorary members, partly because they are very useful in
replenishing the boxes, and visiting the confined; partly because it
is highly desirable that they should be initiated, at an early period,
into the more serious and matronly duties of after-life; and partly,
because prudent mammas have not unfrequently been known to turn this
circumstance to wonderfully good account in matrimonial speculations.</p>
<p>In addition to the loan of the monthly boxes (which are always painted
blue, with the name of the society in large white letters on the lid),
the society dispense occasional grants of beef-tea, and a composition
of warm beer, spice, eggs, and sugar, commonly known by the name of
&lsquo;candle,&rsquo; to its patients.&nbsp; And here again the services
of the honorary members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully
conceded.&nbsp; Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit
the patients, and on these occasions there is such a tasting of candle
and beef-tea, such a stirring about of little messes in tiny saucepans
on the hob, such a dressing and undressing of infants, such a tying,
and folding, and pinning; such a nursing and warming of little legs
and feet before the fire, such a delightful confusion of talking and
cooking, bustle, importance, and officiousness, as never can be enjoyed
in its full extent but on similar occasions.</p>
<p>In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring effort
to acquire parochial popularity, the child&rsquo;s examination people
determined, the other day, on having a grand public examination of the
pupils; and the large school-room of the national seminary was, by and
with the consent of the parish authorities, devoted to the purpose.&nbsp;
Invitation circulars were forwarded to all the principal parishioners,
including, of course, the heads of the other two societies, for whose
especial behoof and edification the display was intended; and a large
audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion.&nbsp; The floor
was carefully scrubbed the day before, under the immediate superintendence
of the three Miss Browns; forms were placed across the room for the
accommodation of the visitors, specimens in writing were carefully selected,
and as carefully patched and touched up, until they astonished the children
who had written them, rather more than the company who read them; sums
in compound addition were rehearsed and re-rehearsed until all the children
had the totals by heart; and the preparations altogether were on the
most laborious and most comprehensive scale.&nbsp; The morning arrived:
the children were yellow-soaped and flannelled, and towelled, till their
faces shone again; every pupil&rsquo;s hair was carefully combed into
his or her eyes, as the case might be; the girls were adorned with snow-white
tippets, and caps bound round the head by a single purple ribbon: the
necks of the elder boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions.</p>
<p>The doors were thrown open, and the Misses Brown and Co. were discovered
in plain white muslin dresses, and caps of the same&mdash;the child&rsquo;s
examination uniform.&nbsp; The room filled: the greetings of the company
were loud and cordial.&nbsp; The distributionists trembled, for their
popularity was at stake.&nbsp; The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered
a propitiatory address from behind his collar.&nbsp; It was from the
pen of Mr. Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson
Parkers were aghast.&nbsp; The examination proceeded with success, and
terminated in triumph.&nbsp; The child&rsquo;s examination society gained
a momentary victory, and the Johnson Parkers retreated in despair.</p>
<p>A secret council of the distributionists was held that night, with
Mrs. Johnson Parker in the chair, to consider of the best means of recovering
the ground they had lost in the favour of the parish.&nbsp; What could
be done?&nbsp; Another meeting!&nbsp; Alas! who was to attend it?&nbsp;
The Missionary would not do twice; and the slaves were emancipated.&nbsp;
A bold step must be taken.&nbsp; The parish must be astonished in some
way or other; but no one was able to suggest what the step should be.&nbsp;
At length, a very old lady was heard to mumble, in indistinct tones,
&lsquo;Exeter Hall.&rsquo;&nbsp; A sudden light broke in upon the meeting.&nbsp;
It was unanimously resolved, that a deputation of old ladies should
wait upon a celebrated orator, imploring his assistance, and the favour
of a speech; and the deputation should also wait on two or three other
imbecile old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance.&nbsp;
The application was successful, the meeting was held; the orator (an
Irishman) came.&nbsp; He talked of green isles&mdash;other shores&mdash;vast
Atlantic&mdash;bosom of the deep&mdash;Christian charity&mdash;blood
and extermination&mdash;mercy in hearts&mdash;arms in hands&mdash;altars
and homes&mdash;household gods.&nbsp; He wiped his eyes, he blew his
nose, and he quoted Latin.&nbsp; The effect was tremendous&mdash;the
Latin was a decided hit.&nbsp; Nobody knew exactly what it was about,
but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was
overcome.&nbsp; The popularity of the distribution society among the
ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the child&rsquo;s examination
is going fast to decay.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VII&mdash;OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We are very fond of speculating as we walk through a street, on the
character and pursuits of the people who inhabit it; and nothing so
materially assists us in these speculations as the appearance of the
house doors.&nbsp; The various expressions of the human countenance
afford a beautiful and interesting study; but there is something in
the physiognomy of street-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and
nearly as infallible.&nbsp; Whenever we visit a man for the first time,
we contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest curiosity,
for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will inevitably
be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy.</p>
<p>For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to be
common enough, but which is fast passing away&mdash;a large round one,
with the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you
twist the sides of your hair into a curl or pull up your shirt-collar
while you are waiting for the door to be opened; we never saw that knocker
on the door of a churlish man&mdash;so far as our experience is concerned,
it invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle.</p>
<p>No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small attorney or bill-broker;
they always patronise the other lion; a heavy ferocious-looking fellow,
with a countenance expressive of savage stupidity&mdash;a sort of grand
master among the knockers, and a great favourite with the selfish and
brutal.</p>
<p>Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, with a long thin face,
a pinched-up nose, and a very sharp chin; he is most in vogue with your
government-office people, in light drabs and starched cravats; little
spare, priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied with their own opinions,
and consider themselves of paramount importance.</p>
<p>We were greatly troubled a few years ago, by the innovation of a
new kind of knocker, without any face at all, composed of a wreath depending
from a hand or small truncheon.&nbsp; A little trouble and attention,
however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to reconcile the
new system to our favourite theory.&nbsp; You will invariably find this
knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why
you <i>don&rsquo;t</i> come, and never say <i>do.</i></p>
<p>Everybody knows the brass knocker is common to suburban villas, and
extensive boarding-schools; and having noticed this genus we have recapitulated
all the most prominent and strongly-defined species.</p>
<p>Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man&rsquo;s brain
by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form
of his skull.&nbsp; Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory
to the full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man&rsquo;s
disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker.&nbsp;
Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must
exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove,
and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings.&nbsp;
If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable
pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact
himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance.&nbsp; This
is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being
quite as ingenious and infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations
which are daily broached for public good and private fortune-making.</p>
<p>Entertaining these feelings on the subject of knockers, it will be
readily imagined with what consternation we viewed the entire removal
of the knocker from the door of the next house to the one we lived in,
some time ago, and the substitution of a bell.&nbsp; This was a calamity
we had never anticipated.&nbsp; The bare idea of anybody being able
to exist without a knocker, appeared so wild and visionary, that it
had never for one instant entered our imagination.</p>
<p>We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps towards Eaton-square,
then just building.&nbsp; What was our astonishment and indignation
to find that bells were fast becoming the rule, and knockers the exception!&nbsp;
Our theory trembled beneath the shock.&nbsp; We hastened home; and fancying
we foresaw in the swift progress of events, its entire abolition, resolved
from that day forward to vent our speculations on our next-door neighbours
in person.&nbsp; The house adjoining ours on the left hand was uninhabited,
and we had, therefore, plenty of leisure to observe our next-door neighbours
on the other side.</p>
<p>The house without the knocker was in the occupation of a city clerk,
and there was a neatly-written bill in the parlour window intimating
that lodgings for a single gentleman were to be let within.</p>
<p>It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the way, with
new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new, narrow stair-carpets
up to the first floor.&nbsp; The paper was new, and the paint was new,
and the furniture was new; and all three, paper, paint, and furniture,
bespoke the limited means of the tenant.&nbsp; There was a little red
and black carpet in the drawing-room, with a border of flooring all
the way round; a few stained chairs and a pembroke table.&nbsp; A pink
shell was displayed on each of the little sideboards, which, with the
addition of a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells on the mantelpiece,
and three peacock&rsquo;s feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed
the decorative furniture of the apartment.</p>
<p>This was the room destined for the reception of the single gentleman
during the day, and a little back room on the same floor was assigned
as his sleeping apartment by night.</p>
<p>The bill had not been long in the window, when a stout, good-humoured
looking gentleman, of about five-and-thirty, appeared as a candidate
for the tenancy.&nbsp; Terms were soon arranged, for the bill was taken
down immediately after his first visit.&nbsp; In a day or two the single
gentleman came in, and shortly afterwards his real character came out.</p>
<p>First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality for sitting
up till three or four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, drinking whiskey-and-water,
and smoking cigars; then he invited friends home, who used to come at
ten o&rsquo;clock, and begin to get happy about the small hours, when
they evinced their perfect contentment by singing songs with half-a-dozen
verses of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, which chorus used to
be shouted forth by the whole strength of the company, in the most enthusiastic
and vociferous manner, to the great annoyance of the neighbours, and
the special discomfort of another single gentleman overhead.</p>
<p>Now, this was bad enough, occurring as it did three times a week
on the average, but this was not all; for when the company <i>did</i>
go away, instead of walking quietly down the street, as anybody else&rsquo;s
company would have done, they amused themselves by making alarming and
frightful noises, and counterfeiting the shrieks of females in distress;
and one night, a red-faced gentleman in a white hat knocked in the most
urgent manner at the door of the powdered-headed old gentleman at No.
3, and when the powdered-headed old gentleman, who thought one of his
married daughters must have been taken ill prematurely, had groped down-stairs,
and after a great deal of unbolting and key-turning, opened the street
door, the red-faced man in the white hat said he hoped he&rsquo;d excuse
his giving him so much trouble, but he&rsquo;d feel obliged if he&rsquo;d
favour him with a glass of cold spring water, and the loan of a shilling
for a cab to take him home, on which the old gentleman slammed the door
and went up-stairs, and threw the contents of his water jug out of window&mdash;very
straight, only it went over the wrong man; and the whole street was
involved in confusion.</p>
<p>A joke&rsquo;s a joke; and even practical jests are very capital
in their way, if you can only get the other party to see the fun of
them; but the population of our street were so dull of apprehension,
as to be quite lost to a sense of the drollery of this proceeding: and
the consequence was, that our next-door neighbour was obliged to tell
the single gentleman, that unless he gave up entertaining his friends
at home, he really must be compelled to part with him.</p>
<p>The single gentleman received the remonstrance with great good-humour,
and promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a coffee-house&mdash;a
determination which afforded general and unmixed satisfaction.</p>
<p>The next night passed off very well, everybody being delighted with
the change; but on the next, the noises were renewed with greater spirit
than ever.&nbsp; The single gentleman&rsquo;s friends being unable to
see him in his own house every alternate night, had come to the determination
of seeing him home every night; and what with the discordant greetings
of the friends at parting, and the noise created by the single gentleman
in his passage up-stairs, and his subsequent struggles to get his boots
off, the evil was not to be borne.&nbsp; So, our next-door neighbour
gave the single gentleman, who was a very good lodger in other respects,
notice to quit; and the single gentleman went away, and entertained
his friends in other lodgings.</p>
<p>The next applicant for the vacant first floor, was of a very different
character from the troublesome single gentleman who had just quitted
it.&nbsp; He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, with a profusion of
brown hair, reddish whiskers, and very slightly developed moustaches.&nbsp;
He wore a braided surtout, with frogs behind, light grey trousers, and
wash-leather gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance.&nbsp;
So unlike the roystering single gentleman.&nbsp; Such insinuating manners,
and such a delightful address!&nbsp; So seriously disposed, too!&nbsp;
When he first came to look at the lodgings, he inquired most particularly
whether he was sure to be able to get a seat in the parish church; and
when he had agreed to take them, he requested to have a list of the
different local charities, as he intended to subscribe his mite to the
most deserving among them.</p>
<p>Our next-door neighbour was now perfectly happy.&nbsp; He had got
a lodger at last, of just his own way of thinking&mdash;a serious, well-disposed
man, who abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement.&nbsp; He took down the
bill with a light heart, and pictured in imagination a long series of
quiet Sundays, on which he and his lodger would exchange mutual civilities
and Sunday papers.</p>
<p>The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive from the country
next morning.&nbsp; He borrowed a clean shirt, and a prayer-book, from
our next-door neighbour, and retired to rest at an early hour, requesting
that he might be called punctually at ten o&rsquo;clock next morning&mdash;not
before, as he was much fatigued.</p>
<p>He <i>was</i> called, and did not answer: he was called again, but
there was no reply.&nbsp; Our next-door neighbour became alarmed, and
burst the door open.&nbsp; The serious man had left the house mysteriously;
carrying with him the shirt, the prayer-book, a teaspoon, and the bedclothes.</p>
<p>Whether this occurrence, coupled with the irregularities of his former
lodger, gave our next-door neighbour an aversion to single gentlemen,
we know not; we only know that the next bill which made its appearance
in the parlour window intimated generally, that there were furnished
apartments to let on the first floor.&nbsp; The bill was soon removed.&nbsp;
The new lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and afterwards excited
our interest.</p>
<p>They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a
lady of about fifty, or it might be less.&nbsp; The mother wore a widow&rsquo;s
weeds, and the boy was also clothed in deep mourning.&nbsp; They were
poor&mdash;very poor; for their only means of support arose from the
pittance the boy earned, by copying writings, and translating for booksellers.</p>
<p>They had removed from some country place and settled in London; partly
because it afforded better chances of employment for the boy, and partly,
perhaps, with the natural desire to leave a place where they had been
in better circumstances, and where their poverty was known.&nbsp; They
were proud under their reverses, and above revealing their wants and
privations to strangers.&nbsp; How bitter those privations were, and
how hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves.&nbsp;
Night after night, two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear
the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled
cough, which indicated his being still at work; and day after day, could
we see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly light in his
plaintive face, which is the beacon of her worst disease.</p>
<p>Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity, we contrived
to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a close intimacy, with
the poor strangers.&nbsp; Our worst fears were realised; the boy was
sinking fast.&nbsp; Through a part of the winter, and the whole of the
following spring and summer, his labours were unceasingly prolonged:
and the mother attempted to procure needle-work, embroidery&mdash;anything
for bread.</p>
<p>A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn.&nbsp; The
boy worked steadily on; dying by minutes, but never once giving utterance
to complaint or murmur.</p>
<p>One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to
the invalid.&nbsp; His little remaining strength had been decreasing
rapidly for two or three days preceding, and he was lying on the sofa
at the open window, gazing at the setting sun.&nbsp; His mother had
been reading the Bible to him, for she closed the book as we entered,
and advanced to meet us.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I was telling William,&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;that we must
manage to take him into the country somewhere, so that he may get quite
well.&nbsp; He is not ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and
has exerted himself too much lately.&rsquo;&nbsp; Poor thing!&nbsp;
The tears that streamed through her fingers, as she turned aside, as
if to adjust her close widow&rsquo;s cap, too plainly showed how fruitless
was the attempt to deceive herself.</p>
<p>We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said nothing, for we saw
the breath of life was passing gently but rapidly from the young form
before us.&nbsp; At every respiration, his heart beat more slowly.</p>
<p>The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother&rsquo;s arm with
the other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek.&nbsp;
There was a pause.&nbsp; He sunk back upon his pillow, and looked long
and earnestly in his mother&rsquo;s face.</p>
<p>&lsquo;William, William!&rsquo; murmured the mother, after a long
interval, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t look at me so&mdash;speak to me, dear!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his features
resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze.</p>
<p>&lsquo;William, dear William! rouse yourself; don&rsquo;t look at
me so, love&mdash;pray don&rsquo;t!&nbsp; Oh, my God! what shall I do!&rsquo;
cried the widow, clasping her hands in agony&mdash;&lsquo;my dear boy!
he is dying!&rsquo;&nbsp; The boy raised himself by a violent effort,
and folded his hands together&mdash;&lsquo;Mother! dear, dear mother,
bury me in the open fields&mdash;anywhere but in these dreadful streets.&nbsp;
I should like to be where you can see my grave, but not in these close
crowded streets; they have killed me; kiss me again, mother; put your
arm round my neck&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>He fell back, and a strange expression stole upon his features; not
of pain or suffering, but an indescribable fixing of every line and
muscle.</p>
<p>The boy was dead.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SCENES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I&mdash;THE STREETS&mdash;MORNING</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before
sunrise, on a summer&rsquo;s morning, is most striking even to the few
whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate
pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene.&nbsp;
There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets
which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager
crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout
the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.</p>
<p>The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight,
has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking
song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and
police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some
paved comer, to dream of food and warmth.&nbsp; The drunken, the dissipated,
and the wretched have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of
the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day, and
the stillness of death is over the streets; its very hue seems to be
imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre
light of daybreak.&nbsp; The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares
are deserted: the night-houses are closed; and the chosen promenades
of profligate misery are empty.</p>
<p>An occasional policeman may alone be seen at the street corners,
listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him; and now and then
a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road and descends his
own area with as much caution and slyness&mdash;bounding first on the
water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones&mdash;as
if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantry of
the preceding night escaping public observation.&nbsp; A partially opened
bedroom-window here and there, bespeaks the heat of the weather, and
the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of the
rushlight, through the window-blind, denotes the chamber of watching
or sickness.&nbsp; With these few exceptions, the streets present no
signs of life, nor the houses of habitation.</p>
<p>An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal
buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun; and the
streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume their bustle
and animation.&nbsp; Market-carts roll slowly along: the sleepy waggoner
impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring to awaken
the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit-baskets,
forgets, in happy oblivion, his long-cherished curiosity to behold the
wonders of London.</p>
<p>Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between
ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early
public-houses; and little deal tables, with the ordinary preparations
for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary stations.&nbsp;
Numbers of men and women (principally the latter), carrying upon their
heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of Piccadilly,
on their way to Covent-garden, and, following each other in rapid succession,
form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge.</p>
<p>Here and there, a bricklayer&rsquo;s labourer, with the day&rsquo;s
dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally
a little knot of three or four schoolboys on a stolen bathing expedition
rattle merrily over the pavement, their boisterous mirth contrasting
forcibly with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked
and rung till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful legislature
from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the
door-step, until the housemaid may happen to awake.</p>
<p>Covent-garden market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged
with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering
waggon, with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger&rsquo;s
cart, with its consumptive donkey.&nbsp; The pavement is already strewed
with decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands, and all the indescribable
litter of a vegetable market; men are shouting, carts backing, horses
neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on
the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying.&nbsp; These and
a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner&rsquo;s
ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who
are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time.</p>
<p>Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest.&nbsp;
The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly,
has utterly disregarded &lsquo;Missis&rsquo;s&rsquo; ringing for half
an hour previously, is warned by Master (whom Missis has sent up in
his drapery to the landing-place for that purpose), that it&rsquo;s
half-past six, whereupon she awakes all of a sudden, with well-feigned
astonishment, and goes down-stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she
strikes a light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would
extend itself to coals and kitchen range.&nbsp; When the fire is lighted,
she opens the street-door to take in the milk, when, by the most singular
coincidence in the world, she discovers that the servant next door has
just taken in her milk too, and that Mr. Todd&rsquo;s young man over
the way, is, by an equally extraordinary chance, taking down his master&rsquo;s
shutters.&nbsp; The inevitable consequence is, that she just steps,
milk-jug in hand, as far as next door, just to say &lsquo;good morning&rsquo;
to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd&rsquo;s young man just steps over
the way to say &lsquo;good morning&rsquo; to both of &rsquo;em; and
as the aforesaid Mr. Todd&rsquo;s young man is almost as good-looking
and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes
very interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark&rsquo;s
Missis, who always will be a-followin&rsquo; her about, didn&rsquo;t
give an angry tap at her bedroom window, on which Mr. Todd&rsquo;s young
man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster
than he came from it; and the two girls run back to their respective
places, and shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of
them poking their heads out of the front parlour window, a minute afterwards,
however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just
then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse
of Mr. Todd&rsquo;s young man, who being fond of mails, but more of
females, takes a short look at the mails, and a long look at the girls,
much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.</p>
<p>The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the
passengers who are going out by the early coach, stare with astonishment
at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach, who look blue
and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that odd feeling
produced by travelling, which makes the events of yesterday morning
seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and induces people
to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations
they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since they
have left them.&nbsp; The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches
which are just going out, are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews
and nondescripts, who seem to consider, Heaven knows why, that it is
quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least
sixpenny-worth of oranges, a penknife, a pocket-book, a last year&rsquo;s
annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures.</p>
<p>Half an hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down
the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse
the dismal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute
from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in
front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed, how hot
it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes,
and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the &lsquo;Wonder,&rsquo;
or the &lsquo;Tally-ho,&rsquo; or the &lsquo;Nimrod,&rsquo; or some
other fast coach, till it is out of sight, when he re-enters the shop,
envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking
of the old red brick house &lsquo;down in the country,&rsquo; where
he went to school: the miseries of the milk and water, and thick bread
and scrapings, fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection
of the green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was
caned for presuming to fall into, and other schoolboy associations.</p>
<p>Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers&rsquo; legs
and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their
way to the coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers
and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand polish up the ornamental part
of their dingy vehicles&mdash;the former wondering how people can prefer
&lsquo;them wild beast cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with
a fast trotter,&rsquo; and the latter admiring how people can trust
their necks into one of &lsquo;them crazy cabs, when they can have a
&rsquo;spectable &rsquo;ackney cotche with a pair of &rsquo;orses as
von&rsquo;t run away with no vun;&rsquo; a consolation unquestionably
founded on fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to
run at all, &lsquo;except,&rsquo; as the smart cabman in front of the
rank observes, &lsquo;except one, and <i>he</i> run back&rsquo;ards.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen
are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day.&nbsp;
The bakers&rsquo; shops in town are filled with servants and children
waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls&mdash;an operation
which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs: for the early clerk
population of Somers and Camden towns, Islington, and Pentonville, are
fast pouring into the city, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane
and the Inns of Court.&nbsp; Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by
no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily
along, apparently with no object in view but the counting-house; knowing
by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen
them every morning (Sunday excepted) during the last twenty years, but
speaking to no one.&nbsp; If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance,
they just exchange a hurried salutation, and keep walking on either
by his side, or in front of him, as his rate of walking may chance to
be.&nbsp; As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend&rsquo;s
arm, they seem to think that as it is not included in their salary,
they have no right to do it.&nbsp; Small office lads in large hats,
who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in pairs, with their
first coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of last Sunday
plentifully besmeared with dust and ink.&nbsp; It evidently requires
a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day&rsquo;s
dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed
in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks&rsquo; doors; but a consciousness
of their own importance and the receipt of seven shillings a-week, with
the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they
accordingly put their hats a little more on one side, and look under
the bonnets of all the milliners&rsquo; and stay-makers&rsquo; apprentices
they meet&mdash;poor girls!&mdash;the hardest worked, the worst paid,
and too often, the worst used class of the community.</p>
<p>Eleven o&rsquo;clock, and a new set of people fill the streets.&nbsp;
The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged; the shopmen in
their white neckerchiefs and spruce coats, look as it they couldn&rsquo;t
clean a window if their lives depended on it; the carts have disappeared
from Covent-garden; the waggoners have returned, and the costermongers
repaired to their ordinary &lsquo;beats&rsquo; in the suburbs; clerks
are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses,
are conveying their masters to the same destination.&nbsp; The streets
are thronged with a vast concourse of people, gay and shabby, rich and
poor, idle and industrious; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity
of NOON.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II&mdash;THE STREETS&mdash;NIGHT</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>But the streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their
glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky winter&rsquo;s night, when
there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement
greasy, without cleansing it of any of its impurities; and when the
heavy lazy mist, which hangs over every object, makes the gas-lamps
look brighter, and the brilliantly-lighted shops more splendid, from
the contrast they present to the darkness around.&nbsp; All the people
who are at home on such a night as this, seem disposed to make themselves
as snug and comfortable as possible; and the passengers in the streets
have excellent reason to envy the fortunate individuals who are seated
by their own firesides.</p>
<p>In the larger and better kind of streets, dining parlour curtains
are closely drawn, kitchen fires blaze brightly up, and savoury steams
of hot dinners salute the nostrils of the hungry wayfarer, as he plods
wearily by the area railings.&nbsp; In the suburbs, the muffin boy rings
his way down the little street, much more slowly than he is wont to
do; for Mrs. Macklin, of No. 4, has no sooner opened her little street-door,
and screamed out &lsquo;Muffins!&rsquo; with all her might, than Mrs.
Walker, at No. 5, puts her head out of the parlour-window, and screams
&lsquo;Muffins!&rsquo; too; and Mrs. Walker has scarcely got the words
out of her lips, than Mrs. Peplow, over the way, lets loose Master Peplow,
who darts down the street, with a velocity which nothing but buttered
muffins in perspective could possibly inspire, and drags the boy back
by main force, whereupon Mrs. Macklin and Mrs. Walker, just to save
the boy trouble, and to say a few neighbourly words to Mrs. Peplow at
the same time, run over the way and buy their muffins at Mrs. Peplow&rsquo;s
door, when it appears from the voluntary statement of Mrs. Walker, that
her &lsquo;kittle&rsquo;s jist a-biling, and the cups and sarsers ready
laid,&rsquo; and that, as it was such a wretched night out o&rsquo;
doors, she&rsquo;d made up her mind to have a nice, hot, comfortable
cup o&rsquo; tea&mdash;a determination at which, by the most singular
coincidence, the other two ladies had simultaneously arrived.</p>
<p>After a little conversation about the wretchedness of the weather
and the merits of tea, with a digression relative to the viciousness
of boys as a rule, and the amiability of Master Peplow as an exception,
Mrs. Walker sees her husband coming down the street; and as he must
want his tea, poor man, after his dirty walk from the Docks, she instantly
runs across, muffins in hand, and Mrs. Macklin does the same, and after
a few words to Mrs. Walker, they all pop into their little houses, and
slam their little street-doors, which are not opened again for the remainder
of the evening, except to the nine o&rsquo;clock &lsquo;beer,&rsquo;
who comes round with a lantern in front of his tray, and says, as he
lends Mrs. Walker &lsquo;Yesterday&rsquo;s &lsquo;Tiser,&rsquo; that
he&rsquo;s blessed if he can hardly hold the pot, much less feel the
paper, for it&rsquo;s one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, &rsquo;cept
the night when the man was frozen to death in the Brick-field.</p>
<p>After a little prophetic conversation with the policeman at the street-corner,
touching a probable change in the weather, and the setting-in of a hard
frost, the nine o&rsquo;clock beer returns to his master&rsquo;s house,
and employs himself for the remainder of the evening, in assiduously
stirring the tap-room fire, and deferentially taking part in the conversation
of the worthies assembled round it.</p>
<p>The streets in the vicinity of the Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre
present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which
the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish.&nbsp;
Even the little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes, surmounted
by a splendid design in variegated lamps, looks less gay than usual,
and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed.&nbsp;
The candle in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oil-paper, embellished
with &lsquo;characters,&rsquo; has been blown out fifty times, so the
kidney-pie merchant, tired with running backwards and forwards to the
next wine-vaults, to get a light, has given up the idea of illumination
in despair, and the only signs of his &lsquo;whereabout,&rsquo; are
the bright sparks, of which a long irregular train is whirled down the
street every time he opens his portable oven to hand a hot kidney-pie
to a customer.</p>
<p>Flat-fish, oyster, and fruit vendors linger hopelessly in the kennel,
in vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually
disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots
in some projecting doorway, or under the canvas blind of a cheesemonger&rsquo;s,
where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge
piles of blight red and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny
dabs of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls
of &lsquo;best fresh.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here they amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out
of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific
combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitable manner
in which Bill Thompson can &lsquo;come the double monkey,&rsquo; or
go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor&rsquo;s hornpipe.</p>
<p>It is nearly eleven o&rsquo;clock, and the cold thin rain which has
been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the
baked-potato man has departed&mdash;the kidney-pie man has just walked
away with his warehouse on his arm&mdash;the cheesemonger has drawn
in his blind, and the boys have dispersed.&nbsp; The constant clicking
of pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, and the rustling of umbrellas,
as the wind blows against the shop-windows, bear testimony to the inclemency
of the night; and the policeman, with his oilskin cape buttoned closely
round him, seems as he holds his hat on his head, and turns round to
avoid the gust of wind and rain which drives against him at the street-corner,
to be very far from congratulating himself on the prospect before him.</p>
<p>The little chandler&rsquo;s shop with the cracked bell behind the
door, whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for
quarterns of sugar and half-ounces of coffee, is shutting up.&nbsp;
The crowds which have been passing to and fro during the whole day,
are rapidly dwindling away; and the noise of shouting and quarrelling
which issues from the public-houses, is almost the only sound that breaks
the melancholy stillness of the night.</p>
<p>There was another, but it has ceased.&nbsp; That wretched woman with
the infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own
scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some
popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the compassionate
passer-by.&nbsp; A brutal laugh at her weak voice is all she has gained.&nbsp;
The tears fall thick and fast down her own pale face; the child is cold
and hungry, and its low half-stifled wailing adds to the misery of its
wretched mother, as she moans aloud, and sinks despairingly down, on
a cold damp door-step.</p>
<p>Singing!&nbsp; How few of those who pass such a miserable creature
as this, think of the anguish of heart, the sinking of soul and spirit,
which the very effort of singing produces.&nbsp; Bitter mockery! Disease,
neglect, and starvation, faintly articulating the words of the joyous
ditty, that has enlivened your hours of feasting and merriment, God
knows how often!&nbsp; It is no subject of jeering.&nbsp; The weak tremulous
voice tells a fearful tale of want and famishing; and the feeble singer
of this roaring song may turn away, only to die of cold and hunger.</p>
<p>One o&rsquo;clock!&nbsp; Parties returning from the different theatres
foot it through the muddy streets; cabs, hackney-coaches, carriages,
and theatre omnibuses, roll swiftly by; watermen with dim dirty lanterns
in their hands, and large brass plates upon their breasts, who have
been shouting and rushing about for the last two hours, retire to their
watering-houses, to solace themselves with the creature comforts of
pipes and purl; the half-price pit and box frequenters of the theatres
throng to the different houses of refreshment; and chops, kidneys, rabbits,
oysters, stout, cigars, and &lsquo;goes&rsquo; innumerable, are served
up amidst a noise and confusion of smoking, running, knife-clattering,
and waiter-chattering, perfectly indescribable.</p>
<p>The more musical portion of the play-going community betake themselves
to some harmonic meeting.&nbsp; As a matter of curiosity let us follow
them thither for a few moments.</p>
<p>In a lofty room of spacious dimensions, are seated some eighty or
a hundred guests knocking little pewter measures on the tables, and
hammering away, with the handles of their knives, as if they were so
many trunk-makers.&nbsp; They are applauding a glee, which has just
been executed by the three &lsquo;professional gentlemen&rsquo; at the
top of the centre table, one of whom is in the chair&mdash;the little
pompous man with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his
green coat.&nbsp; The others are seated on either side of him&mdash;the
stout man with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black.&nbsp;
The little man in the chair is a most amusing personage,&mdash;such
condescending grandeur, and <i>such</i> a voice!</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bass!&rsquo; as the young gentleman near us with the blue
stock forcibly remarks to his companion, &lsquo;bass!&nbsp; I b&rsquo;lieve
you; he can go down lower than any man: so low sometimes that you can&rsquo;t
hear him.&rsquo;&nbsp; And so he does.&nbsp; To hear him growling away,
gradually lower and lower down, till he can&rsquo;t get back again,
is the most delightful thing in the world, and it is quite impossible
to witness unmoved the impressive solemnity with which he pours forth
his soul in &lsquo;My &rsquo;art&rsquo;s in the &rsquo;ighlands,&rsquo;
or &lsquo;The brave old Hoak.&rsquo;&nbsp; The stout man is also addicted
to sentimentality, and warbles &lsquo;Fly, fly from the world, my Bessy,
with me,&rsquo; or some such song, with lady-like sweetness, and in
the most seductive tones imaginable.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray give your orders, gen&rsquo;l&rsquo;m&rsquo;n&mdash;pray
give your orders,&rsquo;&mdash;says the pale-faced man with the red
head; and demands for &lsquo;goes&rsquo; of gin and &lsquo;goes&rsquo;
of brandy, and pints of stout, and cigars of peculiar mildness, are
vociferously made from all parts of the room.&nbsp; The &lsquo;professional
gentlemen&rsquo; are in the very height of their glory, and bestow condescending
nods, or even a word or two of recognition, on the better-known frequenters
of the room, in the most bland and patronising manner possible.</p>
<p>The little round-faced man, with the small brown surtout, white stockings
and shoes, is in the comic line; the mixed air of self-denial, and mental
consciousness of his own powers, with which he acknowledges the call
of the chair, is particularly gratifying.&nbsp; &lsquo;Gen&rsquo;l&rsquo;men,&rsquo;
says the little pompous man, accompanying the word with a knock of the
president&rsquo;s hammer on the table&mdash;&lsquo;Gen&rsquo;l&rsquo;men,
allow me to claim your attention&mdash;our friend, Mr. Smuggins, will
oblige.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo; shout the company; and Smuggins,
after a considerable quantity of coughing by way of symphony, and a
most facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic
song, with a fal-de-ral&mdash;tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every
verse, much longer than the verse itself.&nbsp; It is received with
unbounded applause, and after some aspiring genius has volunteered a
recitation, and failed dismally therein, the little pompous man gives
another knock, and says &lsquo;Gen&rsquo;l&rsquo;men, we will attempt
a glee, if you please.&rsquo;&nbsp; This announcement calls forth tumultuous
applause, and the more energetic spirits express the unqualified approbation
it affords them, by knocking one or two stout glasses off their legs&mdash;a
humorous device; but one which frequently occasions some slight altercation
when the form of paying the damage is proposed to be gone through by
the waiter.</p>
<p>Scenes like these are continued until three or four o&rsquo;clock
in the morning; and even when they close, fresh ones open to the inquisitive
novice.&nbsp; But as a description of all of them, however slight, would
require a volume, the contents of which, however instructive, would
be by no means pleasing, we make our bow, and drop the curtain.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III&mdash;SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>What inexhaustible food for speculation, do the streets of London
afford!&nbsp; We never were able to agree with Sterne in pitying the
man who could travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say that all was barren;
we have not the slightest commiseration for the man who can take up
his hat and stick, and walk from Covent-garden to St. Paul&rsquo;s Churchyard,
and back into the bargain, without deriving some amusement&mdash;we
had almost said instruction&mdash;from his perambulation.&nbsp; And
yet there are such beings: we meet them every day.&nbsp; Large black
stocks and light waistcoats, jet canes and discontented countenances,
are the characteristics of the race; other people brush quickly by you,
steadily plodding on to business, or cheerfully running after pleasure.&nbsp;
These men linger listlessly past, looking as happy and animated as a
policeman on duty.&nbsp; Nothing seems to make an impression on their
minds: nothing short of being knocked down by a porter, or run over
by a cab, will disturb their equanimity.&nbsp; You will meet them on
a fine day in any of the leading thoroughfares: peep through the window
of a west-end cigar shop in the evening, if you can manage to get a
glimpse between the blue curtains which intercept the vulgar gaze, and
you see them in their only enjoyment of existence.&nbsp; There they
are lounging about, on round tubs and pipe boxes, in all the dignity
of whiskers, and gilt watch-guards; whispering soft nothings to the
young lady in amber, with the large ear-rings, who, as she sits behind
the counter in a blaze of adoration and gas-light, is the admiration
of all the female servants in the neighbourhood, and the envy of every
milliner&rsquo;s apprentice within two miles round.</p>
<p>One of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress&mdash;the
rise or fall&mdash;of particular shops.&nbsp; We have formed an intimate
acquaintance with several, in different parts of town, and are perfectly
acquainted with their whole history.&nbsp; We could name off-hand, twenty
at least, which we are quite sure have paid no taxes for the last six
years.&nbsp; They are never inhabited for more than two months consecutively,
and, we verily believe, have witnessed every retail trade in the directory.</p>
<p>There is one, whose history is a sample of the rest, in whose fate
we have taken especial interest, having had the pleasure of knowing
it ever since it has been a shop.&nbsp; It is on the Surrey side of
the water&mdash;a little distance beyond the Marsh-gate.&nbsp; It was
originally a substantial, good-looking private house enough; the landlord
got into difficulties, the house got into Chancery, the tenant went
away, and the house went to ruin.&nbsp; At this period our acquaintance
with it commenced; the paint was all worn off; the windows were broken,
the area was green with neglect and the overflowings of the water-butt;
the butt itself was without a lid, and the street-door was the very
picture of misery.&nbsp; The chief pastime of the children in the vicinity
had been to assemble in a body on the steps, and to take it in turn
to knock loud double knocks at the door, to the great satisfaction of
the neighbours generally, and especially of the nervous old lady next
door but one.&nbsp; Numerous complaints were made, and several small
basins of water discharged over the offenders, but without effect.&nbsp;
In this state of things, the marine-store dealer at the corner of the
street, in the most obliging manner took the knocker off, and sold it:
and the unfortunate house looked more wretched than ever.</p>
<p>We deserted our friend for a few weeks.&nbsp; What was our surprise,
on our return, to find no trace of its existence!&nbsp; In its place
was a handsome shop, fast approaching to a state of completion, and
on the shutters were large bills, informing the public that it would
shortly be opened with &lsquo;an extensive stock of linen-drapery and
haberdashery.&rsquo;&nbsp; It opened in due course; there was the name
of the proprietor &lsquo;and Co.&rsquo; in gilt letters, almost too
dazzling to look at.&nbsp; Such ribbons and shawls! and two such elegant
young men behind the counter, each in a clean collar and white neckcloth,
like the lover in a farce.&nbsp; As to the proprietor, he did nothing
but walk up and down the shop, and hand seats to the ladies, and hold
important conversations with the handsomest of the young men, who was
shrewdly suspected by the neighbours to be the &lsquo;Co.&rsquo;&nbsp;
We saw all this with sorrow; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop
was doomed&mdash;and so it was.&nbsp; Its decay was slow, but sure.&nbsp;
Tickets gradually appeared in the windows; then rolls of flannel, with
labels on them, were stuck outside the door; then a bill was pasted
on the street-door, intimating that the first floor was to let unfurnished;
then one of the young men disappeared altogether, and the other took
to a black neckerchief, and the proprietor took to drinking.&nbsp; The
shop became dirty, broken panes of glass remained unmended, and the
stock disappeared piecemeal.&nbsp; At last the company&rsquo;s man came
to cut off the water, and then the linen-draper cut off himself, leaving
the landlord his compliments and the key.</p>
<p>The next occupant was a fancy stationer.&nbsp; The shop was more
modestly painted than before, still it was neat; but somehow we always
thought, as we passed, that it looked like a poor and struggling concern.&nbsp;
We wished the man well, but we trembled for his success.&nbsp; He was
a widower evidently, and had employment elsewhere, for he passed us
every morning on his road to the city.&nbsp; The business was carried
on by his eldest daughter.&nbsp; Poor girl! she needed no assistance.&nbsp;
We occasionally caught a glimpse of two or three children, in mourning
like herself, as they sat in the little parlour behind the shop; and
we never passed at night without seeing the eldest girl at work, either
for them, or in making some elegant little trifle for sale.&nbsp; We
often thought, as her pale face looked more sad and pensive in the dim
candle-light, that if those thoughtless females who interfere with the
miserable market of poor creatures such as these, knew but one-half
of the misery they suffer, and the bitter privations they endure, in
their honourable attempts to earn a scanty subsistence, they would,
perhaps, resign even opportunities for the gratification of vanity,
and an immodest love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last
dreadful resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these
<i>charitable</i> ladies to hear named.</p>
<p>But we are forgetting the shop.&nbsp; Well, we continued to watch
it, and every day showed too clearly the increasing poverty of its inmates.&nbsp;
The children were clean, it is true, but their clothes were threadbare
and shabby; no tenant had been procured for the upper part of the house,
from the letting of which, a portion of the means of paying the rent
was to have been derived, and a slow, wasting consumption prevented
the eldest girl from continuing her exertions.&nbsp; Quarter-day arrived.&nbsp;
The landlord had suffered from the extravagance of his last tenant,
and he had no compassion for the struggles of his successor; he put
in an execution.&nbsp; As we passed one morning, the broker&rsquo;s
men were removing the little furniture there was in the house, and a
newly-posted bill informed us it was again &lsquo;To Let.&rsquo;&nbsp;
What became of the last tenant we never could learn; we believe the
girl is past all suffering, and beyond all sorrow.&nbsp; God help her!&nbsp;
We hope she is.</p>
<p>We were somewhat curious to ascertain what would be the next stage&mdash;for
that the place had no chance of succeeding now, was perfectly clear.&nbsp;
The bill was soon taken down, and some alterations were being made in
the interior of the shop.&nbsp; We were in a fever of expectation; we
exhausted conjecture&mdash;we imagined all possible trades, none of
which were perfectly reconcilable with our idea of the gradual decay
of the tenement.&nbsp; It opened, and we wondered why we had not guessed
at the real state of the case before.&nbsp; The shop&mdash;not a large
one at the best of times&mdash;had been converted into two: one was
a bonnet-shape maker&rsquo;s, the other was opened by a tobacconist,
who also dealt in walking-sticks and Sunday newspapers; the two were
separated by a thin partition, covered with tawdry striped paper.</p>
<p>The tobacconist remained in possession longer than any tenant within
our recollection.&nbsp; He was a red-faced, impudent, good-for-nothing
dog, evidently accustomed to take things as they came, and to make the
best of a bad job.&nbsp; He sold as many cigars as he could, and smoked
the rest.&nbsp; He occupied the shop as long as he could make peace
with the landlord, and when he could no longer live in quiet, he very
coolly locked the door, and bolted himself.&nbsp; From this period,
the two little dens have undergone innumerable changes.&nbsp; The tobacconist
was succeeded by a theatrical hair-dresser, who ornamented the window
with a great variety of &lsquo;characters,&rsquo; and terrific combats.&nbsp;
The bonnet-shape maker gave place to a greengrocer, and the histrionic
barber was succeeded, in his turn, by a tailor.&nbsp; So numerous have
been the changes, that we have of late done little more than mark the
peculiar but certain indications of a house being poorly inhabited.&nbsp;
It has been progressing by almost imperceptible degrees.&nbsp; The occupiers
of the shops have gradually given up room after room, until they have
only reserved the little parlour for themselves.&nbsp; First there appeared
a brass plate on the private door, with &lsquo;Ladies&rsquo; School&rsquo;
legibly engraved thereon; shortly afterwards we observed a second brass
plate, then a bell, and then another bell.</p>
<p>When we paused in front of our old friend, and observed these signs
of poverty, which are not to be mistaken, we thought as we turned away,
that the house had attained its lowest pitch of degradation.&nbsp; We
were wrong.&nbsp; When we last passed it, a &lsquo;dairy&rsquo; was
established in the area, and a party of melancholy-looking fowls were
amusing themselves by running in at the front door, and out at the back
one.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV&mdash;SCOTLAND-YARD</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Scotland-yard is a small&mdash;a very small-tract of land, bounded
on one side by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of Northumberland
House: abutting at one end on the bottom of Northumberland-street, at
the other on the back of Whitehall-place.&nbsp; When this territory
was first accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his
way in the Strand, some years ago, the original settlers were found
to be a tailor, a publican, two eating-house keepers, and a fruit-pie
maker; and it was also found to contain a race of strong and bulky men,
who repaired to the wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning,
about five or six o&rsquo;clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with
which they proceeded to distant places up the country, and supplied
the inhabitants with fuel.&nbsp; When they had emptied their waggons,
they again returned for a fresh supply; and this trade was continued
throughout the year.</p>
<p>As the settlers derived their subsistence from ministering to the
wants of these primitive traders, the articles exposed for sale, and
the places where they were sold, bore strong outward marks of being
expressly adapted to their tastes and wishes.&nbsp; The tailor displayed
in his window a Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and a diminutive
round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately garnished with a
model of a coal-sack.&nbsp; The two eating-house keepers exhibited joints
of a magnitude, and puddings of a solidity, which coalheavers alone
could appreciate; and the fruit-pie maker displayed on his well-scrubbed
window-board large white compositions of flour and dripping, ornamented
with pink stains, giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made
their huge mouths water, as they lingered past.</p>
<p>But the choicest spot in all Scotland-yard was the old public-house
in the corner.&nbsp; Here, in a dark wainscoted-room of ancient appearance,
cheered by the glow of a mighty fire, and decorated with an enormous
clock, whereof the face was white, and the figures black, sat the lusty
coalheavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay&rsquo;s best, and puffing
forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and
involved the room in a thick dark cloud.&nbsp; From this apartment might
their voices be heard on a winter&rsquo;s night, penetrating to the
very bank of the river, as they shouted out some sturdy chorus, or roared
forth the burden of a popular song; dwelling upon the last few words
with a strength and length of emphasis which made the very roof tremble
above them.</p>
<p>Here, too, would they tell old legends of what the Thames was in
ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn&rsquo;t built,
and Waterloo-bridge had never been thought of; and then they would shake
their heads with portentous looks, to the deep edification of the rising
generation of heavers, who crowded round them, and wondered where all
this would end; whereat the tailor would take his pipe solemnly from
his mouth, and say, how that he hoped it might end well, but he very
much doubted whether it would or not, and couldn&rsquo;t rightly tell
what to make of it&mdash;a mysterious expression of opinion, delivered
with a semi-prophetic air, which never failed to elicit the fullest
concurrence of the assembled company; and so they would go on drinking
and wondering till ten o&rsquo;clock came, and with it the tailor&rsquo;s
wife to fetch him home, when the little party broke up, to meet again
in the same room, and say and do precisely the same things, on the following
evening at the same hour.</p>
<p>About this time the barges that came up the river began to bring
vague rumours to Scotland-yard of somebody in the city having been heard
to say, that the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull
down the old London-bridge, and build up a new one.&nbsp; At first these
rumours were disregarded as idle tales, wholly destitute of foundation,
for nobody in Scotland-yard doubted that if the Lord Mayor contemplated
any such dark design, he would just be clapped up in the Tower for a
week or two, and then killed off for high treason.</p>
<p>By degrees, however, the reports grew stronger, and more frequent,
and at last a barge, laden with numerous chaldrons of the best Wallsend,
brought up the positive intelligence that several of the arches of the
old bridge were stopped, and that preparations were actually in progress
for constructing the new one.&nbsp; What an excitement was visible in
the old tap-room on that memorable night!&nbsp; Each man looked into
his neighbour&rsquo;s face, pale with alarm and astonishment, and read
therein an echo of the sentiments which filled his own breast.&nbsp;
The oldest heaver present proved to demonstration, that the moment the
piers were removed, all the water in the Thames would run clean off,
and leave a dry gully in its place.&nbsp; What was to become of the
coal-barges&mdash;of the trade of Scotland-yard&mdash;of the very existence
of its population?&nbsp; The tailor shook his head more sagely than
usual, and grimly pointing to a knife on the table, bid them wait and
see what happened.&nbsp; He said nothing&mdash;not he; but if the Lord
Mayor didn&rsquo;t fall a victim to popular indignation, why he would
be rather astonished; that was all.</p>
<p>They did wait; barge after barge arrived, and still no tidings of
the assassination of the Lord Mayor.&nbsp; The first stone was laid:
it was done by a Duke&mdash;the King&rsquo;s brother.&nbsp; Years passed
away, and the bridge was opened by the King himself.&nbsp; In course
of time, the piers were removed; and when the people in Scotland-yard
got up next morning in the confident expectation of being able to step
over to Pedlar&rsquo;s Acre without wetting the soles of their shoes,
they found to their unspeakable astonishment that the water was just
where it used to be.</p>
<p>A result so different from that which they had anticipated from this
first improvement, produced its full effect upon the inhabitants of
Scotland-yard.&nbsp; One of the eating-house keepers began to court
public opinion, and to look for customers among a new class of people.&nbsp;
He covered his little dining-tables with white cloths, and got a painter&rsquo;s
apprentice to inscribe something about hot joints from twelve to two,
in one of the little panes of his shop-window.&nbsp; Improvement began
to march with rapid strides to the very threshold of Scotland-yard.&nbsp;
A new market sprung up at Hungerford, and the Police Commissioners established
their office in Whitehall-place.&nbsp; The traffic in Scotland-yard
increased; fresh Members were added to the House of Commons, the Metropolitan
Representatives found it a near cut, and many other foot passengers
followed their example.</p>
<p>We marked the advance of civilisation, and beheld it with a sigh.&nbsp;
The eating-house keeper who manfully resisted the innovation of table-cloths,
was losing ground every day, as his opponent gained it, and a deadly
feud sprung up between them.&nbsp; The genteel one no longer took his
evening&rsquo;s pint in Scotland-yard, but drank gin and water at a
&lsquo;parlour&rsquo; in Parliament-street.&nbsp; The fruit-pie maker
still continued to visit the old room, but he took to smoking cigars,
and began to call himself a pastrycook, and to read the papers.&nbsp;
The old heavers still assembled round the ancient fireplace, but their
talk was mournful: and the loud song and the joyous shout were heard
no more.</p>
<p>And what is Scotland-yard now?&nbsp; How have its old customs changed;
and how has the ancient simplicity of its inhabitants faded away!&nbsp;
The old tottering public-house is converted into a spacious and lofty
&lsquo;wine-vaults;&rsquo; gold leaf has been used in the construction
of the letters which emblazon its exterior, and the poet&rsquo;s art
has been called into requisition, to intimate that if you drink a certain
description of ale, you must hold fast by the rail.&nbsp; The tailor
exhibits in his window the pattern of a foreign-looking brown surtout,
with silk buttons, a fur collar, and fur cuffs.&nbsp; He wears a stripe
down the outside of each leg of his trousers: and we have detected his
assistants (for he has assistants now) in the act of sitting on the
shop-board in the same uniform.</p>
<p>At the other end of the little row of houses a boot-maker has established
himself in a brick box, with the additional innovation of a first floor;
and here he exposes for sale, boots&mdash;real Wellington boots&mdash;an
article which a few years ago, none of the original inhabitants had
ever seen or heard of.&nbsp; It was but the other day, that a dress-maker
opened another little box in the middle of the row; and, when we thought
that the spirit of change could produce no alteration beyond that, a
jeweller appeared, and not content with exposing gilt rings and copper
bracelets out of number, put up an announcement, which still sticks
in his window, that &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; ears may be pierced within.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The dress-maker employs a young lady who wears pockets in her apron;
and the tailor informs the public that gentlemen may have their own
materials made up.</p>
<p>Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there remains
but one old man, who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place.&nbsp;
He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated on a wooden bench
at the angle of the wall which fronts the crossing from Whitehall-place,
watches in silence the gambols of his sleek and well-fed dogs.&nbsp;
He is the presiding genius of Scotland-yard.&nbsp; Years and years have
rolled over his head; but, in fine weather or in foul, hot or cold,
wet or dry, hail, rain, or snow, he is still in his accustomed spot.&nbsp;
Misery and want are depicted in his countenance; his form is bent by
age, his head is grey with length of trial, but there he sits from day
to day, brooding over the past; and thither he will continue to drag
his feeble limbs, until his eyes have closed upon Scotland-yard, and
upon the world together.</p>
<p>A few years hence, and the antiquary of another generation looking
into some mouldy record of the strife and passions that agitated the
world in these times, may glance his eye over the pages we have just
filled: and not all his knowledge of the history of the past, not all
his black-letter lore, or his skill in book-collecting, not all the
dry studies of a long life, or the dusty volumes that have cost him
a fortune, may help him to the whereabouts, either of Scotland-yard,
or of any one of the landmarks we have mentioned in describing it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V&mdash;SEVEN DIALS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the Frenchman
had not immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have immortalised
itself.&nbsp; Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry&mdash;first
effusions, and last dying speeches: hallowed by the names of Catnach
and of Pitts&mdash;names that will entwine themselves with costermongers,
and barrel-organs, when penny magazines shall have superseded penny
yards of song, and capital punishment be unknown!</p>
<p>Look at the construction of the place.&nbsp; The Gordian knot was
all very well in its way: so was the maze of Hampton Court: so is the
maze at the Beulah Spa: so were the ties of stiff white neckcloths,
when the difficulty of getting one on, was only to be equalled by the
apparent impossibility of ever getting it off again.&nbsp; But what
involutions can compare with those of Seven Dials?&nbsp; Where is there
such another maze of streets, courts, lanes, and alleys?&nbsp; Where
such a pure mixture of Englishmen and Irishmen, as in this complicated
part of London?&nbsp; We boldly aver that we doubt the veracity of the
legend to which we have adverted.&nbsp; We <i>can</i> suppose a man
rash enough to inquire at random&mdash;at a house with lodgers too&mdash;for
a Mr. Thompson, with all but the certainty before his eyes, of finding
at least two or three Thompsons in any house of moderate dimensions;
but a Frenchman&mdash;a Frenchman in Seven Dials!&nbsp; Pooh!&nbsp;
He was an Irishman.&nbsp; Tom King&rsquo;s education had been neglected
in his infancy, and as he couldn&rsquo;t understand half the man said,
he took it for granted he was talking French.</p>
<p>The stranger who finds himself in &lsquo;The Dials&rsquo; for the
first time, and stands Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure
passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep
his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time.&nbsp;
From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and
courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome
vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective
uncertain and confined; and lounging at every corner, as if they came
there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so
far, but is too much exhausted already, to be enabled to force itself
into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance
and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner&rsquo;s with
astonishment.</p>
<p>On one side, a little crowd has collected round a couple of ladies,
who having imbibed the contents of various &lsquo;three-outs&rsquo;
of gin and bitters in the course of the morning, have at length differed
on some point of domestic arrangement, and are on the eve of settling
the quarrel satisfactorily, by an appeal to blows, greatly to the interest
of other ladies who live in the same house, and tenements adjoining,
and who are all partisans on one side or other.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Vy don&rsquo;t you pitch into her, Sarah?&rsquo; exclaims
one half-dressed matron, by way of encouragement.&nbsp; &lsquo;Vy don&rsquo;t
you? if <i>my</i> &rsquo;usband had treated her with a drain last night,
unbeknown to me, I&rsquo;d tear her precious eyes out&mdash;a wixen!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; inquires another
old woman, who has just bustled up to the spot.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Matter!&rsquo; replies the first speaker, talking <i>at</i>
the obnoxious combatant, &lsquo;matter!&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s poor dear
Mrs. Sulliwin, as has five blessed children of her own, can&rsquo;t
go out a charing for one arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin&rsquo;,
and &rsquo;ticing avay her oun&rsquo; &rsquo;usband, as she&rsquo;s
been married to twelve year come next Easter Monday, for I see the certificate
ven I vas a drinkin&rsquo; a cup o&rsquo; tea vith her, only the werry
last blessed Ven&rsquo;sday as ever was sent.&nbsp; I &rsquo;appen&rsquo;d
to say promiscuously, &ldquo;Mrs. Sulliwin,&rdquo; says I&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you mean by hussies?&rsquo; interrupts a champion
of the other party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout
to get up a branch fight on her own account (&lsquo;Hooroar,&rsquo;
ejaculates a pot-boy in parenthesis, &lsquo;put the kye-bosk on her,
Mary!&rsquo;), &lsquo;What do you mean by hussies?&rsquo; reiterates
the champion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Niver mind,&rsquo; replies the opposition expressively, &lsquo;niver
mind; <i>you</i> go home, and, ven you&rsquo;re quite sober, mend your
stockings.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This somewhat personal allusion, not only to the lady&rsquo;s habits
of intemperance, but also to the state of her wardrobe, rouses her utmost
ire, and she accordingly complies with the urgent request of the bystanders
to &lsquo;pitch in,&rsquo; with considerable alacrity.&nbsp; The scuffle
became general, and terminates, in minor play-bill phraseology, with
&lsquo;arrival of the policemen, interior of the station-house, and
impressive <i>d&eacute;nouement</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops
and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the open space
has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance.&nbsp;
It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment
beyond leaning against posts.&nbsp; We never saw a regular bricklayer&rsquo;s
labourer take any other recreation, fighting excepted.&nbsp; Pass through
St. Giles&rsquo;s in the evening of a week-day, there they are in their
fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and whitewash, leaning against
posts.&nbsp; Walk through Seven Dials on Sunday morning: there they
are again, drab or light corduroy trousers, Blucher boots, blue coats,
and great yellow waistcoats, leaning against posts.&nbsp; The idea of
a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all
day!</p>
<p>The peculiar character of these streets, and the close resemblance
each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to decrease the bewilderment
in which the unexperienced wayfarer through &lsquo;the Dials&rsquo;
finds himself involved.&nbsp; He traverses streets of dirty, straggling
houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings
as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that wallow
in the kennels.&nbsp; Here and there, a little dark chandler&rsquo;s
shop, with a cracked bell hung up behind the door to announce the entrance
of a customer, or betray the presence of some young gentleman in whom
a passion for shop tills has developed itself at an early age: others,
as if for support, against some handsome lofty building, which usurps
the place of a low dingy public-house; long rows of broken and patched
windows expose plants that may have flourished when &lsquo;the Dials&rsquo;
were built, in vessels as dirty as &lsquo;the Dials&rsquo; themselves;
and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff,
vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers and rabbit-dealers, which
one might fancy so many arks, but for the irresistible conviction that
no bird in its proper senses, who was permitted to leave one of them,
would ever come back again.&nbsp; Brokers&rsquo; shops, which would
seem to have been established by humane individuals, as refuges for
destitute bugs, interspersed with announcements of day-schools, penny
theatres, petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls or routs, complete
the &lsquo;still life&rsquo; of the subject; and dirty men, filthy women,
squalid children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battledores, reeking
pipes, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed
dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments.</p>
<p>If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their inhabitants,
present but few attractions, a closer acquaintance with either is little
calculated to alter one&rsquo;s first impression.&nbsp; Every room has
its separate tenant, and every tenant is, by the same mysterious dispensation
which causes a country curate to &lsquo;increase and multiply&rsquo;
most marvellously, generally the head of a numerous family.</p>
<p>The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked &lsquo;jemmy&rsquo;
line, or the fire-wood and hearth-stone line, or any other line which
requires a floating capital of eighteen-pence or thereabouts: and he
and his family live in the shop, and the small back parlour behind it.&nbsp;
Then there is an Irish labourer and <i>his</i> family in the back kitchen,
and a jobbing man&mdash;carpet-beater and so forth&mdash;with <i>his</i>
family in the front one.&nbsp; In the front one-pair, there&rsquo;s
another man with another wife and family, and in the back one-pair,
there&rsquo;s &lsquo;a young &rsquo;oman as takes in tambour-work, and
dresses quite genteel,&rsquo; who talks a good deal about &lsquo;my
friend,&rsquo; and can&rsquo;t &lsquo;a-bear anything low.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The second floor front, and the rest of the lodgers, are just a second
edition of the people below, except a shabby-genteel man in the back
attic, who has his half-pint of coffee every morning from the coffee-shop
next door but one, which boasts a little front den called a coffee-room,
with a fireplace, over which is an inscription, politely requesting
that, &lsquo;to prevent mistakes,&rsquo; customers will &lsquo;please
to pay on delivery.&rsquo;&nbsp; The shabby-genteel man is an object
of some mystery, but as he leads a life of seclusion, and never was
known to buy anything beyond an occasional pen, except half-pints of
coffee, penny loaves, and ha&rsquo;porths of ink, his fellow-lodgers
very naturally suppose him to be an author; and rumours are current
in the Dials, that he writes poems for Mr. Warren.</p>
<p>Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer&rsquo;s
evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps,
would be apt to think that all was harmony among them, and that a more
primitive set of people than the native Diallers could not be imagined.&nbsp;
Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends
his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying
feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting
in dancing over his (the one-pair front&rsquo;s) head, when he and his
family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere
with the front kitchen&rsquo;s children; the Irishman comes home drunk
every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams
at everything.&nbsp; Animosities spring up between floor and floor;
the very cellar asserts his equality.&nbsp; Mrs. A. &lsquo;smacks&rsquo;
Mrs. B.&rsquo;s child for &lsquo;making faces.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. B.
forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A.&rsquo;s child for &lsquo;calling
names.&rsquo;&nbsp; The husbands are embroiled&mdash;the quarrel becomes
general&mdash;an assault is the consequence, and a police-officer the
result.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VI&mdash;MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have always entertained a particular attachment towards Monmouth-street,
as the only true and real emporium for second-hand wearing apparel.&nbsp;
Monmouth-street is venerable from its antiquity, and respectable from
its usefulness.&nbsp; Holywell-street we despise; the red-headed and
red-whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you into their squalid houses,
and thrust you into a suit of clothes, whether you will or not, we detest.</p>
<p>The inhabitants of Monmouth-street are a distinct class; a peaceable
and retiring race, who immure themselves for the most part in deep cellars,
or small back parlours, and who seldom come forth into the world, except
in the dusk and coolness of the evening, when they may be seen seated,
in chairs on the pavement, smoking their pipes, or watching the gambols
of their engaging children as they revel in the gutter, a happy troop
of infantine scavengers.&nbsp; Their countenances bear a thoughtful
and a dirty cast, certain indications of their love of traffic; and
their habitations are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearance
and neglect of personal comfort, so common among people who are constantly
immersed in profound speculations, and deeply engaged in sedentary pursuits.</p>
<p>We have hinted at the antiquity of our favourite spot.&nbsp; &lsquo;A
Monmouth-street laced coat&rsquo; was a by-word a century ago; and still
we find Monmouth-street the same.&nbsp; Pilot great-coats with wooden
buttons, have usurped the place of the ponderous laced coats with full
skirts; embroidered waistcoats with large flaps, have yielded to double-breasted
checks with roll-collars; and three-cornered hats of quaint appearance,
have given place to the low crowns and broad brims of the coachman school;
but it is the times that have changed, not Monmouth-street.&nbsp; Through
every alteration and every change, Monmouth-street has still remained
the burial-place of the fashions; and such, to judge from all present
appearances, it will remain until there are no more fashions to bury.</p>
<p>We love to walk among these extensive groves of the illustrious dead,
and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise; now fitting
a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers, and anon the mortal remains
of a gaudy waistcoat, upon some being of our own conjuring up, and endeavouring,
from the shape and fashion of the garment itself, to bring its former
owner before our mind&rsquo;s eye.&nbsp; We have gone on speculating
in this way, until whole rows of coats have started from their pegs,
and buttoned up, of their own accord, round the waists of imaginary
wearers; lines of trousers have jumped down to meet them; waistcoats
have almost burst with anxiety to put themselves on; and half an acre
of shoes have suddenly found feet to fit them, and gone stumping down
the street with a noise which has fairly awakened us from our pleasant
reverie, and driven us slowly away, with a bewildered stare, an object
of astonishment to the good people of Monmouth-street, and of no slight
suspicion to the policemen at the opposite street corner.</p>
<p>We were occupied in this manner the other day, endeavouring to fit
a pair of lace-up half-boots on an ideal personage, for whom, to say
the truth, they were full a couple of sizes too small, when our eyes
happened to alight on a few suits of clothes ranged outside a shop-window,
which it immediately struck us, must at different periods have all belonged
to, and been worn by, the same individual, and had now, by one of those
strange conjunctions of circumstances which will occur sometimes, come
to be exposed together for sale in the same shop.&nbsp; The idea seemed
a fantastic one, and we looked at the clothes again with a firm determination
not to be easily led away.&nbsp; No, we were right; the more we looked,
the more we were convinced of the accuracy of our previous impression.&nbsp;
There was the man&rsquo;s whole life written as legibly on those clothes,
as if we had his autobiography engrossed on parchment before us.</p>
<p>The first was a patched and much-soiled skeleton suit; one of those
straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined, before
belts and tunics had come in, and old notions had gone out: an ingenious
contrivance for displaying the full symmetry of a boy&rsquo;s figure,
by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an ornamental row of
buttons over each shoulder, and then buttoning his trousers over it,
so as to give his legs the appearance of being hooked on, just under
the armpits.&nbsp; This was the boy&rsquo;s dress.&nbsp; It had belonged
to a town boy, we could see; there was a shortness about the legs and
arms of the suit; and a bagging at the knees, peculiar to the rising
youth of London streets.&nbsp; A small day-school he had been at, evidently.&nbsp;
If it had been a regular boys&rsquo; school they wouldn&rsquo;t have
let him play on the floor so much, and rub his knees so white.&nbsp;
He had an indulgent mother too, and plenty of halfpence, as the numerous
smears of some sticky substance about the pockets, and just below the
chin, which even the salesman&rsquo;s skill could not succeed in disguising,
sufficiently betokened.&nbsp; They were decent people, but not overburdened
with riches, or he would not have so far outgrown the suit when he passed
into those corduroys with the round jacket; in which he went to a boys&rsquo;
school, however, and learnt to write&mdash;and in ink of pretty tolerable
blackness, too, if the place where he used to wipe his pen might be
taken as evidence.</p>
<p>A black suit and the jacket changed into a diminutive coat.&nbsp;
His father had died, and the mother had got the boy a message-lad&rsquo;s
place in some office.&nbsp; A long-worn suit that one; rusty and threadbare
before it was laid aside, but clean and free from soil to the last.&nbsp;
Poor woman!&nbsp; We could imagine her assumed cheerfulness over the
scanty meal, and the refusal of her own small portion, that her hungry
boy might have enough.&nbsp; Her constant anxiety for his welfare, her
pride in his growth mingled sometimes with the thought, almost too acute
to bear, that as he grew to be a man his old affection might cool, old
kindnesses fade from his mind, and old promises be forgotten&mdash;the
sharp pain that even then a careless word or a cold look would give
her&mdash;all crowded on our thoughts as vividly as if the very scene
were passing before us.</p>
<p>These things happen every hour, and we all know it; and yet we felt
as much sorrow when we saw, or fancied we saw&mdash;it makes no difference
which&mdash;the change that began to take place now, as if we had just
conceived the bare possibility of such a thing for the first time.&nbsp;
The next suit, smart but slovenly; meant to be gay, and yet not half
so decent as the threadbare apparel; redolent of the idle lounge, and
the blackguard companions, told us, we thought, that the widow&rsquo;s
comfort had rapidly faded away.&nbsp; We could imagine that coat&mdash;imagine!
we could see it; we <i>had</i> seen it a hundred times&mdash;sauntering
in company with three or four other coats of the same cut, about some
place of profligate resort at night.</p>
<p>We dressed, from the same shop-window in an instant, half a dozen
boys of from fifteen to twenty; and putting cigars into their mouths,
and their hands into their pockets, watched them as they sauntered down
the street, and lingered at the corner, with the obscene jest, and the
oft-repeated oath.&nbsp; We never lost sight of them, till they had
cocked their hats a little more on one side, and swaggered into the
public-house; and then we entered the desolate home, where the mother
sat late in the night, alone; we watched her, as she paced the room
in feverish anxiety, and every now and then opened the door, looked
wistfully into the dark and empty street, and again returned, to be
again and again disappointed.&nbsp; We beheld the look of patience with
which she bore the brutish threat, nay, even the drunken blow; and we
heard the agony of tears that gushed from her very heart, as she sank
upon her knees in her solitary and wretched apartment.</p>
<p>A long period had elapsed, and a greater change had taken place,
by the time of casting off the suit that hung above.&nbsp; It was that
of a stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man; and we knew at once,
as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with
the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without
a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself,
at his side.&nbsp; The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and
we fancied his home then&mdash;if such a place deserve the name.</p>
<p>We saw the bare and miserable room, destitute of furniture, crowded
with his wife and children, pale, hungry, and emaciated; the man cursing
their lamentations, staggering to the tap-room, from whence he had just
returned, followed by his wife and a sickly infant, clamouring for bread;
and heard the street-wrangle and noisy recrimination that his striking
her occasioned.&nbsp; And then imagination led us to some metropolitan
workhouse, situated in the midst of crowded streets and alleys, filled
with noxious vapours, and ringing with boisterous cries, where an old
and feeble woman, imploring pardon for her son, lay dying in a close
dark room, with no child to clasp her hand, and no pure air from heaven
to fan her brow.&nbsp; A stranger closed the eyes that settled into
a cold unmeaning glare, and strange ears received the words that murmured
from the white and half-closed lips.</p>
<p>A coarse round frock, with a worn cotton neckerchief, and other articles
of clothing of the commonest description, completed the history.&nbsp;
A prison, and the sentence&mdash;banishment or the gallows.&nbsp; What
would the man have given then, to be once again the contented humble
drudge of his boyish years; to have been restored to life, but for a
week, a day, an hour, a minute, only for so long a time as would enable
him to say one word of passionate regret to, and hear one sound of heartfelt
forgiveness from, the cold and ghastly form that lay rotting in the
pauper&rsquo;s grave!&nbsp; The children wild in the streets, the mother
a destitute widow; both deeply tainted with the deep disgrace of the
husband and father&rsquo;s name, and impelled by sheer necessity, down
the precipice that had led him to a lingering death, possibly of many
years&rsquo; duration, thousands of miles away.&nbsp; We had no clue
to the end of the tale; but it was easy to guess its termination.</p>
<p>We took a step or two further on, and by way of restoring the naturally
cheerful tone of our thoughts, began fitting visionary feet and legs
into a cellar-board full of boots and shoes, with a speed and accuracy
that would have astonished the most expert artist in leather, living.&nbsp;
There was one pair of boots in particular&mdash;a jolly, good-tempered,
hearty-looking pair of tops, that excited our warmest regard; and we
had got a fine, red-faced, jovial fellow of a market-gardener into them,
before we had made their acquaintance half a minute.&nbsp; They were
just the very thing for him.&nbsp; There was his huge fat legs bulging
over the tops, and fitting them too tight to admit of his tucking in
the loops he had pulled them on by; and his knee-cords with an interval
of stocking; and his blue apron tucked up round his waist; and his red
neckerchief and blue coat, and a white hat stuck on one side of his
head; and there he stood with a broad grin on his great red face, whistling
away, as if any other idea but that of being happy and comfortable had
never entered his brain.</p>
<p>This was the very man after our own heart; we knew all about him;
we had seen him coming up to Covent-garden in his green chaise-cart,
with the fat, tubby little horse, half a thousand times; and even while
we cast an affectionate look upon his boots, at that instant, the form
of a coquettish servant-maid suddenly sprung into a pair of Denmark
satin shoes that stood beside them, and we at once recognised the very
girl who accepted his offer of a ride, just on this side the Hammersmith
suspension-bridge, the very last Tuesday morning we rode into town from
Richmond.</p>
<p>A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a pair of grey
cloth boots, with black fringe and binding, that were studiously pointing
out their toes on the other side of the top-boots, and seemed very anxious
to engage his attention, but we didn&rsquo;t observe that our friend
the market-gardener appeared at all captivated with these blandishments;
for beyond giving a knowing wink when they first began, as if to imply
that he quite understood their end and object, he took no further notice
of them.&nbsp; His indifference, however, was amply recompensed by the
excessive gallantry of a very old gentleman with a silver-headed stick,
who tottered into a pair of large list shoes, that were standing in
one corner of the board, and indulged in a variety of gestures expressive
of his admiration of the lady in the cloth boots, to the immeasurable
amusement of a young fellow we put into a pair of long-quartered pumps,
who we thought would have split the coat that slid down to meet him,
with laughing.</p>
<p>We had been looking on at this little pantomime with great satisfaction
for some time, when, to our unspeakable astonishment, we perceived that
the whole of the characters, including a numerous <i>corps de ballet</i>
of boots and shoes in the background, into which we had been hastily
thrusting as many feet as we could press into the service, were arranging
themselves in order for dancing; and some music striking up at the moment,
to it they went without delay.&nbsp; It was perfectly delightful to
witness the agility of the market-gardener.&nbsp; Out went the boots,
first on one side, then on the other, then cutting, then shuffling,
then setting to the Denmark satins, then advancing, then retreating,
then going round, and then repeating the whole of the evolutions again,
without appearing to suffer in the least from the violence of the exercise.</p>
<p>Nor were the Denmark satins a bit behindhand, for they jumped and
bounded about, in all directions; and though they were neither so regular,
nor so true to the time as the cloth boots, still, as they seemed to
do it from the heart, and to enjoy it more, we candidly confess that
we preferred their style of dancing to the other.&nbsp; But the old
gentleman in the list shoes was the most amusing object in the whole
party; for, besides his grotesque attempts to appear youthful, and amorous,
which were sufficiently entertaining in themselves, the young fellow
in the pumps managed so artfully that every time the old gentleman advanced
to salute the lady in the cloth boots, he trod with his whole weight
on the old fellow&rsquo;s toes, which made him roar with anguish, and
rendered all the others like to die of laughing.</p>
<p>We were in the full enjoyment of these festivities when we heard
a shrill, and by no means musical voice, exclaim, &lsquo;Hope you&rsquo;ll
know me agin, imperence!&rsquo; and on looking intently forward to see
from whence the sound came, we found that it proceeded, not from the
young lady in the cloth boots, as we had at first been inclined to suppose,
but from a bulky lady of elderly appearance who was seated in a chair
at the head of the cellar-steps, apparently for the purpose of superintending
the sale of the articles arranged there.</p>
<p>A barrel-organ, which had been in full force close behind us, ceased
playing; the people we had been fitting into the shoes and boots took
to flight at the interruption; and as we were conscious that in the
depth of our meditations we might have been rudely staring at the old
lady for half an hour without knowing it, we took to flight too, and
were soon immersed in the deepest obscurity of the adjacent &lsquo;Dials.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VII&mdash;HACKNEY-COACH STANDS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We maintain that hackney-coaches, properly so called, belong solely
to the metropolis.&nbsp; We may be told, that there are hackney-coach
stands in Edinburgh; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction
to our position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester, &lsquo;and
other large towns&rsquo; (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have <i>their</i>
hackney-coach stands.&nbsp; We readily concede to these places the possession
of certain vehicles, which may look almost as dirty, and even go almost
as slowly, as London hackney-coaches; but that they have the slightest
claim to compete with the metropolis, either in point of stands, drivers,
or cattle, we indignantly deny.</p>
<p>Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach of the old
school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that
he ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at all resembles
it, unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date.&nbsp;
We have recently observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep
regret, rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow,
with four wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is perfectly
notorious to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel
ought to be of a different colour, and a different size.&nbsp; These
are innovations, and, like other miscalled improvements, awful signs
of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid
to our time-honoured institutions.&nbsp; Why should hackney-coaches
be clean?&nbsp; Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so.&nbsp;
Why should we, with a feverish wish to &lsquo;keep moving,&rsquo; desire
to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content
to rumble over the stones at four?&nbsp; These are solemn considerations.&nbsp;
Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law of the land; they were
settled by the Legislature; plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parliament.</p>
<p>Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses?&nbsp; Or why
should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile, after
Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling
a mile for riding slowly?&nbsp; We pause for a reply;&mdash;and, having
no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph.</p>
<p>Our acquaintance with hackney-coach stands is of long standing.&nbsp;
We are a walking book of fares, feeling ourselves, half bound, as it
were, to be always in the right on contested points.&nbsp; We know all
the regular watermen within three miles of Covent-garden by sight, and
should be almost tempted to believe that all the hackney-coach horses
in that district knew us by sight too, if one-half of them were not
blind.&nbsp; We take great interest in hackney-coaches, but we seldom
drive, having a knack of turning ourselves over when we attempt to do
so.&nbsp; We are as great friends to horses, hackney-coach and otherwise,
as the renowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger notoriety, and yet we never
ride.&nbsp; We keep no horse, but a clothes-horse; enjoy no saddle so
much as a saddle of mutton; and, following our own inclinations, have
never followed the hounds.&nbsp; Leaving these fleeter means of getting
over the ground, or of depositing oneself upon it, to those who like
them, by hackney-coach stands we take our stand.</p>
<p>There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we
are writing; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen
of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded&mdash;a great, lumbering,
square concern of a dingy yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with
very small glasses, but very large frames; the panels are ornamented
with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat,
the axletree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green.&nbsp;
The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity
of capes, and some extraordinary-looking clothes; and the straw, with
which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places,
as if in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in
the boot.&nbsp; The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane
and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse,
are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and
rattling the harness; and now and then, one of them lifts his mouth
to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a whisper, that
he should like to assassinate the coachman.&nbsp; The coachman himself
is in the watering-house; and the waterman, with his hands forced into
his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the &lsquo;double
shuffle,&rsquo; in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm.</p>
<p>The servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at No. 5, opposite, suddenly
opens the street-door, and four small children forthwith rush out, and
scream &lsquo;Coach!&rsquo; with all their might and main.&nbsp; The
waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective
bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house, shouting
all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather very bottom
of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl.&nbsp; A response is heard
from the tap-room; the coachman, in his wooden-soled shoes, makes the
street echo again as he runs across it; and then there is such a struggling,
and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get the coach-door opposite
the house-door, that the children are in perfect ecstasies of delight.&nbsp;
What a commotion!&nbsp; The old lady, who has been stopping there for
the last month, is going back to the country.&nbsp; Out comes box after
box, and one side of the vehicle is filled with luggage in no time;
the children get into everybody&rsquo;s way, and the youngest, who has
upset himself in his attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne off wounded
and kicking.&nbsp; The youngsters disappear, and a short pause ensues,
during which the old lady is, no doubt, kissing them all round in the
back parlour.&nbsp; She appears at last, followed by her married daughter,
all the children, and both the servants, who, with the joint assistance
of the coachman and waterman, manage to get her safely into the coach.&nbsp;
A cloak is handed in, and a little basket, which we could almost swear
contains a small black bottle, and a paper of sandwiches.&nbsp; Up go
the steps, bang goes the door, &lsquo;Golden-cross, Charing-cross, Tom,&rsquo;
says the waterman; &lsquo;Good-bye, grandma,&rsquo; cry the children,
off jingles the coach at the rate of three miles an hour, and the mamma
and children retire into the house, with the exception of one little
villain, who runs up the street at the top of his speed, pursued by
the servant; not ill-pleased to have such an opportunity of displaying
her attractions.&nbsp; She brings him back, and, after casting two or
three gracious glances across the way, which are either intended for
us or the potboy (we are not quite certain which), shuts the door, and
the hackney-coach stand is again at a standstill.</p>
<p>We have been frequently amused with the intense delight with which
&lsquo;a servant of all work,&rsquo; who is sent for a coach, deposits
herself inside; and the unspeakable gratification which boys, who have
been despatched on a similar errand, appear to derive from mounting
the box.&nbsp; But we never recollect to have been more amused with
a hackney-coach party, than one we saw early the other morning in Tottenham-court-road.&nbsp;
It was a wedding-party, and emerged from one of the inferior streets
near Fitzroy-square.&nbsp; There were the bride, with a thin white dress,
and a great red face; and the bridesmaid, a little, dumpy, good-humoured
young woman, dressed, of course, in the same appropriate costume; and
the bridegroom and his chosen friend, in blue coats, yellow waist-coats,
white trousers, and Berlin gloves to match.&nbsp; They stopped at the
corner of the street, and called a coach with an air of indescribable
dignity.&nbsp; The moment they were in, the bridesmaid threw a red shawl,
which she had, no doubt, brought on purpose, negligently over the number
on the door, evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief that the
hackney-coach was a private carriage; and away they went, perfectly
satisfied that the imposition was successful, and quite unconscious
that there was a great staring number stuck up behind, on a plate as
large as a schoolboy&rsquo;s slate.&nbsp; A shilling a mile!&mdash;the
ride was worth five, at least, to them.</p>
<p>What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could
carry as much in its head as it does in its body!&nbsp; The autobiography
of a broken-down hackney-coach, would surely be as amusing as the autobiography
of a broken-down hackneyed dramatist; and it might tell as much of its
travels <i>with</i> the pole, as others have of their expeditions <i>to</i>
it.&nbsp; How many stories might be related of the different people
it had conveyed on matters of business or profit&mdash;pleasure or pain!&nbsp;
And how many melancholy tales of the same people at different periods!&nbsp;
The country-girl&mdash;the showy, over-dressed woman&mdash;the drunken
prostitute!&nbsp; The raw apprentice&mdash;the dissipated spendthrift&mdash;the
thief!</p>
<p>Talk of cabs!&nbsp; Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition,
when it&rsquo;s a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary
home or your long one.&nbsp; But, besides a cab&rsquo;s lacking that
gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach,
let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that
he never was anything better.&nbsp; A hackney-cab has always been a
hackney-cab, from his first entry into life; whereas a hackney-coach
is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of
an old English family, wearing their arms, and, in days of yore, escorted
by men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery, and thrown upon
the world, like a once-smart footman when he is no longer sufficiently
juvenile for his office, progressing lower and lower in the scale of
four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to&mdash;<i>a stand!</i></p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VIII&mdash;DOCTORS&rsquo; COMMONS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Walking without any definite object through St. Paul&rsquo;s Churchyard,
a little while ago, we happened to turn down a street entitled &lsquo;Paul&rsquo;s-chain,&rsquo;
and keeping straight forward for a few hundred yards, found ourself,
as a natural consequence, in Doctors&rsquo; Commons.&nbsp; Now Doctors&rsquo;
Commons being familiar by name to everybody, as the place where they
grant marriage-licenses to love-sick couples, and divorces to unfaithful
ones; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and
punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names, we no sooner
discovered that we were really within its precincts, than we felt a
laudable desire to become better acquainted therewith; and as the first
object of our curiosity was the Court, whose decrees can even unloose
the bonds of matrimony, we procured a direction to it; and bent our
steps thither without delay.</p>
<p>Crossing a quiet and shady court-yard, paved with stone, and frowned
upon by old red brick houses, on the doors of which were painted the
names of sundry learned civilians, we paused before a small, green-baized,
brass-headed-nailed door, which yielding to our gentle push, at once
admitted us into an old quaint-looking apartment, with sunken windows,
and black carved wainscoting, at the upper end of which, seated on a
raised platform, of semicircular shape, were about a dozen solemn-looking
gentlemen, in crimson gowns and wigs.</p>
<p>At a more elevated desk in the centre, sat a very fat and red-faced
gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance
announced the judge; and round a long green-baized table below, something
like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets, were a number
of very self-important-looking personages, in stiff neckcloths, and
black gowns with white fur collars, whom we at once set down as proctors.&nbsp;
At the lower end of the billiard-table was an individual in an arm-chair,
and a wig, whom we afterwards discovered to be the registrar; and seated
behind a little desk, near the door, were a respectable-looking man
in black, of about twenty-stone weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced,
smirking, civil-looking body, in a black gown, black kid gloves, knee
shorts, and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head,
and a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in recognising
as the officer of the Court.&nbsp; The latter, indeed, speedily set
our mind at rest upon this point, for, advancing to our elbow, and opening
a conversation forthwith, he had communicated to us, in less than five
minutes, that he was the apparitor, and the other the court-keeper;
that this was the Arches Court, and therefore the counsel wore red gowns,
and the proctors fur collars; and that when the other Courts sat there,
they didn&rsquo;t wear red gowns or fur collars either; with many other
scraps of intelligence equally interesting.&nbsp; Besides these two
officers, there was a little thin old man, with long grizzly hair, crouched
in a remote corner, whose duty, our communicative friend informed us,
was to ring a large hand-bell when the Court opened in the morning,
and who, for aught his appearance betokened to the contrary, might have
been similarly employed for the last two centuries at least.</p>
<p>The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got
all the talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it, too,
only he spoke very fast, but that was habit; and rather thick, but that
was good living.&nbsp; So we had plenty of time to look about us.&nbsp;
There was one individual who amused us mightily.&nbsp; This was one
of the bewigged gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling before
the fire in the centre of the Court, in the attitude of the brazen Colossus,
to the complete exclusion of everybody else.&nbsp; He had gathered up
his robe behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her
petticoats on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full
warmth of the fire.&nbsp; His wig was put on all awry, with the tail
straggling about his neck; his scanty grey trousers and short black
gaiters, made in the worst possible style, imported an additional inelegant
appearance to his uncouth person; and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar
almost obscured his eyes.&nbsp; We shall never be able to claim any
credit as a physiognomist again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this
gentleman&rsquo;s countenance, we had come to the conclusion that it
bespoke nothing but conceit and silliness, when our friend with the
silver staff whispered in our ear that he was no other than a doctor
of civil law, and heaven knows what besides.&nbsp; So of course we were
mistaken, and he must be a very talented man.&nbsp; He conceals it so
well though&mdash;perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing
ordinary people too much&mdash;that you would suppose him to be one
of the stupidest dogs alive.</p>
<p>The gentleman in the spectacles having concluded his judgment, and
a few minutes having been allowed to elapse, to afford time for the
buzz of the Court to subside, the registrar called on the next cause,
which was &lsquo;the office of the Judge promoted by Bumple against
Sludberry.&rsquo;&nbsp; A general movement was visible in the Court,
at this announcement, and the obliging functionary with silver staff
whispered us that &lsquo;there would be some fun now, for this was a
brawling case.&rsquo;</p>
<p>We were not rendered much the wiser by this piece of information,
till we found by the opening speech of the counsel for the promoter,
that, under a half-obsolete statute of one of the Edwards, the court
was empowered to visit with the penalty of excommunication, any person
who should be proved guilty of the crime of &lsquo;brawling,&rsquo;
or &lsquo;smiting,&rsquo; in any church, or vestry adjoining thereto;
and it appeared, by some eight-and-twenty affidavits, which were duly
referred to, that on a certain night, at a certain vestry-meeting, in
a certain parish particularly set forth, Thomas Sludberry, the party
appeared against in that suit, had made use of, and applied to Michael
Bumple, the promoter, the words &lsquo;You be blowed;&rsquo; and that,
on the said Michael Bumple and others remonstrating with the said Thomas
Sludberry, on the impropriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry
repeated the aforesaid expression, &lsquo;You be blowed;&rsquo; and
furthermore desired and requested to know, whether the said Michael
Bumple &lsquo;wanted anything for himself;&rsquo; adding, &lsquo;that
if the said Michael Bumple did want anything for himself, he, the said
Thomas Sludberry, was the man to give it him;&rsquo; at the same time
making use of other heinous and sinful expressions, all of which, Bumple
submitted, came within the intent and meaning of the Act; and therefore
he, for the soul&rsquo;s health and chastening of Sludberry, prayed
for sentence of excommunication against him accordingly.</p>
<p>Upon these facts a long argument was entered into, on both sides,
to the great edification of a number of persons interested in the parochial
squabbles, who crowded the court; and when some very long and grave
speeches had been made <i>pro</i> and<i> con</i>, the red-faced gentleman
in the tortoise-shell spectacles took a review of the case, which occupied
half an hour more, and then pronounced upon Sludberry the awful sentence
of excommunication for a fortnight, and payment of the costs of the
suit.&nbsp; Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking,
ginger-beer seller, addressed the court, and said, if they&rsquo;d be
good enough to take off the costs, and excommunicate him for the term
of his natural life instead, it would be much more convenient to him,
for he never went to church at all.&nbsp; To this appeal the gentleman
in the spectacles made no other reply than a look of virtuous indignation;
and Sludberry and his friends retired.&nbsp; As the man with the silver
staff informed us that the court was on the point of rising, we retired
too&mdash;pondering, as we walked away, upon the beautiful spirit of
these ancient ecclesiastical laws, the kind and neighbourly feelings
they are calculated to awaken, and the strong attachment to religious
institutions which they cannot fail to engender.</p>
<p>We were so lost in these meditations, that we had turned into the
street, and run up against a door-post, before we recollected where
we were walking.&nbsp; On looking upwards to see what house we had stumbled
upon, the words &lsquo;Prerogative-Office,&rsquo; written in large characters,
met our eye; and as we were in a sight-seeing humour and the place was
a public one, we walked in.</p>
<p>The room into which we walked, was a long, busy-looking place, partitioned
off, on either side, into a variety of little boxes, in which a few
clerks were engaged in copying or examining deeds.&nbsp; Down the centre
of the room were several desks nearly breast high, at each of which,
three or four people were standing, poring over large volumes.&nbsp;
As we knew that they were searching for wills, they attracted our attention
at once.</p>
<p>It was curious to contrast the lazy indifference of the attorneys&rsquo;
clerks who were making a search for some legal purpose, with the air
of earnestness and interest which distinguished the strangers to the
place, who were looking up the will of some deceased relative; the former
pausing every now and then with an impatient yawn, or raising their
heads to look at the people who passed up and down the room; the latter
stooping over the book, and running down column after column of names
in the deepest abstraction.</p>
<p>There was one little dirty-faced man in a blue apron, who after a
whole morning&rsquo;s search, extending some fifty years back, had just
found the will to which he wished to refer, which one of the officials
was reading to him in a low hurried voice from a thick vellum book with
large clasps.&nbsp; It was perfectly evident that the more the clerk
read, the less the man with the blue apron understood about the matter.&nbsp;
When the volume was first brought down, he took off his hat, smoothed
down his hair, smiled with great self-satisfaction, and looked up in
the reader&rsquo;s face with the air of a man who had made up his mind
to recollect every word he heard.&nbsp; The first two or three lines
were intelligible enough; but then the technicalities began, and the
little man began to look rather dubious.&nbsp; Then came a whole string
of complicated trusts, and he was regularly at sea.&nbsp; As the reader
proceeded, it was quite apparent that it was a hopeless case, and the
little man, with his mouth open and his eyes fixed upon his face, looked
on with an expression of bewilderment and perplexity irresistibly ludicrous.</p>
<p>A little further on, a hard-featured old man with a deeply-wrinkled
face, was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair of
horn spectacles: occasionally pausing from his task, and slily noting
down some brief memorandum of the bequests contained in it.&nbsp; Every
wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice
and cunning.&nbsp; His clothes were nearly threadbare, but it was easy
to see that he wore them from choice and not from necessity; all his
looks and gestures down to the very small pinches of snuff which he
every now and then took from a little tin canister, told of wealth,
and penury, and avarice.</p>
<p>As he leisurely closed the register, put up his spectacles, and folded
his scraps of paper in a large leathern pocket-book, we thought what
a nice hard bargain he was driving with some poverty-stricken legatee,
who, tired of waiting year after year, until some life-interest should
fall in, was selling his chance, just as it began to grow most valuable,
for a twelfth part of its worth.&nbsp; It was a good speculation&mdash;a
very safe one.&nbsp; The old man stowed his pocket-book carefully in
the breast of his great-coat, and hobbled away with a leer of triumph.&nbsp;
That will had made him ten years younger at the lowest computation.</p>
<p>Having commenced our observations, we should certainly have extended
them to another dozen of people at least, had not a sudden shutting
up and putting away of the worm-eaten old books, warned us that the
time for closing the office had arrived; and thus deprived us of a pleasure,
and spared our readers an infliction.</p>
<p>We naturally fell into a train of reflection as we walked homewards,
upon the curious old records of likings and dislikings; of jealousies
and revenges; of affection defying the power of death, and hatred pursued
beyond the grave, which these depositories contain; silent but striking
tokens, some of them, of excellence of heart, and nobleness of soul;
melancholy examples, others, of the worst passions of human nature.&nbsp;
How many men as they lay speechless and helpless on the bed of death,
would have given worlds but for the strength and power to blot out the
silent evidence of animosity and bitterness, which now stands registered
against them in Doctors&rsquo; Commons!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IX&mdash;LONDON RECREATIONS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The wish of persons in the humbler classes of life, to ape the manners
and customs of those whom fortune has placed above them, is often the
subject of remark, and not unfrequently of complaint.&nbsp; The inclination
may, and no doubt does, exist to a great extent, among the small gentility&mdash;the
would-be aristocrats&mdash;of the middle classes.&nbsp; Tradesmen and
clerks, with fashionable novel-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing
daughters, get up small assemblies in humble imitation of Almack&rsquo;s,
and promenade the dingy &lsquo;large room&rsquo; of some second-rate
hotel with as much complacency as the enviable few who are privileged
to exhibit their magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and
foolery.&nbsp; Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some
&lsquo;fancy fair in high life,&rsquo; suddenly grow desperately charitable;
visions of admiration and matrimony float before their eyes; some wonderfully
meritorious institution, which, by the strangest accident in the world,
has never been heard of before, is discovered to be in a languishing
condition: Thomson&rsquo;s great room, or Johnson&rsquo;s nursery-ground,
is forthwith engaged, and the aforesaid young ladies, from mere charity,
exhibit themselves for three days, from twelve to four, for the small
charge of one shilling per head!&nbsp; With the exception of these classes
of society, however, and a few weak and insignificant persons, we do
not think the attempt at imitation to which we have alluded, prevails
in any great degree.&nbsp; The different character of the recreations
of different classes, has often afforded us amusement; and we have chosen
it for the subject of our present sketch, in the hope that it may possess
some amusement for our readers.</p>
<p>If the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd&rsquo;s at five o&rsquo;clock,
and drives home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford-hill, or elsewhere, can
be said to have any daily recreation beyond his dinner, it is his garden.&nbsp;
He never does anything to it with his own hands; but he takes great
pride in it notwithstanding; and if you are desirous of paying your
addresses to the youngest daughter, be sure to be in raptures with every
flower and shrub it contains.&nbsp; If your poverty of expression compel
you to make any distinction between the two, we would certainly recommend
your bestowing more admiration on his garden than his wine.&nbsp; He
always takes a walk round it, before he starts for town in the morning,
and is particularly anxious that the fish-pond should be kept specially
neat.&nbsp; If you call on him on Sunday in summer-time, about an hour
before dinner, you will find him sitting in an arm-chair, on the lawn
behind the house, with a straw hat on, reading a Sunday paper.&nbsp;
A short distance from him you will most likely observe a handsome paroquet
in a large brass-wire cage; ten to one but the two eldest girls are
loitering in one of the side walks accompanied by a couple of young
gentlemen, who are holding parasols over them&mdash;of course only to
keep the sun off&mdash;while the younger children, with the under nursery-maid,
are strolling listlessly about, in the shade.&nbsp; Beyond these occasions,
his delight in his garden appears to arise more from the consciousness
of possession than actual enjoyment of it.&nbsp; When he drives you
down to dinner on a week-day, he is rather fatigued with the occupations
of the morning, and tolerably cross into the bargain; but when the cloth
is removed, and he has drank three or four glasses of his favourite
port, he orders the French windows of his dining-room (which of course
look into the garden) to be opened, and throwing a silk handkerchief
over his head, and leaning back in his arm-chair, descants at considerable
length upon its beauty, and the cost of maintaining it.&nbsp; This is
to impress you&mdash;who are a young friend of the family&mdash;with
a due sense of the excellence of the garden, and the wealth of its owner;
and when he has exhausted the subject, he goes to sleep.</p>
<p>There is another and a very different class of men, whose recreation
is their garden.&nbsp; An individual of this class, resides some short
distance from town&mdash;say in the Hampstead-road, or the Kilburn-road,
or any other road where the houses are small and neat, and have little
slips of back garden.&nbsp; He and his wife&mdash;who is as clean and
compact a little body as himself&mdash;have occupied the same house
ever since he retired from business twenty years ago.&nbsp; They have
no family.&nbsp; They once had a son, who died at about five years old.&nbsp;
The child&rsquo;s portrait hangs over the mantelpiece in the best sitting-room,
and a little cart he used to draw about, is carefully preserved as a
relic.</p>
<p>In fine weather the old gentleman is almost constantly in the garden;
and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out of the window
at it, by the hour together.&nbsp; He has always something to do there,
and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and planting,
with manifest delight.&nbsp; In spring-time, there is no end to the
sowing of seeds, and sticking little bits of wood over them, with labels,
which look like epitaphs to their memory; and in the evening, when the
sun has gone down, the perseverance with which he lugs a great watering-pot
about is perfectly astonishing.&nbsp; The only other recreation he has,
is the newspaper, which he peruses every day, from beginning to end,
generally reading the most interesting pieces of intelligence to his
wife, during breakfast.&nbsp; The old lady is very fond of flowers,
as the hyacinth-glasses in the parlour-window, and geranium-pots in
the little front court, testify.&nbsp; She takes great pride in the
garden too: and when one of the four fruit-trees produces rather a larger
gooseberry than usual, it is carefully preserved under a wine-glass
on the sideboard, for the edification of visitors, who are duly informed
that Mr. So-and-so planted the tree which produced it, with his own
hands.&nbsp; On a summer&rsquo;s evening, when the large watering-pot
has been filled and emptied some fourteen times, and the old couple
have quite exhausted themselves by trotting about, you will see them
sitting happily together in the little summerhouse, enjoying the calm
and peace of the twilight, and watching the shadows as they fall upon
the garden, and gradually growing thicker and more sombre, obscure the
tints of their gayest flowers&mdash;no bad emblem of the years that
have silently rolled over their heads, deadening in their course the
brightest hues of early hopes and feelings which have long since faded
away.&nbsp; These are their only recreations, and they require no more.&nbsp;
They have within themselves, the materials of comfort and content; and
the only anxiety of each, is to die before the other.</p>
<p>This is no ideal sketch.&nbsp; There <i>used</i> to be many old people
of this description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease
still more.&nbsp; Whether the course female education has taken of late
days&mdash;whether the pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty nothings,
has tended to unfit women for that quiet domestic life, in which they
show far more beautifully than in the most crowded assembly, is a question
we should feel little gratification in discussing: we hope not.</p>
<p>Let us turn now, to another portion of the London population, whose
recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be conceived&mdash;we
mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our readers to imagine themselves
stationed by our side in some well-known rural &lsquo;Tea-gardens.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The heat is intense this afternoon, and the people, of whom there
are additional parties arriving every moment, look as warm as the tables
which have been recently painted, and have the appearance of being red-hot.&nbsp;
What a dust and noise!&nbsp; Men and women&mdash;boys and girls&mdash;sweethearts
and married people&mdash;babies in arms, and children in chaises&mdash;pipes
and shrimps&mdash;cigars and periwinkles&mdash;tea and tobacco.&nbsp;
Gentlemen, in alarming waistcoats, and steel watch-guards, promenading
about, three abreast, with surprising dignity (or as the gentleman in
the next box facetiously observes, &lsquo;cutting it uncommon fat!&rsquo;)&mdash;ladies,
with great, long, white pocket-handkerchiefs like small table-cloths,
in their hands, chasing one another on the grass in the most playful
and interesting manner, with the view of attracting the attention of
the aforesaid gentlemen&mdash;husbands in perspective ordering bottles
of ginger-beer for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard
of expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities of &lsquo;shrimps&rsquo;
and &lsquo;winkles,&rsquo; with an equal disregard of their own bodily
health and subsequent comfort&mdash;boys, with great silk hats just
balanced on the top of their heads, smoking cigars, and trying to look
as if they liked them&mdash;gentlemen in pink shirts and blue waistcoats,
occasionally upsetting either themselves, or somebody else, with their
own canes.</p>
<p>Some of the finery of these people provokes a smile, but they are
all clean, and happy, and disposed to be good-natured and sociable.&nbsp;
Those two motherly-looking women in the smart pelisses, who are chatting
so confidentially, inserting a &lsquo;ma&rsquo;am&rsquo; at every fourth
word, scraped an acquaintance about a quarter of an hour ago: it originated
in admiration of the little boy who belongs to one of them&mdash;that
diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered pink satin hat
with black feathers.&nbsp; The two men in the blue coats and drab trousers,
who are walking up and down, smoking their pipes, are their husbands.&nbsp;
The party in the opposite box are a pretty fair specimen of the generality
of the visitors.&nbsp; These are the father and mother, and old grandmother:
a young man and woman, and an individual addressed by the euphonious
title of &lsquo;Uncle Bill,&rsquo; who is evidently the wit of the party.&nbsp;
They have some half-dozen children with them, but it is scarcely necessary
to notice the fact, for that is a matter of course here.&nbsp; Every
woman in &lsquo;the gardens,&rsquo; who has been married for any length
of time, must have had twins on two or three occasions; it is impossible
to account for the extent of juvenile population in any other way.</p>
<p>Observe the inexpressible delight of the old grandmother, at Uncle
Bill&rsquo;s splendid joke of &lsquo;tea for four: bread-and-butter
for forty;&rsquo; and the loud explosion of mirth which follows his
wafering a paper &lsquo;pigtail&rsquo; on the waiter&rsquo;s collar.&nbsp;
The young man is evidently &lsquo;keeping company&rsquo; with Uncle
Bill&rsquo;s niece: and Uncle Bill&rsquo;s hints&mdash;such as &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t
forget me at the dinner, you know,&rsquo; &lsquo;I shall look out for
the cake, Sally,&rsquo; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll be godfather to your first&mdash;wager
it&rsquo;s a boy,&rsquo; and so forth, are equally embarrassing to the
young people, and delightful to the elder ones.&nbsp; As to the old
grandmother, she is in perfect ecstasies, and does nothing but laugh
herself into fits of coughing, until they have finished the &lsquo;gin-and-water
warm with,&rsquo; of which Uncle Bill ordered &lsquo;glasses round&rsquo;
after tea, &lsquo;just to keep the night air out, and to do it up comfortable
and riglar arter sitch an as-tonishing hot day!&rsquo;</p>
<p>It is getting dark, and the people begin to move.&nbsp; The field
leading to town is quite full of them; the little hand-chaises are dragged
wearily along, the children are tired, and amuse themselves and the
company generally by crying, or resort to the much more pleasant expedient
of going to sleep&mdash;the mothers begin to wish they were at home
again&mdash;sweethearts grow more sentimental than ever, as the time
for parting arrives&mdash;the gardens look mournful enough, by the light
of the two lanterns which hang against the trees for the convenience
of smokers&mdash;and the waiters who have been running about incessantly
for the last six hours, think they feel a little tired, as they count
their glasses and their gains.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER X&mdash;THE RIVER</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Are you fond of the water?&rsquo; is a question very frequently
asked, in hot summer weather, by amphibious-looking young men.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Very,&rsquo; is the general reply.&nbsp; &lsquo;An&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Hardly
ever off it,&rsquo; is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives,
expressive of the speaker&rsquo;s heartfelt admiration of that element.&nbsp;
Now, with all respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter
clubs in particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful
reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally disported
himself on the Thames, must be connected with his aquatic recreations.&nbsp;
Who ever heard of a successful water-party?&mdash;or to put the question
in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw one?&nbsp; We have been
on water excursions out of number, but we solemnly declare that we cannot
call to mind one single occasion of the kind, which was not marked by
more miseries than any one would suppose could be reasonably crowded
into the space of some eight or nine hours.&nbsp; Something has always
gone wrong.&nbsp; Either the cork of the salad-dressing has come out,
or the most anxiously expected member of the party has not come out,
or the most disagreeable man in company would come out, or a child or
two have fallen into the water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer
has endangered everybody&rsquo;s life all the way, or the gentlemen
who volunteered to row have been &lsquo;out of practice,&rsquo; and
performed very alarming evolutions, putting their oars down into the
water and not being able to get them up again, or taking terrific pulls
without putting them in at all; in either case, pitching over on the
backs of their heads with startling violence, and exhibiting the soles
of their pumps to the &lsquo;sitters&rsquo; in the boat, in a very humiliating
manner.</p>
<p>We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond
and Twickenham, and other distant havens, often sought though seldom
reached; but from the &lsquo;Red-us&rsquo; back to Blackfriars-bridge,
the scene is wonderfully changed.&nbsp; The Penitentiary is a noble
building, no doubt, and the sportive youths who &lsquo;go in&rsquo;
at that particular part of the river, on a summer&rsquo;s evening, may
be all very well in perspective; but when you are obliged to keep in
shore coming home, and the young ladies will colour up, and look perseveringly
the other way, while the married dittos cough slightly, and stare very
hard at the water, you feel awkward&mdash;especially if you happen to
have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality, for
an hour or two previously.</p>
<p>Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the
result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense
of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of boating.&nbsp;
What can be more amusing than Searle&rsquo;s yard on a fine Sunday morning?&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the
reception of the parties who have engaged them.&nbsp; Two or three fellows
in great rough trousers and Guernsey shirts, are getting them ready
by easy stages; now coming down the yard with a pair of sculls and a
cushion&mdash;then having a chat with the &lsquo;Jack,&rsquo; who, like
all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging
about&mdash;then going back again, and returning with a rudder-line
and a stretcher&mdash;then solacing themselves with another chat&mdash;and
then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, &lsquo;where
them gentlemen&rsquo;s got to as ordered the six.&rsquo;&nbsp; One of
these, the head man, with the legs of his trousers carefully tucked
up at the bottom, to admit the water, we presume&mdash;for it is an
element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land&mdash;is
quite a character, and shares with the defunct oyster-swallower the
celebrated name of &lsquo;Dando.&rsquo;&nbsp; Watch him, as taking a
few minutes&rsquo; respite from his toils, he negligently seats himself
on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad bushy chest with a cap scarcely
half so furry.&nbsp; Look at his magnificent, though reddish whiskers,
and mark the somewhat native humour with which he &lsquo;chaffs&rsquo;
the boys and &rsquo;prentices, or cunningly gammons the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n
into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows
in one day as much as any six ordinary men, without ever being one atom
the worse for it.</p>
<p>But the party arrives, and Dando, relieved from his state of uncertainty,
starts up into activity.&nbsp; They approach in full aquatic costume,
with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps of all sizes and patterns,
from the velvet skull-cap of French manufacture, to the easy head-dress
familiar to the students of the old spelling-books, as having, on the
authority of the portrait, formed part of the costume of the Reverend
Mr. Dilworth.</p>
<p>This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Sunday water-party.&nbsp;
There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree
of boasting on everybody&rsquo;s part relative to his knowledge of navigation;
the sight of the water rapidly cools their courage, and the air of self-denial
with which each of them insists on somebody else&rsquo;s taking an oar,
is perfectly delightful.&nbsp; At length, after a great deal of changing
and fidgeting, consequent upon the election of a stroke-oar: the inability
of one gentleman to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and
of a third to pull at all, the boat&rsquo;s crew are seated.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shove
her off!&rsquo; cries the cockswain, who looks as easy and comfortable
as if he were steering in the Bay of Biscay.&nbsp; The order is obeyed;
the boat is immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards
Westminster-bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never
was seen before, except when the Royal George went down.&nbsp; &lsquo;Back
wa&rsquo;ater, sir,&rsquo; shouts Dando, &lsquo;Back wa&rsquo;ater,
you sir, aft;&rsquo; upon which everybody thinking he must be the individual
referred to, they all back water, and back comes the boat, stern first,
to the spot whence it started.&nbsp; &lsquo;Back water, you sir, aft;
pull round, you sir, for&rsquo;ad, can&rsquo;t you?&rsquo; shouts Dando,
in a frenzy of excitement.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pull round, Tom, can&rsquo;t
you?&rsquo; re-echoes one of the party.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tom an&rsquo;t
for&rsquo;ad,&rsquo; replies another.&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, he is,&rsquo;
cries a third; and the unfortunate young man, at the imminent risk of
breaking a blood-vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat
fairly lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge.&nbsp; &lsquo;That&rsquo;s
right&mdash;now pull all on you!&rsquo; shouts Dando again, adding,
in an under-tone, to somebody by him, &lsquo;Blowed if hever I see sich
a set of muffs!&rsquo; and away jogs the boat in a zigzag direction,
every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time;
and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of the next party.</p>
<p>A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and
interesting scene.&nbsp; The water is studded with boats of all sorts,
kinds, and descriptions; places in the coal-barges at the different
wharfs are let to crowds of spectators, beer and tobacco flow freely
about; men, women, and children wait for the start in breathless expectation;
cutters of six and eight oars glide gently up and down, waiting to accompany
their <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;s</i> during the race; bands of music
add to the animation, if not to the harmony of the scene; groups of
watermen are assembled at the different stairs, discussing the merits
of the respective candidates; and the prize wherry, which is rowed slowly
about by a pair of sculls, is an object of general interest.</p>
<p>Two o&rsquo;clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction
of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come&mdash;half-past
two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long begins
to flag, when suddenly a gun is heard, and a noise of distant hurra&rsquo;ing
along each bank of the river&mdash;every head is bent forward&mdash;the
noise draws nearer and nearer&mdash;the boats which have been waiting
at the bridge start briskly up the river, and a well-manned galley shoots
through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them, which
are not yet visible.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here they are,&rsquo; is the general cry&mdash;and through
darts the first boat, the men in her, stripped to the skin, and exerting
every muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained&mdash;four other
boats follow close astern; there are not two boats&rsquo; length between
them&mdash;the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Go on, Pink&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Give it her, Red&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Sulliwin
for ever&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Bravo!&nbsp; George&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Now,
Tom, now&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;why don&rsquo;t your partner stretch
out?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Two pots to a pint on Yellow,&rsquo; &amp;c.,
&amp;c.&nbsp; Every little public-house fires its gun, and hoists its
flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and
shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has
not witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint
idea.</p>
<p>One of the most amusing places we know is the steam-wharf of the
London Bridge, or St. Katharine&rsquo;s Dock Company, on a Saturday
morning in summer, when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are usually
crowded to excess; and as we have just taken a glance at the river above
bridge, we hope our readers will not object to accompany us on board
a Gravesend packet.</p>
<p>Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf,
and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the &lsquo;fares&rsquo;
resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who
seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with
them, heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme.&nbsp; A Margate
boat lies alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which starts first)
lies alongside that again; and as a temporary communication is formed
between the two, by means of a plank and hand-rail, the natural confusion
of the scene is by no means diminished.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gravesend?&rsquo; inquires a stout father of a stout family,
who follow him, under the guidance of their mother, and a servant, at
the no small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the confusion.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Gravesend?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pass on, if you please, sir,&rsquo; replies the attendant&mdash;&lsquo;other
boat, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Hereupon the stout father, being rather mystified, and the stout
mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party deposit
themselves in the Margate boat, and after having congratulated himself
on having secured very comfortable seats, the stout father sallies to
the chimney to look for his luggage, which he has a faint recollection
of having given some man, something, to take somewhere.&nbsp; No luggage,
however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his own, in shape or
form, is to be discovered; on which the stout father calls very loudly
for an officer, to whom he states the case, in the presence of another
father of another family&mdash;a little thin man&mdash;who entirely
concurs with him (the stout father) in thinking that it&rsquo;s high
time something was done with these steam companies, and that as the
Corporation Bill failed to do it, something else must; for really people&rsquo;s
property is not to be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage
isn&rsquo;t restored without delay, he will take care it shall be put
in the papers, for the public is not to be the victim of these great
monopolies.&nbsp; To this, the officer, in his turn, replies, that that
company, ever since it has been St. Kat&rsquo;rine&rsquo;s Dock Company,
has protected life and property; that if it had been the London Bridge
Wharf Company, indeed, he shouldn&rsquo;t have wondered, seeing that
the morality of that company (they being the opposition) can&rsquo;t
be answered for, by no one; but as it is, he&rsquo;s convinced there
must be some mistake, and he wouldn&rsquo;t mind making a solemn oath
afore a magistrate that the gentleman&rsquo;ll find his luggage afore
he gets to Margate.</p>
<p>Here the stout father, thinking he is making a capital point, replies,
that as it happens, he is not going to Margate at all, and that &lsquo;Passenger
to Gravesend&rsquo; was on the luggage, in letters of full two inches
long; on which the officer rapidly explains the mistake, and the stout
mother, and the stout children, and the servant, are hurried with all
possible despatch on board the Gravesend boat, which they reached just
in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable
seats are not.&nbsp; Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend
boat starting, begins to ring most furiously: and people keep time to
the bell, by running in and out of our boat at a double-quick pace.&nbsp;
The bell stops; the boat starts: people who have been taking leave of
their friends on board, are carried away against their will; and people
who have been taking leave of their friends on shore, find that they
have performed a very needless ceremony, in consequence of their not
being carried away at all.&nbsp; The regular passengers, who have season
tickets, go below to breakfast; people who have purchased morning papers,
compose themselves to read them; and people who have not been down the
river before, think that both the shipping and the water, look a great
deal better at a distance.</p>
<p>When we get down about as far as Blackwall, and begin to move at
a quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in proportion.&nbsp;
Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets with them, set
seriously to work at the demolition of heavy sandwiches, and pass round
a wine-glass, which is frequently replenished from a flat bottle like
a stomach-warmer, with considerable glee: handing it first to the gentleman
in the foraging-cap, who plays the harp&mdash;partly as an expression
of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him
to play &lsquo;Dumbledumbdeary,&rsquo; for &lsquo;Alick&rsquo; to dance
to; which being done, Alick, who is a damp earthy child in red worsted
socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction
of his family circle.&nbsp; Girls who have brought the first volume
of some new novel in their reticule, become extremely plaintive, and
expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O&rsquo;Brien, who has been looking
over them, on the blueness of the sky, and brightness of the water;
on which Mr. Brown or Mr. O&rsquo;Brien, as the case may be, remarks
in a low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties
of nature, that his whole thoughts and wishes have centred in one object
alone&mdash;whereupon the young lady looks up, and failing in her attempt
to appear unconscious, looks down again; and turns over the next leaf
with great difficulty, in order to afford opportunity for a lengthened
pressure of the hand.</p>
<p>Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy-and-water cold without,
begin to be in great requisition; and bashful men who have been looking
down the hatchway at the engine, find, to their great relief, a subject
on which they can converse with one another&mdash;and a copious one
too&mdash;Steam.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Wonderful thing steam, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah! (a deep-drawn
sigh) it is indeed, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Great power, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Immense&mdash;immense!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Great deal done by
steam, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah! (another sigh at the immensity of
the subject, and a knowing shake of the head) you may say that, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Still in its infancy, they say, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; Novel remarks
of this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which
is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip, and, perhaps, lays the
foundation of a speaking acquaintance between half-a-dozen gentlemen,
who, having their families at Gravesend, take season tickets for the
boat, and dine on board regularly every afternoon.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XI&mdash;ASTLEY&rsquo;S</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals, in a
book, or shop-window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately
recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the
time when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet.&nbsp;
We almost fancy we see the pin&rsquo;s point following the letter, to
impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination; and wince
involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend
old lady who instilled into our mind the first principles of education
for ninepence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to
poke our juvenile head occasionally, by way of adjusting the confusion
of ideas in which we were generally involved.&nbsp; The same kind of
feeling pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which
recalls so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
It was not a &lsquo;Royal Amphitheatre&rsquo; in those days, nor had
Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over
the sawdust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was
the same, the pieces were the same, the clown&rsquo;s jokes were the
same, the riding-masters were equally grand, the comic performers equally
witty, the tragedians equally hoarse, and the &lsquo;highly-trained
chargers&rsquo; equally spirited.&nbsp; Astley&rsquo;s has altered for
the better&mdash;we have changed for the worse.&nbsp; Our histrionic
taste is gone, and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted
and amused with the audience, than with the pageantry we once so highly
appreciated.</p>
<p>We like to watch a regular Astley&rsquo;s party in the Easter or
Midsummer holidays&mdash;pa and ma, and nine or ten children, varying
from five foot six to two foot eleven: from fourteen years of age to
four.&nbsp; We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes, in the centre
of the house, the other night, when the next was occupied by just such
a party as we should have attempted to describe, had we depicted our
<i>beau id&eacute;al</i> of a group of Astley&rsquo;s visitors.</p>
<p>First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who,
in pursuance of pa&rsquo;s directions, issued in a very audible voice
from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little girls
were ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess.&nbsp; Then
came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets
and trousers, with lay-down shirt-collars: then a child in a braided
frock and high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened
to their utmost width, was lifted over the seats&mdash;a process which
occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs&mdash;then came
ma and pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of fourteen years old, who
was evidently trying to look as if he did not belong to the family.</p>
<p>The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the
little girls, and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair; then
it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated
behind a pillar and could not see, so the governess was stuck behind
the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place.&nbsp; Then pa drilled
the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket-handkerchiefs,
and ma having first nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls&rsquo;
frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little
troop&mdash;an inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own
satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at pa, who was standing
up at the further end of the seat.&nbsp; Pa returned the glance, and
blew his nose very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from
behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch ma&rsquo;s eye, with a
look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family.&nbsp; Then
two of the little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley&rsquo;s
was more than twice as large as Drury Lane, agreed to refer it to &lsquo;George&rsquo;
for his decision; at which &lsquo;George,&rsquo; who was no other than
the young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated
in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name
repeated in so loud a voice at a public place, on which all the children
laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing
his opinion, that &lsquo;George began to think himself quite a man now,&rsquo;
whereupon both pa and ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress
cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that &lsquo;William always
was encouraged in his impertinence;&rsquo; and assumed a look of profound
contempt, which lasted the whole evening.</p>
<p>The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds.&nbsp;
Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured
to look as if he wasn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; As for ma, she was perfectly overcome
by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one
of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess
peeped out from behind the pillar again, and whenever she could catch
ma&rsquo;s eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as
in duty bound, to be in convulsions of laughter also.&nbsp; Then when
the man in the splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in
the attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little
fellow who was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying
on a child&rsquo;s flirtation, the whole evening, with a small coquette
of twelve years old, who looked like a model of her mamma on a reduced
scale; and who, in common with the other little girls (who generally
speaking have even more coquettishness about them than much older ones),
looked very properly shocked, when the knight&rsquo;s squire kissed
the princess&rsquo;s confidential chambermaid.</p>
<p>When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more delighted
than ever; and the wish to see what was going forward, completely conquering
pa&rsquo;s dignity, he stood up in the box, and applauded as loudly
as any of them.&nbsp; Between each feat of horsemanship, the governess
leant across to ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children
on that which had preceded: and ma, in the openness of her heart, offered
the governess an acidulated drop, and the governess, gratified to be
taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance:
and the whole party seemed quite happy, except the exquisite in the
back of the box, who, being too grand to take any interest in the children,
and too insignificant to be taken notice of by anybody else, occupied
himself, from time to time, in rubbing the place where the whiskers
ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory.</p>
<p>We defy any one who has been to Astley&rsquo;s two or three times,
and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which
precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season
after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at
least&mdash;we mean the scenes in the circle.&nbsp; For ourself, we
know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain
drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from
the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken, with
mathematical precision, into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened
as the youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which
follows the clown&rsquo;s shrill shout of &lsquo;Here we are!&rsquo;
just for old acquaintance&rsquo; sake.&nbsp; Nor can we quite divest
ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who follows
the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with
graceful dignity.&nbsp; He is none of your second-rate riding-masters
in nankeen dressing-gowns, with brown frogs, but the regular gentleman-attendant
on the principal riders, who always wears a military uniform with a
table-cloth inside the breast of the coat, in which costume he forcibly
reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting.&nbsp; He is&mdash;but why
should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey
an adequate idea?&nbsp; Everybody knows the man, and everybody remembers
his polished boots, his graceful demeanour, stiff, as some misjudging
persons have in their jealousy considered it, and the splendid head
of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance
an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy.&nbsp; His soft
and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing,
as he humours the clown by indulging in a little badinage; and the striking
recollection of his own dignity, with which he exclaims, &lsquo;Now,
sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,&rsquo; can never
be forgotten.&nbsp; The graceful air, too, with which he introduces
Miss Woolford into the arena, and, after assisting her to the saddle,
follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create
a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present.</p>
<p>When Miss Woolford, and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together
to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the
following (commenced by the clown): &lsquo;I say, sir!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Well,
sir?&rsquo; (it&rsquo;s always conducted in the politest manner.)&mdash;&lsquo;Did
you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;No,
sir.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Oh, yes, sir&mdash;I can go through my exercise,
sir.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Indeed, sir!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Shall I do
it now, sir?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;If you please, sir; come, sir&mdash;make
haste&rsquo; (a cut with the long whip, and &lsquo;Ha&rsquo; done now&mdash;I
don&rsquo;t like it,&rsquo; from the clown).&nbsp; Here the clown throws
himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic convulsions,
doubling himself up, and untying himself again, and making himself look
very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human agony, to the
vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is interrupted by a second
cut from the long whip, and a request to see &lsquo;what Miss Woolford&rsquo;s
stopping for?&rsquo;&nbsp; On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the
gallery, he exclaims, &lsquo;Now, Miss Woolford, what can I come for
to go, for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for you,
ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo;&nbsp; On the lady&rsquo;s announcing with a sweet
smile that she wants the two flags, they are, with sundry grimaces,
procured and handed up; the clown facetiously observing after the performance
of the latter ceremony&mdash;&lsquo;He, he, oh!&nbsp; I say, sir, Miss
Woolford knows me; she smiled at me.&rsquo;&nbsp; Another cut from the
whip, a burst from the orchestra, a start from the horse, and round
goes Miss Woolford again on her graceful performance, to the delight
of every member of the audience, young or old.&nbsp; The next pause
affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the only additional fun
being that of the clown making ludicrous grimaces at the riding-master
every time his back is turned; and finally quitting the circle by jumping
over his head, having previously directed his attention another way.</p>
<p>Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang
about the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the daytime?&nbsp; You
will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three
or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour
swagger, and a kind of conscious air, peculiar to people of this description.&nbsp;
They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before
them.&nbsp; That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full
light green trousers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt,
as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the white
hat of the summer-before-last as knowingly over his right eye, as if
it were a purchase of yesterday.&nbsp; Look at the dirty white Berlin
gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his threadbare
coat.&nbsp; Is it possible to see him for an instant, and not come to
the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout,
clean collar, and white trousers, for half an hour, and then shrinks
into his worn-out scanty clothes: who has to boast night after night
of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound a-week
and his boots to find; to talk of his father&rsquo;s mansion in the
country, with a dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the
New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich
heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is in
the family way, and out of an engagement?</p>
<p>Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long
face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of
his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick.&nbsp; He is the man
who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants,
curates, landlords, and so forth.</p>
<p>By the way, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some
piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans.&nbsp; Fathers
are invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give
the hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain
rose, usually commencing with &lsquo;It is now nineteen years, my dear
child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain&rsquo;s voice
falters) confided you to my charge.&nbsp; You were then an infant,&rsquo;
&amp;c., &amp;c.&nbsp; Or else they have to discover, all of a sudden,
that somebody whom they have been in constant communication with, during
three long acts, without the slightest suspicion, is their own child:
in which case they exclaim, &lsquo;Ah! what do I see?&nbsp; This bracelet!&nbsp;
That smile!&nbsp; These documents!&nbsp; Those eyes!&nbsp; Can I believe
my senses?&mdash;It must be!&mdash;Yes&mdash;it is, it is my child!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;My
father!&rsquo; exclaims the child; and they fall into each other&rsquo;s
arms, and look over each other&rsquo;s shoulders, and the audience give
three rounds of applause.</p>
<p>To return from this digression, we were about to say, that these
are the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinising, outside
the stage-doors of our minor theatres.&nbsp; At Astley&rsquo;s they
are always more numerous than at any other place.&nbsp; There is generally
a groom or two, sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel
men in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and carrying,
perhaps, under one arm, a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a
piece of old newspaper.&nbsp; Some years ago we used to stand looking,
open-mouthed, at these men, with a feeling of mysterious curiosity,
the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are
writing.&nbsp; We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance,
in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted
on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the
aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking
creatures we beheld by day.</p>
<p>We can hardly believe it now.&nbsp; Of the lower class of actors
we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination
to identify the walking gentleman with the &lsquo;dirty swell,&rsquo;
the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian
with drunkenness and distress; but these other men are mysterious beings,
never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods
and sylphs.&nbsp; With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be
classed among them, who ever knew a rider at Astley&rsquo;s, or saw
him but on horseback?&nbsp; Can our friend in the military uniform ever
appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively un-wadded
costume of every-day life?&nbsp; Impossible!&nbsp; We cannot&mdash;we
will not&mdash;believe it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XII&mdash;GREENWICH FAIR</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>If the Parks be &lsquo;the lungs of London,&rsquo; we wonder what
Greenwich Fair is&mdash;a periodical breaking out, we suppose, a sort
of spring-rash: a three days&rsquo; fever, which cools the blood for
six months afterwards, and at the expiration of which London is restored
to its old habits of plodding industry, as suddenly and completely as
if nothing had ever happened to disturb them.</p>
<p>In our earlier days, we were a constant frequenter of Greenwich Fair,
for years.&nbsp; We have proceeded to, and returned from it, in almost
every description of vehicle.&nbsp; We cannot conscientiously deny the
charge of having once made the passage in a spring-van, accompanied
by thirteen gentlemen, fourteen ladies, an unlimited number of children,
and a barrel of beer; and we have a vague recollection of having, in
later days, found ourself the eighth outside, on the top of a hackney-coach,
at something past four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, with a rather confused
idea of our own name, or place of residence.&nbsp; We have grown older
since then, and quiet, and steady: liking nothing better than to spend
our Easter, and all our other holidays, in some quiet nook, with people
of whom we shall never tire; but we think we still remember something
of Greenwich Fair, and of those who resort to it.&nbsp; At all events
we will try.</p>
<p>The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter Monday, is in a
state of perpetual bustle and noise.&nbsp; Cabs, hackney-coaches, &lsquo;shay&rsquo;
carts, coal-waggons, stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chaises&mdash;all
crammed with people (for the question never is, what the horse can draw,
but what the vehicle will hold), roll along at their utmost speed; the
dust flies in clouds, ginger-beer corks go off in volleys, the balcony
of every public-house is crowded with people, smoking and drinking,
half the private houses are turned into tea-shops, fiddles are in great
request, every little fruit-shop displays its stall of gilt gingerbread
and penny toys; turnpike men are in despair; horses won&rsquo;t go on,
and wheels will come off; ladies in &lsquo;carawans&rsquo; scream with
fright at every fresh concussion, and their admirers find it necessary
to sit remarkably close to them, by way of encouragement; servants-of-all-work,
who are not allowed to have followers, and have got a holiday for the
day, make the most of their time with the faithful admirer who waits
for a stolen interview at the corner of the street every night, when
they go to fetch the beer&mdash;apprentices grow sentimental, and straw-bonnet
makers kind.&nbsp; Everybody is anxious to get on, and actuated by the
common wish to be at the fair, or in the park, as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Pedestrians linger in groups at the roadside, unable to resist the
allurements of the stout proprietress of the &lsquo;Jack-in-the-box,
three shies a penny,&rsquo; or the more splendid offers of the man with
three thimbles and a pea on a little round board, who astonishes the
bewildered crowd with some such address as, &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s the
sort o&rsquo; game to make you laugh seven years arter you&rsquo;re
dead, and turn ev&rsquo;ry air on your ed gray vith delight!&nbsp; Three
thimbles and vun little pea&mdash;with a vun, two, three, and a two,
three, vun: catch him who can, look on, keep your eyes open, and niver
say die! niver mind the change, and the expense: all fair and above
board: them as don&rsquo;t play can&rsquo;t vin, and luck attend the
ryal sportsman!&nbsp; Bet any gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n any sum of money,
from harf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn&rsquo;t name the thimble
as kivers the pea!&rsquo;&nbsp; Here some greenhorn whispers his friend
that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble&mdash;an
impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top-boots,
who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, regrets his own inability
to bet, in consequence of having unfortunately left his purse at home,
but strongly urges the stranger not to neglect such a golden opportunity.&nbsp;
The &lsquo;plant&rsquo; is successful, the bet is made, the stranger
of course loses: and the gentleman with the thimbles consoles him, as
he pockets the money, with an assurance that it&rsquo;s &lsquo;all the
fortin of war! this time I vin, next time you vin: niver mind the loss
of two bob and a bender!&nbsp; Do it up in a small parcel, and break
out in a fresh place.&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s the sort o&rsquo; game,&rsquo;
&amp;c.&mdash;and the eloquent harangue, with such variations as the
speaker&rsquo;s exuberant fancy suggests, is again repeated to the gaping
crowd, reinforced by the accession of several new-comers.</p>
<p>The chief place of resort in the daytime, after the public-houses,
is the park, in which the principal amusement is to drag young ladies
up the steep hill which leads to the Observatory, and then drag them
down again, at the very top of their speed, greatly to the derangement
of their curls and bonnet-caps, and much to the edification of lookers-on
from below.&nbsp; &lsquo;Kiss in the Ring,&rsquo; and &lsquo;Threading
my Grandmother&rsquo;s Needle,&rsquo; too, are sports which receive
their full share of patronage.&nbsp; Love-sick swains, under the influence
of gin-and-water, and the tender passion, become violently affectionate:
and the fair objects of their regard enhance the value of stolen kisses,
by a vast deal of struggling, and holding down of heads, and cries of
&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; Ha&rsquo; done, then, George&mdash;Oh, do tickle him
for me, Mary&mdash;Well, I never!&rsquo; and similar Lucretian ejaculations.&nbsp;
Little old men and women, with a small basket under one arm, and a wine-glass,
without a foot, in the other hand, tender &lsquo;a drop o&rsquo; the
right sort&rsquo; to the different groups; and young ladies, who are
persuaded to indulge in a drop of the aforesaid right sort, display
a pleasing degree of reluctance to taste it, and cough afterwards with
great propriety.</p>
<p>The old pensioners, who, for the moderate charge of a penny, exhibit
the mast-house, the Thames and shipping, the place where the men used
to hang in chains, and other interesting sights, through a telescope,
are asked questions about objects within the range of the glass, which
it would puzzle a Solomon to answer; and requested to find out particular
houses in particular streets, which it would have been a task of some
difficulty for Mr. Horner (not the young gentleman who ate mince-pies
with his thumb, but the man of Colosseum notoriety) to discover.&nbsp;
Here and there, where some three or four couple are sitting on the grass
together, you will see a sun-burnt woman in a red cloak &lsquo;telling
fortunes&rsquo; and prophesying husbands, which it requires no extraordinary
observation to describe, for the originals are before her.&nbsp; Thereupon,
the lady concerned laughs and blushes, and ultimately buries her face
in an imitation cambric handkerchief, and the gentleman described looks
extremely foolish, and squeezes her hand, and fees the gipsy liberally;
and the gipsy goes away, perfectly satisfied herself, and leaving those
behind her perfectly satisfied also: and the prophecy, like many other
prophecies of greater importance, fulfils itself in time.</p>
<p>But it grows dark: the crowd has gradually dispersed, and only a
few stragglers are left behind.&nbsp; The light in the direction of
the church shows that the fair is illuminated; and the distant noise
proves it to be filling fast.&nbsp; The spot, which half an hour ago
was ringing with the shouts of boisterous mirth, is as calm and quiet
as if nothing could ever disturb its serenity: the fine old trees, the
majestic building at their feet, with the noble river beyond, glistening
in the moonlight, appear in all their beauty, and under their most favourable
aspect; the voices of the boys, singing their evening hymn, are borne
gently on the air; and the humblest mechanic who has been lingering
on the grass so pleasant to the feet that beat the same dull round from
week to week in the paved streets of London, feels proud to think as
he surveys the scene before him, that he belongs to the country which
has selected such a spot as a retreat for its oldest and best defenders
in the decline of their lives.</p>
<p>Five minutes&rsquo; walking brings you to the fair; a scene calculated
to awaken very different feelings.&nbsp; The entrance is occupied on
either side by the vendors of gingerbread and toys: the stalls are gaily
lighted up, the most attractive goods profusely disposed, and unbonneted
young ladies, in their zeal for the interest of their employers, seize
you by the coat, and use all the blandishments of &lsquo;Do, dear&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;There&rsquo;s
a love&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be cross, now,&rsquo; &amp;c.,
to induce you to purchase half a pound of the real spice nuts, of which
the majority of the regular fair-goers carry a pound or two as a present
supply, tied up in a cotton pocket-handkerchief.&nbsp; Occasionally
you pass a deal table, on which are exposed pen&rsquo;orths of pickled
salmon (fennel included), in little white saucers: oysters, with shells
as large as cheese-plates, and divers specimens of a species of snail
(<i>wilks</i>, we think they are called), floating in a somewhat bilious-looking
green liquid.&nbsp; Cigars, too, are in great demand; gentlemen must
smoke, of course, and here they are, two a penny, in a regular authentic
cigar-box, with a lighted tallow candle in the centre.</p>
<p>Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd, which swings you to
and fro, and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this
the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the
firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowings of speaking-trumpets,
the squeaking of penny dittos, the noise of a dozen bands, with three
drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallooing
of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild-beast shows; and you
are in the very centre and heart of the fair.</p>
<p>This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly illuminated
with variegated lamps, and pots of burning fat, is &lsquo;Richardson&rsquo;s,&rsquo;
where you have a melodrama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime,
a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five-and-twenty
minutes.</p>
<p>The company are now promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs,
spangles, red-ochre, and whitening.&nbsp; See with what a ferocious
air the gentleman who personates the Mexican chief, paces up and down,
and with what an eye of calm dignity the principal tragedian gazes on
the crowd below, or converses confidentially with the harlequin!&nbsp;
The four clowns, who are engaged in a mock broadsword combat, may be
all very well for the low-minded holiday-makers; but these are the people
for the reflective portion of the community.&nbsp; They look so noble
in those Roman dresses, with their yellow legs and arms, long black
curly heads, bushy eyebrows, and scowl expressive of assassination,
and vengeance, and everything else that is grand and solemn.&nbsp; Then,
the ladies&mdash;were there ever such innocent and awful-looking beings;
as they walk up and down the platform in twos and threes, with their
arms round each other&rsquo;s waists, or leaning for support on one
of those majestic men!&nbsp; Their spangled muslin dresses and blue
satin shoes and sandals (a <i>leetle</i> the worse for wear) are the
admiration of all beholders; and the playful manner in which they check
the advances of the clown, is perfectly enchanting.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Just a-going to begin!&nbsp; Pray come for&rsquo;erd, come
for&rsquo;erd,&rsquo; exclaims the man in the countryman&rsquo;s dress,
for the seventieth time: and people force their way up the steps in
crowds.&nbsp; The band suddenly strikes up, the harlequin and columbine
set the example, reels are formed in less than no time, the Roman heroes
place their arms a-kimbo, and dance with considerable agility; and the
leading tragic actress, and the gentleman who enacts the &lsquo;swell&rsquo;
in the pantomime, foot it to perfection.&nbsp; &lsquo;All in to begin,&rsquo;
shouts the manager, when no more people can be induced to &lsquo;come
for&rsquo;erd,&rsquo; and away rush the leading members of the company
to do the dreadful in the first piece.</p>
<p>A change of performance takes place every day during the fair, but
the story of the tragedy is always pretty much the same.&nbsp; There
is a rightful heir, who loves a young lady, and is beloved by her; and
a wrongful heir, who loves her too, and isn&rsquo;t beloved by her;
and the wrongful heir gets hold of the rightful heir, and throws him
into a dungeon, just to kill him off when convenient, for which purpose
he hires a couple of assassins&mdash;a good one and a bad one&mdash;who,
the moment they are left alone, get up a little murder on their own
account, the good one killing the bad one, and the bad one wounding
the good one.&nbsp; Then the rightful heir is discovered in prison,
carefully holding a long chain in his hands, and seated despondingly
in a large arm-chair; and the young lady comes in to two bars of soft
music, and embraces the rightful heir; and then the wrongful heir comes
in to two bars of quick music (technically called &lsquo;a hurry&rsquo;),
and goes on in the most shocking manner, throwing the young lady about
as if she was nobody, and calling the rightful heir &lsquo;Ar-recreant&mdash;ar-wretch!&rsquo;
in a very loud voice, which answers the double purpose of displaying
his passion, and preventing the sound being deadened by the sawdust.&nbsp;
The interest becomes intense; the wrongful heir draws his sword, and
rushes on the rightful heir; a blue smoke is seen, a gong is heard,
and a tall white figure (who has been all this time, behind the arm-chair,
covered over with a table-cloth), slowly rises to the tune of &lsquo;Oft
in the stilly night.&rsquo;&nbsp; This is no other than the ghost of
the rightful heir&rsquo;s father, who was killed by the wrongful heir&rsquo;s
father, at sight of which the wrongful heir becomes apoplectic, and
is literally &lsquo;struck all of a heap,&rsquo; the stage not being
large enough to admit of his falling down at full length.&nbsp; Then
the good assassin staggers in, and says he was hired in conjunction
with the bad assassin, by the wrongful heir, to kill the rightful heir;
and he&rsquo;s killed a good many people in his time, but he&rsquo;s
very sorry for it, and won&rsquo;t do so any more&mdash;a promise which
he immediately redeems, by dying off hand without any nonsense about
it.&nbsp; Then the rightful heir throws down his chain; and then two
men, a sailor, and a young woman (the tenantry of the rightful heir)
come in, and the ghost makes dumb motions to them, which they, by supernatural
interference, understand&mdash;for no one else can; and the ghost (who
can&rsquo;t do anything without blue fire) blesses the rightful heir
and the young lady, by half suffocating them with smoke: and then a
muffin-bell rings, and the curtain drops.</p>
<p>The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant theatres are
the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly, the &lsquo;Wild-beast
shows,&rsquo; where a military band in beef-eater&rsquo;s costume, with
leopard-skin caps, play incessantly; and where large highly-coloured
representations of tigers tearing men&rsquo;s heads open, and a lion
being burnt with red-hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are
hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors.</p>
<p>The principal officer at these places is generally a very tall, hoarse
man, in a scarlet coat, with a cane in his hand, with which he occasionally
raps the pictures we have just noticed, by way of illustrating his description&mdash;something
in this way.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here, here, here; the lion, the lion (tap),
exactly as he is represented on the canvas outside (three taps): no
waiting, remember; no deception.&nbsp; The fe-ro-cious lion (tap, tap)
who bit off the gentleman&rsquo;s head last Cambervel vos a twelvemonth,
and has killed on the awerage three keepers a-year ever since he arrived
at matoority.&nbsp; No extra charge on this account recollect; the price
of admission is only sixpence.&rsquo;&nbsp; This address never fails
to produce a considerable sensation, and sixpences flow into the treasury
with wonderful rapidity.</p>
<p>The dwarfs are also objects of great curiosity, and as a dwarf, a
giantess, a living skeleton, a wild Indian, &lsquo;a young lady of singular
beauty, with perfectly white hair and pink eyes,&rsquo; and two or three
other natural curiosities, are usually exhibited together for the small
charge of a penny, they attract very numerous audiences.&nbsp; The best
thing about a dwarf is, that he has always a little box, about two feet
six inches high, into which, by long practice, he can just manage to
get, by doubling himself up like a boot-jack; this box is painted outside
like a six-roomed house, and as the crowd see him ring a bell, or fire
a pistol out of the first-floor window, they verily believe that it
is his ordinary town residence, divided like other mansions into drawing-rooms,
dining-parlour, and bedchambers.&nbsp; Shut up in this case, the unfortunate
little object is brought out to delight the throng by holding a facetious
dialogue with the proprietor: in the course of which, the dwarf (who
is always particularly drunk) pledges himself to sing a comic song inside,
and pays various compliments to the ladies, which induce them to &lsquo;come
for&rsquo;erd&rsquo; with great alacrity.&nbsp; As a giant is not so
easily moved, a pair of indescribables of most capacious dimensions,
and a huge shoe, are usually brought out, into which two or three stout
men get all at once, to the enthusiastic delight of the crowd, who are
quite satisfied with the solemn assurance that these habiliments form
part of the giant&rsquo;s everyday costume.</p>
<p>The grandest and most numerously-frequented booth in the whole fair,
however, is &lsquo;The Crown and Anchor&rsquo;&mdash;a temporary ball-room&mdash;we
forget how many hundred feet long, the price of admission to which is
one shilling.&nbsp; Immediately on your right hand as you enter, after
paying your money, is a refreshment place, at which cold beef, roast
and boiled, French rolls, stout, wine, tongue, ham, even fowls, if we
recollect right, are displayed in tempting array.&nbsp; There is a raised
orchestra, and the place is boarded all the way down, in patches, just
wide enough for a country dance.</p>
<p>There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden&mdash;all
is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied.&nbsp; The dust is blinding,
the heat insupportable, the company somewhat noisy, and in the highest
spirits possible: the ladies, in the height of their innocent animation,
dancing in the gentlemen&rsquo;s hats, and the gentlemen promenading
&lsquo;the gay and festive scene&rsquo; in the ladies&rsquo; bonnets,
or with the more expensive ornaments of false noses, and low-crowned,
tinder-box-looking hats: playing children&rsquo;s drums, and accompanied
by ladies on the penny trumpet.</p>
<p>The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting,
the &lsquo;scratchers,&rsquo; and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering.&nbsp;
The dancing, itself, beggars description&mdash;every figure lasts about
an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle, with a degree
of spirit which is quite indescribable.&nbsp; As to the gentlemen, they
stamp their feet against the ground, every time &lsquo;hands four round&rsquo;
begins, go down the middle and up again, with cigars in their mouths,
and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their partners round,
nothing loth, scrambling and falling, and embracing, and knocking up
against the other couples, until they are fairly tired out, and can
move no longer.&nbsp; The same scene is repeated again and again (slightly
varied by an occasional &lsquo;row&rsquo;) until a late hour at night:
and a great many clerks and &rsquo;prentices find themselves next morning
with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect
recollection of how it was they did <i>not</i> get home.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XIII&mdash;PRIVATE THEATRES</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;RICHARD THE THIRD.&mdash;DUKE OF GLO&rsquo;STER 2<i>l</i>.;
EARL OF RICHMOND, 1<i>l</i>; DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 15<i>s</i>.; CATESBY,
12<i>s</i>.; TRESSEL, 10<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.; LORD STANLEY, 5<i>s</i>.;
LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, 2<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen&rsquo;s
dressing-room, or the green-room (where there is any), at a private
theatre; and such are the sums extracted from the shop-till, or overcharged
in the office expenditure, by the donkeys who are prevailed upon to
pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism
on the stage of a private theatre.&nbsp; This they do, in proportion
to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility.&nbsp;
For instance, the Duke of Glo&rsquo;ster is well worth two pounds, because
he has it all to himself; he must wear a real sword, and what is better
still, he must draw it, several times in the course of the piece.&nbsp;
The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings; then there is
the stabbing King Henry&mdash;decidedly cheap at three-and-sixpence,
that&rsquo;s eighteen-and-sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers&mdash;say
eighteen-pence, though it&rsquo;s worth much more&mdash;that&rsquo;s
a pound.&nbsp; Then the love scene with Lady Ann, and the bustle of
the fourth act can&rsquo;t be dear at ten shillings more&mdash;that&rsquo;s
only one pound ten, including the &lsquo;off with his head!&rsquo;&mdash;which
is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do&mdash;&lsquo;Orf
with his ed&rsquo; (very quick and loud;&mdash;then slow and sneeringly)&mdash;&lsquo;So
much for Bu-u-u-uckingham!&rsquo;&nbsp; Lay the emphasis on the &rsquo;uck;&rsquo;
get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand,
while you&rsquo;re saying it, as if you were feeling your way, and it&rsquo;s
sure to do.&nbsp; The tent scene is confessedly worth half-a-sovereign,
and so you have the fight in, gratis, and everybody knows what an effect
may be produced by a good combat.&nbsp; One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;four&mdash;over;
then, one&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;four&mdash;under; then thrust;
then dodge and slide about; then fall down on one knee; then fight upon
it, and then get up again and stagger.&nbsp; You may keep on doing this,
as long as it seems to take&mdash;say ten minutes&mdash;and then fall
down (backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself), and
die game: nothing like it for producing an effect.&nbsp; They always
do it at Astley&rsquo;s and Sadler&rsquo;s Wells, and if they don&rsquo;t
know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does?&nbsp; A small
child, or a female in white, increases the interest of a combat materially&mdash;indeed,
we are not aware that a regular legitimate terrific broadsword combat
could be done without; but it would be rather difficult, and somewhat
unusual, to introduce this effect in the last scene of Richard the Third,
so the only thing to be done, is, just to make the best of a bad bargain,
and be as long as possible fighting it out.</p>
<p>The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys, low copying-clerks,
in attorneys&rsquo; offices, capacious-headed youths from city counting-houses,
Jews whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport
to the amateur stage, shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters&rsquo;
money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds.&nbsp;
The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene-painter, a low
coffee-house-keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a retired smuggler,
or uncertificated bankrupt.&nbsp; The theatre itself may be in Catherine-street,
Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray&rsquo;s-inn-lane,
or the vicinity of Sadler&rsquo;s Wells; or it may, perhaps, form the
chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo-bridge.</p>
<p>The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless
to add, are usually selected from one class of society; the audiences
are necessarily of much the same character as the performers, who receive,
in return for their contributions to the management, tickets to the
amount of the money they pay.</p>
<p>All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute
the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood.&nbsp; Each of them
has an audience exclusively its own; and at any you will see dropping
into the pit at half-price, or swaggering into the back of a box, if
the price of admission be a reduced one, divers boys of from fifteen
to twenty-one years of age, who throw back their coat and turn up their
wristbands, after the portraits of Count D&rsquo;Orsay, hum tunes and
whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the people near
them, that they are not at all anxious to have it up again, and speak
familiarly of the inferior performers as Bill Such-a-one, and Ned So-and-so,
or tell each other how a new piece called <i>The Unknown Bandit</i>
<i>of the Invisible Cavern</i>, is in rehearsal; how Mister Palmer is
to play <i>The Unknown Bandit</i>; how Charley Scarton is to take the
part of an English sailor, and fight a broadsword combat with six unknown
bandits, at one and the same time (one theatrical sailor is always equal
to half a dozen men at least); how Mister Palmer and Charley Scarton
are to go through a double hornpipe in fetters in the second act; how
the interior of the invisible cavern is to occupy the whole extent of
the stage; and other town-surprising theatrical announcements.&nbsp;
These gentlemen are the amateurs&mdash;the <i>Richards, Shylocks, Beverleys</i>,
and <i>Othellos&mdash;</i>the <i>Young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes</i>,
and <i>Charles Surfaces&mdash;</i>a private theatre.</p>
<p>See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatrical coffee-shop!&nbsp;
They are the kings of the place, supposing no real performers to be
present; and roll about, hats on one side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they
had actually come into possession of eighteen shillings a-week, and
a share of a ticket night.&nbsp; If one of them does but know an Astley&rsquo;s
supernumerary he is a happy fellow.&nbsp; The mingled air of envy and
admiration with which his companions will regard him, as he converses
familiarly with some mouldy-looking man in a fancy neckerchief, whose
partially corked eyebrows, and half-rouged face, testify to the fact
of his having just left the stage or the circle, sufficiently shows
in what high admiration these public characters are held.</p>
<p>With the double view of guarding against the discovery of friends
or employers, and enhancing the interest of an assumed character, by
attaching a high-sounding name to its representative, these geniuses
assume fictitious names, which are not the least amusing part of the
play-bill of a private theatre.&nbsp; Belville, Melville, Treville,
Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the humblest;
and the less imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thomson, Barker, Solomons,
&amp;c., are completely laid aside.&nbsp; There is something imposing
in this, and it is an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain.&nbsp;
A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of
trousers&mdash;nay, even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances
are very uncommon among the members of the <i>corps dramatique</i>),
may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and to prevent the remotest
chance of recognition.&nbsp; Then it prevents any troublesome inquiries
or explanations about employment and pursuits; everybody is a gentleman
at large, for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and
unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb
elsewhere.&nbsp; As to the ladies (God bless them), they are quite above
any formal absurdities; the mere circumstance of your being behind the
scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society&mdash;for of course
they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted
into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders.&nbsp;
They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt; and as to the
manager, he is all affability when he knows you well,&mdash;or, in other
words, when he has pocketed your money once, and entertains confident
hopes of doing so again.</p>
<p>A quarter before eight&mdash;there will be a full house to-night&mdash;six
parties in the boxes, already; four little boys and a woman in the pit;
and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five
overtures since seven o&rsquo;clock (the hour fixed for the commencement
of the performances), and have just begun the sixth.&nbsp; There will
be plenty of it, though, when it does begin, for there is enough in
the bill to last six hours at least.</p>
<p>That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and
brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O. P. side, is Mr.
Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins.&nbsp; His line is genteel comedy&mdash;his
father&rsquo;s, coal and potato.&nbsp; He <i>does</i> Alfred Highflier
in the last piece, and very well he&rsquo;ll do it&mdash;at the price.&nbsp;
The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded,
are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the
<i>Macbeth</i> of the night.&nbsp; You observe their attempts to appear
easy and gentlemanly, each member of the party, with his feet cocked
upon the cushion in front of the box!&nbsp; They let them do these things
here, upon the same humane principle which permits poor people&rsquo;s
children to knock double knocks at the door of an empty house&mdash;because
they can&rsquo;t do it anywhere else.&nbsp; The two stout men in the
centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are
friends of the proprietor&mdash;opulent country managers, as he confidentially
informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain&mdash;opulent
country managers looking out for recruits; a representation which Mr.
Nathan, the dresser, who is in the manager&rsquo;s interest, and has
just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required&mdash;corroborative
evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at
once.</p>
<p>The stout Jewess who has just entered, is the mother of the pale,
bony little girl, with the necklace of blue glass beads, sitting by
her; she is being brought up to &lsquo;the profession.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Pantomime is to be her line, and she is coming out to-night, in a hornpipe
after the tragedy.&nbsp; The short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose
white face is so deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt-front
is inlaid with open-work, and embossed with coral studs like ladybirds,
is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment.&nbsp; The
remainder of the audience&mdash;a tolerably numerous one by this time&mdash;are
a motley group of dupes and blackguards.</p>
<p>The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the wicks of the
six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes, are being turned
up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence
of dirt, and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feature in the
audience part of the house.&nbsp; As these preparations, however, announce
the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep &lsquo;behind,&rsquo;
previous to the ringing-up.</p>
<p>The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither especially
clean nor too brilliantly lighted; and the absence of any flooring,
together with the damp mildewy smell which pervades the place, does
not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance.&nbsp;
Don&rsquo;t fall over this plate basket&mdash;it&rsquo;s one of the
&lsquo;properties&rsquo;&mdash;the caldron for the witches&rsquo; cave;
and the three uncouth-looking figures, with broken clothes-props in
their hands, who are drinking gin-and-water out of a pint pot, are the
weird sisters.&nbsp; This miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces
placed at lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room,
common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole in the ceiling
is <i>the</i> trap-door of the stage above.&nbsp; You will observe that
the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards, and
tastefully hung with cobwebs.</p>
<p>The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own clothes
are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden dresser which surrounds
the room.&nbsp; That snuff-shop-looking figure, in front of the glass,
is <i>Banquo</i>: and the young lady with the liberal display of legs,
who is kindly painting his face with a hare&rsquo;s foot, is dressed
for <i>Fleance</i>.&nbsp; The large woman, who is consulting the stage
directions in Cumberland&rsquo;s edition of <i>Macbeth</i>, is the <i>Lady
Macbeth</i> of the night; she is always selected to play the part, because
she is tall and stout, and <i>looks</i> a little like Mrs. Siddons&mdash;at
a considerable distance.&nbsp; That stupid-looking milksop, with light
hair and bow legs&mdash;a kind of man whom you can warrant town-made&mdash;is
fresh caught; he plays <i>Malcolm</i> to-night, just to accustom himself
to an audience.&nbsp; He will get on better by degrees; he will play
<i>Othello</i> in a month, and in a month more, will very probably be
apprehended on a charge of embezzlement.&nbsp; The black-eyed female
with whom he is talking so earnestly, is dressed for the &lsquo;gentlewoman.&rsquo;&nbsp;
It is <i>her</i> first appearance, too&mdash;in that character.&nbsp;
The boy of fourteen who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and
whitening, is <i>Duncan</i>, King of Scotland; and the two dirty men
with the corked countenances, in very old green tunics, and dirty drab
boots, are the &lsquo;army.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Look sharp below there, gents,&rsquo; exclaims the dresser,
a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap, &lsquo;they&rsquo;re
a-going to ring up.&nbsp; The flute says he&rsquo;ll be blowed if he
plays any more, and they&rsquo;re getting precious noisy in front.&rsquo;&nbsp;
A general rush immediately takes place to the half-dozen little steep
steps leading to the stage, and the heterogeneous group are soon assembled
at the side scenes, in breathless anxiety and motley confusion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; cries the manager, consulting the written list
which hangs behind the first P. S, wing, &lsquo;Scene 1, open country&mdash;lamps
down&mdash;thunder and lightning&mdash;all ready, White?&rsquo;&nbsp;
[This is addressed to one of the army.]&nbsp; &lsquo;All ready.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Very
well.&nbsp; Scene 2, front chamber.&nbsp; Is the front chamber down?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Very
well.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Jones&rsquo; [to the other army who is up
in the flies].&nbsp; &lsquo;Hallo!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Wind up the open
country when we ring up.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll take care.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Scene
3, back perspective with practical bridge.&nbsp; Bridge ready, White?&nbsp;
Got the tressels there?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;All right.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well.&nbsp; Clear the stage,&rsquo; cries the manager,
hastily packing every member of the company into the little space there
is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and another.&nbsp; &lsquo;Places,
places.&nbsp; Now then, Witches&mdash;Duncan&mdash;Malcolm&mdash;bleeding
officer&mdash;where&rsquo;s the bleeding officer?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Here!&rsquo;
replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Get ready, then; now, White, ring the second music-bell.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The actors who are to be discovered, are hastily arranged, and the actors
who are not to be discovered place themselves, in their anxiety to peep
at the house, just where the audience can see them.&nbsp; The bell rings,
and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct
chords.&nbsp; The bell rings&mdash;the tragedy (!) opens&mdash;and our
description closes.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XIV&mdash;VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There was a time when if a man ventured to wonder how Vauxhall-gardens
would look by day, he was hailed with a shout of derision at the absurdity
of the idea.&nbsp; Vauxhall by daylight!&nbsp; A porter-pot without
porter, the House of Commons without the Speaker, a gas-lamp without
the gas&mdash;pooh, nonsense, the thing was not to be thought of.&nbsp;
It was rumoured, too, in those times, that Vauxhall-gardens by day,
were the scene of secret and hidden experiments; that there, carvers
were exercised in the mystic art of cutting a moderate-sized ham into
slices thin enough to pave the whole of the grounds; that beneath the
shade of the tall trees, studious men were constantly engaged in chemical
experiments, with the view of discovering how much water a bowl of negus
could possibly bear; and that in some retired nooks, appropriated to
the study of ornithology, other sage and learned men were, by a process
known only to themselves, incessantly employed in reducing fowls to
a mere combination of skin and bone.</p>
<p>Vague rumours of this kind, together with many others of a similar
nature, cast over Vauxhall-gardens an air of deep mystery; and as there
is a great deal in the mysterious, there is no doubt that to a good
many people, at all events, the pleasure they afforded was not a little
enhanced by this very circumstance.</p>
<p>Of this class of people we confess to having made one.&nbsp; We loved
to wander among these illuminated groves, thinking of the patient and
laborious researches which had been carried on there during the day,
and witnessing their results in the suppers which were served up beneath
the light of lamps and to the sound of music at night.&nbsp; The temples
and saloons and cosmoramas and fountains glittered and sparkled before
our eyes; the beauty of the lady singers and the elegant deportment
of the gentlemen, captivated our hearts; a few hundred thousand of additional
lamps dazzled our senses; a bowl or two of punch bewildered our brains;
and we were happy.</p>
<p>In an evil hour, the proprietors of Vauxhall-gardens took to opening
them by day.&nbsp; We regretted this, as rudely and harshly disturbing
that veil of mystery which had hung about the property for many years,
and which none but the noonday sun, and the late Mr. Simpson, had ever
penetrated.&nbsp; We shrunk from going; at this moment we scarcely know
why.&nbsp; Perhaps a morbid consciousness of approaching disappointment&mdash;perhaps
a fatal presentiment&mdash;perhaps the weather; whatever it was, we
did <i>not</i> go until the second or third announcement of a race between
two balloons tempted us, and we went.</p>
<p>We paid our shilling at the gate, and then we saw for the first time,
that the entrance, if there had been any magic about it at all, was
now decidedly disenchanted, being, in fact, nothing more nor less than
a combination of very roughly-painted boards and sawdust.&nbsp; We glanced
at the orchestra and supper-room as we hurried past&mdash;we just recognised
them, and that was all.&nbsp; We bent our steps to the firework-ground;
there, at least, we should not be disappointed.&nbsp; We reached it,
and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and astonishment.&nbsp;
<i>That</i> the Moorish tower&mdash;that wooden shed with a door in
the centre, and daubs of crimson and yellow all round, like a gigantic
watch-case!&nbsp; <i>That</i> the place where night after night we had
beheld the undaunted Mr. Blackmore make his terrific ascent, surrounded
by flames of fire, and peals of artillery, and where the white garments
of Madame Somebody (we forget even her name now), who nobly devoted
her life to the manufacture of fireworks, had so often been seen fluttering
in the wind, as she called up a red, blue, or party-coloured light to
illumine her temple!&nbsp; <i>That</i> the&mdash;but at this moment
the bell rung; the people scampered away, pell-mell, to the spot from
whence the sound proceeded; and we, from the mere force of habit, found
ourself running among the first, as if for very life.</p>
<p>It was for the concert in the orchestra.&nbsp; A small party of dismal
men in cocked hats were &lsquo;executing&rsquo; the overture to <i>Tancredi</i>,
and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, with their families,
had rushed from their half-emptied stout mugs in the supper boxes, and
crowded to the spot.&nbsp; Intense was the low murmur of admiration
when a particularly small gentleman, in a dress coat, led on a particularly
tall lady in a blue sarcenet pelisse and bonnet of the same, ornamented
with large white feathers, and forthwith commenced a plaintive duet.</p>
<p>We knew the small gentleman well; we had seen a lithographed semblance
of him, on many a piece of music, with his mouth wide open as if in
the act of singing; a wine-glass in his hand; and a table with two decanters
and four pine-apples on it in the background.&nbsp; The tall lady, too,
we had gazed on, lost in raptures of admiration, many and many a time&mdash;how
different people <i>do</i> look by daylight, and without punch, to be
sure!&nbsp; It was a beautiful duet: first the small gentleman asked
a question, and then the tall lady answered it; then the small gentleman
and the tall lady sang together most melodiously; then the small gentleman
went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor
indeed, in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded
in a similar manner; then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after
which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly
into the original air: and the band wound themselves up to a pitch of
fury, and the small gentleman handed the tall lady out, and the applause
was rapturous.</p>
<p>The comic singer, however, was the especial favourite; we really
thought that a gentleman, with his dinner in a pocket-handkerchief,
who stood near us, would have fainted with excess of joy.&nbsp; A marvellously
facetious gentleman that comic singer is; his distinguishing characteristics
are, a wig approaching to the flaxen, and an aged countenance, and he
bears the name of one of the English counties, if we recollect right.&nbsp;
He sang a very good song about the seven ages, the first half-hour of
which afforded the assembly the purest delight; of the rest we can make
no report, as we did not stay to hear any more.</p>
<p>We walked about, and met with a disappointment at every turn; our
favourite views were mere patches of paint; the fountain that had sparkled
so showily by lamp-light, presented very much the appearance of a water-pipe
that had burst; all the ornaments were dingy, and all the walks gloomy.&nbsp;
There was a spectral attempt at rope-dancing in the little open theatre.&nbsp;
The sun shone upon the spangled dresses of the performers, and their
evolutions were about as inspiriting and appropriate as a country-dance
in a family vault.&nbsp; So we retraced our steps to the firework-ground,
and mingled with the little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr.
Green.</p>
<p>Some half-dozen men were restraining the impetuosity of one of the
balloons, which was completely filled, and had the car already attached;
and as rumours had gone abroad that a Lord was &lsquo;going up,&rsquo;
the crowd were more than usually anxious and talkative.&nbsp; There
was one little man in faded black, with a dirty face and a rusty black
neckerchief with a red border, tied in a narrow wisp round his neck,
who entered into conversation with everybody, and had something to say
upon every remark that was made within his hearing.&nbsp; He was standing
with his arms folded, staring up at the balloon, and every now and then
vented his feelings of reverence for the a&euml;ronaut, by saying, as
he looked round to catch somebody&rsquo;s eye, &lsquo;He&rsquo;s a rum
&rsquo;un is Green; think o&rsquo; this here being up&rsquo;ards of
his two hundredth ascent; ecod, the man as is ekal to Green never had
the toothache yet, nor won&rsquo;t have within this hundred year, and
that&rsquo;s all about it.&nbsp; When you meets with real talent, and
native, too, encourage it, that&rsquo;s what I say;&rsquo; and when
he had delivered himself to this effect, he would fold his arms with
more determination than ever, and stare at the balloon with a sort of
admiring defiance of any other man alive, beyond himself and Green,
that impressed the crowd with the opinion that he was an oracle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, you&rsquo;re very right, sir,&rsquo; said another gentleman,
with his wife, and children, and mother, and wife&rsquo;s sister, and
a host of female friends, in all the gentility of white pocket-handkerchiefs,
frills, and spencers, &lsquo;Mr. Green is a steady hand, sir, and there&rsquo;s
no fear about him.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fear!&rsquo; said the little man: &lsquo;isn&rsquo;t it a
lovely thing to see him and his wife a going up in one balloon, and
his own son and <i>his</i> wife a jostling up against them in another,
and all of them going twenty or thirty mile in three hours or so, and
then coming back in pochayses?&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know where this here
science is to stop, mind you; that&rsquo;s what bothers me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here there was a considerable talking among the females in the spencers.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the ladies a laughing at, sir?&rsquo; inquired
the little man, condescendingly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s only my sister Mary,&rsquo; said one of the girls,
&lsquo;as says she hopes his lordship won&rsquo;t be frightened when
he&rsquo;s in the car, and want to come out again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Make yourself easy about that there, my dear,&rsquo; replied
the little man.&nbsp; &lsquo;If he was so much as to move a inch without
leave, Green would jist fetch him a crack over the head with the telescope,
as would send him into the bottom of the basket in no time, and stun
him till they come down again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Would he, though?&rsquo; inquired the other man.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, would he,&rsquo; replied the little one, &lsquo;and think
nothing of it, neither, if he was the king himself.&nbsp; Green&rsquo;s
presence of mind is wonderful.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the preparations which
were being made for starting.&nbsp; The car was attached to the second
balloon, the two were brought pretty close together, and a military
band commenced playing, with a zeal and fervour which would render the
most timid man in existence but too happy to accept any means of quitting
that particular spot of earth on which they were stationed.&nbsp; Then
Mr. Green, sen., and his noble companion entered one car, and Mr. Green,
jun., and <i>his</i> companion the other; and then the balloons went
up, and the a&euml;rial travellers stood up, and the crowd outside roared
with delight, and the two gentlemen who had never ascended before, tried
to wave their flags, as if they were not nervous, but held on very fast
all the while; and the balloons were wafted gently away, our little
friend solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere specks
in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green.&nbsp;
The gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys ran up and down screaming
&lsquo;bal-loon;&rsquo; and in all the crowded thoroughfares people
rushed out of their shops into the middle of the road, and having stared
up in the air at two little black objects till they almost dislocated
their necks, walked slowly in again, perfectly satisfied.</p>
<p>The next day there was a grand account of the ascent in the morning
papers, and the public were informed how it was the finest day but four
in Mr. Green&rsquo;s remembrance; how they retained sight of the earth
till they lost it behind the clouds; and how the reflection of the balloon
on the undulating masses of vapour was gorgeously picturesque; together
with a little science about the refraction of the sun&rsquo;s rays,
and some mysterious hints respecting atmospheric heat and eddying currents
of air.</p>
<p>There was also an interesting account how a man in a boat was distinctly
heard by Mr. Green, jun., to exclaim, &lsquo;My eye!&rsquo; which Mr.
Green, jun., attributed to his voice rising to the balloon, and the
sound being thrown back from its surface into the car; and the whole
concluded with a slight allusion to another ascent next Wednesday, all
of which was very instructive and very amusing, as our readers will
see if they look to the papers.&nbsp; If we have forgotten to mention
the date, they have only to wait till next summer, and take the account
of the first ascent, and it will answer the purpose equally well.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XV&mdash;EARLY COACHES</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have often wondered how many months&rsquo; incessant travelling
in a post-chaise it would take to kill a man; and wondering by analogy,
we should very much like to know how many months of constant travelling
in a succession of early coaches, an unfortunate mortal could endure.&nbsp;
Breaking a man alive upon the wheel, would be nothing to breaking his
rest, his peace, his heart&mdash;everything but his fast&mdash;upon
four; and the punishment of Ixion (the only practical person, by-the-bye,
who has discovered the secret of the perpetual motion) would sink into
utter insignificance before the one we have suggested.&nbsp; If we had
been a powerful churchman in those good times when blood was shed as
freely as water, and men were mowed down like grass, in the sacred cause
of religion, we would have lain by very quietly till we got hold of
some especially obstinate miscreant, who positively refused to be converted
to our faith, and then we would have booked him for an inside place
in a small coach, which travelled day and night: and securing the remainder
of the places for stout men with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting,
we would have started him forth on his last travels: leaving him mercilessly
to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords, coachmen, guards,
boots, chambermaids, and other familiars on his line of road, might
think proper to inflict.</p>
<p>Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a
summons to undertake a hasty journey?&nbsp; You receive an intimation
from your place of business&mdash;wherever that may be, or whatever
you may be&mdash;that it will be necessary to leave town without delay.&nbsp;
You and your family are forthwith thrown into a state of tremendous
excitement; an express is immediately dispatched to the washerwoman&rsquo;s;
everybody is in a bustle; and you, yourself, with a feeling of dignity
which you cannot altogether conceal, sally forth to the booking-office
to secure your place.&nbsp; Here a painful consciousness of your own
unimportance first rushes on your mind&mdash;the people are as cool
and collected as if nobody were going out of town, or as if a journey
of a hundred odd miles were a mere nothing.&nbsp; You enter a mouldy-looking
room, ornamented with large posting-bills; the greater part of the place
enclosed behind a huge, lumbering, rough counter, and fitted up with
recesses that look like the dens of the smaller animals in a travelling
menagerie, without the bars.&nbsp; Some half-dozen people are &lsquo;booking&rsquo;
brown-paper parcels, which one of the clerks flings into the aforesaid
recesses with an air of recklessness which you, remembering the new
carpet-bag you bought in the morning, feel considerably annoyed at;
porters, looking like so many Atlases, keep rushing in and out, with
large packages on their shoulders; and while you are waiting to make
the necessary inquiries, you wonder what on earth the booking-office
clerks can have been before they were booking-office clerks; one of
them with his pen behind his ear, and his hands behind him, is standing
in front of the fire, like a full-length portrait of Napoleon; the other
with his hat half off his head, enters the passengers&rsquo; names in
the books with a coolness which is inexpressibly provoking; and the
villain whistles&mdash;actually whistles&mdash;while a man asks him
what the fare is outside, all the way to Holyhead!&mdash;in frosty weather,
too!&nbsp; They are clearly an isolated race, evidently possessing no
sympathies or feelings in common with the rest of mankind.&nbsp; Your
turn comes at last, and having paid the fare, you tremblingly inquire&mdash;&lsquo;What
time will it be necessary for me to be here in the morning?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Six
o&rsquo;clock,&rsquo; replies the whistler, carelessly pitching the
sovereign you have just parted with, into a wooden bowl on the desk.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Rather before than arter,&rsquo; adds the man with the semi-roasted
unmentionables, with just as much ease and complacency as if the whole
world got out of bed at five.&nbsp; You turn into the street, ruminating
as you bend your steps homewards on the extent to which men become hardened
in cruelty, by custom.</p>
<p>If there be one thing in existence more miserable than another, it
most unquestionably is the being compelled to rise by candlelight.&nbsp;
If you have ever doubted the fact, you are painfully convinced of your
error, on the morning of your departure.&nbsp; You left strict orders,
overnight, to be called at half-past four, and you have done nothing
all night but doze for five minutes at a time, and start up suddenly
from a terrific dream of a large church-clock with the small hand running
round, with astonishing rapidity, to every figure on the dial-plate.&nbsp;
At last, completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a refreshing
sleep&mdash;your thoughts grow confused&mdash;the stage-coaches, which
have been &lsquo;going off&rsquo; before your eyes all night, become
less and less distinct, until they go off altogether; one moment you
are driving with all the skill and smartness of an experienced whip&mdash;the
next you are exhibiting <i>&agrave; la</i> Ducrow, on the off-leader;
anon you are closely muffled up, inside, and have just recognised in
the person of the guard an old schoolfellow, whose funeral, even in
your dream, you remember to have attended eighteen years ago.&nbsp;
At last you fall into a state of complete oblivion, from which you are
aroused, as if into a new state of existence, by a singular illusion.&nbsp;
You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or wherefore,
you don&rsquo;t take the trouble to inquire; but there you are, pasting
the lining in the lid of a portmanteau.&nbsp; Confound that other apprentice
in the back shop, how he is hammering!&mdash;rap, rap, rap&mdash;what
an industrious fellow he must be! you have heard him at work for half
an hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time.&nbsp;
Rap, rap, rap, again&mdash;he&rsquo;s talking now&mdash;what&rsquo;s
that he said?&nbsp; Five o&rsquo;clock!&nbsp; You make a violent exertion,
and start up in bed.&nbsp; The vision is at once dispelled; the trunk-maker&rsquo;s
shop is your own bedroom, and the other apprentice your shivering servant,
who has been vainly endeavouring to wake you for the last quarter of
an hour, at the imminent risk of breaking either his own knuckles or
the panels of the door.</p>
<p>You proceed to dress yourself, with all possible dispatch.&nbsp;
The flaring flat candle with the long snuff, gives light enough to show
that the things you want, are not where they ought to be, and you undergo
a trifling delay in consequence of having carefully packed up one of
your boots in your over-anxiety of the preceding night.&nbsp; You soon
complete your toilet, however, for you are not particular on such an
occasion, and you shaved yesterday evening; so mounting your Petersham
great-coat, and green travelling shawl, and grasping your carpet-bag
in your right hand, you walk lightly down-stairs, lest you should awaken
any of the family, and after pausing in the common sitting-room for
one moment, just to have a cup of coffee (the said common sitting-room
looking remarkably comfortable, with everything out of its place, and
strewed with the crumbs of last night&rsquo;s supper), you undo the
chain and bolts of the street-door, and find yourself fairly in the
street.</p>
<p>A thaw, by all that is miserable!&nbsp; The frost is completely broken
up. You look down the long perspective of Oxford-street, the gas-lights
mournfully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern no speck in
the road to encourage the belief that there is a cab or a coach to be
had&mdash;the very coachmen have gone home in despair.&nbsp; The cold
sleet is drizzling down with that gentle regularity, which betokens
a duration of four-and-twenty hours at least; the damp hangs upon the
house-tops and lamp-posts, and clings to you like an invisible cloak.&nbsp;
The water is &lsquo;coming in&rsquo; in every area, the pipes have burst,
the water-butts are running over; the kennels seem to be doing matches
against time, pump-handles descend of their own accord, horses in market-carts
fall down, and there&rsquo;s no one to help them up again, policemen
look as if they had been carefully sprinkled with powdered glass; here
and there a milk-woman trudges slowly along, with a bit of list round
each foot to keep her from slipping; boys who &lsquo;don&rsquo;t sleep
in the house,&rsquo; and are not allowed much sleep out of it, can&rsquo;t
wake their masters by thundering at the shop-door, and cry with the
cold&mdash;the compound of ice, snow, and water on the pavement, is
a couple of inches thick&mdash;nobody ventures to walk fast to keep
himself warm, and nobody could succeed in keeping himself warm if he
did.</p>
<p>It strikes a quarter past five as you trudge down Waterloo-place
on your way to the Golden Cross, and you discover, for the first time,
that you were called about an hour too early.&nbsp; You have not time
to go back; there is no place open to go into, and you have, therefore,
no resource but to go forward, which you do, feeling remarkably satisfied
with yourself, and everything about you.&nbsp; You arrive at the office,
and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham High-flier, which,
for aught you can see, may have flown away altogether, for preparations
appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of
a coach.&nbsp; You wander into the booking-office, which with the gas-lights
and blazing fire, looks quite comfortable by contrast&mdash;that is
to say, if any place <i>can</i> look comfortable at half-past five on
a winter&rsquo;s morning.&nbsp; There stands the identical book-keeper
in the same position as if he had not moved since you saw him yesterday.&nbsp;
As he informs you, that the coach is up the yard, and will be brought
round in about a quarter of an hour, you leave your bag, and repair
to &lsquo;The Tap&rsquo;&mdash;not with any absurd idea of warming yourself,
because you feel such a result to be utterly hopeless, but for the purpose
of procuring some hot brandy-and-water, which you do,&mdash;when the
kettle boils! an event which occurs exactly two minutes and a half before
the time fixed for the starting of the coach.</p>
<p>The first stroke of six, peals from St. Martin&rsquo;s church steeple,
just as you take the first sip of the boiling liquid.&nbsp; You find
yourself at the booking-office in two seconds, and the tap-waiter finds
himself much comforted by your brandy-and-water, in about the same period.&nbsp;
The coach is out; the horses are in, and the guard and two or three
porters, are stowing the luggage away, and running up the steps of the
booking-office, and down the steps of the booking-office, with breathless
rapidity.&nbsp; The place, which a few minutes ago was so still and
quiet, is now all bustle; the early vendors of the morning papers have
arrived, and you are assailed on all sides with shouts of <i>&lsquo;Times</i>,
gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n, <i>Times</i>,&rsquo; &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s<i> Chron&mdash;Chron&mdash;Chron</i>,&rsquo;
&lsquo;<i>Herald</i>, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Highly interesting
murder, gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n,&rsquo; &lsquo;Curious case o&rsquo; breach
o&rsquo; promise, ladies.&rsquo;&nbsp; The inside passengers are already
in their dens, and the outsides, with the exception of yourself, are
pacing up and down the pavement to keep themselves warm; they consist
of two young men with very long hair, to which the sleet has communicated
the appearance of crystallised rats&rsquo; tails; one thin young woman
cold and peevish, one old gentleman ditto ditto, and something in a
cloak and cap, intended to represent a military officer; every member
of the party, with a large stiff shawl over his chin, looking exactly
as if he were playing a set of Pan&rsquo;s pipes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off the cloths, Bob,&rsquo; says the coachman, who now
appears for the first time, in a rough blue great-coat, of which the
buttons behind are so far apart, that you can&rsquo;t see them both
at the same time.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now, gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n,&rsquo; cries
the guard, with the waybill in his hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;Five minutes behind
time already!&rsquo;&nbsp; Up jump the passengers&mdash;the two young
men smoking like lime-kilns, and the old gentleman grumbling audibly.&nbsp;
The thin young woman is got upon the roof, by dint of a great deal of
pulling, and pushing, and helping and trouble, and she repays it by
expressing her solemn conviction that she will never be able to get
down again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;All right,&rsquo; sings out the guard at last, jumping up
as the coach starts, and blowing his horn directly afterwards, in proof
of the soundness of his wind.&nbsp; &lsquo;Let &rsquo;em go, Harry,
give &rsquo;em their heads,&rsquo; cries the coachman&mdash;and off
we start as briskly as if the morning were &lsquo;all right,&rsquo;
as well as the coach: and looking forward as anxiously to the termination
of our journey, as we fear our readers will have done, long since, to
the conclusion of our paper.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XVI&mdash;OMNIBUSES</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is very generally allowed that public conveyances afford an extensive
field for amusement and observation.&nbsp; Of all the public conveyances
that have been constructed since the days of the Ark&mdash;we think
that is the earliest on record&mdash;to the present time, commend us
to an omnibus.&nbsp; A long stage is not to be despised, but there you
have only six insides, and the chances are, that the same people go
all the way with you&mdash;there is no change, no variety.&nbsp; Besides,
after the first twelve hours or so, people get cross and sleepy, and
when you have seen a man in his nightcap, you lose all respect for him;
at least, that is the case with us.&nbsp; Then on smooth roads people
frequently get prosy, and tell long stories, and even those who don&rsquo;t
talk, may have very unpleasant predilections.&nbsp; We once travelled
four hundred miles, inside a stage-coach, with a stout man, who had
a glass of rum-and-water, warm, handed in at the window at every place
where we changed horses.&nbsp; This was decidedly unpleasant.&nbsp;
We have also travelled occasionally, with a small boy of a pale aspect,
with light hair, and no perceptible neck, coming up to town from school
under the protection of the guard, and directed to be left at the Cross
Keys till called for.&nbsp; This is, perhaps, even worse than rum-and-water
in a close atmosphere.&nbsp; Then there is the whole train of evils
consequent on a change of the coachman; and the misery of the discovery&mdash;which
the guard is sure to make the moment you begin to doze&mdash;that he
wants a brown-paper parcel, which he distinctly remembers to have deposited
under the seat on which you are reposing.&nbsp; A great deal of bustle
and groping takes place, and when you are thoroughly awakened, and severely
cramped, by holding your legs up by an almost supernatural exertion,
while he is looking behind them, it suddenly occurs to him that he put
it in the fore-boot.&nbsp; Bang goes the door; the parcel is immediately
found; off starts the coach again; and the guard plays the key-bugle
as loud as he can play it, as if in mockery of your wretchedness.</p>
<p>Now, you meet with none of these afflictions in an omnibus; sameness
there can never be.&nbsp; The passengers change as often in the course
of one journey as the figures in a kaleidoscope, and though not so glittering,
are far more amusing.&nbsp; We believe there is no instance on record,
of a man&rsquo;s having gone to sleep in one of these vehicles.&nbsp;
As to long stories, would any man venture to tell a long story in an
omnibus? and even if he did, where would be the harm? nobody could possibly
hear what he was talking about.&nbsp; Again; children, though occasionally,
are not often to be found in an omnibus; and even when they are, if
the vehicle be full, as is generally the case, somebody sits upon them,
and we are unconscious of their presence.&nbsp; Yes, after mature reflection,
and considerable experience, we are decidedly of opinion, that of all
known vehicles, from the glass-coach in which we were taken to be christened,
to that sombre caravan in which we must one day make our last earthly
journey, there is nothing like an omnibus.</p>
<p>We will back the machine in which we make our daily peregrination
from the top of Oxford-street to the city, against any &lsquo;buss&rsquo;
on the road, whether it be for the gaudiness of its exterior, the perfect
simplicity of its interior, or the native coolness of its cad.&nbsp;
This young gentleman is a singular instance of self-devotion; his somewhat
intemperate zeal on behalf of his employers, is constantly getting him
into trouble, and occasionally into the house of correction.&nbsp; He
is no sooner emancipated, however, than he resumes the duties of his
profession with unabated ardour.&nbsp; His principal distinction is
his activity.&nbsp; His great boast is, &lsquo;that he can chuck an
old gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n into the buss, shut him in, and rattle off,
afore he knows where it&rsquo;s a-going to&rsquo;&mdash;a feat which
he frequently performs, to the infinite amusement of every one but the
old gentleman concerned, who, somehow or other, never can see the joke
of the thing.</p>
<p>We are not aware that it has ever been precisely ascertained, how
many passengers our omnibus will contain.&nbsp; The impression on the
cad&rsquo;s mind evidently is, that it is amply sufficient for the accommodation
of any number of persons that can be enticed into it.&nbsp; &lsquo;Any
room?&rsquo; cries a hot pedestrian.&nbsp; &lsquo;Plenty o&rsquo; room,
sir,&rsquo; replies the conductor, gradually opening the door, and not
disclosing the real state of the case, until the wretched man is on
the steps.&nbsp; &lsquo;Where?&rsquo; inquires the entrapped individual,
with an attempt to back out again.&nbsp; &lsquo;Either side, sir,&rsquo;
rejoins the cad, shoving him in, and slamming the door.&nbsp; &lsquo;All
right, Bill.&rsquo;&nbsp; Retreat is impossible; the new-comer rolls
about, till he falls down somewhere, and there he stops.</p>
<p>As we get into the city a little before ten, four or five of our
party are regular passengers.&nbsp; We always take them up at the same
places, and they generally occupy the same seats; they are always dressed
in the same manner, and invariably discuss the same topics&mdash;the
increasing rapidity of cabs, and the disregard of moral obligations
evinced by omnibus men.&nbsp; There is a little testy old man, with
a powdered head, who always sits on the right-hand side of the door
as you enter, with his hands folded on the top of his umbrella.&nbsp;
He is extremely impatient, and sits there for the purpose of keeping
a sharp eye on the cad, with whom he generally holds a running dialogue.&nbsp;
He is very officious in helping people in and out, and always volunteers
to give the cad a poke with his umbrella, when any one wants to alight.&nbsp;
He usually recommends ladies to have sixpence ready, to prevent delay;
and if anybody puts a window down, that he can reach, he immediately
puts it up again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, what are you stopping for?&rsquo; says the little man
every morning, the moment there is the slightest indication of &lsquo;pulling
up&rsquo; at the corner of Regent-street, when some such dialogue as
the following takes place between him and the cad:</p>
<p>&lsquo;What are you stopping for?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here the cad whistles, and affects not to hear the question.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say [a poke], what are you stopping for?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;For passengers, sir.&nbsp; Ba&mdash;nk.&mdash;Ty.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know you&rsquo;re stopping for passengers; but you&rsquo;ve
no business to do so.&nbsp; <i>Why</i> are you stopping?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Vy, sir, that&rsquo;s a difficult question.&nbsp; I think
it is because we perfer stopping here to going on.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now mind,&rsquo; exclaims the little old man, with great vehemence,
&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll pull you up to-morrow; I&rsquo;ve often threatened
to do it; now I will.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thankee, sir,&rsquo; replies the cad, touching his hat with
a mock expression of gratitude;&mdash;&lsquo;werry much obliged to you
indeed, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here the young men in the omnibus laugh very
heartily, and the old gentleman gets very red in the face, and seems
highly exasperated.</p>
<p>The stout gentleman in the white neckcloth, at the other end of the
vehicle, looks very prophetic, and says that something must shortly
be done with these fellows, or there&rsquo;s no saying where all this
will end; and the shabby-genteel man with the green bag, expresses his
entire concurrence in the opinion, as he has done regularly every morning
for the last six months.</p>
<p>A second omnibus now comes up, and stops immediately behind us.&nbsp;
Another old gentleman elevates his cane in the air, and runs with all
his might towards our omnibus; we watch his progress with great interest;
the door is opened to receive him, he suddenly disappears&mdash;he has
been spirited away by the opposition.&nbsp; Hereupon the driver of the
opposition taunts our people with his having &lsquo;regularly done &rsquo;em
out of that old swell,&rsquo; and the voice of the &lsquo;old swell&rsquo;
is heard, vainly protesting against this unlawful detention.&nbsp; We
rattle off, the other omnibus rattles after us, and every time we stop
to take up a passenger, they stop to take him too; sometimes we get
him; sometimes they get him; but whoever don&rsquo;t get him, say they
ought to have had him, and the cads of the respective vehicles abuse
one another accordingly.</p>
<p>As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln&rsquo;s-inn-fields, Bedford-row,
and other legal haunts, we drop a great many of our original passengers,
and take up fresh ones, who meet with a very sulky reception.&nbsp;
It is rather remarkable, that the people already in an omnibus, always
look at newcomers, as if they entertained some undefined idea that they
have no business to come in at all.&nbsp; We are quite persuaded the
little old man has some notion of this kind, and that he considers their
entry as a sort of negative impertinence.</p>
<p>Conversation is now entirely dropped; each person gazes vacantly
through the window in front of him, and everybody thinks that his opposite
neighbour is staring at him.&nbsp; If one man gets out at Shoe-lane,
and another at the corner of Farringdon-street, the little old gentleman
grumbles, and suggests to the latter, that if he had got out at Shoe-lane
too, he would have saved them the delay of another stoppage; whereupon
the young men laugh again, and the old gentleman looks very solemn,
and says nothing more till he gets to the Bank, when he trots off as
fast as he can, leaving us to do the same, and to wish, as we walk away,
that we could impart to others any portion of the amusement we have
gained for ourselves.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XVII&mdash;THE LAST CAB-DRIVER, AND THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Of all the cabriolet-drivers whom we have ever had the honour and
gratification of knowing by sight&mdash;and our acquaintance in this
way has been most extensive&mdash;there is one who made an impression
on our mind which can never be effaced, and who awakened in our bosom
a feeling of admiration and respect, which we entertain a fatal presentiment
will never be called forth again by any human being.&nbsp; He was a
man of most simple and prepossessing appearance.&nbsp; He was a brown-whiskered,
white-hatted, no-coated cabman; his nose was generally red, and his
bright blue eye not unfrequently stood out in bold relief against a
black border of artificial workmanship; his boots were of the Wellington
form, pulled up to meet his corduroy knee-smalls, or at least to approach
as near them as their dimensions would admit of; and his neck was usually
garnished with a bright yellow handkerchief.&nbsp; In summer he carried
in his mouth a flower; in winter, a straw&mdash;slight, but, to a contemplative
mind, certain indications of a love of nature, and a taste for botany.</p>
<p>His cabriolet was gorgeously painted&mdash;a bright red; and wherever
we went, City or West End, Paddington or Holloway, North, East, West,
or South, there was the red cab, bumping up against the posts at the
street corners, and turning in and out, among hackney-coaches, and drays,
and carts, and waggons, and omnibuses, and contriving by some strange
means or other, to get out of places which no other vehicle but the
red cab could ever by any possibility have contrived to get into at
all.&nbsp; Our fondness for that red cab was unbounded.&nbsp; How we
should have liked to have seen it in the circle at Astley&rsquo;s!&nbsp;
Our life upon it, that it should have performed such evolutions as would
have put the whole company to shame&mdash;Indian chiefs, knights, Swiss
peasants, and all.</p>
<p>Some people object to the exertion of getting into cabs, and others
object to the difficulty of getting out of them; we think both these
are objections which take their rise in perverse and ill-conditioned
minds.&nbsp; The getting into a cab is a very pretty and graceful process,
which, when well performed, is essentially melodramatic.&nbsp; First,
there is the expressive pantomime of every one of the eighteen cabmen
on the stand, the moment you raise your eyes from the ground.&nbsp;
Then there is your own pantomime in reply&mdash;quite a little ballet.&nbsp;
Four cabs immediately leave the stand, for your especial accommodation;
and the evolutions of the animals who draw them, are beautiful in the
extreme, as they grate the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones,
and sport playfully in the kennel.&nbsp; You single out a particular
cab, and dart swiftly towards it.&nbsp; One bound, and you are on the
first step; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are on
the second; bend gracefully beneath the reins, working round to the
left at the same time, and you are in the cab.&nbsp; There is no difficulty
in finding a seat: the apron knocks you comfortably into it at once,
and off you go.</p>
<p>The getting out of a cab is, perhaps, rather more complicated in
its theory, and a shade more difficult in its execution.&nbsp; We have
studied the subject a great deal, and we think the best way is, to throw
yourself out, and trust to chance for alighting on your feet.&nbsp;
If you make the driver alight first, and then throw yourself upon him,
you will find that he breaks your fall materially.&nbsp; In the event
of your contemplating an offer of eightpence, on no account make the
tender, or show the money, until you are safely on the pavement.&nbsp;
It is very bad policy attempting to save the fourpence.&nbsp; You are
very much in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee
not to do you any wilful damage.&nbsp; Any instruction, however, in
the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly unnecessary if you are going
any distance, because the probability is, that you will be shot lightly
out before you have completed the third mile.</p>
<p>We are not aware of any instance on record in which a cab-horse has
performed three consecutive miles without going down once.&nbsp; What
of that?&nbsp; It is all excitement.&nbsp; And in these days of derangement
of the nervous system and universal lassitude, people are content to
pay handsomely for excitement; where can it be procured at a cheaper
rate?</p>
<p>But to return to the red cab; it was omnipresent.&nbsp; You had but
to walk down Holborn, or Fleet-street, or any of the principal thoroughfares
in which there is a great deal of traffic, and judge for yourself.&nbsp;
You had hardly turned into the street, when you saw a trunk or two,
lying on the ground: an uprooted post, a hat-box, a portmanteau, and
a carpet-bag, strewed about in a very picturesque manner: a horse in
a cab standing by, looking about him with great unconcern; and a crowd,
shouting and screaming with delight, cooling their flushed faces against
the glass windows of a chemist&rsquo;s shop.&mdash;&lsquo;What&rsquo;s
the matter here, can you tell me?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;O&rsquo;ny a cab,
sir.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Anybody hurt, do you know?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;O&rsquo;ny
the fare, sir.&nbsp; I see him a turnin&rsquo; the corner, and I ses
to another gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n &ldquo;that&rsquo;s a reg&rsquo;lar
little oss that, and he&rsquo;s a comin&rsquo; along rayther sweet,
an&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;He just is,&rdquo; ses the other
gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n, ven bump they cums agin the post, and out flies
the fare like bricks.&rsquo;&nbsp; Need we say it was the red cab; or
that the gentleman with the straw in his mouth, who emerged so coolly
from the chemist&rsquo;s shop and philosophically climbing into the
little dickey, started off at full gallop, was the red cab&rsquo;s licensed
driver?</p>
<p>The ubiquity of this red cab, and the influence it exercised over
the risible muscles of justice itself, was perfectly astonishing.&nbsp;
You walked into the justice-room of the Mansion-house; the whole court
resounded with merriment.&nbsp; The Lord Mayor threw himself back in
his chair, in a state of frantic delight at his own joke; every vein
in Mr. Hobler&rsquo;s countenance was swollen with laughter, partly
at the Lord Mayor&rsquo;s facetiousness, but more at his own; the constables
and police-officers were (as in duty bound) in ecstasies at Mr. Hobler
and the Lord Mayor combined; and the very paupers, glancing respectfully
at the beadle&rsquo;s countenance, tried to smile, as even he relaxed.&nbsp;
A tall, weazen-faced man, with an impediment in his speech, would be
endeavouring to state a case of imposition against the red cab&rsquo;s
driver; and the red cab&rsquo;s driver, and the Lord Mayor, and Mr.
Hobler, would be having a little fun among themselves, to the inordinate
delight of everybody but the complainant.&nbsp; In the end, justice
would be so tickled with the red cab-driver&rsquo;s native humour, that
the fine would be mitigated, and he would go away full gallop, in the
red cab, to impose on somebody else without loss of time.</p>
<p>The driver of the red cab, confident in the strength of his own moral
principles, like many other philosophers, was wont to set the feelings
and opinions of society at complete defiance.&nbsp; Generally speaking,
perhaps, he would as soon carry a fare safely to his destination, as
he would upset him&mdash;sooner, perhaps, because in that case he not
only got the money, but had the additional amusement of running a longer
heat against some smart rival.&nbsp; But society made war upon him in
the shape of penalties, and he must make war upon society in his own
way.&nbsp; This was the reasoning of the red cab-driver.&nbsp; So, he
bestowed a searching look upon the fare, as he put his hand in his waistcoat
pocket, when he had gone half the mile, to get the money ready; and
if he brought forth eightpence, out he went.</p>
<p>The last time we saw our friend was one wet evening in Tottenham-court-road,
when he was engaged in a very warm and somewhat personal altercation
with a loquacious little gentleman in a green coat.&nbsp; Poor fellow!
there were great excuses to be made for him: he had not received above
eighteenpence more than his fare, and consequently laboured under a
great deal of very natural indignation.&nbsp; The dispute had attained
a pretty considerable height, when at last the loquacious little gentleman,
making a mental calculation of the distance, and finding that he had
already paid more than he ought, avowed his unalterable determination
to &lsquo;pull up&rsquo; the cabman in the morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, just mark this, young man,&rsquo; said the little gentleman,
&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll pull you up to-morrow morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No! will you though?&rsquo; said our friend, with a sneer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; replied the little gentleman, &lsquo;mark my
words, that&rsquo;s all.&nbsp; If I live till to-morrow morning, you
shall repent this.&rsquo;</p>
<p>There was a steadiness of purpose, and indignation of speech, about
the little gentleman, as he took an angry pinch of snuff, after this
last declaration, which made a visible impression on the mind of the
red cab-driver.&nbsp; He appeared to hesitate for an instant.&nbsp;
It was only for an instant; his resolve was soon taken.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll pull me up, will you?&rsquo; said our friend.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; rejoined the little gentleman, with even greater
vehemence an before.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; said our friend, tucking up his shirt sleeves
very calmly.&nbsp; &lsquo;There&rsquo;ll be three veeks for that.&nbsp;
Wery good; that&rsquo;ll bring me up to the middle o&rsquo; next month.&nbsp;
Three veeks more would carry me on to my birthday, and then I&rsquo;ve
got ten pound to draw.&nbsp; I may as well get board, lodgin&rsquo;,
and washin&rsquo;, till then, out of the county, as pay for it myself;
consequently here goes!&rsquo;</p>
<p>So, without more ado, the red cab-driver knocked the little gentleman
down, and then called the police to take himself into custody, with
all the civility in the world.</p>
<p>A story is nothing without the sequel; and therefore, we may state,
that to our certain knowledge, the board, lodging, and washing were
all provided in due course.&nbsp; We happen to know the fact, for it
came to our knowledge thus: We went over the House of Correction for
the county of Middlesex shortly after, to witness the operation of the
silent system; and looked on all the &lsquo;wheels&rsquo; with the greatest
anxiety, in search of our long-lost friend.&nbsp; He was nowhere to
be seen, however, and we began to think that the little gentleman in
the green coat must have relented, when, as we were traversing the kitchen-garden,
which lies in a sequestered part of the prison, we were startled by
hearing a voice, which apparently proceeded from the wall, pouring forth
its soul in the plaintive air of &lsquo;All round my hat,&rsquo; which
was then just beginning to form a recognised portion of our national
music.</p>
<p>We started.&mdash;&lsquo;What voice is that?&rsquo; said we.&nbsp;
The Governor shook his head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sad fellow,&rsquo; he replied, &lsquo;very sad.&nbsp; He positively
refused to work on the wheel; so, after many trials, I was compelled
to order him into solitary confinement.&nbsp; He says he likes it very
much though, and I am afraid he does, for he lies on his back on the
floor, and sings comic songs all day!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Shall we add, that our heart had not deceived us and that the comic
singer was no other than our eagerly-sought friend, the red cab-driver?</p>
<p>We have never seen him since, but we have strong reason to suspect
that this noble individual was a distant relative of a waterman of our
acquaintance, who, on one occasion, when we were passing the coach-stand
over which he presides, after standing very quietly to see a tall man
struggle into a cab, ran up very briskly when it was all over (as his
brethren invariably do), and, touching his hat, asked, as a matter of
course, for &lsquo;a copper for the waterman.&rsquo;&nbsp; Now, the
fare was by no means a handsome man; and, waxing very indignant at the
demand, he replied&mdash;&lsquo;Money!&nbsp; What for?&nbsp; Coming
up and looking at me, I suppose!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Vell, sir,&rsquo;
rejoined the waterman, with a smile of immovable complacency, &lsquo;<i>that&rsquo;s</i>
worth twopence.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The identical waterman afterwards attained a very prominent station
in society; and as we know something of his life, and have often thought
of telling what we <i>do</i> know, perhaps we shall never have a better
opportunity than the present.</p>
<p>Mr. William Barker, then, for that was the gentleman&rsquo;s name,
Mr. William Barker was born&mdash;but why need we relate where Mr. William
Barker was born, or when?&nbsp; Why scrutinise the entries in parochial
ledgers, or seek to penetrate the Lucinian mysteries of lying-in hospitals?&nbsp;
Mr. William Barker <i>was</i> born, or he had never been.&nbsp; There
is a son&mdash;there was a father.&nbsp; There is an effect&mdash;there
was a cause.&nbsp; Surely this is sufficient information for the most
Fatima-like curiosity; and, if it be not, we regret our inability to
supply any further evidence on the point.&nbsp; Can there be a more
satisfactory, or more strictly parliamentary course?&nbsp; Impossible.</p>
<p>We at once avow a similar inability to record at what precise period,
or by what particular process, this gentleman&rsquo;s patronymic, of
William Barker, became corrupted into &lsquo;Bill Boorker.&rsquo; Mr.
Barker acquired a high standing, and no inconsiderable reputation, among
the members of that profession to which he more peculiarly devoted his
energies; and to them he was generally known, either by the familiar
appellation of &lsquo;Bill Boorker,&rsquo; or the flattering designation
of &lsquo;Aggerawatin Bill,&rsquo; the latter being a playful and expressive
<i>sobriquet</i>, illustrative of Mr. Barker&rsquo;s great talent in
&lsquo;aggerawatin&rsquo; and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty
as are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality of
omnibuses.&nbsp; Of the early life of Mr. Barker little is known, and
even that little is involved in considerable doubt and obscurity.&nbsp;
A want of application, a restlessness of purpose, a thirsting after
porter, a love of all that is roving and cadger-like in nature, shared
in common with many other great geniuses, appear to have been his leading
characteristics.&nbsp; The busy hum of a parochial free-school, and
the shady repose of a county gaol, were alike inefficacious in producing
the slightest alteration in Mr. Barker&rsquo;s disposition.&nbsp; His
feverish attachment to change and variety nothing could repress; his
native daring no punishment could subdue.</p>
<p>If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to have had any weakness in his
earlier years, it was an amiable one&mdash;love; love in its most comprehensive
form&mdash;a love of ladies, liquids, and pocket-handkerchiefs.&nbsp;
It was no selfish feeling; it was not confined to his own possessions,
which but too many men regard with exclusive complacency.&nbsp; No;
it was a nobler love&mdash;a general principle.&nbsp; It extended itself
with equal force to the property of other people.</p>
<p>There is something very affecting in this.&nbsp; It is still more
affecting to know, that such philanthropy is but imperfectly rewarded.&nbsp;
Bow-street, Newgate, and Millbank, are a poor return for general benevolence,
evincing itself in an irrepressible love for all created objects.&nbsp;
Mr. Barker felt it so.&nbsp; After a lengthened interview with the highest
legal authorities, he quitted his ungrateful country, with the consent,
and at the expense, of its Government; proceeded to a distant shore;
and there employed himself, like another Cincinnatus, in clearing and
cultivating the soil&mdash;a peaceful pursuit, in which a term of seven
years glided almost imperceptibly away.</p>
<p>Whether, at the expiration of the period we have just mentioned,
the British Government required Mr. Barker&rsquo;s presence here, or
did not require his residence abroad, we have no distinct means of ascertaining.&nbsp;
We should be inclined, however, to favour the latter position, inasmuch
as we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post on his
return, than the post at the corner of the Haymarket, where he officiated
as assistant-waterman to the hackney-coach stand.&nbsp; Seated, in this
capacity, on a couple of tubs near the curbstone, with a brass plate
and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles
curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those observations
on human nature which exercised so material an influence over all his
proceedings in later life.</p>
<p>Mr. Barker had not officiated for many months in this capacity, when
the appearance of the first omnibus caused the public mind to go in
a new direction, and prevented a great many hackney-coaches from going
in any direction at all.&nbsp; The genius of Mr. Barker at once perceived
the whole extent of the injury that would be eventually inflicted on
cab and coach stands, and, by consequence, on watermen also, by the
progress of the system of which the first omnibus was a part.&nbsp;
He saw, too, the necessity of adopting some more profitable profession;
and his active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the
way of enticing the youthful and unwary, and shoving the old and helpless,
into the wrong buss, and carrying them off, until, reduced to despair,
they ransomed themselves by the payment of sixpence a-head, or, to adopt
his own figurative expression in all its native beauty, &lsquo;till
they was rig&rsquo;larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>An opportunity for realising his fondest anticipations, soon presented
itself.&nbsp; Rumours were rife on the hackney-coach stands, that a
buss was building, to run from Lisson-grove to the Bank, down Oxford-street
and Holborn; and the rapid increase of busses on the Paddington-road,
encouraged the idea.&nbsp; Mr. Barker secretly and cautiously inquired
in the proper quarters.&nbsp; The report was correct; the &lsquo;Royal
William&rsquo; was to make its first journey on the following Monday.&nbsp;
It was a crack affair altogether.&nbsp; An enterprising young cabman,
of established reputation as a dashing whip&mdash;for he had compromised
with the parents of three scrunched children, and just &lsquo;worked
out&rsquo; his fine for knocking down an old lady&mdash;was the driver;
and the spirited proprietor, knowing Mr. Barker&rsquo;s qualifications,
appointed him to the vacant office of cad on the very first application.&nbsp;
The buss began to run, and Mr. Barker entered into a new suit of clothes,
and on a new sphere of action.</p>
<p>To recapitulate all the improvements introduced by this extraordinary
man into the omnibus system&mdash;gradually, indeed, but surely&mdash;would
occupy a far greater space than we are enabled to devote to this imperfect
memoir.&nbsp; To him is universally assigned the original suggestion
of the practice which afterwards became so general&mdash;of the driver
of a second buss keeping constantly behind the first one, and driving
the pole of his vehicle either into the door of the other, every time
it was opened, or through the body of any lady or gentleman who might
make an attempt to get into it; a humorous and pleasant invention, exhibiting
all that originality of idea, and fine, bold flow of spirits, so conspicuous
in every action of this great man.</p>
<p>Mr. Barker had opponents of course; what man in public life has not?&nbsp;
But even his worst enemies cannot deny that he has taken more old ladies
and gentlemen to Paddington who wanted to go to the Bank, and more old
ladies and gentlemen to the Bank who wanted to go to Paddington, than
any six men on the road; and however much malevolent spirits may pretend
to doubt the accuracy of the statement, they well know it to be an established
fact, that he has forcibly conveyed a variety of ancient persons of
either sex, to both places, who had not the slightest or most distant
intention of going anywhere at all.</p>
<p>Mr. Barker was the identical cad who nobly distinguished himself,
some time since, by keeping a tradesman on the step&mdash;the omnibus
going at full speed all the time&mdash;till he had thrashed him to his
entire satisfaction, and finally throwing him away, when he had quite
done with him.&nbsp; Mr. Barker it <i>ought</i> to have been, who honestly
indignant at being ignominiously ejected from a house of public entertainment,
kicked the landlord in the knee, and thereby caused his death.&nbsp;
We say it <i>ought</i> to have been Mr. Barker, because the action was
not a common one, and could have emanated from no ordinary mind.</p>
<p>It has now become matter of history; it is recorded in the Newgate
Calendar; and we wish we could attribute this piece of daring heroism
to Mr. Barker.&nbsp; We regret being compelled to state that it was
not performed by him.&nbsp; Would, for the family credit we could add,
that it was achieved by his brother!</p>
<p>It was in the exercise of the nicer details of his profession, that
Mr. Barker&rsquo;s knowledge of human nature was beautifully displayed.&nbsp;
He could tell at a glance where a passenger wanted to go to, and would
shout the name of the place accordingly, without the slightest reference
to the real destination of the vehicle.&nbsp; He knew exactly the kind
of old lady that would be too much flurried by the process of pushing
in and pulling out of the caravan, to discover where she had been put
down, until too late; had an intuitive perception of what was passing
in a passenger&rsquo;s mind when he inwardly resolved to &lsquo;pull
that cad up to-morrow morning;&rsquo; and never failed to make himself
agreeable to female servants, whom he would place next the door, and
talk to all the way.</p>
<p>Human judgment is never infallible, and it would occasionally happen
that Mr. Barker experimentalised with the timidity or forbearance of
the wrong person, in which case a summons to a Police-office, was, on
more than one occasion, followed by a committal to prison.&nbsp; It
was not in the power of trifles such as these, however, to subdue the
freedom of his spirit.&nbsp; As soon as they passed away, he resumed
the duties of his profession with unabated ardour.</p>
<p>We have spoken of Mr. Barker and of the red cab-driver, in the past
tense.&nbsp; Alas! Mr. Barker has again become an absentee; and the
class of men to which they both belonged is fast disappearing.&nbsp;
Improvement has peered beneath the aprons of our cabs, and penetrated
to the very innermost recesses of our omnibuses.&nbsp; Dirt and fustian
will vanish before cleanliness and livery.&nbsp; Slang will be forgotten
when civility becomes general: and that enlightened, eloquent, sage,
and profound body, the Magistracy of London, will be deprived of half
their amusement, and half their occupation.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XVIII&mdash;A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We hope our readers will not be alarmed at this rather ominous title.&nbsp;
We assure them that we are not about to become political, neither have
we the slightest intention of being more prosy than usual&mdash;if we
can help it.&nbsp; It has occurred to us that a slight sketch of the
general aspect of &lsquo;the House,&rsquo; and the crowds that resort
to it on the night of an important debate, would be productive of some
amusement: and as we have made some few calls at the aforesaid house
in our time&mdash;have visited it quite often enough for our purpose,
and a great deal too often for our personal peace and comfort&mdash;we
have determined to attempt the description.&nbsp; Dismissing from our
minds, therefore, all that feeling of awe, which vague ideas of breaches
of privilege, Serjeant-at-Arms, heavy denunciations, and still heavier
fees, are calculated to awaken, we enter at once into the building,
and upon our subject.</p>
<p>Half-past four o&rsquo;clock&mdash;and at five the mover of the Address
will be &lsquo;on his legs,&rsquo; as the newspapers announce sometimes
by way of novelty, as if speakers were occasionally in the habit of
standing on their heads.&nbsp; The members are pouring in, one after
the other, in shoals.&nbsp; The few spectators who can obtain standing-room
in the passages, scrutinise them as they pass, with the utmost interest,
and the man who can identify a member occasionally, becomes a person
of great importance.&nbsp; Every now and then you hear earnest whispers
of &lsquo;That&rsquo;s Sir John Thomson.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Which?
him with the gilt order round his neck?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No, no;
that&rsquo;s one of the messengers&mdash;that other with the yellow
gloves, is Sir John Thomson.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Mr. Smith.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Lor!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, how d&rsquo;ye do, sir?&mdash;(He
is our new member)&mdash;How do you do, sir?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Smith
stops: turns round with an air of enchanting urbanity (for the rumour
of an intended dissolution has been very extensively circulated this
morning); seizes both the hands of his gratified constituent, and, after
greeting him with the most enthusiastic warmth, darts into the lobby
with an extraordinary display of ardour in the public cause, leaving
an immense impression in his favour on the mind of his &lsquo;fellow-townsman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The arrivals increase in number, and the heat and noise increase
in very unpleasant proportion.&nbsp; The livery servants form a complete
lane on either side of the passage, and you reduce yourself into the
smallest possible space to avoid being turned out.&nbsp; You see that
stout man with the hoarse voice, in the blue coat, queer-crowned, broad-brimmed
hat, white corduroy breeches, and great boots, who has been talking
incessantly for half an hour past, and whose importance has occasioned
no small quantity of mirth among the strangers.&nbsp; That is the great
conservator of the peace of Westminster.&nbsp; You cannot fail to have
remarked the grace with which he saluted the noble Lord who passed just
now, or the excessive dignity of his air, as he expostulates with the
crowd.&nbsp; He is rather out of temper now, in consequence of the very
irreverent behaviour of those two young fellows behind him, who have
done nothing but laugh all the time they have been here.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will they divide to-night, do you think, Mr. -&rsquo; timidly
inquires a little thin man in the crowd, hoping to conciliate the man
of office.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How <i>can</i> you ask such questions, sir?&rsquo; replies
the functionary, in an incredibly loud key, and pettishly grasping the
thick stick he carries in his right hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray do not,
sir.&nbsp; I beg of you; pray do not, sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; The little man
looks remarkably out of his element, and the uninitiated part of the
throng are in positive convulsions of laughter.</p>
<p>Just at this moment some unfortunate individual appears, with a very
smirking air, at the bottom of the long passage.&nbsp; He has managed
to elude the vigilance of the special constable downstairs, and is evidently
congratulating himself on having made his way so far.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go back, sir&mdash;you must <i>not</i> come here,&rsquo; shouts
the hoarse one, with tremendous emphasis of voice and gesture, the moment
the offender catches his eye.</p>
<p>The stranger pauses.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you hear, sir&mdash;will you go back?&rsquo; continues
the official dignitary, gently pushing the intruder some half-dozen
yards.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come, don&rsquo;t push me,&rsquo; replies the stranger, turning
angrily round.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You won&rsquo;t, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go out, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take your hands off me, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go out of the passage, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;re a Jack-in-office, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A what?&rsquo; ejaculates he of the boots.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very insolent fellow,&rsquo;
reiterates the stranger, now completely in a passion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray do not force me to put you out, sir,&rsquo; retorts the
other&mdash;&lsquo;pray do not&mdash;my instructions are to keep this
passage clear&mdash;it&rsquo;s the Speaker&rsquo;s orders, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;D-n the Speaker, sir!&rsquo; shouts the intruder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here, Wilson!&mdash;Collins!&rsquo; gasps the officer, actually
paralysed at this insulting expression, which in his mind is all but
high treason; &lsquo;take this man out&mdash;take him out, I say!&nbsp;
How dare you, sir?&rsquo; and down goes the unfortunate man five stairs
at a time, turning round at every stoppage, to come back again, and
denouncing bitter vengeance against the commander-in-chief, and all
his supernumeraries.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Make way, gentlemen,&mdash;pray make way for the Members,
I beg of you!&rsquo; shouts the zealous officer, turning back, and preceding
a whole string of the liberal and independent.</p>
<p>You see this ferocious-looking gentleman, with a complexion almost
as sallow as his linen, and whose large black moustache would give him
the appearance of a figure in a hairdresser&rsquo;s window, if his countenance
possessed the thought which is communicated to those waxen caricatures
of the human face divine.&nbsp; He is a militia-officer, and the most
amusing person in the House.&nbsp; Can anything be more exquisitely
absurd than the burlesque grandeur of his air, as he strides up to the
lobby, his eyes rolling like those of a Turk&rsquo;s head in a cheap
Dutch clock?&nbsp; He never appears without that bundle of dirty papers
which he carries under his left arm, and which are generally supposed
to be the miscellaneous estimates for 1804, or some equally important
documents.&nbsp; He is very punctual in his attendance at the House,
and his self-satisfied &lsquo;He-ar-He-ar,&rsquo; is not unfrequently
the signal for a general titter.</p>
<p>This is the gentleman who once actually sent a messenger up to the
Strangers&rsquo; gallery in the old House of Commons, to inquire the
name of an individual who was using an eye-glass, in order that he might
complain to the Speaker that the person in question was quizzing him!&nbsp;
On another occasion, he is reported to have repaired to Bellamy&rsquo;s
kitchen&mdash;a refreshment-room, where persons who are not Members
are admitted on sufferance, as it were&mdash;and perceiving two or three
gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could
not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the
pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they
were supping!&nbsp; He is generally harmless, though, and always amusing.</p>
<p>By dint of patience, and some little interest with our friend the
constable, we have contrived to make our way to the Lobby, and you can
just manage to catch an occasional glimpse of the House, as the door
is opened for the admission of Members.&nbsp; It is tolerably full already,
and little groups of Members are congregated together here, discussing
the interesting topics of the day.</p>
<p>That smart-looking fellow in the black coat with velvet facings and
cuffs, who wears his <i>D&rsquo;Orsay</i> hat so rakishly, is &lsquo;Honest
Tom,&rsquo; a metropolitan representative; and the large man in the
cloak with the white lining&mdash;not the man by the pillar; the other
with the light hair hanging over his coat collar behind&mdash;is his
colleague.&nbsp; The quiet gentlemanly-looking man in the blue surtout,
gray trousers, white neckerchief and gloves, whose closely-buttoned
coat displays his manly figure and broad chest to great advantage, is
a very well-known character.&nbsp; He has fought a great many battles
in his time, and conquered like the heroes of old, with no other arms
than those the gods gave him.&nbsp; The old hard-featured man who is
standing near him, is really a good specimen of a class of men, now
nearly extinct.&nbsp; He is a county Member, and has been from time
whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary.&nbsp; Look at his
loose, wide, brown coat, with capacious pockets on each side; the knee-breeches
and boots, the immensely long waistcoat, and silver watch-chain dangling
below it, the wide-brimmed brown hat, and the white handkerchief tied
in a great bow, with straggling ends sticking out beyond his shirt-frill.&nbsp;
It is a costume one seldom sees nowadays, and when the few who wear
it have died off, it will be quite extinct.&nbsp; He can tell you long
stories of Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning, and how much better the
House was managed in those times, when they used to get up at eight
or nine o&rsquo;clock, except on regular field-days, of which everybody
was apprised beforehand.&nbsp; He has a great contempt for all young
Members of Parliament, and thinks it quite impossible that a man can
say anything worth hearing, unless he has sat in the House for fifteen
years at least, without saying anything at all.&nbsp; He is of opinion
that &lsquo;that young Macaulay&rsquo; was a regular impostor; he allows,
that Lord Stanley may do something one of these days, but &lsquo;he&rsquo;s
too young, sir&mdash;too young.&rsquo;&nbsp; He is an excellent authority
on points of precedent, and when he grows talkative, after his wine,
will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when he was whipper-in for
the Government, brought four men out of their beds to vote in the majority,
three of whom died on their way home again; how the House once divided
on the question, that fresh candles be now brought in; how the Speaker
was once upon a time left in the chair by accident, at the conclusion
of business, and was obliged to sit in the House by himself for three
hours, till some Member could be knocked up and brought back again,
to move the adjournment; and a great many other anecdotes of a similar
description.</p>
<p>There he stands, leaning on his stick; looking at the throng of Exquisites
around him with most profound contempt; and conjuring up, before his
mind&rsquo;s eye, the scenes he beheld in the old House, in days gone
by, when his own feelings were fresher and brighter, and when, as he
imagines, wit, talent, and patriotism flourished more brightly too.</p>
<p>You are curious to know who that young man in the rough great-coat
is, who has accosted every Member who has entered the House since we
have been standing here.&nbsp; He is not a Member; he is only an &lsquo;hereditary
bondsman,&rsquo; or, in other words, an Irish correspondent of an Irish
newspaper, who has just procured his forty-second frank from a Member
whom he never saw in his life before.&nbsp; There he goes again&mdash;another!&nbsp;
Bless the man, he has his hat and pockets full already.</p>
<p>We will try our fortune at the Strangers&rsquo; gallery, though the
nature of the debate encourages very little hope of success.&nbsp; What
on earth are you about?&nbsp; Holding up your order as if it were a
talisman at whose command the wicket would fly open?&nbsp; Nonsense.&nbsp;
Just preserve the order for an autograph, if it be worth keeping at
all, and make your appearance at the door with your thumb and forefinger
expressively inserted in your waistcoat-pocket.&nbsp; This tall stout
man in black is the door-keeper.&nbsp; &lsquo;Any room?&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Not an inch&mdash;two or three dozen gentlemen waiting down-stairs
on the chance of somebody&rsquo;s going out.&rsquo;&nbsp; Pull out your
purse&mdash;&lsquo;Are you <i>quite</i> sure there&rsquo;s no room?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll
go and look,&rsquo; replies the door-keeper, with a wistful glance at
your purse, &lsquo;but I&rsquo;m afraid there&rsquo;s not.&rsquo;&nbsp;
He returns, and with real feeling assures you that it is morally impossible
to get near the gallery.&nbsp; It is of no use waiting.&nbsp; When you
are refused admission into the Strangers&rsquo; gallery at the House
of Commons, under such circumstances, you may return home thoroughly
satisfied that the place must be remarkably full indeed. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a></p>
<p>Retracing our steps through the long passage, descending the stairs,
and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a small temporary doorway adjoining
the King&rsquo;s entrance to the House of Lords.&nbsp; The order of
the serjeant-at-arms will admit you into the Reporters&rsquo; gallery,
from whence you can obtain a tolerably good view of the House.&nbsp;
Take care of the stairs, they are none of the best; through this little
wicket&mdash;there.&nbsp; As soon as your eyes become a little used
to the mist of the place, and the glare of the chandeliers below you,
you will see that some unimportant personage on the Ministerial side
of the House (to your right hand) is speaking, amidst a hum of voices
and confusion which would rival Babel, but for the circumstance of its
being all in one language.</p>
<p>The &lsquo;hear, hear,&rsquo; which occasioned that laugh, proceeded
from our warlike friend with the moustache; he is sitting on the back
seat against the wall, behind the Member who is speaking, looking as
ferocious and intellectual as usual.&nbsp; Take one look around you,
and retire!&nbsp; The body of the House and the side galleries are full
of Members; some, with their legs on the back of the opposite seat;
some, with theirs stretched out to their utmost length on the floor;
some going out, others coming in; all talking, laughing, lounging, coughing,
oh-ing, questioning, or groaning; presenting a conglomeration of noise
and confusion, to be met with in no other place in existence, not even
excepting Smithfield on a market-day, or a cock-pit in its glory.</p>
<p>But let us not omit to notice Bellamy&rsquo;s kitchen, or, in other
words, the refreshment-room, common to both Houses of Parliament, where
Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals, Peers,
and Destructives, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured
strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where
divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining
during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature
comforts; and whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House
is on the point of dividing; either to give their &lsquo;conscientious
votes&rsquo; on questions of which they are conscientiously innocent
of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance
of their wine-inspired fancies, in boisterous shouts of &lsquo;Divide,&rsquo;
occasionally varied with a little howling, barking, crowing, or other
ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry.</p>
<p>When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present
temporary House of Commons, leads to the place we are describing, you
will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand, with tables
spread for dining.&nbsp; Neither of these is the kitchen, although they
are both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to our
left, up these half-dozen stairs.&nbsp; Before we ascend the staircase,
however, we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place
with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to the steady,
honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole occupant.&nbsp;
Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old fellow&rsquo;s name, for
if Nicholas be not a public man, who is?&mdash;and public men&rsquo;s
names are public property)&mdash;Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy&rsquo;s,
and has held the same place, dressed exactly in the same manner, and
said precisely the same things, ever since the oldest of its present
visitors can remember.&nbsp; An excellent servant Nicholas is&mdash;an
unrivalled compounder of salad-dressing&mdash;an admirable preparer
of soda-water and lemon&mdash;a special mixer of cold grog and punch&mdash;and,
above all, an unequalled judge of cheese.&nbsp; If the old man have
such a thing as vanity in his composition, this is certainly his pride;
and if it be possible to imagine that anything in this world could disturb
his impenetrable calmness, we should say it would be the doubting his
judgment on this important point.</p>
<p>We needn&rsquo;t tell you all this, however, for if you have an atom
of observation, one glance at his sleek, knowing-looking head and face&mdash;his
prim white neckerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been regularly
folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible degrees into
a small-plaited shirt-frill&mdash;and his comfortable-looking form encased
in a well-brushed suit of black&mdash;would give you a better idea of
his real character than a column of our poor description could convey.</p>
<p>Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he cannot see the kitchen
as he used to in the old House; there, one window of his glass-case
opened into the room, and then, for the edification and behoof of more
juvenile questioners, he would stand for an hour together, answering
deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh,
and Heaven knows who beside, with manifest delight, always inserting
a &lsquo;Mister&rsquo; before every commoner&rsquo;s name.</p>
<p>Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea
of the degeneracy of the times.&nbsp; He seldom expresses any political
opinions, but we managed to ascertain, just before the passing of the
Reform Bill, that Nicholas was a thorough Reformer.&nbsp; What was our
astonishment to discover shortly after the meeting of the first reformed
Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory!&nbsp; It
was very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, others
from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo
any change in any respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and
should have considered impossible.&nbsp; His strong opinion against
the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members
to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable.</p>
<p>We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always
dined at home.&nbsp; The rascals!&nbsp; As for giving additional Members
to Ireland, it was even worse&mdash;decidedly unconstitutional.&nbsp;
Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than
three English Members put together.&nbsp; He took no wine; drank table-beer
by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Millbank-street,
for his whiskey-and-water.&nbsp; And what was the consequence?&nbsp;
Why, the concern lost&mdash;actually lost, sir&mdash;by his patronage.&nbsp;
A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building
as the house itself.&nbsp; We wonder he ever left the old place, and
fully expected to see in the papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic
account of an old gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was
seen at one of the upper windows when the flames were at their height,
and declared his resolute intention of falling with the floor.&nbsp;
He must have been got out by force.&nbsp; However, he was got out&mdash;here
he is again, looking as he always does, as if he had been in a bandbox
ever since the last session.&nbsp; There he is, at his old post every
night, just as we have described him: and, as characters are scarce,
and faithful servants scarcer, long may he be there, say we!</p>
<p>Now, when you have taken your seat in the kitchen, and duly noticed
the large fire and roasting-jack at one end of the room&mdash;the little
table for washing glasses and draining jugs at the other&mdash;the clock
over the window opposite St. Margaret&rsquo;s Church&mdash;the deal
tables and wax candles&mdash;the damask table-cloths and bare floor&mdash;the
plate and china on the tables, and the gridiron on the fire; and a few
other anomalies peculiar to the place&mdash;we will point out to your
notice two or three of the people present, whose station or absurdities
render them the most worthy of remark.</p>
<p>It is half-past twelve o&rsquo;clock, and as the division is not
expected for an hour or two, a few Members are lounging away the time
here in preference to standing at the bar of the House, or sleeping
in one of the side galleries.&nbsp; That singularly awkward and ungainly-looking
man, in the brownish-white hat, with the straggling black trousers which
reach about half-way down the leg of his boots, who is leaning against
the meat-screen, apparently deluding himself into the belief that he
is thinking about something, is a splendid sample of a Member of the
House of Commons concentrating in his own person the wisdom of a constituency.&nbsp;
Observe the wig, of a dark hue but indescribable colour, for if it be
naturally brown, it has acquired a black tint by long service, and if
it be naturally black, the same cause has imparted to it a tinge of
rusty brown; and remark how very materially the great blinker-like spectacles
assist the expression of that most intelligent face.&nbsp; Seriously
speaking, did you ever see a countenance so expressive of the most hopeless
extreme of heavy dulness, or behold a form so strangely put together?&nbsp;
He is no great speaker: but when he <i>does</i> address the House, the
effect is absolutely irresistible.</p>
<p>The small gentleman with the sharp nose, who has just saluted him,
is a Member of Parliament, an ex-Alderman, and a sort of amateur fireman.&nbsp;
He, and the celebrated fireman&rsquo;s dog, were observed to be remarkably
active at the conflagration of the two Houses of Parliament&mdash;they
both ran up and down, and in and out, getting under people&rsquo;s feet,
and into everybody&rsquo;s way, fully impressed with the belief that
they were doing a great deal of good, and barking tremendously.&nbsp;
The dog went quietly back to his kennel with the engine, but the gentleman
kept up such an incessant noise for some weeks after the occurrence,
that he became a positive nuisance.&nbsp; As no more parliamentary fires
have occurred, however, and as he has consequently had no more opportunities
of writing to the newspapers to relate how, by way of preserving pictures
he cut them out of their frames, and performed other great national
services, he has gradually relapsed into his old state of calmness.</p>
<p>That female in black&mdash;not the one whom the Lord&rsquo;s-Day-Bill
Baronet has just chucked under the chin; the shorter of the two&mdash;is
&lsquo;Jane:&rsquo; the Hebe of Bellamy&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Jane is as great
a character as Nicholas, in her way.&nbsp; Her leading features are
a thorough contempt for the great majority of her visitors; her predominant
quality, love of admiration, as you cannot fail to observe, if you mark
the glee with which she listens to something the young Member near her
mutters somewhat unintelligibly in her ear (for his speech is rather
thick from some cause or other), and how playfully she digs the handle
of a fork into the arm with which he detains her, by way of reply.</p>
<p>Jane is no bad hand at repartees, and showers them about, with a
degree of liberality and total absence of reserve or constraint, which
occasionally excites no small amazement in the minds of strangers.&nbsp;
She cuts jokes with Nicholas, too, but looks up to him with a great
deal of respect&mdash;the immovable stolidity with which Nicholas receives
the aforesaid jokes, and looks on, at certain pastoral friskings and
rompings (Jane&rsquo;s only recreations, and they are very innocent
too) which occasionally take place in the passage, is not the least
amusing part of his character.</p>
<p>The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the
farther end of the room, have been constant guests here, for many years
past; and one of them has feasted within these walls, many a time, with
the most brilliant characters of a brilliant period.&nbsp; He has gone
up to the other House since then; the greater part of his boon companions
have shared Yorick&rsquo;s fate, and his visits to Bellamy&rsquo;s are
comparatively few.</p>
<p>If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly
have dined!&nbsp; A second solid mass of rump-steak has disappeared,
and he eat the first in four minutes and three quarters, by the clock
over the window.&nbsp; Was there ever such a personification of Falstaff!&nbsp;
Mark the air with which he gloats over that Stilton, as he removes the
napkin which has been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous
gravy of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which
has been fetched, expressly for him, in the pewter pot.&nbsp; Listen
to the hoarse sound of that voice, kept down as it is by layers of solids,
and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect
picture of a regular <i>gourmand</i>; and whether he is not exactly
the man whom you would pitch upon as having been the partner of Sheridan&rsquo;s
parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney-coach that
took him home, and the involuntary upsetter of the whole party?</p>
<p>What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that
of the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at the same table, and who,
elevating a little cracked bantam sort of voice to its highest pitch,
invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else&rsquo;s at the
commencement of every sentence he utters.&nbsp; &lsquo;The Captain,&rsquo;
as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy&rsquo;s; much
addicted to stopping &lsquo;after the House is up&rsquo; (an inexpiable
crime in Jane&rsquo;s eyes), and a complete walking reservoir of spirits
and water.</p>
<p>The old Peer&mdash;or rather, the old man&mdash;for his peerage is
of comparatively recent date&mdash;has a huge tumbler of hot punch brought
him; and the other damns and drinks, and drinks and damns, and smokes.&nbsp;
Members arrive every moment in a great bustle to report that &lsquo;The
Chancellor of the Exchequer&rsquo;s up,&rsquo; and to get glasses of
brandy-and-water to sustain them during the division; people who have
ordered supper, countermand it, and prepare to go down-stairs, when
suddenly a bell is heard to ring with tremendous violence, and a cry
of &lsquo;Di-vi-sion!&rsquo; is heard in the passage.&nbsp; This is
enough; away rush the members pell-mell.&nbsp; The room is cleared in
an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear the creaking of the
last boot on the last stair, and are left alone with the leviathan of
rump-steaks.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XIX&mdash;PUBLIC DINNERS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>All public dinners in London, from the Lord Mayor&rsquo;s annual
banquet at Guildhall, to the Chimney-sweepers&rsquo; anniversary at
White Conduit House; from the Goldsmiths&rsquo; to the Butchers&rsquo;,
from the Sheriffs&rsquo; to the Licensed Victuallers&rsquo;; are amusing
scenes.&nbsp; Of all entertainments of this description, however, we
think the annual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing.&nbsp;
At a Company&rsquo;s dinner, the people are nearly all alike&mdash;regular
old stagers, who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be
laughed at.&nbsp; At a political dinner, everybody is disagreeable,
and inclined to speechify&mdash;much the same thing, by-the-bye; but
at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions.&nbsp;
The wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard
some hardhearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think
the amusement to be derived from the occasion, sufficient to counterbalance
even these disadvantages.</p>
<p>Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this description&mdash;&lsquo;Indigent
Orphans&rsquo; Friends&rsquo; Benevolent Institution,&rsquo; we think
it is.&nbsp; The name of the charity is a line or two longer, but never
mind the rest.&nbsp; You have a distinct recollection, however, that
you purchased a ticket at the solicitation of some charitable friend:
and you deposit yourself in a hackney-coach, the driver of which&mdash;no
doubt that you may do the thing in style&mdash;turns a deaf ear to your
earnest entreaties to be set down at the corner of Great Queen-street,
and persists in carrying you to the very door of the Freemasons&rsquo;,
round which a crowd of people are assembled to witness the entrance
of the indigent orphans&rsquo; friends.&nbsp; You hear great speculations
as you pay the fare, on the possibility of your being the noble Lord
who is announced to fill the chair on the occasion, and are highly gratified
to hear it eventually decided that you are only a &lsquo;wocalist.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The first thing that strikes you, on your entrance, is the astonishing
importance of the committee.&nbsp; You observe a door on the first landing,
carefully guarded by two waiters, in and out of which stout gentlemen
with very red faces keep running, with a degree of speed highly unbecoming
the gravity of persons of their years and corpulency.&nbsp; You pause,
quite alarmed at the bustle, and thinking, in your innocence, that two
or three people must have been carried out of the dining-room in fits,
at least.&nbsp; You are immediately undeceived by the waiter&mdash;&lsquo;Up-stairs,
if you please, sir; this is the committee-room.&rsquo;&nbsp; Up-stairs
you go, accordingly; wondering, as you mount, what the duties of the
committee can be, and whether they ever do anything beyond confusing
each other, and running over the waiters.</p>
<p>Having deposited your hat and cloak, and received a remarkably small
scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which, as a matter of course, you lose,
before you require it again), you enter the hall, down which there are
three long tables for the less distinguished guests, with a cross table
on a raised platform at the upper end for the reception of the very
particular friends of the indigent orphans.&nbsp; Being fortunate enough
to find a plate without anybody&rsquo;s card in it, you wisely seat
yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you.&nbsp;
Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of
sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances; melancholy-looking
salt-cellars, and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged
to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered
at distant intervals on the cloth; and the knives and forks look as
if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession
of George the First.&nbsp; The musicians are scraping and grating and
screwing tremendously&mdash;playing no notes but notes of preparation;
and several gentlemen are gliding along the sides of the tables, looking
into plate after plate with frantic eagerness, the expression of their
countenances growing more and more dismal as they meet with everybody&rsquo;s
card but their own.</p>
<p>You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and&mdash;not
being in the habit of attending public dinners&mdash;are somewhat struck
by the appearance of the party on which your eyes rest.&nbsp; One of
its principal members appears to be a little man, with a long and rather
inflamed face, and gray hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears
a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology
for a neckerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar
appellation of &lsquo;Fitz,&rsquo; or some such monosyllable.&nbsp;
Near him is a stout man in a white neckerchief and buff waistcoat, with
shining dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking
face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper.&nbsp;
Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers;
and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little round-faced
person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat.&nbsp; There is something
peculiar in their air and manner, though you could hardly describe what
it is; you cannot divest yourself of the idea that they have come for
some other purpose than mere eating and drinking.&nbsp; You have no
time to debate the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arranged
in lines down the room, placing the dishes on table) retire to the lower
end; the dark man in the blue coat and bright buttons, who has the direction
of the music, looks up to the gallery, and calls out &lsquo;band&rsquo;
in a very loud voice; out burst the orchestra, up rise the visitors,
in march fourteen stewards, each with a long wand in his hand, like
the evil genius in a pantomime; then the chairman, then the titled visitors;
they all make their way up the room, as fast as they can, bowing, and
smiling, and smirking, and looking remarkably amiable.&nbsp; The applause
ceases, grace is said, the clatter of plates and dishes begins; and
every one appears highly gratified, either with the presence of the
distinguished visitors, or the commencement of the anxiously-expected
dinner.</p>
<p>As to the dinner itself&mdash;the mere dinner&mdash;it goes off much
the same everywhere.&nbsp; Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity&mdash;waiters
take plates of turbot away, to get lobster-sauce, and bring back plates
of lobster-sauce without turbot; people who can carve poultry, are great
fools if they own it, and people who can&rsquo;t have no wish to learn.&nbsp;
The knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber&rsquo;s
music, and Auber&rsquo;s music would form a pleasing accompaniment to
the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the cymbals.&nbsp; The
substantials disappear&mdash;moulds of jelly vanish like lightning&mdash;hearty
eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent
exertions&mdash;people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably
bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible&mdash;old
gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies&rsquo; gallery, and take
great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always
peculiarly favoured in this respect&mdash;every one appears disposed
to become talkative&mdash;and the hum of conversation is loud and general.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for <i>Non nobis</i>!&rsquo;
shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs&mdash;a toast-master&rsquo;s
shirt-front, waistcoat, and neckerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit
three distinct shades of cloudy-white.&mdash;&lsquo;Pray, silence, gentlemen,
for <i>Non nobis</i>!&rsquo;&nbsp; The singers, whom you discover to
be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity at first,
after &lsquo;pitching&rsquo; their voices immediately begin <i>too-too</i>ing
most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst into occasional
cries of&mdash;&lsquo;Sh&mdash;Sh&mdash;waiters!&mdash;Silence, waiters&mdash;stand
still, waiters&mdash;keep back, waiters,&rsquo; and other exorcisms,
delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance.&nbsp; The grace is soon
concluded, and the company resume their seats.&nbsp; The uninitiated
portion of the guests applaud <i>Non nobis</i> as vehemently as if it
were a capital comic song, greatly to the scandal and indignation of
the regular diners, who immediately attempt to quell this sacrilegious
approbation, by cries of &lsquo;Hush, hush!&rsquo; whereupon the others,
mistaking these sounds for hisses, applaud more tumultuously than before,
and, by way of placing their approval beyond the possibility of doubt,
shout <i>&lsquo;Encore</i>!&rsquo; most vociferously.</p>
<p>The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:- &lsquo;Gentlemen,
charge your glasses, if you please!&rsquo;&nbsp; Decanters having been
handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular
ascending scale:- &lsquo;Gentlemen&mdash;<i>air</i>&mdash;you&mdash;all
charged?&nbsp; Pray&mdash;silence&mdash;gentlemen&mdash;for&mdash;the
cha-i-r!&rsquo;&nbsp; The chairman rises, and, after stating that he
feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he is about to propose,
with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze of sentences, and
flounders about in the most extraordinary manner, presenting a lamentable
spectacle of mystified humanity, until he arrives at the words, &lsquo;constitutional
sovereign of these realms,&rsquo; at which elderly gentlemen exclaim
&lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo; and hammer the table tremendously with their knife-handles.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Under any circumstances, it would give him the greatest pride,
it would give him the greatest pleasure&mdash;he might almost say, it
would afford him satisfaction [cheers] to propose that toast.&nbsp;
What must be his feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing,
that he has received her Majesty&rsquo;s commands to apply to the Treasurer
of her Majesty&rsquo;s Household, for her Majesty&rsquo;s annual donation
of 25<i>l</i>. in aid of the funds of this charity!&rsquo;&nbsp; This
announcement (which has been regularly made by every chairman, since
the first foundation of the charity, forty-two years ago) calls forth
the most vociferous applause; the toast is drunk with a great deal of
cheering and knocking; and &lsquo;God save the Queen&rsquo; is sung
by the &lsquo;professional gentlemen;&rsquo; the unprofessional gentlemen
joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which
the newspapers, with great justice, describe as &lsquo;perfectly electrical.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The other &lsquo;loyal and patriotic&rsquo; toasts having been drunk
with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been well sung by the gentleman
with the small neckerchief, and a sentimental one by the second of the
party, we come to the most important toast of the evening&mdash;&lsquo;Prosperity
to the charity.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper
phraseology, and to express our regret at being &lsquo;precluded from
giving even the substance of the noble lord&rsquo;s observations.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Suffice it to say, that the speech, which is somewhat of the longest,
is rapturously received; and the toast having been drunk, the stewards
(looking more important than ever) leave the room, and presently return,
heading a procession of indigent orphans, boys and girls, who walk round
the room, curtseying, and bowing, and treading on each other&rsquo;s
heels, and looking very much as if they would like a glass of wine apiece,
to the high gratification of the company generally, and especially of
the lady patronesses in the gallery.&nbsp; <i>Exeunt</i> children, and
re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his hand.&nbsp; The band
plays a lively air; the majority of the company put their hands in their
pockets and look rather serious; and the noise of sovereigns, rattling
on crockery, is heard from all parts of the room.</p>
<p>After a short interval, occupied in singing and toasting, the secretary
puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to read the report and list of
subscriptions, the latter being listened to with great attention.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Mr. Smith, one guinea&mdash;Mr. Tompkins, one guinea&mdash;Mr.
Wilson, one guinea&mdash;Mr. Hickson, one guinea&mdash;Mr.&nbsp; Nixon,
one guinea&mdash;Mr. Charles Nixon, one guinea&mdash;[hear, hear!]&mdash;Mr.
James Nixon, one guinea&mdash;Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous
applause].&nbsp; Lord Fitz Binkle, the chairman of the day, in addition
to an annual donation of fifteen pounds&mdash;thirty guineas [prolonged
knocking: several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses,
in the vehemence of their approbation].&nbsp; Lady, Fitz Binkle, in
addition to an annual donation of ten pound&mdash;twenty pound&rsquo;
[protracted knocking and shouts of &lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo;]&nbsp; The list
being at length concluded, the chairman rises, and proposes the health
of the secretary, than whom he knows no more zealous or estimable individual.&nbsp;
The secretary, in returning thanks, observes that <i>he</i> knows no
more excellent individual than the chairman&mdash;except the senior
officer of the charity, whose health <i>he</i> begs to propose.&nbsp;
The senior officer, in returning thanks, observes that <i>he</i> knows
no more worthy man than the secretary&mdash;except Mr. Walker, the auditor,
whose health <i>he</i> begs to propose.&nbsp; Mr. Walker, in returning
thanks, discovers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the
senior officer is inferior&mdash;and so they go on toasting and lauding
and thanking: the only other toast of importance being &lsquo;The Lady
Patronesses now present!&rsquo; on which all the gentlemen turn their
faces towards the ladies&rsquo; gallery, shouting tremendously; and
little priggish men, who have imbibed more wine than usual, kiss their
hands and exhibit distressing contortions of visage.</p>
<p>We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that we have
hardly time to add one word by way of grace.&nbsp; We can only entreat
our readers not to imagine, because we have attempted to extract some
amusement from a charity dinner, that we are at all disposed to underrate,
either the excellence of the benevolent institutions with which London
abounds, or the estimable motives of those who support them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XX&mdash;THE FIRST OF MAY</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour: only once a year, if you
please!&rsquo;<br />YOUNG LADY WITH BRASS LADLE.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sweep&mdash;sweep&mdash;sw-e-ep!&rsquo;<br />ILLEGAL WATCHWORD.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The first of May!&nbsp; There is a merry freshness in the sound,
calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant in
nature and beautiful in her most delightful form.&nbsp; What man is
there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic
influence&mdash;carrying him back to the days of his childish sports,
and conjuring up before him the old green field with its gently-waving
trees, where the birds sang as he has never heard them since&mdash;where
the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now, in
all his ramblings&mdash;where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone
more brightly&mdash;where the air blew more freshly over greener grass,
and sweeter-smelling flowers&mdash;where everything wore a richer and
more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now!&nbsp; Such are the
deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every
lovely object stamps upon its heart!&nbsp; The hardy traveller wanders
through the maze of thick and pathless woods, where the sun&rsquo;s
rays never shone, and heaven&rsquo;s pure air never played; he stands
on the brink of the roaring waterfall, and, giddy and bewildered, watches
the foaming mass as it leaps from stone to stone, and from crag to crag;
he lingers in the fertile plains of a land of perpetual sunshine, and
revels in the luxury of their balmy breath.&nbsp; But what are the deep
forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest landscapes that bounteous
nature ever spread, to charm the eyes, and captivate the senses of man,
compared with the recollection of the old scenes of his early youth?&nbsp;
Magic scenes indeed; for the fancies of childhood dressed them in colours
brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting!</p>
<p>In former times, spring brought with it not only such associations
as these, connected with the past, but sports and games for the present&mdash;merry
dances round rustic pillars, adorned with emblems of the season, and
reared in honour of its coming.&nbsp; Where are they now!&nbsp; Pillars
we have, but they are no longer rustic ones; and as to dancers, they
are used to rooms, and lights, and would not show well in the open air.&nbsp;
Think of the immorality, too!&nbsp; What would your sabbath enthusiasts
say, to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of York&rsquo;s column
in Carlton-terrace&mdash;a grand <i>poussette</i> of the middle classes,
round Alderman Waithman&rsquo;s monument in Fleet-street,&mdash;or a
general hands-four-round of ten-pound householders, at the foot of the
Obelisk in St. George&rsquo;s-fields?&nbsp; Alas! romance can make no
head against the riot act; and pastoral simplicity is not understood
by the police.</p>
<p>Well; many years ago we began to be a steady and matter-of-fact sort
of people, and dancing in spring being beneath our dignity, we gave
it up, and in course of time it descended to the sweeps&mdash;a fall
certainly, because, though sweeps are very good fellows in their way,
and moreover very useful in a civilised community, they are not exactly
the sort of people to give the tone to the little elegances of society.&nbsp;
The sweeps, however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it
up, and handed it down.&nbsp; This was a severe blow to the romance
of spring-time, but, it did not entirely destroy it, either; for a portion
of it descended to the sweeps with the dancing, and rendered them objects
of great interest.&nbsp; A mystery hung over the sweeps in those days.&nbsp;
Legends were in existence of wealthy gentlemen who had lost children,
and who, after many years of sorrow and suffering, had found them in
the character of sweeps.&nbsp; Stories were related of a young boy who,
having been stolen from his parents in his infancy, and devoted to the
occupation of chimney-sweeping, was sent, in the course of his professional
career, to sweep the chimney of his mother&rsquo;s bedroom; and how,
being hot and tired when he came out of the chimney, he got into the
bed he had so often slept in as an infant, and was discovered and recognised
therein by his mother, who once every year of her life, thereafter,
requested the pleasure of the company of every London sweep, at half-past
one o&rsquo;clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding, porter, and sixpence.</p>
<p>Such stories as these, and there were many such, threw an air of
mystery round the sweeps, and produced for them some of those good effects
which animals derive from the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.&nbsp;
No one (except the masters) thought of ill-treating a sweep, because
no one knew who he might be, or what nobleman&rsquo;s or gentleman&rsquo;s
son he might turn out.&nbsp; Chimney-sweeping was, by many believers
in the marvellous, considered as a sort of probationary term, at an
earlier or later period of which, divers young noblemen were to come
into possession of their rank and titles: and the profession was held
by them in great respect accordingly.</p>
<p>We remember, in our young days, a little sweep about our own age,
with curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly and sincerely believed
to be the lost son and heir of some illustrious personage&mdash;an impression
which was resolved into an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind,
by the subject of our speculations informing us, one day, in reply to
our question, propounded a few moments before his ascent to the summit
of the kitchen chimney, &lsquo;that he believed he&rsquo;d been born
in the vurkis, but he&rsquo;d never know&rsquo;d his father.&rsquo;&nbsp;
We felt certain, from that time forth, that he would one day be owned
by a lord: and we never heard the church-bells ring, or saw a flag hoisted
in the neighbourhood, without thinking that the happy event had at last
occurred, and that his long-lost parent had arrived in a coach and six,
to take him home to Grosvenor-square.&nbsp; He never came, however;
and, at the present moment, the young gentleman in question is settled
down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battle-bridge, his distinguishing
characteristics being a decided antipathy to washing himself, and the
possession of a pair of legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy
and corpulent body.</p>
<p>The romance of spring having gone out before our time, we were fain
to console ourselves as we best could with the uncertainty that enveloped
the birth and parentage of its attendant dancers, the sweeps; and we
<i>did</i> console ourselves with it, for many years.&nbsp; But, even
this wicked source of comfort received a shock from which it has never
recovered&mdash;a shock which has been in reality its death-blow.&nbsp;
We could not disguise from ourselves the fact that whole families of
sweeps were regularly born of sweeps, in the rural districts of Somers
Town and Camden Town&mdash;that the eldest son succeeded to the father&rsquo;s
business, that the other branches assisted him therein, and commenced
on their own account; that their children again, were educated to the
profession; and that about their identity there could be no mistake
whatever.&nbsp; We could not be blind, we say, to this melancholy truth,
but we could not bring ourselves to admit it, nevertheless, and we lived
on for some years in a state of voluntary ignorance.&nbsp; We were roused
from our pleasant slumber by certain dark insinuations thrown out by
a friend of ours, to the effect that children in the lower ranks of
life were beginning to <i>choose</i> chimney-sweeping as their particular
walk; that applications had been made by various boys to the constituted
authorities, to allow them to pursue the object of their ambition with
the full concurrence and sanction of the law; that the affair, in short,
was becoming one of mere legal contract.&nbsp; We turned a deaf ear
to these rumours at first, but slowly and surely they stole upon us.&nbsp;
Month after month, week after week, nay, day after day, at last, did
we meet with accounts of similar applications.&nbsp; The veil was removed,
all mystery was at an end, and chimney-sweeping had become a favourite
and chosen pursuit.&nbsp; There is no longer any occasion to steal boys;
for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves.&nbsp; The romance of the
trade has fled, and the chimney-sweeper of the present day, is no more
like unto him of thirty years ago, than is a Fleet-street pickpocket
to a Spanish brigand, or Paul Pry to Caleb Williams.</p>
<p>This gradual decay and disuse of the practice of leading noble youths
into captivity, and compelling them to ascend chimneys, was a severe
blow, if we may so speak, to the romance of chimney-sweeping, and to
the romance of spring at the same time.&nbsp; But even this was not
all, for some few years ago the dancing on May-day began to decline;
small sweeps were observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsupported
by a &lsquo;green,&rsquo; with no &lsquo;My Lord&rsquo; to act as master
of the ceremonies, and no &lsquo;My Lady&rsquo; to preside over the
exchequer.&nbsp; Even in companies where there was a &lsquo;green&rsquo;
it was an absolute nothing&mdash;a mere sprout&mdash;and the instrumental
accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of Panpipes,
better known to the many, as a &lsquo;mouth-organ.&rsquo;</p>
<p>These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a coming change;
and what was the result which they shadowed forth?&nbsp; Why, the master
sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit of innovation, actually interposed
their authority, in opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner&mdash;an
anniversary dinner at White Conduit House&mdash;where clean faces appeared
in lieu of black ones smeared with rose pink; and knee cords and tops
superseded nankeen drawers and rosetted shoes.</p>
<p>Gentlemen who were in the habit of riding shy horses; and steady-going
people who have no vagrancy in their souls, lauded this alteration to
the skies, and the conduct of the master sweeps was described beyond
the reach of praise.&nbsp; But how stands the real fact?&nbsp; Let any
man deny, if he can, that when the cloth had been removed, fresh pots
and pipes laid upon the table, and the customary loyal and patriotic
toasts proposed, the celebrated Mr. Sluffen, of Adam-and-Eve-court,
whose authority not the most malignant of our opponents can call in
question, expressed himself in a manner following: &lsquo;That now he&rsquo;d
cotcht the cheerman&rsquo;s hi, he vished he might be jolly vell blessed,
if he worn&rsquo;t a goin&rsquo; to have his innings, vich he vould
say these here obserwashuns&mdash;that how some mischeevus coves as
know&rsquo;d nuffin about the consarn, had tried to sit people agin
the mas&rsquo;r swips, and take the shine out o&rsquo; their bis&rsquo;nes,
and the bread out o&rsquo; the traps o&rsquo; their preshus kids, by
a makin&rsquo; o&rsquo; this here remark, as chimblies could be as vell
svept by &lsquo;sheenery as by boys; and that the makin&rsquo; use o&rsquo;
boys for that there purpuss vos barbareous; vereas, he &rsquo;ad been
a chummy&mdash;he begged the cheerman&rsquo;s parding for usin&rsquo;
such a wulgar hexpression&mdash;more nor thirty year&mdash;he might
say he&rsquo;d been born in a chimbley&mdash;and he know&rsquo;d uncommon
vell as &lsquo;sheenery vos vus nor o&rsquo; no use: and as to kerhewelty
to the boys, everybody in the chimbley line know&rsquo;d as vell as
he did, that they liked the climbin&rsquo; better nor nuffin as vos.&rsquo;&nbsp;
From this day, we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant
of May-day dancing, among the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of the profession:
and from this period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring
associations which relates to the first of May.</p>
<p>We are aware that the unthinking part of the population will meet
us here, with the assertion, that dancing on May-day still continues&mdash;that
&lsquo;greens&rsquo; are annually seen to roll along the streets&mdash;that
youths in the garb of clowns, precede them, giving vent to the ebullitions
of their sportive fancies; and that lords and ladies follow in their
wake.</p>
<p>Granted.&nbsp; We are ready to acknowledge that in outward show,
these processions have greatly improved: we do not deny the introduction
of solos on the drum; we will even go so far as to admit an occasional
fantasia on the triangle, but here our admissions end.&nbsp; We positively
deny that the sweeps have art or part in these proceedings.&nbsp; We
distinctly charge the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear
away, into the eyes of the public.&nbsp; We accuse scavengers, brickmakers,
and gentlemen who devote their energies to the costermongering line,
with obtaining money once a-year, under false pretences.&nbsp; We cling
with peculiar fondness to the custom of days gone by, and have shut
out conviction as long as we could, but it has forced itself upon us;
and we now proclaim to a deluded public, that the May-day dancers are
<i>not</i> sweeps.&nbsp; The size of them, alone, is sufficient to repudiate
the idea.&nbsp; It is a notorious fact that the widely-spread taste
for register-stoves has materially increased the demand for small boys;
whereas the men, who, under a fictitious character, dance about the
streets on the first of May nowadays, would be a tight fit in a kitchen
flue, to say nothing of the parlour.&nbsp; This is strong presumptive
evidence, but we have positive proof&mdash;the evidence of our own senses.&nbsp;
And here is our testimony.</p>
<p>Upon the morning of the second of the merry month of May, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, we went
out for a stroll, with a kind of forlorn hope of seeing something or
other which might induce us to believe that it was really spring, and
not Christmas.&nbsp; After wandering as far as Copenhagen House, without
meeting anything calculated to dispel our impression that there was
a mistake in the almanacks, we turned back down Maidenlane, with the
intention of passing through the extensive colony lying between it and
Battle-bridge, which is inhabited by proprietors of donkey-carts, boilers
of horse-flesh, makers of tiles, and sifters of cinders; through which
colony we should have passed, without stoppage or interruption, if a
little crowd gathered round a shed had not attracted our attention,
and induced us to pause.</p>
<p>When we say a &lsquo;shed,&rsquo; we do not mean the conservatory
sort of building, which, according to the old song, Love tenanted when
he was a young man, but a wooden house with windows stuffed with rags
and paper, and a small yard at the side, with one dust-cart, two baskets,
a few shovels, and little heaps of cinders, and fragments of china and
tiles, scattered about it.&nbsp; Before this inviting spot we paused;
and the longer we looked, the more we wondered what exciting circumstance
it could be, that induced the foremost members of the crowd to flatten
their noses against the parlour window, in the vain hope of catching
a glimpse of what was going on inside.&nbsp; After staring vacantly
about us for some minutes, we appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage,
to a gentleman in a suit of tarpaulin, who was smoking his pipe on our
right hand; but as the only answer we obtained was a playful inquiry
whether our mother had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await
the issue in silence.</p>
<p>Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street-door of the shed
opened, and a party emerged therefrom, clad in the costume and emulating
the appearance, of May-day sweeps!</p>
<p>The first person who appeared was &lsquo;my lord,&rsquo; habited
in a blue coat and bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked over the seams,
yellow knee-breeches, pink cotton stockings, and shoes; a cocked hat,
ornamented with shreds of various-coloured paper, on his head, a <i>bouquet</i>
the size of a prize cauliflower in his button-hole, a long Belcher handkerchief
in his right hand, and a thin cane in his left.&nbsp; A murmur of applause
ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed of his lordship&rsquo;s
personal friends), when this graceful figure made his appearance, which
swelled into a burst of applause as his fair partner in the dance bounded
forth to join him.&nbsp; Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over
bed-furniture, with a low body and short sleeves.&nbsp; The symmetry
of her ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of
frilled trousers; and the inconvenience which might have resulted from
the circumstance of her white satin shoes being a few sizes too large,
was obviated by their being firmly attached to her legs with strong
tape sandals.</p>
<p>Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial flowers; and
in her hand she bore a large brass ladle, wherein to receive what she
figuratively denominated &lsquo;the tin.&rsquo;&nbsp; The other characters
were a young gentleman in girl&rsquo;s clothes and a widow&rsquo;s cap;
two clowns who walked upon their hands in the mud, to the immeasurable
delight of all the spectators; a man with a drum; another man with a
flageolet; a dirty woman in a large shawl, with a box under her arm
for the money,&mdash;and last, though not least, the &lsquo;green,&rsquo;
animated by no less a personage than our identical friend in the tarpaulin
suit.</p>
<p>The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shovels
rattled, the &lsquo;green&rsquo; rolled about, pitching first on one
side and then on the other; my lady threw her right foot over her left
ankle, and her left foot over her right ankle, alternately; my lord
ran a few paces forward, and butted at the &lsquo;green,&rsquo; and
then a few paces backward upon the toes of the crowd, and then went
to the right, and then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the
&lsquo;green;&rsquo; and finally drew her arm through his, and called
upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily&mdash;for this was the
dancing.</p>
<p>We passed the same group, accidentally, in the evening.&nbsp; We
never saw a &lsquo;green&rsquo; so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome (no:
not even in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of clowns so melancholy,
a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable.</p>
<p>How has May-day decayed!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XXI&mdash;BROKERS&rsquo; AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>When we affirm that brokers&rsquo; shops are strange places, and
that if an authentic history of their contents could be procured, it
would furnish many a page of amusement, and many a melancholy tale,
it is necessary to explain the class of shops to which we allude.&nbsp;
Perhaps when we make use of the term &lsquo;Brokers&rsquo; Shop,&rsquo;
the minds of our readers will at once picture large, handsome warehouses,
exhibiting a long perspective of French-polished dining-tables, rosewood
chiffoniers, and mahogany wash-hand-stands, with an occasional vista
of a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate foreground
of dining-room chairs.&nbsp; Perhaps they will imagine that we mean
an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories.&nbsp; Their imagination
will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Long-acre,
which is composed almost entirely of brokers&rsquo; shops; where you
walk through groves of deceitful, showy-looking furniture, and where
the prospect is occasionally enlivened by a bright red, blue, and yellow
hearth-rug, embellished with the pleasing device of a mail-coach at
full speed, or a strange animal, supposed to have been originally intended
for a dog, with a mass of worsted-work in his mouth, which conjecture
has likened to a basket of flowers.</p>
<p>This, by-the-bye, is a tempting article to young wives in the humbler
ranks of life, who have a first-floor front to furnish&mdash;they are
lost in admiration, and hardly know which to admire most.&nbsp; The
dog is very beautiful, but they have a dog already on the best tea-tray,
and two more on the mantel-piece.&nbsp; Then, there is something so
genteel about that mail-coach; and the passengers outside (who are all
hat) give it such an air of reality!</p>
<p>The goods here are adapted to the taste, or rather to the means,
of cheap purchasers.&nbsp; There are some of the most beautiful <i>looking</i>
Pembroke tables that were ever beheld: the wood as green as the trees
in the Park, and the leaves almost as certain to fall off in the course
of a year.&nbsp; There is also a most extensive assortment of tent and
turn-up bedsteads, made of stained wood, and innumerable specimens of
that base imposition on society&mdash;a sofa bedstead.</p>
<p>A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture; it may
be slightly disguised with a sham drawer; and sometimes a mad attempt
is even made to pass it off for a book-case; ornament it as you will,
however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and to insist
on having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and
nothing else&mdash;that he is indispensably necessary, and that being
so useful, he disdains to be ornamental.</p>
<p>How different is the demeanour of a sofa bedstead!&nbsp; Ashamed
of its real use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility&mdash;an
attempt in which it miserably fails.&nbsp; It has neither the respectability
of a sofa, nor the virtues of a bed; every man who keeps a sofa bedstead
in his house, becomes a party to a wilful and designing fraud&mdash;we
question whether you could insult him more, than by insinuating that
you entertain the least suspicion of its real use.</p>
<p>To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither of these
classes of brokers&rsquo; shops, forms the subject of this sketch.&nbsp;
The shops to which we advert, are immeasurably inferior to those on
whose outward appearance we have slightly touched.&nbsp; Our readers
must often have observed in some by-street, in a poor neighbourhood,
a small dirty shop, exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused
jumble of old, worn-out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined.&nbsp;
Our wonder at their ever having been bought, is only to be equalled
by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again.&nbsp;
On a board, at the side of the door, are placed about twenty books&mdash;all
odd volumes; and as many wine-glasses&mdash;all different patterns;
several locks, an old earthenware pan, full of rusty keys; two or three
gaudy chimney-ornaments&mdash;cracked, of course; the remains of a lustre,
without any drops; a round frame like a capital O, which has once held
a mirror; a flute, complete with the exception of the middle joint;
a pair of curling-irons; and a tinder-box.&nbsp; In front of the shop-window,
are ranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs, with spinal complaints
and wasted legs; a corner cupboard; two or three very dark mahogany
tables with flaps like mathematical problems; some pickle-jars, some
surgeons&rsquo; ditto, with gilt labels and without stoppers; an unframed
portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the thirteenth
century, by an artist who never flourished at all; an incalculable host
of miscellanies of every description, including bottles and cabinets,
rags and bones, fenders and street-door knockers, fire-irons, wearing
apparel and bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room-door.&nbsp; Imagine, in
addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white frock, with
two faces&mdash;one looking up the street, and the other looking down,
swinging over the door; a board with the squeezed-up inscription &lsquo;Dealer
in marine stores,&rsquo; in lanky white letters, whose height is strangely
out of proportion to their width; and you have before you precisely
the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention.</p>
<p>Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things will be found at
all these places, it is curious to observe how truly and accurately
some of the minor articles which are exposed for sale&mdash;articles
of wearing apparel, for instance&mdash;mark the character of the neighbourhood.&nbsp;
Take Drury-Lane and Covent-garden for example.</p>
<p>This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood.&nbsp; There is not
a potboy in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a
dramatic character.&nbsp; The errand-boys and chandler&rsquo;s-shop-keepers&rsquo;
sons, are all stage-struck: they &lsquo;gets up&rsquo; plays in back
kitchens hired for the purpose, and will stand before a shop-window
for hours, contemplating a great staring portrait of Mr. Somebody or
other, of the Royal Coburg Theatre, &lsquo;as he appeared in the character
of Tongo the Denounced.&rsquo;&nbsp; The consequence is, that there
is not a marine-store shop in the neighbourhood, which does not exhibit
for sale some faded articles of dramatic finery, such as three or four
pairs of soiled buff boots with turn-over red tops, heretofore worn
by a &lsquo;fourth robber,&rsquo; or &lsquo;fifth mob;&rsquo; a pair
of rusty broadswords, a few gauntlets, and certain resplendent ornaments,
which, if they were yellow instead of white, might be taken for insurance
plates of the Sun Fire-office.&nbsp; There are several of these shops
in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which there are so many near
the national theatres, and they all have tempting goods of this description,
with the addition, perhaps, of a lady&rsquo;s pink dress covered with
spangles; white wreaths, stage shoes, and a tiara like a tin lamp reflector.&nbsp;
They have been purchased of some wretched supernumeraries, or sixth-rate
actors, and are now offered for the benefit of the rising generation,
who, on condition of making certain weekly payments, amounting in the
whole to about ten times their value, may avail themselves of such desirable
bargains.</p>
<p>Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the same test.&nbsp;
Look at a marine-store dealer&rsquo;s, in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness,
and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon&mdash;Ratcliff-highway.&nbsp;
Here, the wearing apparel is all nautical.&nbsp; Rough blue jackets,
with mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, coarse checked shirts,
and large canvas trousers that look as if they were made for a pair
of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple commodities.&nbsp;
Then, there are large bunches of cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour
and pattern unlike any one ever saw before, with the exception of those
on the backs of the three young ladies without bonnets who passed just
now.&nbsp; The furniture is much the same as elsewhere, with the addition
of one or two models of ships, and some old prints of naval engagements
in still older frames.&nbsp; In the window, are a few compasses, a small
tray containing silver watches in clumsy thick cases; and tobacco-boxes,
the lid of each ornamented with a ship, or an anchor, or some such trophy.&nbsp;
A sailor generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long
ashore, and if he does not, some favoured companion kindly saves him
the trouble.&nbsp; In either case, it is an even chance that he afterwards
unconsciously repurchases the same things at a higher price than he
gave for them at first.</p>
<p>Again: pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of London, as
unlike both of these as they are to each other.&nbsp; Cross over to
the Surrey side, and look at such shops of this description as are to
be found near the King&rsquo;s Bench prison, and in &lsquo;the Rules.&rsquo;&nbsp;
How different, and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some
of the unfortunate residents in this part of the metropolis!&nbsp; Imprisonment
and neglect have done their work.&nbsp; There is contamination in the
profligate denizens of a debtor&rsquo;s prison; old friends have fallen
off; the recollection of former prosperity has passed away; and with
it all thoughts for the past, all care for the future.&nbsp; First,
watches and rings, then cloaks, coats, and all the more expensive articles
of dress, have found their way to the pawnbroker&rsquo;s.&nbsp; That
miserable resource has failed at last, and the sale of some trifling
article at one of these shops, has been the only mode left of raising
a shilling or two, to meet the urgent demands of the moment.&nbsp; Dressing-cases
and writing-desks, too old to pawn but too good to keep; guns, fishing-rods,
musical instruments, all in the same condition; have first been sold,
and the sacrifice has been but slightly felt.&nbsp; But hunger must
be allayed, and what has already become a habit, is easily resorted
to, when an emergency arises.&nbsp; Light articles of clothing, first
of the ruined man, then of his wife, at last of their children, even
of the youngest, have been parted with, piecemeal.&nbsp; There they
are, thrown carelessly together until a purchaser presents himself,
old, and patched and repaired, it is true; but the make and materials
tell of better days; and the older they are, the greater the misery
and destitution of those whom they once adorned.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XXII&mdash;GIN-SHOPS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is a remarkable circumstance, that different trades appear to
partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially liable,
and to run stark, staring, raving mad, periodically.&nbsp; The great
distinction between the animals and the trades, is, that the former
run mad with a certain degree of propriety&mdash;they are very regular
in their irregularities.&nbsp; We know the period at which the emergency
will arise, and provide against it accordingly.&nbsp; If an elephant
run mad, we are all ready for him&mdash;kill or cure&mdash;pills or
bullets, calomel in conserve of roses, or lead in a musket-barrel.&nbsp;
If a dog happen to look unpleasantly warm in the summer months, and
to trot about the shady side of the streets with a quarter of a yard
of tongue hanging out of his mouth, a thick leather muzzle, which has
been previously prepared in compliance with the thoughtful injunctions
of the Legislature, is instantly clapped over his head, by way of making
him cooler, and he either looks remarkably unhappy for the next six
weeks, or becomes legally insane, and goes mad, as it were, by Act of
Parliament.&nbsp; But these trades are as eccentric as comets; nay,
worse, for no one can calculate on the recurrence of the strange appearances
which betoken the disease.&nbsp; Moreover, the contagion is general,
and the quickness with which it diffuses itself, almost incredible.</p>
<p>We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning.&nbsp;
Six or eight years ago, the epidemic began to display itself among the
linen-drapers and haberdashers.&nbsp; The primary symptoms were an inordinate
love of plate-glass, and a passion for gas-lights and gilding.&nbsp;
The disease gradually progressed, and at last attained a fearful height.&nbsp;
Quiet, dusty old shops in different parts of town, were pulled down;
spacious premises with stuccoed fronts and gold letters, were erected
instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets; roofs supported by
massive pillars; doors knocked into windows; a dozen squares of glass
into one; one shopman into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would
have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time,
that the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were as competent to decide such
cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement
and gentle examination did wonders.&nbsp; The disease abated.&nbsp;
It died away.&nbsp; A year or two of comparative tranquillity ensued.&nbsp;
Suddenly it burst out again amongst the chemists; the symptoms were
the same, with the addition of a strong desire to stick the royal arms
over the shop-door, and a great rage for mahogany, varnish, and expensive
floor-cloth.&nbsp; Then, the hosiers were infected, and began to pull
down their shop-fronts with frantic recklessness.&nbsp; The mania again
died away, and the public began to congratulate themselves on its entire
disappearance, when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the publicans,
and keepers of &lsquo;wine vaults.&rsquo;&nbsp; From that moment it
has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation
of all the previous symptoms; onward it has rushed to every part of
town, knocking down all the old public-houses, and depositing splendid
mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated
clocks, at the corner of every street.</p>
<p>The extensive scale on which these places are established, and the
ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among
them is divided into branches, is amusing.&nbsp; A handsome plate of
ground glass in one door directs you &lsquo;To the Counting-house;&rsquo;
another to the &lsquo;Bottle Department; a third to the &lsquo;Wholesale
Department;&rsquo; a fourth to &lsquo;The Wine Promenade;&rsquo; and
so forth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting with a &lsquo;Brandy
Bell,&rsquo; or a &lsquo;Whiskey Entrance.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then, ingenuity
is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions
of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community as they gaze
upon the gigantic black and white announcements, which are only to be
equalled in size by the figures beneath them, are left in a state of
pleasing hesitation between &lsquo;The Cream of the Valley,&rsquo; &lsquo;The
Out and Out,&rsquo; &lsquo;The No Mistake,&rsquo; &lsquo;The Good for
Mixing,&rsquo; &lsquo;The real Knock-me-down,&rsquo; &lsquo;The celebrated
Butter Gin,&rsquo; &lsquo;The regular Flare-up,&rsquo; and a dozen other,
equally inviting and wholesome <i>liqueurs</i>.&nbsp; Although places
of this description are to be met with in every second street, they
are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the dirt
and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood.&nbsp; The gin-shops in
and near Drury-Lane, Holborn, St. Giles&rsquo;s, Covent-garden, and
Clare-market, are the handsomest in London.&nbsp; There is more of filth
and squalid misery near those great thorough-fares than in any part
of this mighty city.</p>
<p>We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its
ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as may
not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on the chance
of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury-Lane,
through the narrow streets and dirty courts which divide it from Oxford-street,
and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road,
best known to the initiated as the &lsquo;Rookery.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly
be imagined by those (and there are many such) who have not witnessed
it.&nbsp; Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and
paper: every room let out to a different family, and in many instances
to two or even three&mdash;fruit and &lsquo;sweet-stuff&rsquo; manufacturers
in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours,
cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families
on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a
&lsquo;musician&rsquo; in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five
hungry children in the back one&mdash;filth everywhere&mdash;a gutter
before the houses and a drain behind&mdash;clothes drying and slops
emptying, from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen, with matted
hair, walking about barefoot, and in white great-coats, almost their
only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no coats
at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel,
lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing.</p>
<p>You turn the corner.&nbsp; What a change!&nbsp; All is light and
brilliancy.&nbsp; The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop
which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay
building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated
clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its
profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling
when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left.&nbsp;
The interior is even gayer than the exterior.&nbsp; A bar of French-polished
mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the place; and
there are two side-aisles of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed
within a light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions, as &lsquo;Old
Tom, 549;&rsquo; &lsquo;Young Tom, 360;&rsquo; &lsquo;Samson, 1421&rsquo;&mdash;the
figures agreeing, we presume, with &lsquo;gallons,&rsquo; understood.&nbsp;
Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing
vessels, with a gallery running round it, equally well furnished.&nbsp;
On the counter, in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or
three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured
at top with wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully
abstracted.&nbsp; Behind it, are two showily-dressed damsels with large
necklaces, dispensing the spirits and &lsquo;compounds.&rsquo;&nbsp;
They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout,
coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side to give him
a knowing air, and to display his sandy whiskers to the best advantage.</p>
<p>The two old washerwomen, who are seated on the little bench to the
left of the bar, are rather overcome by the head-dresses and haughty
demeanour of the young ladies who officiate.&nbsp; They receive their
half-quartern of gin and peppermint, with considerable deference, prefacing
a request for &lsquo;one of them soft biscuits,&rsquo; with a &lsquo;Jist
be good enough, ma&rsquo;am.&rsquo;&nbsp; They are quite astonished
at the impudent air of the young fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons,
who, ushering in his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as
careless a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments
all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with singular coolness,
and calls for a &lsquo;kervorten and a three-out-glass,&rsquo; just
as if the place were his own.&nbsp; &lsquo;Gin for you, sir?&rsquo;
says the young lady when she has drawn it: carefully looking every way
but the right one, to show that the wink had no effect upon her.&nbsp;
&lsquo;For me, Mary, my dear,&rsquo; replies the gentleman in brown.&nbsp;
&lsquo;My name an&rsquo;t Mary as it happens,&rsquo; says the young
girl, rather relaxing as she delivers the change.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,
if it an&rsquo;t, it ought to be,&rsquo; responds the irresistible one;
&lsquo;all the Marys as ever <i>I</i> see, was handsome gals.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how blushes are managed
in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by addressing the female
in the faded feathers who has just entered, and who, after stating explicitly,
to prevent any subsequent misunderstanding, that &lsquo;this gentleman
pays,&rsquo; calls for &lsquo;a glass of port wine and a bit of sugar.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Those two old men who came in &lsquo;just to have a drain,&rsquo;
finished their third quartern a few seconds ago; they have made themselves
crying drunk; and the fat comfortable-looking elderly women, who had
&lsquo;a glass of rum-srub&rsquo; each, having chimed in with their
complaints on the hardness of the times, one of the women has agreed
to stand a glass round, jocularly observing that &lsquo;grief never
mended no broken bones, and as good people&rsquo;s wery scarce, what
I says is, make the most on &rsquo;em, and that&rsquo;s all about it!&rsquo;
a sentiment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those
who have nothing to pay.</p>
<p>It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children, who
have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to two or three
occasional stragglers&mdash;cold, wretched-looking creatures, in the
last stage of emaciation and disease.&nbsp; The knot of Irish labourers
at the lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands
with, and threatening the life of each other, for the last hour, become
furious in their disputes, and finding it impossible to silence one
man, who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort
to the expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards.&nbsp;
The man in the fur cap, and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot and
confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half
get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time; the landlord
hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids scream;
the police come in; the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves,
torn coats, shouting, and struggling.&nbsp; Some of the party are borne
off to the station-house, and the remainder slink home to beat their
wives for complaining, and kick the children for daring to be hungry.</p>
<p>We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only because our
limits compel us to do so, but because, if it were pursued farther,
it would be painful and repulsive.&nbsp; Well-disposed gentlemen, and
charitable ladies, would alike turn with coldness and disgust from a
description of the drunken besotted men, and wretched broken-down miserable
women, who form no inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these
haunts; forgetting, in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude,
the poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other.&nbsp; Gin-drinking
is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater;
and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished
wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery,
with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel
of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour.&nbsp;
If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against hunger, filth,
and foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution
of bottles of Lethe-water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things
that were.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XXIII&mdash;THE PAWNBROKER&rsquo;S SHOP</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Of the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the
streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which present
such striking scenes as the pawnbrokers&rsquo; shops.&nbsp; The very
nature and description of these places occasions their being but little
known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune
drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer.&nbsp; The subject
may appear, at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but
we venture on it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits
of our present paper are concerned, it will present nothing to disgust
even the most fastidious reader.</p>
<p>There are some pawnbrokers&rsquo; shops of a very superior description.&nbsp;
There are grades in pawning as in everything else, and distinctions
must be observed even in poverty.&nbsp; The aristocratic Spanish cloak
and the plebeian calico shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, the
muslin cravat and the Belcher neckerchief, would but ill assort together;
so, the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silver-smith, and
decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while
the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites
observation.&nbsp; It is with pawnbrokers&rsquo; shops of the latter
class, that we have to do.&nbsp; We have selected one for our purpose,
and will endeavour to describe it.</p>
<p>The pawnbroker&rsquo;s shop is situated near Drury-Lane, at the corner
of a court, which affords a side entrance for the accommodation of such
customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the passers-by,
or the chance of recognition in the public street.&nbsp; It is a low,
dirty-looking, dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully,
a little way open: half inviting, half repelling the hesitating visitor,
who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches
in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as if he
contemplated making a purchase; and then looking cautiously round to
ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks in: the door closing
of itself after him, to just its former width.&nbsp; The shop front
and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once painted;
but, what the colour was originally, or at what date it was probably
laid on, are at this remote period questions which may be asked, but
cannot be answered.&nbsp; Tradition states that the transparency in
the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground,
once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words &lsquo;Money
advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of
property,&rsquo; but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now
remain to attest the fact.&nbsp; The plate and jewels would seem to
have disappeared, together with the announcement, for the articles of
stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include
any very valuable luxuries of either kind.&nbsp; A few old china cups;
some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers
playing three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor
with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his
perfect freedom and gaiety; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes,
a few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a
very dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and testaments, two
rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson&rsquo;s
first; numerous old-fashioned table and tea spoons, displayed, fan-like,
in half-dozens; strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps; cards
of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the insects
in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with
a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six
beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and
cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description, form
the more useful, though even less ornamental, part, of the articles
exposed for sale.&nbsp; An extensive collection of planes, chisels,
saws, and other carpenters&rsquo; tools, which have been pledged, and
never redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large
frames full of ticketed bundles, which are dimly seen through the dirty
casement up-stairs&mdash;the squalid neighbourhood&mdash;the adjoining
houses, straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy, unwholesome-looking
heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans and stunted plants
exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest hazard of the heads
of the passers-by&mdash;the noisy men loitering under the archway at
the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door&mdash;and their
wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap
vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries.</p>
<p>If the outside of the pawnbroker&rsquo;s shop be calculated to attract
the attention, or excite the interest, of the speculative pedestrian,
its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in an increased
degree.&nbsp; The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into
the common shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual
acquaintance with such scenes renders them indifferent to the observation
of their companions in poverty.&nbsp; The side door opens into a small
passage from which some half-dozen doors (which may be secured on the
inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens, or
closets, which face the counter.&nbsp; Here, the more timid or respectable
portion of the crowd shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder,
and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the
curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard, shall
feel disposed to favour them with his notice&mdash;a consummation which
depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the
time being.</p>
<p>At the present moment, this elegantly-attired individual is in the
act of entering the duplicate he has just made out, in a thick book:
a process from which he is diverted occasionally, by a conversation
he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little
distance from him, whose allusions to &lsquo;that last bottle of soda-water
last night,&rsquo; and &lsquo;how regularly round my hat he felt himself
when the young &rsquo;ooman gave &rsquo;em in charge,&rsquo; would appear
to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding
evening.&nbsp; The customers generally, however, seem unable to participate
in the amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking
woman, who has been leaning with both arms on the counter with a small
bundle before her, for half an hour previously, suddenly interrupts
the conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman&mdash;&lsquo;Now,
Mr. Henry, do make haste, there&rsquo;s a good soul, for my two grandchildren&rsquo;s
locked up at home, and I&rsquo;m afeer&rsquo;d of the fire.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The shopman slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction,
and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You&rsquo;re in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev&rsquo;nin&rsquo;,
an&rsquo;t you?&rsquo; is the only notice he deigns to take, after the
lapse of five minutes or so.&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry;
now, do serve me next, there&rsquo;s a good creetur.&nbsp; I wouldn&rsquo;t
worry you, only it&rsquo;s all along o&rsquo; them botherin&rsquo; children.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;What have you got here?&rsquo; inquires the shopman, unpinning
the bundle&mdash;&lsquo;old concern, I suppose&mdash;pair o&rsquo; stays
and a petticut.&nbsp; You must look up somethin&rsquo; else, old &rsquo;ooman;
I can&rsquo;t lend you anything more upon them; they&rsquo;re completely
worn out by this time, if it&rsquo;s only by putting in, and taking
out again, three times a week.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh! you&rsquo;re
a rum un, you are,&rsquo; replies the old woman, laughing extremely,
as in duty bound; &lsquo;I wish I&rsquo;d got the gift of the gab like
you; see if I&rsquo;d be up the spout so often then!&nbsp; No, no; it
an&rsquo;t the petticut; it&rsquo;s a child&rsquo;s frock and a beautiful
silk ankecher, as belongs to my husband.&nbsp; He gave four shillin&rsquo;
for it, the werry same blessed day as he broke his arm.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;What
do you want upon these?&rsquo; inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing
at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What do you want upon these?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Eighteenpence.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Lend
you ninepence.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Oh, make it a shillin&rsquo;; there&rsquo;s
a dear&mdash;do now?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Not another farden.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Well,
I suppose I must take it.&rsquo;&nbsp; The duplicate is made out, one
ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel
is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers
his claim to be served without further delay.</p>
<p>The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose
tarnished paper-cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an
additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance.&nbsp;
He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter
of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court.&nbsp; He has come
to redeem some tools:- probably to complete a job with, on account of
which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance
and drunken staggers may be taken as evidence of the fact.&nbsp; Having
waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his
ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on
a level with the counter by any other process, has employed himself
in climbing up, and then hooking himself on with his elbows&mdash;an
uneasy perch, from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting
on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity.&nbsp; In the present
case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends
him reeling to this door; and the donor of the blow is immediately the
object of general indignation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you strike the boy for, you brute?&rsquo; exclaims
a slipshod woman, with two flat irons in a little basket.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do
you think he&rsquo;s your wife, you willin?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Go and
hang yourself!&rsquo; replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken
look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the woman
which fortunately misses its object.&nbsp; &lsquo;Go and hang yourself;
and wait till I come and cut you down.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Cut you down,&rsquo;
rejoins the woman, &lsquo;I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond!
(loud.)&nbsp; Oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder.)&nbsp; Where&rsquo;s
your wife, you willin? (louder still; women of this class are always
sympathetic, and work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shortest
notice.)&nbsp; Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog&mdash;strike
a woman&mdash;you a man! (very shrill;) I wish I had you&mdash;I&rsquo;d
murder you, I would, if I died for it!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Now be civil,&rsquo;
retorts the man fiercely.&nbsp; &lsquo;Be civil, you wiper!&rsquo; ejaculates
the woman contemptuously.&nbsp; &lsquo;An&rsquo;t it shocking?&rsquo;
she continues, turning round, and appealing to an old woman who is peeping
out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has
not the slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing, as she
does, the comfortable conviction that she is bolted in.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ain&rsquo;t
it shocking, ma&rsquo;am?&nbsp; (Dreadful! says the old woman in a parenthesis,
not exactly knowing what the question refers to.)&nbsp; He&rsquo;s got
a wife, ma&rsquo;am, as takes in mangling, and is as &rsquo;dustrious
and hard-working a young &rsquo;ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives
in the back parlour of our &rsquo;ous, which my husband and me lives
in the front one (with great rapidity)&mdash;and we hears him a beaten&rsquo;
on her sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night through,
and not only a beaten&rsquo; her, but beaten&rsquo; his own child too,
to make her more miserable&mdash;ugh, you beast! and she, poor creater,
won&rsquo;t swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin&rsquo;, because
she likes the wretch arter all&mdash;worse luck!&rsquo;&nbsp; Here,
as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker
himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a gray dressing-gown,
embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:- &lsquo;Now
I won&rsquo;t have none of this sort of thing on my premises!&rsquo;
he interposes with an air of authority.&nbsp; &lsquo;Mrs. Mackin, keep
yourself to yourself, or you don&rsquo;t get fourpence for a flat iron
here; and Jinkins, you leave your ticket here till you&rsquo;re sober,
and send your wife for them two planes, for I won&rsquo;t have you in
my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make you scarcer.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the
women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and
is in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings
for the night, when the entrance of his wife, a wretched, worn-out woman,
apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident
marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to
the burden&mdash;light enough, God knows!&mdash;of the thin, sickly
child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Come home, dear,&rsquo; cries the miserable creature, in an imploring
tone; &lsquo;<i>do</i> come home, there&rsquo;s a good fellow, and go
to bed.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Go home yourself,&rsquo; rejoins the furious
ruffian.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do come home quietly,&rsquo; repeats the wife,
bursting into tears.&nbsp; &lsquo;Go home yourself,&rsquo; retorts the
husband again, enforcing his argument by a blow which sends the poor
creature flying out of the shop.&nbsp; Her &lsquo;natural protector&rsquo;
follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating
her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate
child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face.</p>
<p>In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure
corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas-lights,
are a young delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female, evidently
her mother from the resemblance between them, who stand at some distance
back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopman.&nbsp; It is
not their first visit to a pawnbroker&rsquo;s shop, for they answer
without a moment&rsquo;s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather
respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of &lsquo;What
name shall I say?&mdash;Your own property, of course?&mdash;Where do
you live?&mdash;Housekeeper or lodger?&rsquo;&nbsp; They bargain, too,
for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which
a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do; and the elder female
urges her daughter on, in scarcely audible whispers, to exert her utmost
powers of persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate
on the value of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply
upon.&nbsp; They are a small gold chain and a &lsquo;Forget me not&rsquo;
ring: the girl&rsquo;s property, for they are both too small for the
mother; given her in better times; prized, perhaps, once, for the giver&rsquo;s
sake, but parted with now without a struggle; for want has hardened
the mother, and her example has hardened the girl, and the prospect
of receiving money, coupled with a recollection of the misery they have
both endured from the want of it&mdash;the coldness of old friends&mdash;the
stern refusal of some, and the still more galling compassion of others&mdash;appears
to have obliterated the consciousness of self-humiliation, which the
idea of their present situation would once have aroused.</p>
<p>In the next box, is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor,
but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold, but extravagantly fine, too plainly
bespeaks her station.&nbsp; The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings,
the worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings, the summer bonnet
in winter, and the sunken face, where a daub of rouge only serves as
an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and
lost happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile is
a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart, cannot be mistaken.&nbsp;
There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour,
and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that
seems to have awakened in this woman&rsquo;s mind some slumbering recollection,
and to have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour.&nbsp; Her
first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely
the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing
them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box,
cover her face with her hands, and burst into tears.</p>
<p>There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant
through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at
last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but connected
by some undefined and indistinct association, with past days that can
never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most
degraded creature in existence cannot escape.</p>
<p>There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the
common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonneted, flaunting, and
slovenly.&nbsp; Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she
could see of the group; then her attention.&nbsp; The half-intoxicated
leer changed to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling
similar to that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a
moment, to extend itself even to her bosom.</p>
<p>Who shall say how soon these women may change places?&nbsp; The last
has but two more stages&mdash;the hospital and the grave.&nbsp; How
many females situated as her two companions are, and as she may have
been once, have terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched
manner!&nbsp; One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity.&nbsp;
How soon may the other follow her example!&nbsp; How many have done
the same!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XXIV&mdash;CRIMINAL COURTS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with
which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days.&nbsp;
How dreadful its rough heavy walls, and low massive doors, appeared
to us&mdash;the latter looking as if they were made for the express
purpose of letting people in, and never letting them out again.&nbsp;
Then the fetters over the debtors&rsquo; door, which we used to think
were a <i>bon&acirc; fide</i> set of irons, just hung up there, for
convenience&rsquo; sake, ready to be taken down at a moment&rsquo;s
notice, and riveted on the limbs of some refractory felon!&nbsp; We
were never tired of wondering how the hackney-coachmen on the opposite
stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors, and drink pots
of half-and-half so near the last drop.</p>
<p>Often have we strayed here, in sessions time, to catch a glimpse
of the whipping-place, and that dark building on one side of the yard,
in which is kept the gibbet with all its dreadful apparatus, and on
the door of which we half expected to see a brass plate, with the inscription
&lsquo;Mr. Ketch;&rsquo; for we never imagined that the distinguished
functionary could by possibility live anywhere else!&nbsp; The days
of these childish dreams have passed away, and with them many other
boyish ideas of a gayer nature.&nbsp; But we still retain so much of
our original feeling, that to this hour we never pass the building without
something like a shudder.</p>
<p>What London pedestrian is there who has not, at some time or other,
cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which prisoners are admitted
into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could discern,
with an indescribable feeling of curiosity?&nbsp; The thick door, plated
with iron and mounted with spikes, just low enough to enable you to
see, leaning over them, an ill-looking fellow, in a broad-brimmed hat,
Belcher handkerchief and top-boots: with a brown coat, something between
a great-coat and a &lsquo;sporting&rsquo; jacket, on his back, and an
immense key in his left hand.&nbsp; Perhaps you are lucky enough to
pass, just as the gate is being opened; then, you see on the other side
of the lodge, another gate, the image of its predecessor, and two or
three more turnkeys, who look like multiplications of the first one,
seated round a fire which just lights up the whitewashed apartment sufficiently
to enable you to catch a hasty glimpse of these different objects.&nbsp;
We have a great respect for Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to have
written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe.</p>
<p>We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, some time ago, when,
as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turnkey.&nbsp;
We turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two persons
descending the steps.&nbsp; We could not help stopping and observing
them.</p>
<p>They were an elderly woman, of decent appearance, though evidently
poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen.&nbsp; The woman was crying
bitterly; she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed
at a short distance behind her.&nbsp; Their little history was obvious.&nbsp;
The boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed
her own&mdash;for whose sake she had borne misery without repining,
and poverty without a murmur&mdash;looking steadily forward to the time,
when he who had so long witnessed her struggles for himself, might be
enabled to make some exertions for their joint support.&nbsp; He had
formed dissolute connexions; idleness had led to crime; and he had been
committed to take his trial for some petty theft.&nbsp; He had been
long in prison, and, after receiving some trifling additional punishment,
had been ordered to be discharged that morning.&nbsp; It was his first
offence, and his poor old mother, still hoping to reclaim him, had been
waiting at the gate to implore him to return home.</p>
<p>We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a dogged look,
shaking his head with an air of bravado and obstinate determination.&nbsp;
They walked a few paces, and paused.&nbsp; The woman put her hand upon
his shoulder in an agony of entreaty, and the boy sullenly raised his
head as if in refusal.&nbsp; It was a brilliant morning, and every object
looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sunlight; he gazed round him
for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene, for
it was long since he had beheld anything save the gloomy walls of a
prison.&nbsp; Perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression
on the boy&rsquo;s heart; perhaps some undefined recollection of the
time when he was a happy child, and she his only friend, and best companion,
crowded on him&mdash;he burst into tears; and covering his face with
one hand, and hurriedly placing the other in his mother&rsquo;s, walked
away with her.</p>
<p>Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey.&nbsp;
Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first
time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted;
every trial seems a mere matter of business.&nbsp; There is a great
deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy.&nbsp;
Take the Old Court for example.&nbsp; There sit the judges, with whose
great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we need
say no more.&nbsp; Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking
as cool as a Lord Mayor <i>can</i> look, with an immense <i>bouquet</i>
before him, and habited in all the splendour of his office.&nbsp; Then,
there are the Sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor
himself; and the Barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their
own opinion; and the spectators, who having paid for their admission,
look upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their
amusement.&nbsp; Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court&mdash;some
wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing
in low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour&mdash;and
you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of
life or death to one wretched being present.&nbsp; But turn your eyes
to the dock; watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments; and the
fact is before you, in all its painful reality.&nbsp; Mark how restlessly
he has been engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of
fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge before
him; observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness
appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead,
and feverish hands, when the case for the prosecution is closed, as
if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst.</p>
<p>The defence is concluded; the judge proceeds to sum up the evidence;
and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury, as a dying man,
clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his physician
for a slight ray of hope.&nbsp; They turn round to consult; you can
almost hear the man&rsquo;s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary,
with a desperate effort to appear composed.&nbsp; They resume their
places&mdash;a dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the
verdict&mdash;&lsquo;Guilty!&rsquo;&nbsp; A shriek bursts from a female
in the gallery; the prisoner casts one look at the quarter from whence
the noise proceeded; and is immediately hurried from the dock by the
gaoler.&nbsp; The clerk directs one of the officers of the Court to
&lsquo;take the woman out,&rsquo; and fresh business is proceeded with,
as if nothing had occurred.</p>
<p>No imaginary contrast to a case like this, could be as complete as
that which is constantly presented in the New Court, the gravity of
which is frequently disturbed in no small degree, by the cunning and
pertinacity of juvenile offenders.&nbsp; A boy of thirteen is tried,
say for picking the pocket of some subject of her Majesty, and the offence
is about as clearly proved as an offence can be.&nbsp; He is called
upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation
about the jurymen and his country&mdash;asserts that all the witnesses
have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have
entered into a conspiracy &lsquo;again&rsquo; him.&nbsp; However probable
this statement may be, it fails to convince the Court, and some such
scene as the following then takes place:</p>
<p><i>Court</i>: Have you any witnesses to speak to your character,
boy?</p>
<p><i>Boy</i>: Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n is a vaten
outside, and vos a vaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night
afore my trial vos a comin&rsquo; on.</p>
<p><i>Court</i>.&nbsp; Inquire for these witnesses.</p>
<p>Here, a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witnesses
at the very top of his voice; for you hear his cry grow fainter and
fainter as he descends the steps into the court-yard below.&nbsp; After
an absence of five minutes, he returns, very warm and hoarse, and informs
the Court of what it knew perfectly well before&mdash;namely, that there
are no such witnesses in attendance.&nbsp; Hereupon, the boy sets up
a most awful howling; screws the lower part of the palms of his hands
into the corners of his eyes; and endeavours to look the picture of
injured innocence.&nbsp; The jury at once find him &lsquo;guilty,&rsquo;
and his endeavours to squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled.&nbsp;
The governor of the gaol then states, in reply to an inquiry from the
bench, that the prisoner has been under his care twice before.&nbsp;
This the urchin resolutely denies in some such terms as&mdash;&lsquo;S&rsquo;elp
me, gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n, I never vos in trouble afore&mdash;indeed,
my Lord, I never vos.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all a howen to my having a twin
brother, vich has wrongfully got into trouble, and vich is so exactly
like me, that no vun ever knows the difference atween us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired
effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years&rsquo; transportation.&nbsp;
Finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives vent to his feelings
in an imprecation bearing reference to the eyes of &lsquo;old big vig!&rsquo;
and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, is
forthwith carried out, congratulating himself on having succeeded in
giving everybody as much trouble as possible.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XXV&mdash;A VISIT TO NEWGATE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;The force of habit&rsquo; is a trite phrase in everybody&rsquo;s
mouth; and it is not a little remarkable that those who use it most
as applied to others, unconsciously afford in their own persons singular
examples of the power which habit and custom exercise over the minds
of men, and of the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects
with which every day&rsquo;s experience has rendered them familiar.&nbsp;
If Bedlam could be suddenly removed like another Aladdin&rsquo;s palace,
and set down on the space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man
out of a hundred, whose road to business every morning lies through
Newgate-street, or the Old Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing
a hasty glance on its small, grated windows, and a transient thought
upon the condition of the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells;
and yet these same men, day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass
this gloomy depository of the guilt and misery of London, in one perpetual
stream of life and bustle, utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched
creatures pent up within it&mdash;nay, not even knowing, or if they
do, not heeding, the fact, that as they pass one particular angle of
the massive wall with a light laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within
one yard of a fellow-creature, bound and helpless, whose hours are numbered,
from whom the last feeble ray of hope has fled for ever, and whose miserable
career will shortly terminate in a violent and shameful death.&nbsp;
Contact with death even in its least terrible shape, is solemn and appalling.&nbsp;
How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the dying&mdash;to
men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the prime of
life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and perfect
as your own; but dying, nevertheless&mdash;dying as surely&mdash;with
the hand of death imprinted upon them as indelibly&mdash;as if mortal
disease had wasted their frames to shadows, and corruption had already
begun!</p>
<p>It was with some such thoughts as these that we determined, not many
weeks since, to visit the interior of Newgate&mdash;in an amateur capacity,
of course; and, having carried our intention into effect, we proceed
to lay its results before our readers, in the hope&mdash;founded more
upon the nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence
in our own descriptive powers&mdash;that this paper may not be found
wholly devoid of interest.&nbsp; We have only to premise, that we do
not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the
prison; they will be found at length in numerous reports of numerous
committees, and a variety of authorities of equal weight.&nbsp; We took
no notes, made no memoranda, measured none of the yards, ascertained
the exact number of inches in no particular room: are unable even to
report of how many apartments the gaol is composed.</p>
<p>We saw the prison, and saw the prisoners; and what we did see, and
what we thought, we will tell at once in our own way.</p>
<p>Having delivered our credentials to the servant who answered our
knock at the door of the governor&rsquo;s house, we were ushered into
the &lsquo;office;&rsquo; a little room, on the right-hand side as you
enter, with two windows looking into the Old Bailey: fitted up like
an ordinary attorney&rsquo;s office, or merchant&rsquo;s counting-house,
with the usual fixtures&mdash;a wainscoted partition, a shelf or two,
a desk, a couple of stools, a pair of clerks, an almanack, a clock,
and a few maps.&nbsp; After a little delay, occasioned by sending into
the interior of the prison for the officer whose duty it was to conduct
us, that functionary arrived; a respectable-looking man of about two
or three and fifty, in a broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of black,
who, but for his keys, would have looked quite as much like a clergyman
as a turnkey.&nbsp; We were disappointed; he had not even top-boots
on.&nbsp; Following our conductor by a door opposite to that at which
we had entered, we arrived at a small room, without any other furniture
than a little desk, with a book for visitors&rsquo; autographs, and
a shelf, on which were a few boxes for papers, and casts of the heads
and faces of the two notorious murderers, Bishop and Williams; the former,
in particular, exhibiting a style of head and set of features, which
might have afforded sufficient moral grounds for his instant execution
at any time, even had there been no other evidence against him.&nbsp;
Leaving this room also, by an opposite door, we found ourself in the
lodge which opens on the Old Bailey; one side of which is plentifully
garnished with a choice collection of heavy sets of irons, including
those worn by the redoubtable Jack Sheppard&mdash;genuine; and those
<i>said</i> to have been graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less celebrated
Dick Turpin&mdash;doubtful.&nbsp; From this lodge, a heavy oaken gate,
bound with iron, studded with nails of the same material, and guarded
by another turnkey, opens on a few steps, if we remember right, which
terminate in a narrow and dismal stone passage, running parallel with
the Old Bailey, and leading to the different yards, through a number
of tortuous and intricate windings, guarded in their turn by huge gates
and gratings, whose appearance is sufficient to dispel at once the slightest
hope of escape that any new-comer may have entertained; and the very
recollection of which, on eventually traversing the place again, involves
one in a maze of confusion.</p>
<p>It is necessary to explain here, that the buildings in the prison,
or in other words the different wards&mdash;form a square, of which
the four sides abut respectively on the Old Bailey, the old College
of Physicians (now forming a part of Newgate-market), the Sessions-house,
and Newgate-street.&nbsp; The intermediate space is divided into several
paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can
be had in such a place.&nbsp; These yards, with the exception of that
in which prisoners under sentence of death are confined (of which we
shall presently give a more detailed description), run parallel with
Newgate-street, and consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, to
Newgate-market.&nbsp; The women&rsquo;s side is in the right wing of
the prison nearest the Sessions-house.&nbsp; As we were introduced into
this part of the building first, we will adopt the same order, and introduce
our readers to it also.</p>
<p>Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we just now
adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates&mdash;for if we
noticed every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked
again as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma&mdash;we
came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible,
passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women: the majority
of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the presence of strangers,
retreated to their wards.&nbsp; One side of this yard is railed off
at a considerable distance, and formed into a kind of iron cage, about
five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and defended in front
by iron bars, from which the friends of the female prisoners communicate
with them.&nbsp; In one corner of this singular-looking den, was a yellow,
haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that had once been black,
and the remains of an old straw bonnet, with faded ribbon of the same
hue, in earnest conversation with a young girl&mdash;a prisoner, of
course&mdash;of about two-and-twenty.&nbsp; It is impossible to imagine
a more poverty-stricken object, or a creature so borne down in soul
and body, by excess of misery and destitution, as the old woman.&nbsp;
The girl was a good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair
streaming about in the wind&mdash;for she had no bonnet on&mdash;and
a man&rsquo;s silk pocket-handkerchief loosely thrown over a most ample
pair of shoulders.&nbsp; The old woman was talking in that low, stifled
tone of voice which tells so forcibly of mental anguish; and every now
and then burst into an irrepressible sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the
most distressing sound that ears can hear.&nbsp; The girl was perfectly
unmoved.&nbsp; Hardened beyond all hope of redemption, she listened
doggedly to her mother&rsquo;s entreaties, whatever they were: and,
beyond inquiring after &lsquo;Jem,&rsquo; and eagerly catching at the
few halfpence her miserable parent had brought her, took no more apparent
interest in the conversation than the most unconcerned spectators.&nbsp;
Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the persons of the other
prisoners in the yard, who were no more concerned by what was passing
before their eyes, and within their hearing, than if they were blind
and deaf.&nbsp; Why should they be?&nbsp; Inside the prison, and out,
such scenes were too familiar to them, to excite even a passing thought,
unless of ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had long since
forgotten.</p>
<p>A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly, thick-bordered
cap, with her arms muffled in a large red shawl, the fringed ends of
which straggled nearly to the bottom of a dirty white apron, was communicating
some instructions to <i>her</i> visitor&mdash;her daughter evidently.&nbsp;
The girl was thinly clad, and shaking with the cold.&nbsp; Some ordinary
word of recognition passed between her and her mother when she appeared
at the grating, but neither hope, condolence, regret, nor affection
was expressed on either side.&nbsp; The mother whispered her instructions,
and the girl received them with her pinched-up, half-starved features
twisted into an expression of careful cunning.&nbsp; It was some scheme
for the woman&rsquo;s defence that she was disclosing, perhaps; and
a sullen smile came over the girl&rsquo;s face for an instant, as if
she were pleased: not so much at the probability of her mother&rsquo;s
liberation, as at the chance of her &lsquo;getting off&rsquo; in spite
of her prosecutors.&nbsp; The dialogue was soon concluded; and with
the same careless indifference with which they had approached each other,
the mother turned towards the inner end of the yard, and the girl to
the gate at which she had entered.</p>
<p>The girl belonged to a class&mdash;unhappily but too extensive&mdash;the
very existence of which, should make men&rsquo;s hearts bleed.&nbsp;
Barely past her childhood, it required but a glance to discover that
she was one of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who
have never known what childhood is: who have never been taught to love
and court a parent&rsquo;s smile, or to dread a parent&rsquo;s frown.&nbsp;
The thousand nameless endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence,
are alike unknown to them.&nbsp; They have entered at once upon the
stern realities and miseries of life, and to their better nature it
is almost hopeless to appeal in after-times, by any of the references
which will awaken, if it be only for a moment, some good feeling in
ordinary bosoms, however corrupt they may have become.&nbsp; Talk to
<i>them</i> of parental solicitude, the happy days of childhood, and
the merry games of infancy!&nbsp; Tell them of hunger and the streets,
beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbroker&rsquo;s,
and they will understand you.</p>
<p>Two or three women were standing at different parts of the grating,
conversing with their friends, but a very large proportion of the prisoners
appeared to have no friends at all, beyond such of their old companions
as might happen to be within the walls.&nbsp; So, passing hastily down
the yard, and pausing only for an instant to notice the little incidents
we have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and well-lighted
flight of stone stairs to one of the wards.&nbsp; There are several
in this part of the building, but a description of one is a description
of the whole.</p>
<p>It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted, of course,
by windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light
and airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation.&nbsp;
There was a large fire with a deal table before it, round which ten
or a dozen women were seated on wooden forms at dinner.&nbsp; Along
both sides of the room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals,
a row of large hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung
the sleeping mat of a prisoner: her rug and blanket being folded up,
and placed on the shelf above.&nbsp; At night, these mats are placed
on the floor, each beneath the hook on which it hangs during the day;
and the ward is thus made to answer the purposes both of a day-room
and sleeping apartment.&nbsp; Over the fireplace, was a large sheet
of pasteboard, on which were displayed a variety of texts from Scripture,
which were also scattered about the room in scraps about the size and
shape of the copy-slips which are used in schools.&nbsp; On the table
was a sufficient provision of a kind of stewed beef and brown bread,
in pewter dishes, which are kept perfectly bright, and displayed on
shelves in great order and regularity when they are not in use.</p>
<p>The women rose hastily, on our entrance, and retired in a hurried
manner to either side of the fireplace.&nbsp; They were all cleanly&mdash;many
of them decently&mdash;attired, and there was nothing peculiar, either
in their appearance or demeanour.&nbsp; One or two resumed the needlework
which they had probably laid aside at the commencement of their meal;
others gazed at the visitors with listless curiosity; and a few retired
behind their companions to the very end of the room, as if desirous
to avoid even the casual observation of the strangers.&nbsp; Some old
Irish women, both in this and other wards, to whom the thing was no
novelty, appeared perfectly indifferent to our presence, and remained
standing close to the seats from which they had just risen; but the
general feeling among the females seemed to be one of uneasiness during
the period of our stay among them: which was very brief.&nbsp; Not a
word was uttered during the time of our remaining, unless, indeed, by
the wardswoman in reply to some question which we put to the turnkey
who accompanied us.&nbsp; In every ward on the female side, a wardswoman
is appointed to preserve order, and a similar regulation is adopted
among the males.&nbsp; The wardsmen and wardswomen are all prisoners,
selected for good conduct.&nbsp; They alone are allowed the privilege
of sleeping on bedsteads; a small stump bedstead being placed in every
ward for that purpose.&nbsp; On both sides of the gaol, is a small receiving-room,
to which prisoners are conducted on their first reception, and whence
they cannot be removed until they have been examined by the surgeon
of the prison. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a></p>
<p>Retracing our steps to the dismal passage in which we found ourselves
at first (and which, by-the-bye, contains three or four dark cells for
the accommodation of refractory prisoners), we were led through a narrow
yard to the &lsquo;school&rsquo;&mdash;a portion of the prison set apart
for boys under fourteen years of age.&nbsp; In a tolerable-sized room,
in which were writing-materials and some copy-books, was the schoolmaster,
with a couple of his pupils; the remainder having been fetched from
an adjoining apartment, the whole were drawn up in line for our inspection.&nbsp;
There were fourteen of them in all, some with shoes, some without; some
in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets without pinafores, and
one in scarce anything at all.&nbsp; The whole number, without an exception
we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of pocket-picking;
and fourteen such terrible little faces we never beheld.&mdash;There
was not one redeeming feature among them&mdash;not a glance of honesty&mdash;not
a wink expressive of anything but the gallows and the hulks, in the
whole collection.&nbsp; As to anything like shame or contrition, that
was entirely out of the question.&nbsp; They were evidently quite gratified
at being thought worth the trouble of looking at; their idea appeared
to be, that we had come to see Newgate as a grand affair, and that they
were an indispensable part of the show; and every boy as he &lsquo;fell
in&rsquo; to the line, actually seemed as pleased and important as if
he had done something excessively meritorious in getting there at all.&nbsp;
We never looked upon a more disagreeable sight, because we never saw
fourteen such hopeless creatures of neglect, before.</p>
<p>On either side of the school-yard is a yard for men, in one of which&mdash;that
towards Newgate-street&mdash;prisoners of the more respectable class
are confined.&nbsp; Of the other, we have little description to offer,
as the different wards necessarily partake of the same character.&nbsp;
They are provided, like the wards on the women&rsquo;s side, with mats
and rugs, which are disposed of in the same manner during the day; the
only very striking difference between their appearance and that of the
wards inhabited by the females, is the utter absence of any employment.&nbsp;
Huddled together on two opposite forms, by the fireside, sit twenty
men perhaps; here, a boy in livery; there, a man in a rough great-coat
and top-boots; farther on, a desperate-looking fellow in his shirt-sleeves,
with an old Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall
ruffian, in a smock-frock; next to him, a miserable being of distressed
appearance, with his head resting on his hand;&mdash;all alike in one
respect, all idle and listless.&nbsp; When they do leave the fire, sauntering
moodily about, lounging in the window, or leaning against the wall,
vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro.&nbsp; With the exception
of a man reading an old newspaper, in two or three instances, this was
the case in every ward we entered.</p>
<p>The only communication these men have with their friends, is through
two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard
in width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor
can the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who
visits him.&nbsp; The married men have a separate grating, at which
to see their wives, but its construction is the same.</p>
<p>The prison chapel is situated at the back of the governor&rsquo;s
house: the latter having no windows looking into the interior of the
prison.&nbsp; Whether the associations connected with the place&mdash;the
knowledge that here a portion of the burial service is, on some dreadful
occasions, performed over the quick and not upon the dead&mdash;cast
over it a still more gloomy and sombre air than art has imparted to
it, we know not, but its appearance is very striking.&nbsp; There is
something in a silent and deserted place of worship, solemn and impressive
at any time; and the very dissimilarity of this one from any we have
been accustomed to, only enhances the impression.&nbsp; The meanness
of its appointments&mdash;the bare and scanty pulpit, with the paltry
painted pillars on either side&mdash;the women&rsquo;s gallery with
its great heavy curtain&mdash;the men&rsquo;s with its unpainted benches
and dingy front&mdash;the tottering little table at the altar, with
the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible through lack
of paint, and dust and damp&mdash;so unlike the velvet and gilding,
the marble and wood, of a modern church&mdash;are strange and striking.&nbsp;
There is one object, too, which rivets the attention and fascinates
the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain, for the
recollection of it will haunt us, waking and sleeping, for a long time
afterwards.&nbsp; Immediately below the reading-desk, on the floor of
the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous object in its little area,
is <i>the</i> <i>condemned pew</i>; a huge black pen, in which the wretched
people, who are singled out for death, are placed on the Sunday preceding
their execution, in sight of all their fellow-prisoners, from many of
whom they may have been separated but a week before, to hear prayers
for their own souls, to join in the responses of their own burial service,
and to listen to an address, warning their recent companions to take
example by their fate, and urging themselves, while there is yet time&mdash;nearly
four-and-twenty hours&mdash;to &lsquo;turn, and flee from the wrath
to come!&rsquo;&nbsp; Imagine what have been the feelings of the men
whom that fearful pew has enclosed, and of whom, between the gallows
and the knife, no mortal remnant may now remain!&nbsp; Think of the
hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the wild despair, far exceeding
in anguish the felon&rsquo;s death itself, by which they have heard
the certainty of their speedy transmission to another world, with all
their crimes upon their heads, rung into their ears by the officiating
clergyman!</p>
<p>At one time&mdash;and at no distant period either&mdash;the coffins
of the men about to be executed, were placed in that pew, upon the seat
by their side, during the whole service.&nbsp; It may seem incredible,
but it is true.&nbsp; Let us hope that the increased spirit of civilisation
and humanity which abolished this frightful and degrading custom, may
extend itself to other usages equally barbarous; usages which have not
even the plea of utility in their defence, as every year&rsquo;s experience
has shown them to be more and more inefficacious.</p>
<p>Leaving the chapel, descending to the passage so frequently alluded
to, and crossing the yard before noticed as being allotted to prisoners
of a more respectable description than the generality of men confined
here, the visitor arrives at a thick iron gate of great size and strength.&nbsp;
Having been admitted through it by the turnkey on duty, he turns sharp
round to the left, and pauses before another gate; and, having passed
this last barrier, he stands in the most terrible part of this gloomy
building&mdash;the condemned ward.</p>
<p>The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers, from its
frequent mention in accounts of executions, is at the corner of the
building, and next to the ordinary&rsquo;s house, in Newgate-street:
running from Newgate-street, towards the centre of the prison, parallel
with Newgate-market.&nbsp; It is a long, narrow court, of which a portion
of the wall in Newgate-street forms one end, and the gate the other.&nbsp;
At the upper end, on the left hand&mdash;that is, adjoining the wall
in Newgate-street&mdash;is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a double
grating (of which the gate itself forms a part) similar to that before
described.&nbsp; Through these grates the prisoners are allowed to see
their friends; a turnkey always remaining in the vacant space between,
during the whole interview.&nbsp; Immediately on the right as you enter,
is a building containing the press-room, day-room, and cells; the yard
is on every side surrounded by lofty walls guarded by <i>chevaux de
frise</i>; and the whole is under the constant inspection of vigilant
and experienced turnkeys.</p>
<p>In the first apartment into which we were conducted&mdash;which was
at the top of a staircase, and immediately over the press-room&mdash;were
five-and-twenty or thirty prisoners, all under sentence of death, awaiting
the result of the recorder&rsquo;s report&mdash;men of all ages and
appearances, from a hardened old offender with swarthy face and grizzly
beard of three days&rsquo; growth, to a handsome boy, not fourteen years
old, and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had
been condemned for burglary.&nbsp; There was nothing remarkable in the
appearance of these prisoners.&nbsp; One or two decently-dressed men
were brooding with a dejected air over the fire; several little groups
of two or three had been engaged in conversation at the upper end of
the room, or in the windows; and the remainder were crowded round a
young man seated at a table, who appeared to be engaged in teaching
the younger ones to write.&nbsp; The room was large, airy, and clean.&nbsp;
There was very little anxiety or mental suffering depicted in the countenance
of any of the men;&mdash;they had all been sentenced to death, it is
true, and the recorder&rsquo;s report had not yet been made; but, we
question whether there was a man among them, notwithstanding, who did
not <i>know</i> that although he had undergone the ceremony, it never
was intended that his life should be sacrificed.&nbsp; On the table
lay a Testament, but there were no tokens of its having been in recent
use.</p>
<p>In the press-room below, were three men, the nature of whose offence
rendered it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in
guilt.&nbsp; It is a long, sombre room, with two windows sunk into the
stone wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the morning of
their execution, before moving towards the scaffold.&nbsp; The fate
of one of these prisoners was uncertain; some mitigatory circumstances
having come to light since his trial, which had been humanely represented
in the proper quarter.&nbsp; The other two had nothing to expect from
the mercy of the crown; their doom was sealed; no plea could be urged
in extenuation of their crime, and they well knew that for them there
was no hope in this world.&nbsp; &lsquo;The two short ones,&rsquo; the
turnkey whispered, &lsquo;were dead men.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some hopes of escape,
was lounging, at the greatest distance he could place between himself
and his companions, in the window nearest to the door.&nbsp; He was
probably aware of our approach, and had assumed an air of courageous
indifference; his face was purposely averted towards the window, and
he stirred not an inch while we were present.&nbsp; The other two men
were at the upper end of the room.&nbsp; One of them, who was imperfectly
seen in the dim light, had his back towards us, and was stooping over
the fire, with his right arm on the mantel-piece, and his head sunk
upon it.&nbsp; The other was leaning on the sill of the farthest window.&nbsp;
The light fell full upon him, and communicated to his pale, haggard
face, and disordered hair, an appearance which, at that distance, was
ghastly.&nbsp; His cheek rested upon his hand; and, with his face a
little raised, and his eyes wildly staring before him, he seemed to
be unconsciously intent on counting the chinks in the opposite wall.&nbsp;
We passed this room again afterwards.&nbsp; The first man was pacing
up and down the court with a firm military step&mdash;he had been a
soldier in the foot-guards&mdash;and a cloth cap jauntily thrown on
one side of his head.&nbsp; He bowed respectfully to our conductor,
and the salute was returned.&nbsp; The other two still remained in the
positions we have described, and were as motionless as statues. <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a></p>
<p>A few paces up the yard, and forming a continuation of the building,
in which are the two rooms we have just quitted, lie the condemned cells.&nbsp;
The entrance is by a narrow and obscure stair-case leading to a dark
passage, in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid tint over the objects
in its immediate vicinity, and diffuses something like warmth around.&nbsp;
From the left-hand side of this passage, the massive door of every cell
on the story opens; and from it alone can they be approached.&nbsp;
There are three of these passages, and three of these ranges of cells,
one above the other; but in size, furniture and appearance, they are
all precisely alike.&nbsp; Prior to the recorder&rsquo;s report being
made, all the prisoners under sentence of death are removed from the
day-room at five o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these
cells, where they are allowed a candle until ten o&rsquo;clock; and
here they remain until seven next morning.&nbsp; When the warrant for
a prisoner&rsquo;s execution arrives, he is removed to the cells and
confined in one of them until he leaves it for the scaffold.&nbsp; He
is at liberty to walk in the yard; but, both in his walks and in his
cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey who never leaves him on
any pretence.</p>
<p>We entered the first cell.&nbsp; It was a stone dungeon, eight feet
long by six wide, with a bench at the upper end, under which were a
common rug, a bible, and prayer-book.&nbsp; An iron candlestick was
fixed into the wall at the side; and a small high window in the back
admitted as much air and light as could struggle in between a double
row of heavy, crossed iron bars.&nbsp; It contained no other furniture
of any description.</p>
<p>Conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth
in this cell.&nbsp; Buoyed up with some vague and undefined hope of
reprieve, he knew not why&mdash;indulging in some wild and visionary
idea of escaping, he knew not how&mdash;hour after hour of the three
preceding days allowed him for preparation, has fled with a speed which
no man living would deem possible, for none but this dying man can know.&nbsp;
He has wearied his friends with entreaties, exhausted the attendants
with importunities, neglected in his feverish restlessness the timely
warnings of his spiritual consoler; and, now that the illusion is at
last dispelled, now that eternity is before him and guilt behind, now
that his fears of death amount almost to madness, and an overwhelming
sense of his helpless, hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and
stupefied, and has neither thoughts to turn to, nor power to call upon,
the Almighty Being, from whom alone he can seek mercy and forgiveness,
and before whom his repentance can alone avail.</p>
<p>Hours have glided by, and still he sits upon the same stone bench
with folded arms, heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before
him, and the urgent entreaties of the good man at his side.&nbsp; The
feeble light is wasting gradually, and the deathlike stillness of the
street without, broken only by the rumbling of some passing vehicle
which echoes mournfully through the empty yards, warns him that the
night is waning fast away.&nbsp; The deep bell of St. Paul&rsquo;s strikes&mdash;one!&nbsp;
He heard it; it has roused him.&nbsp; Seven hours left!&nbsp; He paces
the narrow limits of his cell with rapid strides, cold drops of terror
starting on his forehead, and every muscle of his frame quivering with
agony.&nbsp; Seven hours!&nbsp; He suffers himself to be led to his
seat, mechanically takes the bible which is placed in his hand, and
tries to read and listen.&nbsp; No: his thoughts will wander.&nbsp;
The book is torn and soiled by use&mdash;and like the book he read his
lessons in, at school, just forty years ago!&nbsp; He has never bestowed
a thought upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet the
place, the time, the room&mdash;nay, the very boys he played with, crowd
as vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and some
forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo
of one uttered but a minute since.&nbsp; The voice of the clergyman
recalls him to himself.&nbsp; He is reading from the sacred book its
solemn promises of pardon for repentance, and its awful denunciation
of obdurate men.&nbsp; He falls upon his knees and clasps his hands
to pray.&nbsp; Hush! what sound was that?&nbsp; He starts upon his feet.&nbsp;
It cannot be two yet.&nbsp; Hark!&nbsp; Two quarters have struck;&mdash;the
third&mdash;the fourth.&nbsp; It is!&nbsp; Six hours left.&nbsp; Tell
him not of repentance!&nbsp; Six hours&rsquo; repentance for eight times
six years of guilt and sin!&nbsp; He buries his face in his hands, and
throws himself on the bench.</p>
<p>Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled
state of mind pursues him in his dreams.&nbsp; An insupportable load
is taken from his breast; he is walking with his wife in a pleasant
field, with the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect
on every side&mdash;how different from the stone walls of Newgate!&nbsp;
She is looking&mdash;not as she did when he saw her for the last time
in that dreadful place, but as she used when he loved her&mdash;long,
long ago, before misery and ill-treatment had altered her looks, and
vice had changed his nature, and she is leaning upon his arm, and looking
up into his face with tenderness and affection&mdash;and he does <i>not</i>
strike her now, nor rudely shake her from him.&nbsp; And oh! how glad
he is to tell her all he had forgotten in that last hurried interview,
and to fall on his knees before her and fervently beseech her pardon
for all the unkindness and cruelty that wasted her form and broke her
heart!&nbsp; The scene suddenly changes.&nbsp; He is on his trial again:
there are the judge and jury, and prosecutors, and witnesses, just as
they were before.&nbsp; How full the court is&mdash;what a sea of heads&mdash;with
a gallows, too, and a scaffold&mdash;and how all those people stare
at <i>him</i>!&nbsp; Verdict, &lsquo;Guilty.&rsquo;&nbsp; No matter;
he will escape.</p>
<p>The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open, and in
an instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment
like the wind.&nbsp; The streets are cleared, the open fields are gained
and the broad, wide country lies before him.&nbsp; Onward he dashes
in the midst of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud and pool,
bounding from spot to spot with a speed and lightness, astonishing even
to himself.&nbsp; At length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit
now; he will stretch himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.</p>
<p>A period of unconsciousness succeeds.&nbsp; He wakes, cold and wretched.&nbsp;
The dull, gray light of morning is stealing into the cell, and falls
upon the form of the attendant turnkey.&nbsp; Confused by his dreams,
he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty.&nbsp; It is
but momentary.&nbsp; Every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully
real to admit of doubt or mistake.&nbsp; He is the condemned felon again,
guilty and despairing; and in two hours more will be dead.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CHARACTERS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I&mdash;THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent,
a man may live and die in London.&nbsp; He awakens no sympathy in the
breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to
no one save himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies,
for no one remembered him when he was alive.&nbsp; There is a numerous
class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single
friend, and whom nobody appears to care for.&nbsp; Urged by imperative
necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search
of employment, and the means of subsistence.&nbsp; It is hard, we know,
to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder
still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times,
which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon
the mind, to bring before it associations connected with the friends
we have left, the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time,
and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more.&nbsp; These
men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts.&nbsp;
Old country friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have
become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy
city; and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures
of habit and endurance.</p>
<p>We were seated in the enclosure of St. James&rsquo;s Park the other
day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put
down in our own mind as one of this class.&nbsp; He was a tall, thin,
pale person, in a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up
gaiters, and brown beaver gloves.&nbsp; He had an umbrella in his hand&mdash;not
for use, for the day was fine&mdash;but, evidently, because he always
carried one to the office in the morning.&nbsp; He walked up and down
before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are placed for
hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or recreation, but as
if it were a matter of compulsion, just as he would walk to the office
every morning from the back settlements of Islington.&nbsp; It was Monday;
he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk;
and was walking here for exercise and amusement&mdash;perhaps for the
first time in his life.&nbsp; We were inclined to think he had never
had a holiday before, and that he did not know what to do with himself.&nbsp;
Children were playing on the grass; groups of people were loitering
about, chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily up and down,
unheeding and unheeded his spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable
of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest.</p>
<p>There was something in the man&rsquo;s manner and appearance which
told us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a
man of this sort has no variety of days.&nbsp; We thought we almost
saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning,
hanging his hat on the same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same
desk: first, taking off that black coat which lasts the year through,
and putting on the one which did duty last year, and which he keeps
in his desk to save the other.&nbsp; There he sits till five o&rsquo;clock,
working on, all day, as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece,
whose loud ticking is as monotonous as his whole existence: only raising
his head when some one enters the counting-house, or when, in the midst
of some difficult calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there
were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre
of every pane of glass.&nbsp; About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts
from his accustomed stool, and again changing his coat, proceeds to
his usual dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury.&nbsp; The waiter
recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner&mdash;for he
is a regular customer&mdash;and after inquiring &lsquo;What&rsquo;s
in the best cut?&rsquo; and &lsquo;What was up last?&rsquo; he orders
a small plate of roast beef, with greens, and half-a-pint of porter.&nbsp;
He has a small plate to-day, because greens are a penny more than potatoes,
and he had &lsquo;two breads&rsquo; yesterday, with the additional enormity
of &lsquo;a cheese&rsquo; the day before.&nbsp; This important point
settled, he hangs up his hat&mdash;he took it off the moment he sat
down&mdash;and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman.&nbsp; If
he can get it while he is at dinner, he eats with much greater zest;
balancing it against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and
reading a line or two, alternately.&nbsp; Exactly at five minutes before
the hour is up, he produces a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully
deposits the change in his waistcoat-pocket (first deducting a penny
for the waiter), and returns to the office, from which, if it is not
foreign post night, he again sallies forth, in about half an hour.&nbsp;
He then walks home, at his usual pace, to his little back room at Islington,
where he has his tea; perhaps solacing himself during the meal with
the conversation of his landlady&rsquo;s little boy, whom he occasionally
rewards with a penny, for solving problems in simple addition.&nbsp;
Sometimes, there is a letter or two to take up to his employer&rsquo;s,
in Russell-square; and then, the wealthy man of business, hearing his
voice, calls out from the dining-parlour,&mdash;&lsquo;Come in, Mr.
Smith:&rsquo; and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at the feet of one of the
hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being condescendingly desired to
sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his chair, and sits at a considerable
distance from the table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is
poured out for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which, he backs
and slides out of the room, in a state of nervous agitation from which
he does not perfectly recover, until he finds himself once more in the
Islington-road.&nbsp; Poor, harmless creatures such men are; contented
but not happy; broken-spirited and humbled, they may feel no pain, but
they never know pleasure.</p>
<p>Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them, have
neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the result
of their own choice.&nbsp; These are generally old fellows with white
heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who from
some cause, real or imaginary&mdash;generally the former, the excellent
reason being that they are rich, and their relations poor&mdash;grow
suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking
great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they
come near, miserable.&nbsp; You may see such men as these, anywhere;
you will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations
and the luxury of their dinners; at theatres, by their always sitting
in the same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young
people near them; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter,
and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by
their getting cross at whist and hating music.&nbsp; An old fellow of
this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books,
plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own
gratification, as to be superior to those who have the desire, but not
the means, to compete with him.&nbsp; He belongs to two or three clubs,
and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all.&nbsp;
Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation&mdash;a married
nephew perhaps&mdash;for some little assistance: and then he will declaim
with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people,
the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity
of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and
other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortations with a complacent
review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief.&nbsp;
He dies, some day after dinner, of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property
to a Public Society, and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory,
expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world,
and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next.</p>
<p>But, next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen
and cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool impudence
and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who amuse us
more than London apprentices.&nbsp; They are no longer an organised
body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty&rsquo;s subjects
whenever it pleases them to take offence in their heads and staves in
their hands.&nbsp; They are only bound, now, by indentures, and, as
to their valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the
New Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating
in a police-office and a reprimand.&nbsp; They are still, however, a
peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive.&nbsp;
Can any one fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday?&nbsp;
And were there ever such harmless efforts at the grand and magnificent
as the young fellows display!&nbsp; We walked down the Strand, a Sunday
or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished food for our amusement
the whole way.&nbsp; They had come out of some part of the city; it
was between three and four o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon; and they
were on their way to the Park.&nbsp; There were four of them, all arm-in-arm,
with white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light trousers of unprecedented
patterns, and coats for which the English language has yet no name&mdash;a
kind of cross between a great-coat and a surtout, with the collar of
the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves.</p>
<p>Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick, with a large tassel
at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round; and the
whole four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with
a paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous.&nbsp; One of the party had
a watch about the size and shape of a reasonable Ribstone pippin, jammed
into his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks
at St. Clement&rsquo;s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at
Exeter &lsquo;Change, the clock of St. Martin&rsquo;s Church, and the
clock of the Horse Guards.&nbsp; When they at last arrived in St. James&rsquo;s
Park, the member of the party who had the best-made boots on, hired
a second chair expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth
of sylvan luxury with an air which levelled all distinctions between
Brookes&rsquo;s and Snooks&rsquo;s, Crockford&rsquo;s and Bagnigge Wells.</p>
<p>We may smile at such people, but they can never excite our anger.&nbsp;
They are usually on the best terms with themselves, and it follows almost
as a matter of course, in good humour with every one about them.&nbsp;
Besides, they are always the faint reflection of higher lights; and,
if they do display a little occasional foolery in their own proper persons,
it is surely more tolerable than precocious puppyism in the Quadrant,
whiskered dandyism in Regent-street and Pall-mall, or gallantry in its
dotage anywhere.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II&mdash;A CHRISTMAS DINNER</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Christmas time!&nbsp; That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose
breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused&mdash;in whose
mind some pleasant associations are not awakened&mdash;by the recurrence
of Christmas.&nbsp; There are people who will tell you that Christmas
is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has
found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed
or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of reduced
circumstances and straitened incomes&mdash;of the feasts they once bestowed
on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity
and misfortune.&nbsp; Never heed such dismal reminiscences.&nbsp; There
are few men who have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call
up such thoughts any day in the year.&nbsp; Then do not select the merriest
of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections,
but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire&mdash;fill the glass and
send round the song&mdash;and if your room be smaller than it was a
dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead
of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand,
and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and
thank God it&rsquo;s no worse.&nbsp; Look on the merry faces of your
children (if you have any) as they sit round the fire.&nbsp; One little
seat may be empty; one slight form that gladdened the father&rsquo;s
heart, and roused the mother&rsquo;s pride to look upon, may not be
there.&nbsp; Dwell not upon the past; think not that one short year
ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you, with the
bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in its joyous
eye.&nbsp; Reflect upon your present blessings&mdash;of which every
man has many&mdash;not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have
some.&nbsp; Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart.&nbsp;
Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year
a happy one!</p>
<p>Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the
honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this
season of the year?&nbsp; A Christmas family-party!&nbsp; We know nothing
in nature more delightful!&nbsp; There seems a magic in the very name
of Christmas.&nbsp; Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten; social
feelings are awakened, in bosoms to which they have long been strangers;
father and son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with
averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition, for months before, proffer
and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their
present happiness.&nbsp; Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each
other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity,
are again reunited, and all is kindness and benevolence!&nbsp; Would
that Christmas lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that
the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were never
called into action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!</p>
<p>The Christmas family-party that we mean, is not a mere assemblage
of relations, got up at a week or two&rsquo;s notice, originating this
year, having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated
in the next.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; It is an annual gathering of all the accessible
members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children
look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation.&nbsp;
Formerly, it was held at grandpapa&rsquo;s; but grandpapa getting old,
and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up
house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with uncle George; so, the
party always takes place at uncle George&rsquo;s house, but grandmamma
sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always <i>will</i> toddle
down, all the way to Newgate-market, to buy the turkey, which he engages
a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the
man&rsquo;s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his
hire, to drink &lsquo;a merry Christmas and a happy new year&rsquo;
to aunt George.&nbsp; As to grandmamma, she is very secret and mysterious
for two or three days beforehand, but not sufficiently so, to prevent
rumours getting afloat that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with
pink ribbons for each of the servants, together with sundry books, and
pen-knives, and pencil-cases, for the younger branches; to say nothing
of divers secret additions to the order originally given by aunt George
at the pastry-cook&rsquo;s, such as another dozen of mince-pies for
the dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children.</p>
<p>On Christmas-eve, grandmamma is always in excellent spirits, and
after employing all the children, during the day, in stoning the plums,
and all that, insists, regularly every year, on uncle George coming
down into the kitchen, taking off his coat, and stirring the pudding
for half an hour or so, which uncle George good-humouredly does, to
the vociferous delight of the children and servants.&nbsp; The evening
concludes with a glorious game of blind-man&rsquo;s-buff, in an early
stage of which grandpapa takes great care to be caught, in order that
he may have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity.</p>
<p>On the following morning, the old couple, with as many of the children
as the pew will hold, go to church in great state: leaving aunt George
at home dusting decanters and filling casters, and uncle George carrying
bottles into the dining-parlour, and calling for corkscrews, and getting
into everybody&rsquo;s way.</p>
<p>When the church-party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a small
sprig of mistletoe from his pocket, and tempts the boys to kiss their
little cousins under it&mdash;a proceeding which affords both the boys
and the old gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages
grandmamma&rsquo;s ideas of decorum, until grandpapa says, that when
he was just thirteen years and three months old, <i>he</i> kissed grandmamma
under a mistletoe too, on which the children clap their hands, and laugh
very heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George; and grandmamma looks
pleased, and says, with a benevolent smile, that grandpapa was an impudent
young dog, on which the children laugh very heartily again, and grandpapa
more heartily than any of them.</p>
<p>But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent excitement
when grandmamma in a high cap, and slate-coloured silk gown; and grandpapa
with a beautifully plaited shirt-frill, and white neckerchief; seat
themselves on one side of the drawing-room fire, with uncle George&rsquo;s
children and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting
the arrival of the expected visitors.&nbsp; Suddenly a hackney-coach
is heard to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of the
window, exclaims &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Jane!&rsquo; on which the children
rush to the door, and helter-skelter down-stairs; and uncle Robert and
aunt Jane, and the dear little baby, and the nurse, and the whole party,
are ushered up-stairs amidst tumultuous shouts of &lsquo;Oh, my!&rsquo;
from the children, and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby
from the nurse.&nbsp; And grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma
kisses her daughter, and the confusion of this first entry has scarcely
subsided, when some other aunts and uncles with more cousins arrive,
and the grown-up cousins flirt with each other, and so do the little
cousins too, for that matter, and nothing is to be heard but a confused
din of talking, laughing, and merriment.</p>
<p>A hesitating double knock at the street-door, heard during a momentary
pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of &lsquo;Who&rsquo;s
that?&rsquo; and two or three children, who have been standing at the
window, announce in a low voice, that it&rsquo;s &lsquo;poor aunt Margaret.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Upon which, aunt George leaves the room to welcome the new-comer; and
grandmamma draws herself up, rather stiff and stately; for Margaret
married a poor man without her consent, and poverty not being a sufficiently
weighty punishment for her offence, has been discarded by her friends,
and debarred the society of her dearest relatives.&nbsp; But Christmas
has come round, and the unkind feelings that have struggled against
better dispositions during the year, have melted away before its genial
influence, like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun.&nbsp; It is
not difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce
a disobedient child; but, to banish her at a period of general good-will
and hilarity, from the hearth, round which she has sat on so many anniversaries
of the same day, expanding by slow degrees from infancy to girlhood,
and then bursting, almost imperceptibly, into a woman, is widely different.&nbsp;
The air of conscious rectitude, and cold forgiveness, which the old
lady has assumed, sits ill upon her; and when the poor girl is led in
by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope&mdash;not from poverty,
for that she could bear, but from the consciousness of undeserved neglect,
and unmerited unkindness&mdash;it is easy to see how much of it is assumed.&nbsp;
A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly from her sister
and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother&rsquo;s neck.&nbsp; The father
steps hastily forward, and takes her husband&rsquo;s hand.&nbsp; Friends
crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and
harmony again prevail.</p>
<p>As to the dinner, it&rsquo;s perfectly delightful&mdash;nothing goes
wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to
please and be pleased.&nbsp; Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account
of the purchase of the turkey, with a slight digression relative to
the purchase of previous turkeys, on former Christmas-days, which grandmamma
corroborates in the minutest particular.&nbsp; Uncle George tells stories,
and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children at the
side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love, or being
made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and hospitality;
and when, at last, a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding,
with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting,
and clapping of little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy legs,
as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat
of pouring lighted brandy into mince-pies, is received by the younger
visitors.&nbsp; Then the dessert!&mdash;and the wine!&mdash;and the
fun!&nbsp; Such beautiful speeches, and <i>such</i> songs, from aunt
Margaret&rsquo;s husband, who turns out to be such a nice man, and <i>so</i>
attentive to grandmamma!&nbsp; Even grandpapa not only sings his annual
song with unprecedented vigour, but on being honoured with an unanimous
<i>encore</i>, according to annual custom, actually comes out with a
new one which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and a young scapegrace
of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for
certain heinous sins of omission and commission&mdash;neglecting to
call, and persisting in drinking Burton Ale&mdash;astonishes everybody
into convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary
comic songs that ever were heard.&nbsp; And thus the evening passes,
in a strain of rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken
the sympathies of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour,
and to perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year, than half
the homilies that have ever been written, by half the Divines that have
ever lived.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III&mdash;THE NEW YEAR</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence
is the advent of the New Year.&nbsp; There are a lachrymose set of people
who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were
bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one.&nbsp;
Now, we cannot but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to
the old year that has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just
beginning to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the new one
in, with gaiety and glee.</p>
<p>There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which
we can look back, with a smile of cheerful recollection, if not with
a feeling of heartfelt thankfulness.&nbsp; And we are bound by every
rule of justice and equity to give the New Year credit for being a good
one, until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him.</p>
<p>This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, notwithstanding
our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose
existence passes away with every word we write, here we are, seated
by our fireside on this last night of the old year, one thousand eight
hundred and thirty-six, penning this article with as jovial a face as
if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to disturb
our good humour.</p>
<p>Hackney-coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down
the street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed
coachfuls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the
house with green blinds, opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood
that there&rsquo;s one large party in the street at all events; and
we saw through the window, and through the fog too, till it grew so
thick that we rung for candles, and drew our curtains, pastry-cooks&rsquo;
men with green boxes on their heads, and rout-furniture-warehouse-carts,
with cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the numerous houses where
an annual festival is held in honour of the occasion.</p>
<p>We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if we were
duly dress-coated and pumped, and had just been announced at the drawing-room
door.</p>
<p>Take the house with the green blinds for instance.&nbsp; We know
it is a quadrille party, because we saw some men taking up the front
drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast this morning, and if further
evidence be required, and we must tell the truth, we just now saw one
of the young ladies &lsquo;doing&rsquo; another of the young ladies&rsquo;
hair, near one of the bedroom windows, in an unusual style of splendour,
which nothing else but a quadrille party could possibly justify.</p>
<p>The master of the house with the green blinds is in a public office;
we know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie of his neckcloth, and
the self-satisfaction of his gait&mdash;the very green blinds themselves
have a Somerset House air about them.</p>
<p>Hark!&mdash;a cab!&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a junior clerk in the same
office; a tidy sort of young man, with a tendency to cold and corns,
who comes in a pair of boots with black cloth fronts, and brings his
shoes in his coat-pocket, which shoes he is at this very moment putting
on in the hall.&nbsp; Now he is announced by the man in the passage
to another man in a blue coat, who is a disguised messenger from the
office.</p>
<p>The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Mr. Tupple!&rsquo; shouts the messenger.&nbsp; &lsquo;How <i>are</i>
you, Tupple?&rsquo; says the master of the house, advancing from the
fire, before which he has been talking politics and airing himself.&nbsp;
&lsquo;My dear, this is Mr. Tupple (a courteous salute from the lady
of the house); Tupple, my eldest daughter; Julia, my dear, Mr. Tupple;
Tupple, my other daughters; my son, sir;&rsquo; Tupple rubs his hands
very hard, and smiles as if it were all capital fun, and keeps constantly
bowing and turning himself round, till the whole family have been introduced,
when he glides into a chair at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous
conversation with the young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres,
and the old year, and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the
ladies&rsquo; sleeves, and the festivities of the season, and a great
many other topics of small talk.</p>
<p>More double knocks! what an extensive party! what an incessant hum
of conversation and general sipping of coffee!&nbsp; We see Tupple now,
in our mind&rsquo;s eye, in the height of his glory.&nbsp; He has just
handed that stout old lady&rsquo;s cup to the servant; and now, he dives
among the crowd of young men by the door, to intercept the other servant,
and secure the muffin-plate for the old lady&rsquo;s daughter, before
he leaves the room; and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back,
he bestows a glance of recognition and patronage upon the young ladies
as condescending and familiar as if he had known them from infancy.</p>
<p>Charming person Mr. Tupple&mdash;perfect ladies&rsquo; man&mdash;such
a delightful companion, too!&nbsp; Laugh!&mdash;nobody ever understood
papa&rsquo;s jokes half so well as Mr. Tupple, who laughs himself into
convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness.&nbsp; Most delightful
partner! talks through the whole set! and although he does seem at first
rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and with so <i>much</i> feeling!&nbsp;
Quite a love.&nbsp; No great favourite with the young men, certainly,
who sneer at, and affect to despise him; but everybody knows that&rsquo;s
only envy, and they needn&rsquo;t give themselves the trouble to depreciate
his merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall be asked to every future
dinner-party, if it&rsquo;s only to talk to people between the courses,
and distract their attention when there&rsquo;s any unexpected delay
in the kitchen.</p>
<p>At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage than he has
done throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill
their glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year,
Mr. Tupple is <i>so</i> droll: insisting on all the young ladies having
their glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that
they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently
begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just
been uttered by Pa&mdash;when he makes one of the most brilliant and
poetical speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year
and the new one.&nbsp; After the toast has been drunk, and when the
ladies have retired, Mr. Tupple requests that every gentleman will do
him the favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose:
on which all the gentlemen cry &lsquo;Hear! hear!&rsquo; and pass the
decanters accordingly: and Mr. Tupple being informed by the master of
the house that they are all charged, and waiting for his toast, rises,
and begs to remind the gentlemen present, how much they have been delighted
by the dazzling array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room
has exhibited that night, and how their senses have been charmed, and
their hearts captivated, by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness
which that very room has so recently displayed.&nbsp; (Loud cries of
&lsquo;Hear!&rsquo;)&nbsp; Much as he (Tupple) would be disposed to
deplore the absence of the ladies, on other grounds, he cannot but derive
some consolation from the reflection that the very circumstance of their
not being present, enables him to propose a toast, which he would have
otherwise been prevented from giving&mdash;that toast he begs to say
is&mdash;&lsquo;The Ladies!&rsquo;&nbsp; (Great applause.)&nbsp; The
Ladies! among whom the fascinating daughters of their excellent host,
are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their
elegance.&nbsp; He begs them to drain a bumper to &lsquo;The Ladies,
and a happy new year to them!&rsquo;&nbsp; (Prolonged approbation; above
which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among themselves,
overhead, is distinctly audible.)</p>
<p>The applause consequent on this toast, has scarcely subsided, when
a young gentleman in a pink under-waistcoat, sitting towards the bottom
of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgety, and to
evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his
feelings in a speech, which the wary Tupple at once perceiving, determines
to forestall by speaking himself.&nbsp; He, therefore, rises again,
with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted to
propose another toast (unqualified approbation, and Mr. Tupple proceeds).&nbsp;
He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the hospitality&mdash;he
may say the splendour&mdash;with which they have been that night received
by their worthy host and hostess.&nbsp; (Unbounded applause.)&nbsp;
Although this is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure
and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend Dobble
long and intimately; he has been connected with him in business&mdash;he
wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does.&nbsp; (A cough
from the host.)&nbsp; He (Tupple) can lay his hand upon his (Tupple&rsquo;s)
heart, and declare his confident belief that a better man, a better
husband, a better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation
in any relation of life, than Dobble, never existed.&nbsp; (Loud cries
of &lsquo;Hear!&rsquo;)&nbsp; They have seen him to-night in the peaceful
bosom of his family; they should see him in the morning, in the trying
duties of his office.&nbsp; Calm in the perusal of the morning papers,
uncompromising in the signature of his name, dignified in his replies
to the inquiries of stranger applicants, deferential in his behaviour
to his superiors, majestic in his deportment to the messengers.&nbsp;
(Cheers.)&nbsp; When he bears this merited testimony to the excellent
qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he say in approaching such
a subject as Mrs. Dobble?&nbsp; Is it requisite for him to expatiate
on the qualities of that amiable woman?&nbsp; No; he will spare his
friend Dobble&rsquo;s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his friend&mdash;if
he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so&mdash;Mr. Dobble,
junior.&nbsp; (Here Mr. Dobble, junior, who has been previously distending
his mouth to a considerable width, by thrusting a particularly fine
orange into that feature, suspends operations, and assumes a proper
appearance of intense melancholy).&nbsp; He will simply say&mdash;and
he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him will
readily concur&mdash;that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man
he ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw (except
her daughters); and he will conclude by proposing their worthy &lsquo;Host
and Hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The toast is drunk with acclamation; Dobble returns thanks, and the
whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room.&nbsp; Young men who
were too bashful to dance before supper, find tongues and partners;
the musicians exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year
in, while the company were out; and dancing is kept up, until far in
the first morning of the new year.</p>
<p>We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence,
when the first stroke of twelve, peals from the neighbouring churches.&nbsp;
There certainly&mdash;we must confess it now&mdash;is something awful
in the sound.&nbsp; Strictly speaking, it may not be more impressive
now, than at any other time; for the hours steal as swiftly on, at other
periods, and their flight is little heeded.&nbsp; But, we measure man&rsquo;s
life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed
another of the landmarks which stands between us and the grave.&nbsp;
Disguise it as we may, the reflection will force itself on our minds,
that when the next bell announces the arrival of a new year, we may
be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so often neglected,
and of all the warm feelings that glow within us now.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV&mdash;MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter of small
dimensions, decidedly below the middle size&mdash;bordering, perhaps,
upon the dwarfish.&nbsp; His face was round and shining, and his hair
carefully twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed
a variety of that description of semi-curls, usually known as &lsquo;aggerawators.&rsquo;&nbsp;
His earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen
shillings to one pound five, weekly&mdash;his manner undeniable&mdash;his
sabbath waistcoats dazzling.&nbsp; No wonder that, with these qualifications,
Samuel Wilkins found favour in the eyes of the other sex: many women
have been captivated by far less substantial qualifications.&nbsp; But,
Samuel was proof against their blandishments, until at length his eyes
rested on those of a Being for whom, from that time forth, he felt fate
had destined him.&nbsp; He came, and conquered&mdash;proposed, and was
accepted&mdash;loved, and was beloved.&nbsp; Mr. Wilkins &lsquo;kept
company&rsquo; with Jemima Evans.</p>
<p>Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with
her circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the useful pursuit
of shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation
of a straw-bonnet maker.&nbsp; Herself, her maternal parent, and two
sisters, formed an harmonious quartett in the most secluded portion
of Camden-town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself,
one Monday afternoon, in his best attire, with his face more shining
and his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before.&nbsp;
The family were just going to tea, and were <i>so</i> glad to see him.&nbsp;
It was quite a little feast; two ounces of seven-and-sixpenny green,
and a quarter of a pound of the best fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought
a pint of shrimps, neatly folded up in a clean belcher, to give a zest
to the meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins.&nbsp; Jemima was &lsquo;cleaning
herself&rsquo; up-stairs; so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down and talked
domestic economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivinses
poked bits of lighted brown paper between the bars under the kettle,
to make the water boil for tea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I wos a thinking,&rsquo; said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a
pause in the conversation&mdash;&lsquo;I wos a thinking of taking J&rsquo;mima
to the Eagle to-night.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;O my!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs.
Ivins.&nbsp; &lsquo;Lor! how nice!&rsquo; said the youngest Miss Ivins.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Well, I declare!&rsquo; added the youngest Miss Ivins but one.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Tell J&rsquo;mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,&rsquo; screamed
Mrs. Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J&rsquo;mima herself
soon afterwards in a white muslin gown carefully hooked and eyed, a
little red shawl, plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with
red ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin
shoes, and open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers,
and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand&mdash;all
quite genteel and ladylike.&nbsp; And away went Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins
and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane, with a gilt knob at the top,
to the admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high
gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in particular.&nbsp;
They had no sooner turned into the Pancras-road, than who should Miss
J&rsquo;mima Ivins stumble upon, by the most fortunate accident in the
world, but a young lady as she knew, with <i>her</i> young man!&mdash;And
it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes&mdash;they were actually
going to the Eagle too.&nbsp; So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to
Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend&rsquo;s young man, and they all
walked on together, talking, and laughing, and joking away like anything;
and when they got as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins&rsquo;s friend&rsquo;s
young man <i>would</i> have the ladies go into the Crown, to taste some
shrub, which, after a great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces
in elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do.&nbsp; Having
tasted it once, they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and
they sat out in the garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses
alternately, till it was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and
then they resumed their journey, and walked very fast, for fear they
should lose the beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How ev&rsquo;nly!&rsquo; said Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins, and
Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend, both at once, when they had
passed the gate and were fairly inside the gardens.&nbsp; There were
the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted&mdash;and the refreshment-boxes,
painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes&mdash;and the variegated
lamps shedding their rich light upon the company&rsquo;s heads&mdash;and
the place for dancing ready chalked for the company&rsquo;s feet&mdash;and
a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens&mdash;and an opposition
military band playing away at the other.&nbsp; Then, the waiters were
rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of brandy-and-water,
and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and ginger-beer was going
off in one place, and practical jokes were going on in another; and
people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and in short the whole
scene was, as Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty, or the
shrub, or both, observed&mdash;&lsquo;one of dazzling excitement.&rsquo;&nbsp;
As to the concert-room, never was anything half so splendid.&nbsp; There
was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass;
and such an organ!&nbsp; Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend&rsquo;s
young man whispered it had cost &lsquo;four hundred pound,&rsquo; which
Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was &lsquo;not dear neither;&rsquo; an opinion
in which the ladies perfectly coincided.&nbsp; The audience were seated
on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into every part of it;
and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible.&nbsp;
Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses
of rum-and-water &lsquo;warm with&mdash;&rsquo; and two slices of lemon,
for himself and the other young man, together with &lsquo;a pint o&rsquo;
sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;&rsquo;
and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a strange
gentleman with large whiskers <i>would</i> stare at Miss J&rsquo;mima
Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat <i>would</i> wink
at Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins&rsquo;s
friend&rsquo;s young man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began
to mutter about &lsquo;people&rsquo;s imperence,&rsquo; and &lsquo;swells
out o&rsquo; luck;&rsquo; and to intimate, in oblique terms, a vague
intention of knocking somebody&rsquo;s head off; which he was only prevented
from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins and
her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another
word.</p>
<p>The concert commenced&mdash;overture on the organ.&nbsp; &lsquo;How
solemn!&rsquo; exclaimed Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps
unconsciously, at the gentleman with the whiskers.&nbsp; Mr. Samuel
Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were
holding a confidential conversation with the gilt knob of the dress-cane,
breathed hard-breathing vengeance, perhaps,&mdash;but said nothing.&nbsp;
&lsquo;The soldier tired,&rsquo; Miss Somebody in white satin.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Ancore!&rsquo; cried Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Ancore!&rsquo; shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately,
hammering the table with a stout-bottle.&nbsp; Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s
friend&rsquo;s young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head
to foot, and cast a look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel
Wilkins.&nbsp; Comic song, accompanied on the organ.&nbsp; Miss J&rsquo;mima
Ivins was convulsed with laughter&mdash;so was the man with the whiskers.&nbsp;
Everything the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by
way of expressing unity of sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss
J&rsquo;mima Ivins, and Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend, grew
lively and talkative, as Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s
friend&rsquo;s young man, grew morose and surly in inverse proportion.</p>
<p>Now, if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have
recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his friend
began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and whiskers.&nbsp;
And the waistcoat and whiskers, by way of intimating the slight degree
in which they were affected by the looks aforesaid, bestowed glances
of increased admiration upon Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins and friend.&nbsp;
The concert and vaudeville concluded, they promenaded the gardens.&nbsp;
The waistcoat and whiskers did the same; and made divers remarks complimentary
to the ankles of Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins and friend, in an audible tone.&nbsp;
At length, not satisfied with these numerous atrocities, they actually
came up and asked Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins, and Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s
friend, to dance, without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins,
and Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s friend&rsquo;s young man, than if
they was nobody!</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you mean by that, scoundrel!&rsquo; exclaimed Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress-cane firmly in his right
hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with <i>you</i>, you little
humbug?&rsquo; replied the whiskers.&nbsp; &lsquo;How dare you insult
me and my friend?&rsquo; inquired the friend&rsquo;s young man.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You and your friend be hanged!&rsquo; responded the waistcoat.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Take that,&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins.&nbsp; The ferrule
of the gilt-knobbed dress-cane was visible for an instant, and then
the light of the variegated lamps shone brightly upon it as it whirled
into the air, cane and all.&nbsp; &lsquo;Give it him,&rsquo; said the
waistcoat.&nbsp; &lsquo;Horficer!&rsquo; screamed the ladies.&nbsp;
Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins&rsquo;s beau, and the friend&rsquo;s young man,
lay gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen
no more.</p>
<p>Miss J&rsquo;mima Ivins and friend being conscious that the affray
was in no slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into
hysterics forthwith; declared themselves the most injured of women;
exclaimed, in incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected&mdash;wrongfully
suspected&mdash;oh! that they should ever have lived to see the day&mdash;and
so forth; suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw
their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their respective
abodes in a hackney-coach, and a state of insensibility, compounded
of shrub, sherry, and excitement.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V&mdash;THE PARLOUR ORATOR</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We had been lounging one evening, down Oxford-street, Holborn, Cheapside,
Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so on, with the intention of returning
westward, by Pentonville and the New-road, when we began to feel rather
thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or ten minutes.&nbsp; So, we
turned back towards an old, quiet, decent public-house, which we remembered
to have passed but a moment before (it was not far from the City-road),
for the purpose of solacing ourself with a glass of ale.&nbsp; The house
was none of your stuccoed, French-polished, illuminated palaces, but
a modest public-house of the old school, with a little old bar, and
a little old landlord, who, with a wife and daughter of the same pattern,
was comfortably seated in the bar aforesaid&mdash;a snug little room
with a cheerful fire, protected by a large screen: from behind which
the young lady emerged on our representing our inclination for a glass
of ale.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Won&rsquo;t you walk into the parlour, sir?&rsquo; said the
young lady, in seductive tones.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You had better walk into the parlour, sir,&rsquo; said the
little old landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one
side of the screen, to survey our appearance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You had much better step into the parlour, sir,&rsquo; said
the little old lady, popping out her head, on the other side of the
screen.</p>
<p>We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our ignorance of
the locality so much recommended.&nbsp; The little old landlord observed
it; bustled out of the small door of the small bar; and forthwith ushered
us into the parlour itself.</p>
<p>It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wainscoting, a sanded
floor, and a high mantel-piece.&nbsp; The walls were ornamented with
three or four old coloured prints in black frames, each print representing
a naval engagement, with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each
other most vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in
the distance, and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection
of broken masts and blue legs sticking up out of the water.&nbsp; Depending
from the ceiling in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and bell-pull;
on each side were three or four long narrow tables, behind which was
a thickly-planted row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs,
peculiar to hostelries of this description.&nbsp; The monotonous appearance
of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon; and a triangular
pile of those useful articles adorned the two upper corners of the apartment.</p>
<p>At the furthest table, nearest the fire, with his face towards the
door at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of about forty, whose
short, stiff, black hair curled closely round a broad high forehead,
and a face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated
a rather inflamed appearance.&nbsp; He was smoking a cigar, with his
eyes fixed on the ceiling, and had that confident oracular air which
marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and universal
anecdote-relater, of the place.&nbsp; He had evidently just delivered
himself of something very weighty; for the remainder of the company
were puffing at their respective pipes and cigars in a kind of solemn
abstraction, as if quite overwhelmed with the magnitude of the subject
recently under discussion.</p>
<p>On his right hand sat an elderly gentleman with a white head, and
broad-brimmed brown hat; on his left, a sharp-nosed, light-haired man
in a brown surtout reaching nearly to his heels, who took a whiff at
his pipe, and an admiring glance at the red-faced man, alternately.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very extraordinary!&rsquo; said the light-haired man after
a pause of five minutes.&nbsp; A murmur of assent ran through the company.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not at all extraordinary&mdash;not at all,&rsquo; said the
red-faced man, awakening suddenly from his reverie, and turning upon
the light-haired man, the moment he had spoken.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why should it be extraordinary?&mdash;why is it extraordinary?&mdash;prove
it to be extraordinary!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, if you come to that&mdash;&rsquo; said the light-haired
man, meekly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come to that!&rsquo; ejaculated the man with the red face;
&lsquo;but we <i>must</i> come to that.&nbsp; We stand, in these times,
upon a calm elevation of intellectual attainment, and not in the dark
recess of mental deprivation.&nbsp; Proof, is what I require&mdash;proof,
and not assertions, in these stirring times.&nbsp; Every gen&rsquo;lem&rsquo;n
that knows me, knows what was the nature and effect of my observations,
when it was in the contemplation of the Old-street Suburban Representative
Discovery Society, to recommend a candidate for that place in Cornwall
there&mdash;I forget the name of it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mr. Snobee,&rdquo;
said Mr. Wilson, &ldquo;is a fit and proper person to represent the
borough in Parliament.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Prove it,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
&ldquo;He is a friend to Reform,&rdquo; says Mr. Wilson.&nbsp; &ldquo;Prove
it,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;The abolitionist of the national debt,
the unflinching opponent of pensions, the uncompromising advocate of
the negro, the reducer of sinecures and the duration of Parliaments;
the extender of nothing but the suffrages of the people,&rdquo; says
Mr. Wilson.&nbsp; &ldquo;Prove it,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;His acts
prove it,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Prove <i>them</i>,&rdquo; says
I.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And he could not prove them,&rsquo; said the red-faced man,
looking round triumphantly; &lsquo;and the borough didn&rsquo;t have
him; and if you carried this principle to the full extent, you&rsquo;d
have no debt, no pensions, no sinecures, no negroes, no nothing.&nbsp;
And then, standing upon an elevation of intellectual attainment, and
having reached the summit of popular prosperity, you might bid defiance
to the nations of the earth, and erect yourselves in the proud confidence
of wisdom and superiority.&nbsp; This is my argument&mdash;this always
has been my argument&mdash;and if I was a Member of the House of Commons
to-morrow, I&rsquo;d make &rsquo;em shake in their shoes with it.&nbsp;
And the red-faced man, having struck the table very hard with his clenched
fist, to add weight to the declaration, smoked away like a brewery.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well!&rsquo; said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and
soft voice, addressing the company in general, &lsquo;I always do say,
that of all the gentlemen I have the pleasure of meeting in this room,
there is not one whose conversation I like to hear so much as Mr. Rogers&rsquo;s,
or who is such improving company.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Improving company!&rsquo; said Mr. Rogers, for that, it seemed,
was the name of the red-faced man.&nbsp; &lsquo;You may say I am improving
company, for I&rsquo;ve improved you all to some purpose; though as
to my conversation being as my friend Mr. Ellis here describes it, that
is not for me to say anything about.&nbsp; You, gentlemen, are the best
judges on that point; but this I will say, when I came into this parish,
and first used this room, ten years ago, I don&rsquo;t believe there
was one man in it, who knew he was a slave&mdash;and now you all know
it, and writhe under it.&nbsp; Inscribe that upon my tomb, and I am
satisfied.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, as to inscribing it on your tomb,&rsquo; said a little
greengrocer with a chubby face, &lsquo;of course you can have anything
chalked up, as you likes to pay for, so far as it relates to yourself
and your affairs; but, when you come to talk about slaves, and that
there abuse, you&rsquo;d better keep it in the family, &rsquo;cos I
for one don&rsquo;t like to be called them names, night after night.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You <i>are</i> a slave,&rsquo; said the red-faced man, &lsquo;and
the most pitiable of all slaves.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Werry hard if I am,&rsquo; interrupted the greengrocer, &lsquo;for
I got no good out of the twenty million that was paid for &rsquo;mancipation,
anyhow.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A willing slave,&rsquo; ejaculated the red-faced man, getting
more red with eloquence, and contradiction&mdash;&lsquo;resigning the
dearest birthright of your children&mdash;neglecting the sacred call
of Liberty&mdash;who, standing imploringly before you, appeals to the
warmest feelings of your heart, and points to your helpless infants,
but in vain.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Prove it,&rsquo; said the greengrocer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Prove it!&rsquo; sneered the man with the red face.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What! bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy;
bowed down by the domination of cruel laws; groaning beneath tyranny
and oppression on every hand, at every side, and in every corner.&nbsp;
Prove it!&mdash;&rsquo;&nbsp; The red-faced man abruptly broke off,
sneered melo-dramatically, and buried his countenance and his indignation
together, in a quart pot.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, to be sure, Mr. Rogers,&rsquo; said a stout broker in
a large waistcoat, who had kept his eyes fixed on this luminary all
the time he was speaking.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah, to be sure,&rsquo; said the
broker with a sigh, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s the point.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Of course, of course,&rsquo; said divers members of the company,
who understood almost as much about the matter as the broker himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You had better let him alone, Tommy,&rsquo; said the broker,
by way of advice to the little greengrocer; &lsquo;he can tell what&rsquo;s
o&rsquo;clock by an eight-day, without looking at the minute hand, he
can.&nbsp; Try it on, on some other suit; it won&rsquo;t do with him,
Tommy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What is a man?&rsquo; continued the red-faced specimen of
the species, jerking his hat indignantly from its peg on the wall.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What is an Englishman?&nbsp; Is he to be trampled upon by every
oppressor?&nbsp; Is he to be knocked down at everybody&rsquo;s bidding?&nbsp;
What&rsquo;s freedom?&nbsp; Not a standing army.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s
a standing army?&nbsp; Not freedom.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s general happiness?&nbsp;
Not universal misery.&nbsp; Liberty ain&rsquo;t the window-tax, is it?&nbsp;
The Lords ain&rsquo;t the Commons, are they?&rsquo;&nbsp; And the red-faced
man, gradually bursting into a radiating sentence, in which such adjectives
as &lsquo;dastardly,&rsquo; &lsquo;oppressive,&rsquo; &lsquo;violent,&rsquo;
and &lsquo;sanguinary,&rsquo; formed the most conspicuous words, knocked
his hat indignantly over his eyes, left the room, and slammed the door
after him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Wonderful man!&rsquo; said he of the sharp nose.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Splendid speaker!&rsquo; added the broker.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Great power!&rsquo; said everybody but the greengrocer.&nbsp;
And as they said it, the whole party shook their heads mysteriously,
and one by one retired, leaving us alone in the old parlour.</p>
<p>If we had followed the established precedent in all such instances,
we should have fallen into a fit of musing, without delay.&nbsp; The
ancient appearance of the room&mdash;the old panelling of the wall&mdash;the
chimney blackened with smoke and age&mdash;would have carried us back
a hundred years at least, and we should have gone dreaming on, until
the pewter-pot on the table, or the little beer-chiller on the fire,
had started into life, and addressed to us a long story of days gone
by.&nbsp; But, by some means or other, we were not in a romantic humour;
and although we tried very hard to invest the furniture with vitality,
it remained perfectly unmoved, obstinate, and sullen.&nbsp; Being thus
reduced to the unpleasant necessity of musing about ordinary matters,
our thoughts reverted to the red-faced man, and his oratorical display.</p>
<p>A numerous race are these red-faced men; there is not a parlour,
or club-room, or benefit society, or humble party of any kind, without
its red-faced man.&nbsp; Weak-pated dolts they are, and a great deal
of mischief they do to their cause, however good.&nbsp; So, just to
hold a pattern one up, to know the others by, we took his likeness at
once, and put him in here.&nbsp; And that is the reason why we have
written this paper.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VI&mdash;THE HOSPITAL PATIENT</h3>
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<p>In our rambles through the streets of London after evening has set
in, we often pause beneath the windows of some public hospital, and
picture to ourself the gloomy and mournful scenes that are passing within.&nbsp;
The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to
window, until its light gradually disappears, as if it were carried
farther back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient,
is enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections; the mere glimmering
of the low-burning lamps, which, when all other habitations are wrapped
in darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are
writhing with pain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to check
the most boisterous merriment.</p>
<p>Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the only sound
the sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer
near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten
prayer of a dying man?&nbsp; Who, but they who have felt it, can imagine
the sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of
those who in the hour of dangerous illness are left to be tended by
strangers; for what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy
brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife, or child?</p>
<p>Impressed with these thoughts, we have turned away, through the nearly-deserted
streets; and the sight of the few miserable creatures still hovering
about them, has not tended to lessen the pain which such meditations
awaken.&nbsp; The hospital is a refuge and resting-place for hundreds,
who but for such institutions must die in the streets and doorways;
but what can be the feelings of some outcasts when they are stretched
on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery?&nbsp; The wretched
woman who lingers about the pavement, hours after midnight, and the
miserable shadow of a man&mdash;the ghastly remnant that want and drunkenness
have left&mdash;which crouches beneath a window-ledge, to sleep where
there is some shelter from the rain, have little to bind them to life,
but what have they to look back upon, in death?&nbsp; What are the unwonted
comforts of a roof and a bed, to them, when the recollections of a whole
life of debasement stalk before them; when repentance seems a mockery,
and sorrow comes too late?</p>
<p>About a twelvemonth ago, as we were strolling through Covent-garden
(we had been thinking about these things over-night), we were attracted
by the very prepossessing appearance of a pickpocket, who having declined
to take the trouble of walking to the Police-office, on the ground that
he hadn&rsquo;t the slightest wish to go there at all, was being conveyed
thither in a wheelbarrow, to the huge delight of a crowd.</p>
<p>Somehow, we never can resist joining a crowd, so we turned back with
the mob, and entered the office, in company with our friend the pickpocket,
a couple of policemen, and as many dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze
their way in.</p>
<p>There was a powerful, ill-looking young fellow at the bar, who was
undergoing an examination, on the very common charge of having, on the
previous night, ill-treated a woman, with whom he lived in some court
hard by.&nbsp; Several witnesses bore testimony to acts of the grossest
brutality; and a certificate was read from the house-surgeon of a neighbouring
hospital, describing the nature of the injuries the woman had received,
and intimating that her recovery was extremely doubtful.</p>
<p>Some question appeared to have been raised about the identity of
the prisoner; for when it was agreed that the two magistrates should
visit the hospital at eight o&rsquo;clock that evening, to take her
deposition, it was settled that the man should be taken there also.&nbsp;
He turned pale at this, and we saw him clench the bar very hard when
the order was given.&nbsp; He was removed directly afterwards, and he
spoke not a word.</p>
<p>We felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although
it is hard to tell why, at this instant, for we knew it must be a painful
one.&nbsp; It was no very difficult matter for us to gain permission,
and we obtained it.</p>
<p>The prisoner, and the officer who had him in custody, were already
at the hospital when we reached it, and waiting the arrival of the magistrates
in a small room below stairs.&nbsp; The man was handcuffed, and his
hat was pulled forward over his eyes.&nbsp; It was easy to see, though,
by the whiteness of his countenance, and the constant twitching of the
muscles of his face, that he dreaded what was to come.&nbsp; After a
short interval, the magistrates and clerk were bowed in by the house-surgeon
and a couple of young men who smelt very strong of tobacco-smoke&mdash;they
were introduced as &lsquo;dressers&rsquo;&mdash;and after one magistrate
had complained bitterly of the cold, and the other of the absence of
any news in the evening paper, it was announced that the patient was
prepared; and we were conducted to the &lsquo;casualty ward&rsquo; in
which she was lying.</p>
<p>The dim light which burnt in the spacious room, increased rather
than diminished the ghastly appearance of the hapless creatures in the
beds, which were ranged in two long rows on either side.&nbsp; In one
bed, lay a child enveloped in bandages, with its body half-consumed
by fire; in another, a female, rendered hideous by some dreadful accident,
was wildly beating her clenched fists on the coverlet, in pain; on a
third, there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy stupor
often the immediate precursor of death: her face was stained with blood,
and her breast and arms were bound up in folds of linen.&nbsp; Two or
three of the beds were empty, and their recent occupants were sitting
beside them, but with faces so wan, and eyes so bright and glassy, that
it was fearful to meet their gaze.&nbsp; On every face was stamped the
expression of anguish and suffering.</p>
<p>The object of the visit was lying at the upper end of the room.&nbsp;
She was a fine young woman of about two or three and twenty.&nbsp; Her
long black hair, which had been hastily cut from near the wounds on
her head, streamed over the pillow in jagged and matted locks.&nbsp;
Her face bore deep marks of the ill-usage she had received: her hand
was pressed upon her side, as if her chief pain were there; her breathing
was short and heavy; and it was plain to see that she was dying fast.&nbsp;
She murmured a few words in reply to the magistrate&rsquo;s inquiry
whether she was in great pain; and, having been raised on the pillow
by the nurse, looked vacantly upon the strange countenances that surrounded
her bed.&nbsp; The magistrate nodded to the officer, to bring the man
forward.&nbsp; He did so, and stationed him at the bedside.&nbsp; The
girl looked on with a wild and troubled expression of face; but her
sight was dim, and she did not know him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off his hat,&rsquo; said the magistrate.&nbsp; The officer
did as he was desired, and the man&rsquo;s features were disclosed.</p>
<p>The girl started up, with an energy quite preternatural; the fire
gleamed in her heavy eyes, and the blood rushed to her pale and sunken
cheeks.&nbsp; It was a convulsive effort.&nbsp; She fell back upon her
pillow, and covering her scarred and bruised face with her hands, burst
into tears.&nbsp; The man cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise
appeared wholly unmoved.&nbsp; After a brief pause the nature of the
errand was explained, and the oath tendered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, no, gentlemen,&rsquo; said the girl, raising herself once
more, and folding her hands together; &lsquo;no, gentlemen, for God&rsquo;s
sake!&nbsp; I did it myself&mdash;it was nobody&rsquo;s fault&mdash;it
was an accident.&nbsp; He didn&rsquo;t hurt me; he wouldn&rsquo;t for
all the world.&nbsp; Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn&rsquo;t!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bedclothes
in search of his.&nbsp; Brute as the man was, he was not prepared for
this.&nbsp; He turned his face from the bed, and sobbed.&nbsp; The girl&rsquo;s
colour changed, and her breathing grew more difficult.&nbsp; She was
evidently dying.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,&rsquo; said
the gentleman who had spoken first, &lsquo;but let me warn you, not
to persist in what you know to be untrue, until it is too late.&nbsp;
It cannot save him.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Jack,&rsquo; murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm,
&lsquo;they shall not persuade me to swear your life away.&nbsp; He
didn&rsquo;t do it, gentlemen.&nbsp; He never hurt me.&rsquo;&nbsp;
She grasped his arm tightly, and added, in a broken whisper, &lsquo;I
hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and the
life I have led.&nbsp; God bless you, Jack.&nbsp; Some kind gentleman
take my love to my poor old father.&nbsp; Five years ago, he said he
wished I had died a child.&nbsp; Oh, I wish I had!&nbsp; I wish I had!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the
sheet over her face.&nbsp; It covered a corpse.</p>
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<h3>CHAPTER VII&mdash;THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE</h3>
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<p>If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular
kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of &lsquo;Old
Boys;&rsquo; and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys
would require.&nbsp; To what precise causes the rapid advance of old-boy
population is to be traced, we are unable to determine.&nbsp; It would
be an interesting and curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient
space to devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers
of the old boys have been gradually augmenting within the last few years,
and that they are at this moment alarmingly on the increase.</p>
<p>Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it
minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys
into two distinct classes&mdash;the gay old boys, and the steady old
boys.&nbsp; The gay old boys, are paunchy old men in the disguise of
young ones, who frequent the Quadrant and Regent-street in the day-time:
the theatres (especially theatres under lady management) at night; and
who assume all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse
of youth or inexperience.&nbsp; The steady old boys are certain stout
old gentlemen of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the
same taverns, at the same hours every evening, smoking and drinking
in the same company.</p>
<p>There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the
circular table at Offley&rsquo;s every night, between the hours of half-past
eight and half-past eleven.&nbsp; We have lost sight of them for some
time.&nbsp; There were, and may be still, for aught we know, two splendid
specimens in full blossom at the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet-street, who
always used to sit in the box nearest the fireplace, and smoked long
cherry-stick pipes which went under the table, with the bowls resting
on the floor.&nbsp; Grand old boys they were&mdash;fat, red-faced, white-headed
old fellows&mdash;always there&mdash;one on one side the table, and
the other opposite&mdash;puffing and drinking away in great state.&nbsp;
Everybody knew them, and it was supposed by some people that they were
both immortal.</p>
<p>Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we don&rsquo;t
mean immortal, but steady), a retired glove and braces maker, a widower,
resident with three daughters&mdash;all grown up, and all unmarried&mdash;in
Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane.&nbsp; He was a short, round, large-faced,
tubbish sort of man, with a broad-brimmed hat, and a square coat; and
had that grave, but confident, kind of roll, peculiar to old boys in
general.&nbsp; Regular as clockwork&mdash;breakfast at nine&mdash;dress
and tittivate a little&mdash;down to the Sir Somebody&rsquo;s Head&mdash;a
glass of ale and the paper&mdash;come back again, and take daughters
out for a walk&mdash;dinner at three&mdash;glass of grog and pipe&mdash;nap&mdash;tea&mdash;little
walk&mdash;Sir Somebody&rsquo;s Head again&mdash;capital house&mdash;delightful
evenings.&nbsp; There were Mr. Harris, the law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings,
the robe-maker (two jolly young fellows like himself), and Jones, the
barrister&rsquo;s clerk&mdash;rum fellow that Jones&mdash;capital company&mdash;full
of anecdote!&mdash;and there they sat every night till just ten minutes
before twelve, drinking their brandy-and-water, and smoking their pipes,
and telling stories, and enjoying themselves with a kind of solemn joviality
particularly edifying.</p>
<p>Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury Lane or
Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, and a new farce,
perhaps, or a ballet, on which occasions the whole four of them went
together: none of your hurrying and nonsense, but having their brandy-and-water
first, comfortably, and ordering a steak and some oysters for their
supper against they came back, and then walking coolly into the pit,
when the &lsquo;rush&rsquo; had gone in, as all sensible people do,
and did when Mr. Dounce was a young man, except when the celebrated
Master Betty was at the height of his popularity, and then, sir,&mdash;then&mdash;Mr.
Dounce perfectly well remembered getting a holiday from business; and
going to the pit doors at eleven o&rsquo;clock in the forenoon, and
waiting there, till six in the afternoon, with some sandwiches in a
pocket-handkerchief and some wine in a phial; and fainting after all,
with the heat and fatigue, before the play began; in which situation
he was lifted out of the pit, into one of the dress boxes, sir, by five
of the finest women of that day, sir, who compassionated his situation
and administered restoratives, and sent a black servant, six foot high,
in blue and silver livery, next morning with their compliments, and
to know how he found himself, sir&mdash;by G-!&nbsp; Between the acts
Mr. Dounce and Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings, used to stand up, and look
round the house, and Jones&mdash;knowing fellow that Jones&mdash;knew
everybody&mdash;pointed out the fashionable and celebrated Lady So-and-So
in the boxes, at the mention of whose name Mr. Dounce, after brushing
up his hair, and adjusting his neckerchief, would inspect the aforesaid
Lady So-and-So through an immense glass, and remark, either, that she
was a &lsquo;fine woman&mdash;very fine woman, indeed,&rsquo; or that
&lsquo;there might be a little more of her, eh, Jones?&rsquo;&nbsp;
Just as the case might happen to be.&nbsp; When the dancing began, John
Dounce and the other old boys were particularly anxious to see what
was going forward on the stage, and Jones&mdash;wicked dog that Jones&mdash;whispered
little critical remarks into the ears of John Dounce, which John Dounce
retailed to Mr. Harris and Mr. Harris to Mr. Jennings; and then they
all four laughed, until the tears ran down out of their eyes.</p>
<p>When the curtain fell, they walked back together, two and two, to
the steaks and oysters; and when they came to the second glass of brandy-and-water,
Jones&mdash;hoaxing scamp, that Jones&mdash;used to recount how he had
observed a lady in white feathers, in one of the pit boxes, gazing intently
on Mr. Dounce all the evening, and how he had caught Mr. Dounce, whenever
he thought no one was looking at him, bestowing ardent looks of intense
devotion on the lady in return; on which Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings
used to laugh very heartily, and John Dounce more heartily than either
of them, acknowledging, however, that the time <i>had</i> been when
he <i>might</i> have done such things; upon which Mr. Jones used to
poke him in the ribs, and tell him he had been a sad dog in his time,
which John Dounce with chuckles confessed.&nbsp; And after Mr. Harris
and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims to the character of having
been sad dogs too, they separated harmoniously, and trotted home.</p>
<p>The decrees of Fate, and the means by which they are brought about,
are mysterious and inscrutable.&nbsp; John Dounce had led this life
for twenty years and upwards, without wish for change, or care for variety,
when his whole social system was suddenly upset and turned completely
topsy-turvy&mdash;not by an earthquake, or some other dreadful convulsion
of nature, as the reader would be inclined to suppose, but by the simple
agency of an oyster; and thus it happened.</p>
<p>Mr. John Dounce was returning one night from the Sir Somebody&rsquo;s
Head, to his residence in Cursitor-street&mdash;not tipsy, but rather
excited, for it was Mr. Jennings&rsquo;s birthday, and they had had
a brace of partridges for supper, and a brace of extra glasses afterwards,
and Jones had been more than ordinarily amusing&mdash;when his eyes
rested on a newly-opened oyster-shop, on a magnificent scale, with natives
laid, one deep, in circular marble basins in the windows, together with
little round barrels of oysters directed to Lords and Baronets, and
Colonels and Captains, in every part of the habitable globe.</p>
<p>Behind the natives were the barrels, and behind the barrels was a
young lady of about five-and-twenty, all in blue, and all alone&mdash;splendid
creature, charming face and lovely figure!&nbsp; It is difficult to
say whether Mr. John Dounce&rsquo;s red countenance, illuminated as
it was by the flickering gas-light in the window before which he paused,
excited the lady&rsquo;s risibility, or whether a natural exuberance
of animal spirits proved too much for that staidness of demeanour which
the forms of society rather dictatorially prescribe.&nbsp; But certain
it is, that the lady smiled; then put her finger upon her lip, with
a striking recollection of what was due to herself; and finally retired,
in oyster-like bashfulness, to the very back of the counter.&nbsp; The
sad-dog sort of feeling came strongly upon John Dounce: he lingered&mdash;the
lady in blue made no sign.&nbsp; He coughed&mdash;still she came not.&nbsp;
He entered the shop.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Can you open me an oyster, my dear?&rsquo; said Mr. John Dounce.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dare say I can, sir,&rsquo; replied the lady in blue, with
playfulness.&nbsp; And Mr. John Dounce eat one oyster, and then looked
at the young lady, and then eat another, and then squeezed the young
lady&rsquo;s hand as she was opening the third, and so forth, until
he had devoured a dozen of those at eightpence in less than no time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Can you open me half-a-dozen more, my dear?&rsquo; inquired
Mr. John Dounce.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll see what I can do for you, sir,&rsquo; replied
the young lady in blue, even more bewitchingly than before; and Mr.
John Dounce eat half-a-dozen more of those at eightpence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You couldn&rsquo;t manage to get me a glass of brandy-and-water,
my dear, I suppose?&rsquo; said Mr. John Dounce, when he had finished
the oysters: in a tone which clearly implied his supposition that she
could.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll see, sir,&rsquo; said the young lady: and away
she ran out of the shop, and down the street, her long auburn ringlets
shaking in the wind in the most enchanting manner; and back she came
again, tripping over the coal-cellar lids like a whipping-top, with
a tumbler of brandy-and-water, which Mr. John Dounce insisted on her
taking a share of, as it was regular ladies&rsquo; grog&mdash;hot, strong,
sweet, and plenty of it.</p>
<p>So, the young lady sat down with Mr. John Dounce, in a little red
box with a green curtain, and took a small sip of the brandy-and-water,
and a small look at Mr. John Dounce, and then turned her head away,
and went through various other serio-pantomimic fascinations, which
forcibly reminded Mr. John Dounce of the first time he courted his first
wife, and which made him feel more affectionate than ever; in pursuance
of which affection, and actuated by which feeling, Mr. John Dounce sounded
the young lady on her matrimonial engagements, when the young lady denied
having formed any such engagements at all&mdash;she couldn&rsquo;t abear
the men, they were such deceivers; thereupon Mr. John Dounce inquired
whether this sweeping condemnation was meant to include other than very
young men; on which the young lady blushed deeply&mdash;at least she
turned away her head, and said Mr. John Dounce had made her blush, so
of course she <i>did</i> blush&mdash;and Mr. John Dounce was a long
time drinking the brandy-and-water; and, at last, John Dounce went home
to bed, and dreamed of his first wife, and his second wife, and the
young lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy-and-water, and disinterested
attachments.</p>
<p>The next morning, John Dounce was rather feverish with the extra
brandy-and-water of the previous night; and, partly in the hope of cooling
himself with an oyster, and partly with the view of ascertaining whether
he owed the young lady anything, or not, went back to the oyster-shop.&nbsp;
If the young lady had appeared beautiful by night, she was perfectly
irresistible by day; and, from this time forward, a change came over
the spirit of John Dounce&rsquo;s dream.&nbsp; He bought shirt-pins;
wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry; bribed a cheap miniature-painter
to perpetrate a faint resemblance to a youthful face, with a curtain
over his head, six large books in the background, and an open country
in the distance (this he called his portrait); &lsquo;went on&rsquo;
altogether in such an uproarious manner, that the three Miss Dounces
went off on small pensions, he having made the tenement in Cursitor-street
too warm to contain them; and in short, comported and demeaned himself
in every respect like an unmitigated old Saracen, as he was.</p>
<p>As to his ancient friends, the other old boys, at the Sir Somebody&rsquo;s
Head, he dropped off from them by gradual degrees; for, even when he
did go there, Jones&mdash;vulgar fellow that Jones&mdash;persisted in
asking &lsquo;when it was to be?&rsquo; and &lsquo;whether he was to
have any gloves?&rsquo; together with other inquiries of an equally
offensive nature: at which not only Harris laughed, but Jennings also;
so, he cut the two, altogether, and attached himself solely to the blue
young lady at the smart oyster-shop.</p>
<p>Now comes the moral of the story&mdash;for it has a moral after all.&nbsp;
The last-mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient profit and
emolument from John Dounce&rsquo;s attachment, not only refused, when
matters came to a crisis, to take him for better for worse, but expressly
declared, to use her own forcible words, that she &lsquo;wouldn&rsquo;t
have him at no price;&rsquo; and John Dounce, having lost his old friends,
alienated his relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to everybody,
made offers successively to a schoolmistress, a landlady, a feminine
tobacconist, and a housekeeper; and, being directly rejected by each
and every of them, was accepted by his cook, with whom he now lives,
a henpecked husband, a melancholy monument of antiquated misery, and
a living warning to all uxorious old boys.</p>
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<h3>CHAPTER VIII&mdash;THE MISTAKEN MILLINER.&nbsp; A TALE OF AMBITION</h3>
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<p>Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty&mdash;what
ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting.&nbsp;
She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business and not above
it.&nbsp; If you had been a young lady in service, and had wanted Miss
Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you would just
have stepped up, in the evening, to number forty-seven, Drummond-street,
George-street, Euston-square, and after casting your eye on a brass
door-plate, one foot ten by one and a half, ornamented with a great
brass knob at each of the four corners, and bearing the inscription
&lsquo;Miss Martin; millinery and dressmaking, in all its branches;&rsquo;
you&rsquo;d just have knocked two loud knocks at the street-door; and
down would have come Miss Martin herself, in a merino gown of the newest
fashion, black velvet bracelets on the genteelest principle, and other
little elegancies of the most approved description.</p>
<p>If Miss Martin knew the young lady who called, or if the young lady
who called had been recommended by any other young lady whom Miss Martin
knew, Miss Martin would forthwith show her up-stairs into the two-pair
front, and chat she would&mdash;<i>so</i> kind, and <i>so</i> comfortable&mdash;it
really wasn&rsquo;t like a matter of business, she was so friendly;
and, then Miss Martin, after contemplating the figure and general appearance
of the young lady in service with great apparent admiration, would say
how well she would look, to be sure, in a low dress with short sleeves;
made very full in the skirts, with four tucks in the bottom; to which
the young lady in service would reply in terms expressive of her entire
concurrence in the notion, and of the virtuous indignation with which
she reflected on the tyranny of &lsquo;Missis,&rsquo; who wouldn&rsquo;t
allow a young girl to wear a short sleeve of an arternoon&mdash;no,
nor nothing smart, not even a pair of ear-rings; let alone hiding people&rsquo;s
heads of hair under them frightful caps.&nbsp; At the termination of
this complaint, Miss Amelia Martin would distantly suggest certain dark
suspicions that some people were jealous on account of their own daughters,
and were obliged to keep their servants&rsquo; charms under, for fear
they should get married first, which was no uncommon circumstance&mdash;leastways
she had known two or three young ladies in service, who had married
a great deal better than their missises, and <i>they</i> were not very
good-looking either; and then the young lady would inform Miss Martin,
in confidence, that how one of their young ladies was engaged to a young
man and was a-going to be married, and Missis was so proud about it
there was no bearing of her; but how she needn&rsquo;t hold her head
quite so high neither, for, after all, he was only a clerk.&nbsp; And,
after expressing due contempt for clerks in general, and the engaged
clerk in particular, and the highest opinion possible of themselves
and each other, Miss Martin and the young lady in service would bid
each other good night, in a friendly but perfectly genteel manner: and
the one went back to her &lsquo;place,&rsquo; and the other, to her
room on the second-floor front.</p>
<p>There is no saying how long Miss Amelia Martin might have continued
this course of life; how extensive a connection she might have established
among young ladies in service; or what amount her demands upon their
quarterly receipts might have ultimately attained, had not an unforeseen
train of circumstances directed her thoughts to a sphere of action very
different from dressmaking or millinery.</p>
<p>A friend of Miss Martin&rsquo;s who had long been keeping company
with an ornamental painter and decorator&rsquo;s journeyman, at last
consented (on being at last asked to do so) to name the day which would
make the aforesaid journeyman a happy husband.&nbsp; It was a Monday
that was appointed for the celebration of the nuptials, and Miss Amelia
Martin was invited, among others, to honour the wedding-dinner with
her presence.&nbsp; It was a charming party; Somers-town the locality,
and a front parlour the apartment.&nbsp; The ornamental painter and
decorator&rsquo;s journeyman had taken a house&mdash;no lodgings nor
vulgarity of that kind, but a house&mdash;four beautiful rooms, and
a delightful little washhouse at the end of the passage&mdash;which
was the most convenient thing in the world, for the bridesmaids could
sit in the front parlour and receive the company, and then run into
the little washhouse and see how the pudding and boiled pork were getting
on in the copper, and then pop back into the parlour again, as snug
and comfortable as possible.&nbsp; And such a parlour as it was! Beautiful
Kidderminster carpet&mdash;six bran-new cane-bottomed stained chairs&mdash;three
wine-glasses and a tumbler on each sideboard&mdash;farmer&rsquo;s girl
and farmer&rsquo;s boy on the mantelpiece: girl tumbling over a stile,
and boy spitting himself, on the handle of a pitchfork&mdash;long white
dimity curtains in the window&mdash;and, in short, everything on the
most genteel scale imaginable.</p>
<p>Then, the dinner.&nbsp; There was baked leg of mutton at the top,
boiled leg of mutton at the bottom, pair of fowls and leg of pork in
the middle; porter-pots at the corners; pepper, mustard, and vinegar
in the centre; vegetables on the floor; and plum-pudding and apple-pie
and tartlets without number: to say nothing of cheese, and celery, and
water-cresses, and all that sort of thing.&nbsp; As to the Company!&nbsp;
Miss Amelia Martin herself declared, on a subsequent occasion, that,
much as she had heard of the ornamental painter&rsquo;s journeyman&rsquo;s
connexion, she never could have supposed it was half so genteel.&nbsp;
There was his father, such a funny old gentleman&mdash;and his mother,
such a dear old lady&mdash;and his sister, such a charming girl&mdash;and
his brother, such a manly-looking young man&mdash;with such a eye!&nbsp;
But even all these were as nothing when compared with his musical friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, from White Conduit, with whom the ornamental
painter&rsquo;s journeyman had been fortunate enough to contract an
intimacy while engaged in decorating the concert-room of that noble
institution.&nbsp; To hear them sing separately, was divine, but when
they went through the tragic duet of &lsquo;Red Ruffian, retire!&rsquo;
it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked, &lsquo;thrilling.&rsquo;&nbsp;
And why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed) why were they not engaged
at one of the patent theatres?&nbsp; If he was to be told that their
voices were not powerful enough to fill the House, his only reply was,
that he would back himself for any amount to fill Russell-square&mdash;a
statement in which the company, after hearing the duet, expressed their
full belief; so they all said it was shameful treatment; and both Mr.
and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph said it was shameful too; and Mr. Jennings
Rodolph looked very serious, and said he knew who his malignant opponents
were, but they had better take care how far they went, for if they irritated
him too much he had not quite made up his mind whether he wouldn&rsquo;t
bring the subject before Parliament; and they all agreed that it &lsquo;&rsquo;ud
serve &rsquo;em quite right, and it was very proper that such people
should be made an example of.&rsquo;&nbsp; So Mr. Jennings Rodolph said
he&rsquo;d think of it.</p>
<p>When the conversation resumed its former tone, Mr. Jennings Rodolph
claimed his right to call upon a lady, and the right being conceded,
trusted Miss Martin would favour the company&mdash;a proposal which
met with unanimous approbation, whereupon Miss Martin, after sundry
hesitatings and coughings, with a preparatory choke or two, and an introductory
declaration that she was frightened to death to attempt it before such
great judges of the art, commenced a species of treble chirruping containing
frequent allusions to some young gentleman of the name of Hen-e-ry,
with an occasional reference to madness and broken hearts.&nbsp; Mr.
Jennings Rodolph frequently interrupted the progress of the song, by
ejaculating &lsquo;Beautiful!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Charming!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Brilliant!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Oh!
splendid,&rsquo; &amp;c.; and at its close the admiration of himself,
and his lady, knew no bounds.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear?&rsquo; inquired
Mr. Jennings Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never; indeed I never did, love,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Jennings
Rodolph.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you think Miss Martin, with a little cultivation,
would be very like Signora Marra Boni, my dear?&rsquo; asked Mr. Jennings
Rodolph.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love,&rsquo;
answered Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.</p>
<p>And thus the time passed away; Mr. Jennings Rodolph played tunes
on a walking-stick, and then went behind the parlour-door and gave his
celebrated imitations of actors, edge-tools, and animals; Miss Martin
sang several other songs with increased admiration every time; and even
the funny old gentleman began singing.&nbsp; His song had properly seven
verses, but as he couldn&rsquo;t recollect more than the first one,
he sang that over seven times, apparently very much to his own personal
gratification.&nbsp; And then all the company sang the national anthem
with national independence&mdash;each for himself, without reference
to the other&mdash;and finally separated: all declaring that they never
had spent so pleasant an evening: and Miss Martin inwardly resolving
to adopt the advice of Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and to &lsquo;come out&rsquo;
without delay.</p>
<p>Now, &lsquo;coming out,&rsquo; either in acting, or singing, or society,
or facetiousness, or anything else, is all very well, and remarkably
pleasant to the individual principally concerned, if he or she can but
manage to come out with a burst, and being out, to keep out, and not
go in again; but, it does unfortunately happen that both consummations
are extremely difficult to accomplish, and that the difficulties, of
getting out at all in the first instance, and if you surmount them,
of keeping out in the second, are pretty much on a par, and no slight
ones either&mdash;and so Miss Amelia Martin shortly discovered.&nbsp;
It is a singular fact (there being ladies in the case) that Miss Amelia
Martin&rsquo;s principal foible was vanity, and the leading characteristic
of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph an attachment to dress.&nbsp; Dismal wailings
were heard to issue from the second-floor front of number forty-seven,
Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square; it was Miss Martin practising.&nbsp;
Half-suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the White Conduit
orchestra at the commencement of the season.&nbsp; It was the appearance
of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph in full dress, that occasioned them.&nbsp;
Miss Martin studied incessantly&mdash;the practising was the consequence.&nbsp;
Mrs. Jennings Rodolph taught gratuitously now and then&mdash;the dresses
were the result.</p>
<p>Weeks passed away; the White Conduit season had begun, and progressed,
and was more than half over.&nbsp; The dressmaking business had fallen
off, from neglect; and its profits had dwindled away almost imperceptibly.&nbsp;
A benefit-night approached; Mr. Jennings Rodolph yielded to the earnest
solicitations of Miss Amelia Martin, and introduced her personally to
the &lsquo;comic gentleman&rsquo; whose benefit it was.&nbsp; The comic
gentleman was all smiles and blandness&mdash;he had composed a duet,
expressly for the occasion, and Miss Martin should sing it with him.&nbsp;
The night arrived; there was an immense room&mdash;ninety-seven sixpenn&rsquo;orths
of gin-and-water, thirty-two small glasses of brandy-and-water, five-and-twenty
bottled ales, and forty-one neguses; and the ornamental painter&rsquo;s
journeyman, with his wife and a select circle of acquaintance, were
seated at one of the side-tables near the orchestra.&nbsp; The concert
began.&nbsp; Song&mdash;sentimental&mdash;by a light-haired young gentleman
in a blue coat, and bright basket buttons&mdash;[applause].&nbsp; Another
song, doubtful, by another gentleman in another blue coat and more bright
basket buttons&mdash;[increased applause].&nbsp; Duet, Mr. Jennings
Rodolph, and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, &lsquo;Red Ruffian, retire!&rsquo;&mdash;[great
applause].&nbsp; Solo, Miss Julia Montague (positively on this occasion
only)&mdash;&lsquo;I am a Friar&rsquo;&mdash;[enthusiasm].&nbsp; Original
duet, comic&mdash;Mr. H. Taplin (the comic gentleman) and Miss Martin&mdash;&lsquo;The
Time of Day.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Brayvo!&mdash;Brayvo!&rsquo; cried
the ornamental painter&rsquo;s journeyman&rsquo;s party, as Miss Martin
was gracefully led in by the comic gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Go to work,
Harry,&rsquo; cried the comic gentleman&rsquo;s personal friends.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Tap-tap-tap,&rsquo; went the leader&rsquo;s bow on the music-desk.&nbsp;
The symphony began, and was soon afterwards followed by a faint kind
of ventriloquial chirping, proceeding apparently from the deepest recesses
of the interior of Miss Amelia Martin.&nbsp; &lsquo;Sing out&rsquo;&mdash;shouted
one gentleman in a white great-coat.&nbsp; &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be afraid
to put the steam on, old gal,&rsquo; exclaimed another, &lsquo;S-s-s-s-s-s-s&rsquo;-went
the five-and-twenty bottled ales.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shame, shame!&rsquo;
remonstrated the ornamental painter&rsquo;s journeyman&rsquo;s party&mdash;&lsquo;S-s-s-s&rsquo;
went the bottled ales again, accompanied by all the gins, and a majority
of the brandies.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Turn them geese out,&rsquo; cried the ornamental painter&rsquo;s
journeyman&rsquo;s party, with great indignation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sing out,&rsquo; whispered Mr. Jennings Rodolph.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So I do,&rsquo; responded Miss Amelia Martin.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sing louder,&rsquo; said Mrs. Jennings Rodolph.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I can&rsquo;t,&rsquo; replied Miss Amelia Martin.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Off, off, off,&rsquo; cried the rest of the audience.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bray-vo!&rsquo; shouted the painter&rsquo;s party.&nbsp; It
wouldn&rsquo;t do&mdash;Miss Amelia Martin left the orchestra, with
much less ceremony than she had entered it; and, as she couldn&rsquo;t
sing out, never came out.&nbsp; The general good humour was not restored
until Mr. Jennings Rodolph had become purple in the face, by imitating
divers quadrupeds for half an hour, without being able to render himself
audible; and, to this day, neither has Miss Amelia Martin&rsquo;s good
humour been restored, nor the dresses made for and presented to Mrs.
Jennings Rodolph, nor the local abilities which Mr. Jennings Rodolph
once staked his professional reputation that Miss Martin possessed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IX&mdash;THE DANCING ACADEMY</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Of all the dancing academies that ever were established, there never
was one more popular in its immediate vicinity than Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s,
of the &lsquo;King&rsquo;s Theatre.&rsquo;&nbsp; It was not in Spring-gardens,
or Newman-street, or Berners-street, or Gower-street, or Charlotte-street,
or Percy-street, or any other of the numerous streets which have been
devoted time out of mind to professional people, dispensaries, and boarding-houses;
it was not in the West-end at all&mdash;it rather approximated to the
eastern portion of London, being situated in the populous and improving
neighbourhood of Gray&rsquo;s-inn-lane.&nbsp; It was not a dear dancing
academy&mdash;four-and-sixpence a quarter is decidedly cheap upon the
whole.&nbsp; It was <i>very</i> select, the number of pupils being strictly
limited to seventy-five, and a quarter&rsquo;s payment in advance being
rigidly exacted.&nbsp; There was public tuition and private tuition&mdash;an
assembly-room and a parlour.&nbsp; Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s family
were always thrown in with the parlour, and included in parlour price;
that is to say, a private pupil had Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s parlour
to dance <i>in</i>, and Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s family to dance <i>with</i>;
and when he had been sufficiently broken in in the parlour, he began
to run in couples in the assembly-room.</p>
<p>Such was the dancing academy of Signor Billsmethi, when Mr. Augustus
Cooper, of Fetter-lane, first saw an unstamped advertisement walking
leisurely down Holborn-hill, announcing to the world that Signor Billsmethi,
of the King&rsquo;s Theatre, intended opening for the season with a
Grand Ball.</p>
<p>Now, Mr. Augustus Cooper was in the oil and colour line&mdash;just
of age, with a little money, a little business, and a little mother,
who, having managed her husband and <i>his</i> business in his lifetime,
took to managing her son and <i>his</i> business after his decease;
and so, somehow or other, he had been cooped up in the little back parlour
behind the shop on week-days, and in a little deal box without a lid
(called by courtesy a pew) at Bethel Chapel, on Sundays, and had seen
no more of the world than if he had been an infant all his days; whereas
Young White, at the gas-fitter&rsquo;s over the way, three years younger
than him, had been flaring away like winkin&rsquo;&mdash;going to the
theatre&mdash;supping at harmonic meetings&mdash;eating oysters by the
barrel&mdash;drinking stout by the gallon&mdash;even out all night,
and coming home as cool in the morning as if nothing had happened.&nbsp;
So Mr. Augustus Cooper made up his mind that he would not stand it any
longer, and had that very morning expressed to his mother a firm determination
to be &lsquo;blowed,&rsquo; in the event of his not being instantly
provided with a street-door key.&nbsp; And he was walking down Holborn-hill,
thinking about all these things, and wondering how he could manage to
get introduced into genteel society for the first time, when his eyes
rested on Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s announcement, which it immediately
struck him was just the very thing he wanted; for he should not only
be able to select a genteel circle of acquaintance at once, out of the
five-and-seventy pupils at four-and-sixpence a quarter, but should qualify
himself at the same time to go through a hornpipe in private society,
with perfect ease to himself and great delight to his friends.&nbsp;
So, he stopped the unstamped advertisement&mdash;an animated sandwich,
composed of a boy between two boards&mdash;and having procured a very
small card with the Signor&rsquo;s address indented thereon, walked
straight at once to the Signor&rsquo;s house&mdash;and very fast he
walked too, for fear the list should be filled up, and the five-and-seventy
completed, before he got there.&nbsp; The Signor was at home, and, what
was still more gratifying, he was an Englishman!&nbsp; Such a nice man&mdash;and
so polite!&nbsp; The list was not full, but it was a most extraordinary
circumstance that there was only just one vacancy, and even that one
would have been filled up, that very morning, only Signor Billsmethi
was dissatisfied with the reference, and, being very much afraid that
the lady wasn&rsquo;t select, wouldn&rsquo;t take her.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And very much delighted I am, Mr. Cooper,&rsquo; said Signor
Billsmethi, &lsquo;that I did <i>not</i> take her.&nbsp; I assure you,
Mr. Cooper&mdash;I don&rsquo;t say it to flatter you, for I know you&rsquo;re
above it&mdash;that I consider myself extremely fortunate in having
a gentleman of your manners and appearance, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am very glad of it too, sir,&rsquo; said Augustus Cooper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I hope we shall be better acquainted, sir,&rsquo; said
Signor Billsmethi.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I&rsquo;m sure I hope we shall too, sir,&rsquo; responded
Augustus Cooper.&nbsp; Just then, the door opened, and in came a young
lady, with her hair curled in a crop all over her head, and her shoes
tied in sandals all over her ankles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t run away, my dear,&rsquo; said Signor Billsmethi;
for the young lady didn&rsquo;t know Mr. Cooper was there when she ran
in, and was going to run out again in her modesty, all in confusion-like.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t run away, my dear,&rsquo; said Signor Billsmethi,
&lsquo;this is Mr. Cooper&mdash;Mr. Cooper, of Fetter-lane.&nbsp; Mr.
Cooper, my daughter, sir&mdash;Miss Billsmethi, sir, who I hope will
have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, minuet, gavotte, country-dance,
fandango, double-hornpipe, and farinagholkajingo with you, sir.&nbsp;
She dances them all, sir; and so shall you, sir, before you&rsquo;re
a quarter older, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>And Signor Bellsmethi slapped Mr. Augustus Cooper on the back, as
if he had known him a dozen years,&mdash;so friendly;&mdash;and Mr.
Cooper bowed to the young lady, and the young lady curtseyed to him,
and Signor Billsmethi said they were as handsome a pair as ever he&rsquo;d
wish to see; upon which the young lady exclaimed, &lsquo;Lor, pa!&rsquo;
and blushed as red as Mr. Cooper himself&mdash;you might have thought
they were both standing under a red lamp at a chemist&rsquo;s shop;
and before Mr. Cooper went away it was settled that he should join the
family circle that very night&mdash;taking them just as they were&mdash;no
ceremony nor nonsense of that kind&mdash;and learn his positions in
order that he might lose no time, and be able to come out at the forthcoming
ball.</p>
<p>Well; Mr. Augustus Cooper went away to one of the cheap shoemakers&rsquo;
shops in Holborn, where gentlemen&rsquo;s dress-pumps are seven-and-sixpence,
and men&rsquo;s strong walking just nothing at all, and bought a pair
of the regular seven-and-sixpenny, long-quartered, town-mades, in which
he astonished himself quite as much as his mother, and sallied forth
to Signor Billsmethi&rsquo;s.&nbsp; There were four other private pupils
in the parlour: two ladies and two gentlemen.&nbsp; Such nice people!&nbsp;
Not a bit of pride about them.&nbsp; One of the ladies in particular,
who was in training for a Columbine, was remarkably affable; and she
and Miss Billsmethi took such an interest in Mr. Augustus Cooper, and
joked, and smiled, and looked so bewitching, that he got quite at home,
and learnt his steps in no time.&nbsp; After the practising was over,
Signor Billsmethi, and Miss Billsmethi, and Master Billsmethi, and a
young lady, and the two ladies, and the two gentlemen, danced a quadrille&mdash;none
of your slipping and sliding about, but regular warm work, flying into
corners, and diving among chairs, and shooting out at the door,&mdash;something
like dancing!&nbsp; Signor Billsmethi in particular, notwithstanding
his having a little fiddle to play all the time, was out on the landing
every figure, and Master Billsmethi, when everybody else was breathless,
danced a hornpipe, with a cane in his hand, and a cheese-plate on his
head, to the unqualified admiration of the whole company.&nbsp; Then,
Signor Billsmethi insisted, as they were so happy, that they should
all stay to supper, and proposed sending Master Billsmethi for the beer
and spirits, whereupon the two gentlemen swore, &lsquo;strike &rsquo;em
wulgar if they&rsquo;d stand that;&rsquo; and were just going to quarrel
who should pay for it, when Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if they&rsquo;d
have the kindness to allow him&mdash;and they <i>had</i> the kindness
to allow him; and Master Billsmethi brought the beer in a can, and the
rum in a quart pot.&nbsp; They had a regular night of it; and Miss Billsmethi
squeezed Mr. Augustus Cooper&rsquo;s hand under the table; and Mr. Augustus
Cooper returned the squeeze, and returned home too, at something to
six o&rsquo;clock in the morning, when he was put to bed by main force
by the apprentice, after repeatedly expressing an uncontrollable desire
to pitch his revered parent out of the second-floor window, and to throttle
the apprentice with his own neck-handkerchief.</p>
<p>Weeks had worn on, and the seven-and-sixpenny town-mades had nearly
worn out, when the night arrived for the grand dress-ball at which the
whole of the five-and-seventy pupils were to meet together, for the
first time that season, and to take out some portion of their respective
four-and-sixpences in lamp-oil and fiddlers.&nbsp; Mr. Augustus Cooper
had ordered a new coat for the occasion&mdash;a two-pound-tenner from
Turnstile.&nbsp; It was his first appearance in public; and, after a
grand Sicilian shawl-dance by fourteen young ladies in character, he
was to open the quadrille department with Miss Billsmethi herself, with
whom he had become quite intimate since his first introduction.&nbsp;
It <i>was</i> a night!&nbsp; Everything was admirably arranged.&nbsp;
The sandwich-boy took the hats and bonnets at the street-door; there
was a turn-up bedstead in the back parlour, on which Miss Billsmethi
made tea and coffee for such of the gentlemen as chose to pay for it,
and such of the ladies as the gentlemen treated; red port-wine negus
and lemonade were handed round at eighteen-pence a head; and in pursuance
of a previous engagement with the public-house at the corner of the
street, an extra potboy was laid on for the occasion.&nbsp; In short,
nothing could exceed the arrangements, except the company.&nbsp; Such
ladies!&nbsp; Such pink silk stockings!&nbsp; Such artificial flowers!&nbsp;
Such a number of cabs!&nbsp; No sooner had one cab set down a couple
of ladies, than another cab drove up and set down another couple of
ladies, and they all knew: not only one another, but the majority of
the gentlemen into the bargain, which made it all as pleasant and lively
as could be.&nbsp; Signor Billsmethi, in black tights, with a large
blue bow in his buttonhole, introduced the ladies to such of the gentlemen
as were strangers: and the ladies talked away&mdash;and laughed they
did&mdash;it was delightful to see them.</p>
<p>As to the shawl-dance, it was the most exciting thing that ever was
beheld; there was such a whisking, and rustling, and fanning, and getting
ladies into a tangle with artificial flowers, and then disentangling
them again!&nbsp; And as to Mr. Augustus Cooper&rsquo;s share in the
quadrille, he got through it admirably.&nbsp; He was missing from his
partner, now and then, certainly, and discovered on such occasions to
be either dancing with laudable perseverance in another set, or sliding
about in perspective, without any definite object; but, generally speaking,
they managed to shove him through the figure, until he turned up in
the right place.&nbsp; Be this as it may, when he had finished, a great
many ladies and gentlemen came up and complimented him very much, and
said they had never seen a beginner do anything like it before; and
Mr. Augustus Cooper was perfectly satisfied with himself, and everybody
else into the bargain; and &lsquo;stood&rsquo; considerable quantities
of spirits-and-water, negus, and compounds, for the use and behoof of
two or three dozen very particular friends, selected from the select
circle of five-and-seventy pupils.</p>
<p>Now, whether it was the strength of the compounds, or the beauty
of the ladies, or what not, it did so happen that Mr. Augustus Cooper
encouraged, rather than repelled, the very flattering attentions of
a young lady in brown gauze over white calico who had appeared particularly
struck with him from the first; and when the encouragements had been
prolonged for some time, Miss Billsmethi betrayed her spite and jealousy
thereat by calling the young lady in brown gauze a &lsquo;creeter,&rsquo;
which induced the young lady in brown gauze to retort, in certain sentences
containing a taunt founded on the payment of four-and-sixpence a quarter,
which reference Mr. Augustus Cooper, being then and there in a state
of considerable bewilderment, expressed his entire concurrence in.&nbsp;
Miss Billsmethi, thus renounced, forthwith began screaming in the loudest
key of her voice, at the rate of fourteen screams a minute; and being
unsuccessful, in an onslaught on the eyes and face, first of the lady
in gauze and then of Mr. Augustus Cooper, called distractedly on the
other three-and-seventy pupils to furnish her with oxalic acid for her
own private drinking; and, the call not being honoured, made another
rush at Mr. Cooper, and then had her stay-lace cut, and was carried
off to bed.&nbsp; Mr. Augustus Cooper, not being remarkable for quickness
of apprehension, was at a loss to understand what all this meant, until
Signor Billsmethi explained it in a most satisfactory manner, by stating
to the pupils, that Mr. Augustus Cooper had made and confirmed divers
promises of marriage to his daughter on divers occasions, and had now
basely deserted her; on which, the indignation of the pupils became
universal; and as several chivalrous gentlemen inquired rather pressingly
of Mr. Augustus Cooper, whether he required anything for his own use,
or, in other words, whether he &lsquo;wanted anything for himself,&rsquo;
he deemed it prudent to make a precipitate retreat.&nbsp; And the upshot
of the matter was, that a lawyer&rsquo;s letter came next day, and an
action was commenced next week; and that Mr. Augustus Cooper, after
walking twice to the Serpentine for the purpose of drowning himself,
and coming twice back without doing it, made a confidante of his mother,
who compromised the matter with twenty pounds from the till: which made
twenty pounds four shillings and sixpence paid to Signor Billsmethi,
exclusive of treats and pumps.&nbsp; And Mr. Augustus Cooper went back
and lived with his mother, and there he lives to this day; and as he
has lost his ambition for society, and never goes into the world, he
will never see this account of himself, and will never be any the wiser.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER X&mdash;SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There are certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear
to appertain exclusively to the metropolis.&nbsp; You meet them, every
day, in the streets of London, but no one ever encounters them elsewhere;
they seem indigenous to the soil, and to belong as exclusively to London
as its own smoke, or the dingy bricks and mortar.&nbsp; We could illustrate
the remark by a variety of examples, but, in our present sketch, we
will only advert to one class as a specimen&mdash;that class which is
so aptly and expressively designated as &lsquo;shabby-genteel.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, shabby people, God knows, may be found anywhere, and genteel
people are not articles of greater scarcity out of London than in it;
but this compound of the two&mdash;this shabby-gentility&mdash;is as
purely local as the statue at Charing-cross, or the pump at Aldgate.&nbsp;
It is worthy of remark, too, that only men are shabby-genteel; a woman
is always either dirty and slovenly in the extreme, or neat and respectable,
however poverty-stricken in appearance.&nbsp; A very poor man, &lsquo;who
has seen better days,&rsquo; as the phrase goes, is a strange compound
of dirty-slovenliness and wretched attempts at faded smartness.</p>
<p>We will endeavour to explain our conception of the term which forms
the title of this paper.&nbsp; If you meet a man, lounging up Drury-Lane,
or leaning with his back against a post in Long-acre, with his hands
in the pockets of a pair of drab trousers plentifully besprinkled with
grease-spots: the trousers made very full over the boots, and ornamented
with two cords down the outside of each leg&mdash;wearing, also, what
has been a brown coat with bright buttons, and a hat very much pinched
up at the side, cocked over his right eye&mdash;don&rsquo;t pity him.&nbsp;
He is not shabby-genteel.&nbsp; The &lsquo;harmonic meetings&rsquo;
at some fourth-rate public-house, or the purlieus of a private theatre,
are his chosen haunts; he entertains a rooted antipathy to any kind
of work, and is on familiar terms with several pantomime men at the
large houses.&nbsp; But, if you see hurrying along a by-street, keeping
as close as he can to the area-railings, a man of about forty or fifty,
clad in an old rusty suit of threadbare black cloth which shines with
constant wear as if it had been bees-waxed&mdash;the trousers tightly
strapped down, partly for the look of the thing and partly to keep his
old shoes from slipping off at the heels,&mdash;if you observe, too,
that his yellowish-white neckerchief is carefully pinned up, to conceal
the tattered garment underneath, and that his hands are encased in the
remains of an old pair of beaver gloves, you may set him down as a shabby-genteel
man.&nbsp; A glance at that depressed face, and timorous air of conscious
poverty, will make your heart ache&mdash;always supposing that you are
neither a philosopher nor a political economist.</p>
<p>We were once haunted by a shabby-genteel man; he was bodily present
to our senses all day, and he was in our mind&rsquo;s eye all night.&nbsp;
The man of whom Sir Walter Scott speaks in his Demonology, did not suffer
half the persecution from his imaginary gentleman-usher in black velvet,
that we sustained from our friend in quondam black cloth.&nbsp; He first
attracted our notice, by sitting opposite to us in the reading-room
at the British Museum; and what made the man more remarkable was, that
he always had before him a couple of shabby-genteel books&mdash;two
old dog&rsquo;s-eared folios, in mouldy worm-eaten covers, which had
once been smart.&nbsp; He was in his chair, every morning, just as the
clock struck ten; he was always the last to leave the room in the afternoon;
and when he did, he quitted it with the air of a man who knew not where
else to go, for warmth and quiet.&nbsp; There he used to sit all day,
as close to the table as possible, in order to conceal the lack of buttons
on his coat: with his old hat carefully deposited at his feet, where
he evidently flattered himself it escaped observation.</p>
<p>About two o&rsquo;clock, you would see him munching a French roll
or a penny loaf; not taking it boldly out of his pocket at once, like
a man who knew he was only making a lunch; but breaking off little bits
in his pocket, and eating them by stealth.&nbsp; He knew too well it
was his dinner.</p>
<p>When we first saw this poor object, we thought it quite impossible
that his attire could ever become worse.&nbsp; We even went so far,
as to speculate on the possibility of his shortly appearing in a decent
second-hand suit.&nbsp; We knew nothing about the matter; he grew more
and more shabby-genteel every day.&nbsp; The buttons dropped off his
waistcoat, one by one; then, he buttoned his coat; and when one side
of the coat was reduced to the same condition as the waistcoat, he buttoned
it over&mdash;on the other side.&nbsp; He looked somewhat better at
the beginning of the week than at the conclusion, because the neckerchief,
though yellow, was not quite so dingy; and, in the midst of all this
wretchedness, he never appeared without gloves and straps.&nbsp; He
remained in this state for a week or two.&nbsp; At length, one of the
buttons on the back of the coat fell off, and then the man himself disappeared,
and we thought he was dead.</p>
<p>We were sitting at the same table about a week after his disappearance,
and as our eyes rested on his vacant chair, we insensibly fell into
a train of meditation on the subject of his retirement from public life.&nbsp;
We were wondering whether he had hung himself, or thrown himself off
a bridge&mdash;whether he really was dead or had only been arrested&mdash;when
our conjectures were suddenly set at rest by the entry of the man himself.&nbsp;
He had undergone some strange metamorphosis, and walked up the centre
of the room with an air which showed he was fully conscious of the improvement
in his appearance.&nbsp; It was very odd.&nbsp; His clothes were a fine,
deep, glossy black; and yet they looked like the same suit; nay, there
were the very darns with which old acquaintance had made us familiar.&nbsp;
The hat, too&mdash;nobody could mistake the shape of that hat, with
its high crown gradually increasing in circumference towards the top.&nbsp;
Long service had imparted to it a reddish-brown tint; but, now, it was
as black as the coat.&nbsp; The truth flashed suddenly upon us&mdash;they
had been &lsquo;revived.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is a deceitful liquid that
black and blue reviver; we have watched its effects on many a shabby-genteel
man.&nbsp; It betrays its victims into a temporary assumption of importance:
possibly into the purchase of a new pair of gloves, or a cheap stock,
or some other trifling article of dress.&nbsp; It elevates their spirits
for a week, only to depress them, if possible, below their original
level.&nbsp; It was so in this case; the transient dignity of the unhappy
man decreased, in exact proportion as the &lsquo;reviver&rsquo; wore
off.&nbsp; The knees of the unmentionables, and the elbows of the coat,
and the seams generally, soon began to get alarmingly white.&nbsp; The
hat was once more deposited under the table, and its owner crept into
his seat as quietly as ever.</p>
<p>There was a week of incessant small rain and mist.&nbsp; At its expiration
the &lsquo;reviver&rsquo; had entirely vanished, and the shabby-genteel
man never afterwards attempted to effect any improvement in his outward
appearance.</p>
<p>It would be difficult to name any particular part of town as the
principal resort of shabby-genteel men.&nbsp; We have met a great many
persons of this description in the neighbourhood of the inns of court.&nbsp;
They may be met with, in Holborn, between eight and ten any morning;
and whoever has the curiosity to enter the Insolvent Debtors&rsquo;
Court will observe, both among spectators and practitioners, a great
variety of them.&nbsp; We never went on &lsquo;Change, by any chance,
without seeing some shabby-genteel men, and we have often wondered what
earthly business they can have there.&nbsp; They will sit there, for
hours, leaning on great, dropsical, mildewed umbrellas, or eating Abernethy
biscuits.&nbsp; Nobody speaks to them, nor they to any one.&nbsp; On
consideration, we remember to have occasionally seen two shabby-genteel
men conversing together on &lsquo;Change, but our experience assures
us that this is an uncommon circumstance, occasioned by the offer of
a pinch of snuff, or some such civility.</p>
<p>It would be a task of equal difficulty, either to assign any particular
spot for the residence of these beings, or to endeavour to enumerate
their general occupations.&nbsp; We were never engaged in business with
more than one shabby-genteel man; and he was a drunken engraver, and
lived in a damp back-parlour in a new row of houses at Camden-town,
half street, half brick-field, somewhere near the canal.&nbsp; A shabby-genteel
man may have no occupation, or he may be a corn agent, or a coal agent,
or a wine merchant, or a collector of debts, or a broker&rsquo;s assistant,
or a broken-down attorney.&nbsp; He may be a clerk of the lowest description,
or a contributor to the press of the same grade.&nbsp; Whether our readers
have noticed these men, in their walks, as often as we have, we know
not; this we know&mdash;that the miserably poor man (no matter whether
he owes his distresses to his own conduct, or that of others) who feels
his poverty and vainly strives to conceal it, is one of the most pitiable
objects in human nature.&nbsp; Such objects, with few exceptions, are
shabby-genteel people.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XI&mdash;MAKING A NIGHT OF IT</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Damon and Pythias were undoubtedly very good fellows in their way:
the former for his extreme readiness to put in special bail for a friend:
and the latter for a certain trump-like punctuality in turning up just
in the very nick of time, scarcely less remarkable.&nbsp; Many points
in their character have, however, grown obsolete.&nbsp; Damons are rather
hard to find, in these days of imprisonment for debt (except the sham
ones, and they cost half-a-crown); and, as to the Pythiases, the few
that have existed in these degenerate times, have had an unfortunate
knack of making themselves scarce, at the very moment when their appearance
would have been strictly classical.&nbsp; If the actions of these heroes,
however, can find no parallel in modern times, their friendship can.&nbsp;
We have Damon and Pythias on the one hand.&nbsp; We have Potter and
Smithers on the other; and, lest the two last-mentioned names should
never have reached the ears of our unenlightened readers, we can do
no better than make them acquainted with the owners thereof.</p>
<p>Mr. Thomas Potter, then, was a clerk in the city, and Mr. Robert
Smithers was a ditto in the same; their incomes were limited, but their
friendship was unbounded.&nbsp; They lived in the same street, walked
into town every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang
every day, and revelled in each other&rsquo;s company very night.&nbsp;
They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship,
or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly observed, they were &lsquo;thick-and-thin
pals, and nothing but it.&rsquo;&nbsp; There was a spice of romance
in Mr. Smithers&rsquo;s disposition, a ray of poetry, a gleam of misery,
a sort of consciousness of he didn&rsquo;t exactly know what, coming
across him he didn&rsquo;t precisely know why&mdash;which stood out
in fine relief against the off-hand, dashing, amateur-pickpocket-sort-of-manner,
which distinguished Mr. Potter in an eminent degree.</p>
<p>The peculiarity of their respective dispositions, extended itself
to their individual costume.&nbsp; Mr. Smithers generally appeared in
public in a surtout and shoes, with a narrow black neckerchief and a
brown hat, very much turned up at the sides&mdash;peculiarities which
Mr. Potter wholly eschewed, for it was his ambition to do something
in the celebrated &lsquo;kiddy&rsquo; or stage-coach way, and he had
even gone so far as to invest capital in the purchase of a rough blue
coat with wooden buttons, made upon the fireman&rsquo;s principle, in
which, with the addition of a low-crowned, flower-pot-saucer-shaped
hat, he had created no inconsiderable sensation at the Albion in Little
Russell-street, and divers other places of public and fashionable resort.</p>
<p>Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers had mutually agreed that, on the receipt
of their quarter&rsquo;s salary, they would jointly and in company &lsquo;spend
the evening&rsquo;&mdash;an evident misnomer&mdash;the spending applying,
as everybody knows, not to the evening itself but to all the money the
individual may chance to be possessed of, on the occasion to which reference
is made; and they had likewise agreed that, on the evening aforesaid,
they would &lsquo;make a night of it&rsquo;&mdash;an expressive term,
implying the borrowing of several hours from to-morrow morning, adding
them to the night before, and manufacturing a compound night of the
whole.</p>
<p>The quarter-day arrived at last&mdash;we say at last, because quarter-days
are as eccentric as comets: moving wonderfully quick when you have a
good deal to pay, and marvellously slow when you have a little to receive.&nbsp;
Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers met by appointment to begin
the evening with a dinner; and a nice, snug, comfortable dinner they
had, consisting of a little procession of four chops and four kidneys,
following each other, supported on either side by a pot of the real
draught stout, and attended by divers cushions of bread, and wedges
of cheese.</p>
<p>When the cloth was removed, Mr. Thomas Potter ordered the waiter
to bring in, two goes of his best Scotch whiskey, with warm water and
sugar, and a couple of his &lsquo;very mildest&rsquo; Havannahs, which
the waiter did.&nbsp; Mr. Thomas Potter mixed his grog, and lighted
his cigar; Mr. Robert Smithers did the same; and then, Mr. Thomas Potter
jocularly proposed as the first toast, &lsquo;the abolition of all offices
whatever&rsquo; (not sinecures, but counting-houses), which was immediately
drunk by Mr. Robert Smithers, with enthusiastic applause.&nbsp; So they
went on, talking politics, puffing cigars, and sipping whiskey-and-water,
until the &lsquo;goes&rsquo;&mdash;most appropriately so called&mdash;were
both gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers perceiving, immediately ordered
in two more goes of the best Scotch whiskey, and two more of the very
mildest Havannahs; and the goes kept coming in, and the mild Havannahs
kept going out, until, what with the drinking, and lighting, and puffing,
and the stale ashes on the table, and the tallow-grease on the cigars,
Mr. Robert Smithers began to doubt the mildness of the Havannahs, and
to feel very much as if he had been sitting in a hackney-coach with
his back to the horses.</p>
<p>As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he <i>would</i> keep laughing out loud,
and volunteering inarticulate declarations that he was &lsquo;all right;&rsquo;
in proof of which, he feebly bespoke the evening paper after the next
gentleman, but finding it a matter of some difficulty to discover any
news in its columns, or to ascertain distinctly whether it had any columns
at all, walked slowly out to look for the moon, and, after coming back
quite pale with looking up at the sky so long, and attempting to express
mirth at Mr. Robert Smithers having fallen asleep, by various galvanic
chuckles, laid his head on his arm, and went to sleep also.&nbsp; When
he awoke again, Mr. Robert Smithers awoke too, and they both very gravely
agreed that it was extremely unwise to eat so many pickled walnuts with
the chops, as it was a notorious fact that they always made people queer
and sleepy; indeed, if it had not been for the whiskey and cigars, there
was no knowing what harm they mightn&rsquo;t have done &rsquo;em.&nbsp;
So they took some coffee, and after paying the bill,&mdash;twelve and
twopence the dinner, and the odd tenpence for the waiter&mdash;thirteen
shillings in all&mdash;started out on their expedition to manufacture
a night.</p>
<p>It was just half-past eight, so they thought they couldn&rsquo;t
do better than go at half-price to the slips at the City Theatre, which
they did accordingly.&nbsp; Mr. Robert Smithers, who had become extremely
poetical after the settlement of the bill, enlivening the walk by informing
Mr. Thomas Potter in confidence that he felt an inward presentiment
of approaching dissolution, and subsequently embellishing the theatre,
by falling asleep with his head and both arms gracefully drooping over
the front of the boxes.</p>
<p>Such was the quiet demeanour of the unassuming Smithers, and such
were the happy effects of Scotch whiskey and Havannahs on that interesting
person!&nbsp; But Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered
as a &lsquo;knowing card,&rsquo; a &lsquo;fast-goer,&rsquo; and so forth,
conducted himself in a very different manner, and commenced going very
fast indeed&mdash;rather too fast at last, for the patience of the audience
to keep pace with him.&nbsp; On his first entry, he contented himself
by earnestly calling upon the gentlemen in the gallery to &lsquo;flare
up,&rsquo; accompanying the demand with another request, expressive
of his wish that they would instantaneously &lsquo;form a union,&rsquo;
both which requisitions were responded to, in the manner most in vogue
on such occasions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Give that dog a bone!&rsquo; cried one gentleman in his shirt-sleeves.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where have you been a having half a pint of intermediate beer?&rsquo;
cried a second.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tailor!&rsquo; screamed a third.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Barber&rsquo;s clerk!&rsquo; shouted a fourth.&nbsp; &lsquo;Throw
him O-VER!&rsquo; roared a fifth; while numerous voices concurred in
desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to &lsquo;go home to his mother!&rsquo;&nbsp;
All these taunts Mr. Thomas Potter received with supreme contempt, cocking
the low-crowned hat a little more on one side, whenever any reference
was made to his personal appearance, and, standing up with his arms
a-kimbo, expressing defiance melodramatically.</p>
<p>The overture&mdash;to which these various sounds had been an <i>ad</i>
<i>libitum</i> accompaniment&mdash;concluded, the second piece began,
and Mr. Thomas Potter, emboldened by impunity, proceeded to behave in
a most unprecedented and outrageous manner.&nbsp; First of all, he imitated
the shake of the principal female singer; then, groaned at the blue
fire; then, affected to be frightened into convulsions of terror at
the appearance of the ghost; and, lastly, not only made a running commentary,
in an audible voice, upon the dialogue on the stage, but actually awoke
Mr. Robert Smithers, who, hearing his companion making a noise, and
having a very indistinct notion where he was, or what was required of
him, immediately, by way of imitating a good example, set up the most
unearthly, unremitting, and appalling howling that ever audience heard.&nbsp;
It was too much.&nbsp; &lsquo;Turn them out!&rsquo; was the general
cry.&nbsp; A noise, as of shuffling of feet, and men being knocked up
with violence against wainscoting, was heard: a hurried dialogue of
&lsquo;Come out?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I won&rsquo;t!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;You
shall!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I shan&rsquo;t!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Give
me your card, Sir?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;You&rsquo;re a scoundrel, Sir!&rsquo;
and so forth, succeeded.&nbsp; A round of applause betokened the approbation
of the audience, and Mr. Robert Smithers and Mr. Thomas Potter found
themselves shot with astonishing swiftness into the road, without having
had the trouble of once putting foot to ground during the whole progress
of their rapid descent.</p>
<p>Mr. Robert Smithers, being constitutionally one of the slow-goers,
and having had quite enough of fast-going, in the course of his recent
expulsion, to last until the quarter-day then next ensuing at the very
least, had no sooner emerged with his companion from the precincts of
Milton-street, than he proceeded to indulge in circuitous references
to the beauties of sleep, mingled with distant allusions to the propriety
of returning to Islington, and testing the influence of their patent
Bramahs over the street-door locks to which they respectively belonged.&nbsp;
Mr. Thomas Potter, however, was valorous and peremptory.&nbsp; They
had come out to make a night of it: and a night must be made.&nbsp;
So Mr. Robert Smithers, who was three parts dull, and the other dismal,
despairingly assented; and they went into a wine-vaults, to get materials
for assisting them in making a night; where they found a good many young
ladies, and various old gentlemen, and a plentiful sprinkling of hackney-coachmen
and cab-drivers, all drinking and talking together; and Mr. Thomas Potter
and Mr. Robert Smithers drank small glasses of brandy, and large glasses
of soda, until they began to have a very confused idea, either of things
in general, or of anything in particular; and, when they had done treating
themselves they began to treat everybody else; and the rest of the entertainment
was a confused mixture of heads and heels, black eyes and blue uniforms,
mud and gas-lights, thick doors, and stone paving.</p>
<p>Then, as standard novelists expressively inform us&mdash;&lsquo;all
was a blank!&rsquo; and in the morning the blank was filled up with
the words &lsquo;STATION-HOUSE,&rsquo; and the station-house was filled
up with Mr. Thomas Potter, Mr. Robert Smithers, and the major part of
their wine-vault companions of the preceding night, with a comparatively
small portion of clothing of any kind.&nbsp; And it was disclosed at
the Police-office, to the indignation of the Bench, and the astonishment
of the spectators, how one Robert Smithers, aided and abetted by one
Thomas Potter, had knocked down and beaten, in divers streets, at different
times, five men, four boys, and three women; how the said Thomas Potter
had feloniously obtained possession of five door-knockers, two bell-handles,
and a bonnet; how Robert Smithers, his friend, had sworn, at least forty
pounds&rsquo; worth of oaths, at the rate of five shillings apiece;
terrified whole streets full of Her Majesty&rsquo;s subjects with awful
shrieks and alarms of fire; destroyed the uniforms of five policemen;
and committed various other atrocities, too numerous to recapitulate.&nbsp;
And the magistrate, after an appropriate reprimand, fined Mr. Thomas
Potter and Mr. Thomas Smithers five shillings each, for being, what
the law vulgarly terms, drunk; and thirty-four pounds for seventeen
assaults at forty shillings a-head, with liberty to speak to the prosecutors.</p>
<p>The prosecutors <i>were</i> spoken to, and Messrs. Potter and Smithers
lived on credit, for a quarter, as best they might; and, although the
prosecutors expressed their readiness to be assaulted twice a week,
on the same terms, they have never since been detected in &lsquo;making
a night of it.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XII&mdash;THE PRISONERS&rsquo; VAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We were passing the corner of Bow-street, on our return from a lounging
excursion the other afternoon, when a crowd, assembled round the door
of the Police-office, attracted our attention.&nbsp; We turned up the
street accordingly.&nbsp; There were thirty or forty people, standing
on the pavement and half across the road; and a few stragglers were
patiently stationed on the opposite side of the way&mdash;all evidently
waiting in expectation of some arrival.&nbsp; We waited too, a few minutes,
but nothing occurred; so, we turned round to an unshorn, sallow-looking
cobbler, who was standing next us with his hands under the bib of his
apron, and put the usual question of &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rsquo;&nbsp;
The cobbler eyed us from head to foot, with superlative contempt, and
laconically replied &lsquo;Nuffin.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, we were perfectly aware that if two men stop in the street to
look at any given object, or even to gaze in the air, two hundred men
will be assembled in no time; but, as we knew very well that no crowd
of people could by possibility remain in a street for five minutes without
getting up a little amusement among themselves, unless they had some
absorbing object in view, the natural inquiry next in order was, &lsquo;What
are all these people waiting here for?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Her Majesty&rsquo;s
carriage,&rsquo; replied the cobbler.&nbsp; This was still more extraordinary.&nbsp;
We could not imagine what earthly business Her Majesty&rsquo;s carriage
could have at the Public Office, Bow-street.&nbsp; We were beginning
to ruminate on the possible causes of such an uncommon appearance, when
a general exclamation from all the boys in the crowd of &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s
the wan!&rsquo; caused us to raise our heads, and look up the street.</p>
<p>The covered vehicle, in which prisoners are conveyed from the police-offices
to the different prisons, was coming along at full speed.&nbsp; It then
occurred to us, for the first time, that Her Majesty&rsquo;s carriage
was merely another name for the prisoners&rsquo; van, conferred upon
it, not only by reason of the superior gentility of the term, but because
the aforesaid van is maintained at Her Majesty&rsquo;s expense: having
been originally started for the exclusive accommodation of ladies and
gentlemen under the necessity of visiting the various houses of call
known by the general denomination of &lsquo;Her Majesty&rsquo;s Gaols.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The van drew up at the office-door, and the people thronged round
the steps, just leaving a little alley for the prisoners to pass through.&nbsp;
Our friend the cobbler, and the other stragglers, crossed over, and
we followed their example.&nbsp; The driver, and another man who had
been seated by his side in front of the vehicle, dismounted, and were
admitted into the office.&nbsp; The office-door was closed after them,
and the crowd were on the tiptoe of expectation.</p>
<p>After a few minutes&rsquo; delay, the door again opened, and the
two first prisoners appeared.&nbsp; They were a couple of girls, of
whom the elder&mdash;could not be more than sixteen, and the younger
of whom had certainly not attained her fourteenth year.&nbsp; That they
were sisters, was evident, from the resemblance which still subsisted
between them, though two additional years of depravity had fixed their
brand upon the elder girl&rsquo;s features, as legibly as if a red-hot
iron had seared them.&nbsp; They were both gaudily dressed, the younger
one especially; and, although there was a strong similarity between
them in both respects, which was rendered the more obvious by their
being handcuffed together, it is impossible to conceive a greater contrast
than the demeanour of the two presented.&nbsp; The younger girl was
weeping bitterly&mdash;not for display, or in the hope of producing
effect, but for very shame: her face was buried in her handkerchief:
and her whole manner was but too expressive of bitter and unavailing
sorrow.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How long are you for, Emily?&rsquo; screamed a red-faced woman
in the crowd.&nbsp; &lsquo;Six weeks and labour,&rsquo; replied the
elder girl with a flaunting laugh; &lsquo;and that&rsquo;s better than
the stone jug anyhow; the mill&rsquo;s a deal better than the Sessions,
and here&rsquo;s Bella a-going too for the first time.&nbsp; Hold up
your head, you chicken,&rsquo; she continued, boisterously tearing the
other girl&rsquo;s handkerchief away; &lsquo;Hold up your head, and
show &rsquo;em your face.&nbsp; I an&rsquo;t jealous, but I&rsquo;m
blessed if I an&rsquo;t game!&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;That&rsquo;s right,
old gal,&rsquo; exclaimed a man in a paper cap, who, in common with
the greater part of the crowd, had been inexpressibly delighted with
this little incident.&mdash;&lsquo;Right!&rsquo; replied the girl; &lsquo;ah,
to be sure; what&rsquo;s the odds, eh?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Come!&nbsp;
In with you,&rsquo; interrupted the driver.&nbsp; &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t
you be in a hurry, coachman,&rsquo; replied the girl, &lsquo;and recollect
I want to be set down in Cold Bath Fields&mdash;large house with a high
garden-wall in front; you can&rsquo;t mistake it.&nbsp; Hallo.&nbsp;
Bella, where are you going to&mdash;you&rsquo;ll pull my precious arm
off?&rsquo;&nbsp; This was addressed to the younger girl, who, in her
anxiety to hide herself in the caravan, had ascended the steps first,
and forgotten the strain upon the handcuff.&nbsp; &lsquo;Come down,
and let&rsquo;s show you the way.&rsquo;&nbsp; And after jerking the
miserable girl down with a force which made her stagger on the pavement,
she got into the vehicle, and was followed by her wretched companion.</p>
<p>These two girls had been thrown upon London streets, their vices
and debauchery, by a sordid and rapacious mother.&nbsp; What the younger
girl was then, the elder had been once; and what the elder then was,
the younger must soon become.&nbsp; A melancholy prospect, but how surely
to be realised; a tragic drama, but how often acted!&nbsp; Turn to the
prisons and police offices of London&mdash;nay, look into the very streets
themselves.&nbsp; These things pass before our eyes, day after day,
and hour after hour&mdash;they have become such matters of course, that
they are utterly disregarded.&nbsp; The progress of these girls in crime
will be as rapid as the flight of a pestilence, resembling it too in
its baneful influence and wide-spreading infection.&nbsp; Step by step,
how many wretched females, within the sphere of every man&rsquo;s observation,
have become involved in a career of vice, frightful to contemplate;
hopeless at its commencement, loathsome and repulsive in its course;
friendless, forlorn, and unpitied, at its miserable conclusion!</p>
<p>There were other prisoners&mdash;boys of ten, as hardened in vice
as men of fifty&mdash;a houseless vagrant, going joyfully to prison
as a place of food and shelter, handcuffed to a man whose prospects
were ruined, character lost, and family rendered destitute, by his first
offence.&nbsp; Our curiosity, however, was satisfied.&nbsp; The first
group had left an impression on our mind we would gladly have avoided,
and would willingly have effaced.</p>
<p>The crowd dispersed; the vehicle rolled away with its load of guilt
and misfortune; and we saw no more of the Prisoners&rsquo; Van.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>TALES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I&mdash;THE BOARDING-HOUSE.</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>CHAPTER I.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgety, thrifty
little personage that ever inhaled the smoke of London; and the house
of Mrs. Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all Great Coram-street.&nbsp;
The area and the area-steps, and the street-door and the street-door
steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and
the fan-light, were all as clean and bright, as indefatigable white-washing,
and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them.&nbsp;
The wonder was, that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription
&lsquo;MRS. TIBBS,&rsquo; had never caught fire from constant friction,
so perseveringly was it polished.&nbsp; There were meat-safe-looking
blinds in the parlour-windows, blue and gold curtains in the drawing-room,
and spring-roller blinds, as Mrs. Tibbs was wont in the pride of her
heart to boast, &lsquo;all the way up.&rsquo; The bell-lamp in the passage
looked as clear as a soap-bubble; you could see yourself in all the
tables, and French-polish yourself on any one of the chairs.&nbsp; The
banisters were bees-waxed; and the very stair-wires made your eyes wink,
they were so glittering.</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no
means a large man.&nbsp; He had, moreover, very short legs, but, by
way of indemnification, his face was peculiarly long.&nbsp; He was to
his wife what the 0 is in 90&mdash;he was of some importance <i>with</i>
her&mdash;he was nothing without her.&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs was always talking.&nbsp;
Mr. Tibbs rarely spoke; but, if it were at any time possible to put
in a word, when he should have said nothing at all, he had that talent.&nbsp;
Mrs. Tibbs detested long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion
of which had never been heard by his most intimate friends.&nbsp; It
always began, &lsquo;I recollect when I was in the volunteer corps,
in eighteen hundred and six,&rsquo;&mdash;but, as he spoke very slowly
and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got
beyond the introductory sentence.&nbsp; He was a melancholy specimen
of the story-teller.&nbsp;  He was the wandering Jew of Joe Millerism.</p>
<p>Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small independence from the pension-list&mdash;about
43<i>l</i>. 15<i>s</i>. 10<i>d</i>. a year.&nbsp; His father, mother,
and five interesting scions from the same stock, drew a like sum from
the revenue of a grateful country, though for what particular service
was never known.&nbsp; But, as this said independence was not quite
sufficient to furnish two people with <i>all</i> the luxuries of this
life, it had occurred to the busy little spouse of Tibbs, that the best
thing she could do with a legacy of 700<i>l</i>., would be to take and
furnish a tolerable house&mdash;somewhere in that partially-explored
tract of country which lies between the British Museum, and a remote
village called Somers-town&mdash;for the reception of boarders.&nbsp;
Great Coram-street was the spot pitched upon.&nbsp; The house had been
furnished accordingly; two female servants and a boy engaged; and an
advertisement inserted in the morning papers, informing the public that
&lsquo;Six individuals would meet with all the comforts of a cheerful
musical home in a select private family, residing within ten minutes&rsquo;
walk of&rsquo;&mdash;everywhere.&nbsp; Answers out of number were received,
with all sorts of initials; all the letters of the alphabet seemed to
be seized with a sudden wish to go out boarding and lodging; voluminous
was the correspondence between Mrs. Tibbs and the applicants; and most
profound was the secrecy observed.&nbsp; &lsquo;E.&rsquo; didn&rsquo;t
like this; &lsquo;I.&rsquo; couldn&rsquo;t think of putting up with
that; &lsquo;I. O. U.&rsquo; didn&rsquo;t think the terms would suit
him; and &lsquo;G. R.&rsquo; had never slept in a French bed.&nbsp;
The result, however, was, that three gentlemen became inmates of Mrs.
Tibbs&rsquo;s house, on terms which were &lsquo;agreeable to all parties.&rsquo;&nbsp;
In went the advertisement again, and a lady with her two daughters,
proposed to increase&mdash;not their families, but Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming woman, that Mrs. Maplesone!&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs,
as she and her spouse were sitting by the fire after breakfast; the
gentlemen having gone out on their several avocations.&nbsp; &lsquo;Charming
woman, indeed!&rsquo; repeated little Mrs. Tibbs, more by way of soliloquy
than anything else, for she never thought of consulting her husband.&nbsp;
&lsquo;And the two daughters are delightful.&nbsp; We must have some
fish to-day; they&rsquo;ll join us at dinner for the first time.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Tibbs placed the poker at right angles with the fire shovel,
and essayed to speak, but recollected he had nothing to say.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The young ladies,&rsquo; continued Mrs. T., &lsquo;have kindly
volunteered to bring their own piano.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs thought of the volunteer story, but did not venture it.</p>
<p>A bright thought struck him -</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s very likely&mdash;&rsquo; said he.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray don&rsquo;t lean your head against the paper,&rsquo;
interrupted Mrs. Tibbs; &lsquo;and don&rsquo;t put your feet on the
steel fender; that&rsquo;s worse.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs took his head from the paper, and his feet from the fender,
and proceeded.&nbsp; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s very likely one of the young
ladies may set her cap at young Mr. Simpson, and you know a marriage&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A what!&rsquo; shrieked Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; Tibbs modestly repeated
his former suggestion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg you won&rsquo;t mention such a thing,&rsquo; said Mrs.
T.&nbsp; &lsquo;A marriage, indeed to rob me of my boarders&mdash;no,
not for the world.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs thought in his own mind that the event was by no means unlikely,
but, as he never argued with his wife, he put a stop to the dialogue,
by observing it was &lsquo;time to go to business.&rsquo;&nbsp; He always
went out at ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning, and returned at five in
the afternoon, with an exceedingly dirty face, and smelling mouldy.&nbsp;
Nobody knew what he was, or where he went; but Mrs. Tibbs used to say
with an air of great importance, that he was engaged in the City.</p>
<p>The Miss Maplesones and their accomplished parent arrived in the
course of the afternoon in a hackney-coach, and accompanied by a most
astonishing number of packages.&nbsp; Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes
and parasols, guitar-cases, and parcels of all imaginable shapes, done
up in brown paper, and fastened with pins, filled the passage.&nbsp;
Then, there was such a running up and down with the luggage, such scampering
for warm water for the ladies to wash in, and such a bustle, and confusion,
and heating of servants, and curling-irons, as had never been known
in Great Coram-street before.&nbsp; Little Mrs. Tibbs was quite in her
element, bustling about, talking incessantly, and distributing towels
and soap, like a head nurse in a hospital.&nbsp; The house was not restored
to its usual state of quiet repose, until the ladies were safely shut
up in their respective bedrooms, engaged in the important occupation
of dressing for dinner.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Are these gals &rsquo;andsome?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Simpson
of Mr. Septimus Hicks, another of the boarders, as they were amusing
themselves in the drawing-room, before dinner, by lolling on sofas,
and contemplating their pumps.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who was
a tallish, white-faced young man, with spectacles, and a black ribbon
round his neck instead of a neckerchief&mdash;a most interesting person;
a poetical walker of the hospitals, and a &lsquo;very talented young
man.&rsquo;&nbsp; He was fond of &lsquo;lugging&rsquo; into conversation
all sorts of quotations from Don Juan, without fettering himself by
the propriety of their application; in which particular he was remarkably
independent.&nbsp; The other, Mr. Simpson, was one of those young men,
who are in society what walking gentlemen are on the stage, only infinitely
worse skilled in his vocation than the most indifferent artist.&nbsp;
He was as empty-headed as the great bell of St. Paul&rsquo;s; always
dressed according to the caricatures published in the monthly fashion;
and spelt Character with a K.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I saw a devilish number of parcels in the passage when I came
home,&rsquo; simpered Mr. Simpson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Materials for the toilet, no doubt,&rsquo; rejoined the Don
Juan reader.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>- &lsquo;Much linen, lace, and several pair<br />Of stockings, slippers,
brushes, combs, complete;<br />With other articles of ladies fair,<br />To
keep them beautiful, or leave them neat.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Is that from Milton?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Simpson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No&mdash;from Byron,&rsquo; returned Mr. Hicks, with a look
of contempt.&nbsp; He was quite sure of his author, because he had never
read any other.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hush!&nbsp; Here come the gals,&rsquo;
and they both commenced talking in a very loud key.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones, Mr. Hicks.&nbsp; Mr.
Hicks&mdash;Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones,&rsquo; said Mrs.
Tibbs, with a very red face, for she had been superintending the cooking
operations below stairs, and looked like a wax doll on a sunny day.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon&mdash;Mr. Simpson&mdash;Mrs. Maplesone
and the Miss Maplesones&rsquo;&mdash;and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.&nbsp;
The gentlemen immediately began to slide about with much politeness,
and to look as if they wished their arms had been legs, so little did
they know what to do with them.&nbsp; The ladies smiled, curtseyed,
and glided into chairs, and dived for dropped pocket-handkerchiefs:
the gentlemen leant against two of the curtain-pegs; Mrs. Tibbs went
through an admirable bit of serious pantomime with a servant who had
come up to ask some question about the fish-sauce; and then the two
young ladies looked at each other; and everybody else appeared to discover
something very attractive in the pattern of the fender.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Julia, my love,&rsquo; said Mrs. Maplesone to her youngest
daughter, in a tone loud enough for the remainder of the company to
hear&mdash;&lsquo;Julia.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, Ma.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t stoop.&rsquo;&mdash;This was said for the purpose
of directing general attention to Miss Julia&rsquo;s figure, which was
undeniable.&nbsp; Everybody looked at her, accordingly, and there was
another pause.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We had the most uncivil hackney-coachman to-day, you can imagine,&rsquo;
said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in a confidential tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; replied the hostess, with an air of great
commiseration.&nbsp; She couldn&rsquo;t say more, for the servant again
appeared at the door, and commenced telegraphing most earnestly to her
&lsquo;Missis.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think hackney-coachmen generally <i>are</i> uncivil,&rsquo;
said Mr. Hicks in his most insinuating tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Positively I think they are,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Maplesone,
as if the idea had never struck her before.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And cabmen, too,&rsquo; said Mr. Simpson.&nbsp; This remark
was a failure, for no one intimated, by word or sign, the slightest
knowledge of the manners and customs of cabmen.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Robinson, what <i>do</i> you want?&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs
to the servant, who, by way of making her presence known to her mistress,
had been giving sundry hems and sniffs outside the door during the preceding
five minutes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Please, ma&rsquo;am, master wants his clean things,&rsquo;
replied the servant, taken off her guard.&nbsp; The two young men turned
their faces to the window, and &lsquo;went off&rsquo; like a couple
of bottles of ginger-beer; the ladies put their handkerchiefs to their
mouths; and little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the room to give Tibbs
his clean linen,&mdash;and the servant warning.</p>
<p>Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance,
and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation.&nbsp; Mr. Calton
was a superannuated beau&mdash;an old boy.&nbsp; He used to say of himself
that although his features were not regularly handsome, they were striking.&nbsp;
They certainly were.&nbsp; It was impossible to look at his face without
being reminded of a chubby street-door knocker, half-lion half-monkey;
and the comparison might be extended to his whole character and conversation.&nbsp;
He had stood still, while everything else had been moving.&nbsp; He
never originated a conversation, or started an idea; but if any commonplace
topic were broached, or, to pursue the comparison, if anybody <i>lifted
him up</i>, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity.&nbsp; He
had the tic-douloureux occasionally, and then he might be said to be
muffled, because he did not make quite as much noise as at other times,
when he would go on prosing, rat-tat-tat the same thing over and over
again.&nbsp; He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out
for a wife with money.&nbsp; He had a life interest worth about 300<i>l</i>.
a year&mdash;he was exceedingly vain, and inordinately selfish.&nbsp;
He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink of politeness,
and he walked round the park, and up Regent-street, every day.</p>
<p>This respectable personage had made up his mind to render himself
exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Maplesone&mdash;indeed, the desire of
being as amiable as possible extended itself to the whole party; Mrs.
Tibbs having considered it an admirable little bit of management to
represent to the gentlemen that she had <i>some</i> reason to believe
the ladies were fortunes, and to hint to the ladies, that all the gentlemen
were &lsquo;eligible.&rsquo;&nbsp; A little flirtation, she thought,
might keep her house full, without leading to any other result.</p>
<p>Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising widow of about fifty: shrewd,
scheming, and good-looking.&nbsp; She was amiably anxious on behalf
of her daughters; in proof whereof she used to remark, that she would
have no objection to marry again, if it would benefit her dear girls&mdash;she
could have no other motive.&nbsp; The &lsquo;dear girls&rsquo; themselves
were not at all insensible to the merits of &lsquo;a good establishment.&rsquo;&nbsp;
One of them was twenty-five; the other, three years younger.&nbsp; They
had been at different watering-places, for four seasons; they had gambled
at libraries, read books in balconies, sold at fancy fairs, danced at
assemblies, talked sentiment&mdash;in short, they had done all that
industrious girls could do&mdash;but, as yet, to no purpose.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a magnificent dresser Mr. Simpson is!&rsquo; whispered
Matilda Maplesone to her sister Julia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Splendid!&rsquo; returned the youngest.&nbsp; The magnificent
individual alluded to wore a maroon-coloured dress-coat, with a velvet
collar and cuffs of the same tint&mdash;very like that which usually
invests the form of the distinguished unknown who condescends to play
the &lsquo;swell&rsquo; in the pantomime at &lsquo;Richardson&rsquo;s
Show.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What whiskers!&rsquo; said Miss Julia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming!&rsquo; responded her sister; &lsquo;and what hair!&rsquo;&nbsp;
His hair was like a wig, and distinguished by that insinuating wave
which graces the shining locks of those <i>chef-d&rsquo;oeuvres</i>
of art surmounting the waxen images in Bartellot&rsquo;s window in Regent-street;
his whiskers meeting beneath his chin, seemed strings wherewith to tie
it on, ere science had rendered them unnecessary by her patent invisible
springs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dinner&rsquo;s on the table, ma&rsquo;am, if you please,&rsquo;
said the boy, who now appeared for the first time, in a revived black
coat of his master&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; Mr. Calton, will you lead Mrs. Maplesone?&mdash;Thank
you.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Simpson offered his arm to Miss Julia; Mr. Septimus
Hicks escorted the lovely Matilda; and the procession proceeded to the
dining-room.&nbsp; Mr. Tibbs was introduced, and Mr. Tibbs bobbed up
and down to the three ladies like a figure in a Dutch clock, with a
powerful spring in the middle of his body, and then dived rapidly into
his seat at the bottom of the table, delighted to screen himself behind
a soup-tureen, which he could just see over, and that was all.&nbsp;
The boarders were seated, a lady and gentleman alternately, like the
layers of bread and meat in a plate of sandwiches; and then Mrs. Tibbs
directed James to take off the covers.&nbsp; Salmon, lobster-sauce,
giblet-soup, and the usual accompaniments were discovered: potatoes
like petrifactions, and bits of toasted bread, the shape and size of
blank dice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear,&rsquo; said the bustling
Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; She always called her husband &lsquo;my dear&rsquo;
before company.&nbsp; Tibbs, who had been eating his bread, and calculating
how long it would be before he should get any fish, helped the soup
in a hurry, made a small island on the table-cloth, and put his glass
upon it, to hide it from his wife.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Julia, shall I assist you to some fish?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;If you please&mdash;very little&mdash;oh! plenty, thank you&rsquo;
(a bit about the size of a walnut put upon the plate).</p>
<p>&lsquo;Julia is a <i>very</i> little eater,&rsquo; said Mrs. Maplesone
to Mr. Calton.</p>
<p>The knocker gave a single rap.&nbsp; He was busy eating the fish
with his eyes: so he only ejaculated, &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after every
one else had been helped, &lsquo;what do <i>you</i> take?&rsquo;&nbsp;
The inquiry was accompanied with a look intimating that he mustn&rsquo;t
say fish, because there was not much left.&nbsp; Tibbs thought the frown
referred to the island on the table-cloth; he therefore coolly replied,
&lsquo;Why&mdash;I&rsquo;ll take a little&mdash;fish, I think.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you say fish, my dear?&rsquo; (another frown).</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, dear,&rsquo; replied the villain, with an expression
of acute hunger depicted in his countenance.&nbsp; The tears almost
started to Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s eyes, as she helped her &lsquo;wretch
of a husband,&rsquo; as she inwardly called him, to the last eatable
bit of salmon on the dish.</p>
<p>&lsquo;James, take this to your master, and take away your master&rsquo;s
knife.&rsquo;&nbsp; This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs never could
eat fish without one.&nbsp; He was, however, constrained to chase small
particles of salmon round and round his plate with a piece of bread
and a fork, the number of successful attempts being about one in seventeen.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take away, James,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed
the fourth mouthful&mdash;and away went the plates like lightning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll take a bit of bread, James,&rsquo; said the poor
&lsquo;master of the house,&rsquo; more hungry than ever.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never mind your master now, James,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs,
&lsquo;see about the meat.&rsquo;&nbsp; This was conveyed in the tone
in which ladies usually give admonitions to servants in company, that
is to say, a low one; but which, like a stage whisper, from its peculiar
emphasis, is most distinctly heard by everybody present.</p>
<p>A pause ensued, before the table was replenished&mdash;a sort of
parenthesis in which Mr. Simpson, Mr. Calton, and Mr. Hicks, produced
respectively a bottle of sauterne, bucellas, and sherry, and took wine
with everybody&mdash;except Tibbs.&nbsp; No one ever thought of him.</p>
<p>Between the fish and an intimated sirloin, there was a prolonged
interval.</p>
<p>Here was an opportunity for Mr. Hicks.&nbsp; He could not resist
the singularly appropriate quotation -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;But beef is rare within these oxless isles;<br />Goats&rsquo;
flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,<br />And when a holiday
upon them smiles,<br />A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Very ungentlemanly behaviour,&rsquo; thought little Mrs. Tibbs,
&lsquo;to talk in that way.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah,&rsquo; said Mr. Calton, filling his glass.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tom
Moore is my poet.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And mine,&rsquo; said Mrs. Maplesone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And mine,&rsquo; said Miss Julia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And mine,&rsquo; added Mr. Simpson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Look at his compositions,&rsquo; resumed the knocker.</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure,&rsquo; said Simpson, with confidence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Look at Don Juan,&rsquo; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Julia&rsquo;s letter,&rsquo; suggested Miss Matilda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Can anything be grander than the Fire Worshippers?&rsquo;
inquired Miss Julia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure,&rsquo; said Simpson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or Paradise and the Peri,&rsquo; said the old beau.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes; or Paradise and the Peer,&rsquo; repeated Simpson, who
thought he was getting through it capitally.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s all very well,&rsquo; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks,
who, as we have before hinted, never had read anything but Don Juan.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Where will you find anything finer than the description of the
siege, at the commencement of the seventh canto?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Talking of a siege,&rsquo; said Tibbs, with a mouthful of
bread&mdash;&lsquo;when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred
and six, our commanding officer was Sir Charles Rampart; and one day,
when we were exercising on the ground on which the London University
now stands, he says, says he, Tibbs (calling me from the ranks), Tibbs&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tell your master, James,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Tibbs, in
an awfully distinct tone, &lsquo;tell your master if he <i>won&rsquo;t</i>
carve those fowls, to send them to me.&rsquo;&nbsp; The discomfited
volunteer instantly set to work, and carved the fowls almost as expeditiously
as his wife operated on the haunch of mutton.&nbsp; Whether he ever
finished the story is not known but, if he did, nobody heard it.</p>
<p>As the ice was now broken, and the new inmates more at home, every
member of the company felt more at ease.&nbsp; Tibbs himself most certainly
did, because he went to sleep immediately after dinner.&nbsp; Mr. Hicks
and the ladies discoursed most eloquently about poetry, and the theatres,
and Lord Chesterfield&rsquo;s Letters; and Mr. Calton followed up what
everybody said, with continuous double knocks.&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs highly
approved of every observation that fell from Mrs. Maplesone; and as
Mr. Simpson sat with a smile upon his face and said &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo;
or &lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; at intervals of about four minutes each,
he received full credit for understanding what was going forward.&nbsp;
The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room very shortly after
they had left the dining-parlour.&nbsp; Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton
played cribbage, and the &lsquo;young people&rsquo; amused themselves
with music and conversation.&nbsp; The Miss Maplesones sang the most
fascinating duets, and accompanied themselves on guitars, ornamented
with bits of ethereal blue ribbon.&nbsp; Mr. Simpson put on a pink waistcoat,
and said he was in raptures; and Mr. Hicks felt in the seventh heaven
of poetry or the seventh canto of Don Juan&mdash;it was the same thing
to him.&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed with the newcomers; and Mr.
Tibbs spent the evening in his usual way&mdash;he went to sleep, and
woke up, and went to sleep again, and woke at supper-time.</p>
<p>* * * * *</p>
<p>We are not about to adopt the licence of novel-writers, and to let
&lsquo;years roll on;&rsquo; but we will take the liberty of requesting
the reader to suppose that six months have elapsed, since the dinner
we have described, and that Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s boarders have, during
that period, sang, and danced, and gone to theatres and exhibitions,
together, as ladies and gentlemen, wherever they board, often do.&nbsp;
And we will beg them, the period we have mentioned having elapsed, to
imagine farther, that Mr. Septimus Hicks received, in his own bedroom
(a front attic), at an early hour one morning, a note from Mr. Calton,
requesting the favour of seeing him, as soon as convenient to himself,
in his (Calton&rsquo;s) dressing-room on the second-floor back.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tell Mr. Calton I&rsquo;ll come down directly,&rsquo; said
Mr. Septimus to the boy.&nbsp; &lsquo;Stop&mdash;is Mr. Calton unwell?&rsquo;
inquired this excited walker of hospitals, as he put on a bed-furniture-looking
dressing-gown.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not as I knows on, sir,&rsquo; replied the boy.&nbsp; &lsquo;
Please, sir, he looked rather rum, as it might be.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s no proof of his being ill,&rsquo; returned
Hicks, unconsciously.&nbsp; &lsquo;Very well: I&rsquo;ll be down directly.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Downstairs ran the boy with the message, and down went the excited Hicks
himself, almost as soon as the message was delivered.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tap,
tap.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Come in.&rsquo;&mdash;Door opens, and discovers
Mr. Calton sitting in an easy chair.&nbsp; Mutual shakes of the hand
exchanged, and Mr. Septimus Hicks motioned to a seat.&nbsp; A short
pause.&nbsp; Mr. Hicks coughed, and Mr. Calton took a pinch of snuff.&nbsp;
It was one of those interviews where neither party knows what to say.&nbsp;
Mr. Septimus Hicks broke silence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I received a note&mdash;&rsquo; he said, very tremulously,
in a voice like a Punch with a cold.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; returned the other, &lsquo;you did.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Exactly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, although this dialogue must have been satisfactory, both gentlemen
felt there was something more important to be said; therefore they did
as most men in such a situation would have done&mdash;they looked at
the table with a determined aspect.&nbsp; The conversation had been
opened, however, and Mr. Calton had made up his mind to continue it
with a regular double knock.&nbsp; He always spoke very pompously.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hicks,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;I have sent for you, in consequence
of certain arrangements which are pending in this house, connected with
a marriage.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;With a marriage!&rsquo; gasped Hicks, compared with whose
expression of countenance, Hamlet&rsquo;s, when he sees his father&rsquo;s
ghost, is pleasing and composed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;With a marriage,&rsquo; returned the knocker.&nbsp; &lsquo;I
have sent for you to prove the great confidence I can repose in you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And will you betray me?&rsquo; eagerly inquired Hicks, who
in his alarm had even forgotten to quote.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>I</i> betray <i>you</i>!&nbsp; Won&rsquo;t <i>you</i> betray<i>
me</i>?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never: no one shall know, to my dying day, that you had a
hand in the business,&rsquo; responded the agitated Hicks, with an inflamed
countenance, and his hair standing on end as if he were on the stool
of an electrifying machine in full operation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;People must know that, some time or other&mdash;within a year,
I imagine,&rsquo; said Mr. Calton, with an air of great self-complacency.&nbsp;
 &lsquo;We <i>may</i> have a family.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>We</i>!&mdash;That won&rsquo;t affect you, surely?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The devil it won&rsquo;t!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No! how can it?&rsquo; said the bewildered Hicks.&nbsp; Calton
was too much inwrapped in the contemplation of his happiness to see
the equivoque between Hicks and himself; and threw himself back in his
chair.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, Matilda!&rsquo; sighed the antique beau, in
a lack-a-daisical voice, and applying his right hand a little to the
left of the fourth button of his waistcoat, counting from the bottom.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Oh, Matilda!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What Matilda?&rsquo; inquired Hicks, starting up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Matilda Maplesone,&rsquo; responded the other, doing the same.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I marry her to-morrow morning,&rsquo; said Hicks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s false,&rsquo; rejoined his companion: &lsquo;I
marry her!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You marry her?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I marry her!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You marry Matilda Maplesone?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Matilda Maplesone.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Miss</i> Maplesone marry <i>you</i>?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Maplesone!&nbsp; No; Mrs. Maplesone.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good Heaven!&rsquo; said Hicks, falling into his chair: &lsquo;You
marry the mother, and I the daughter!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Most extraordinary circumstance!&rsquo; replied Mr. Calton,
&lsquo;and rather inconvenient too; for the fact is, that owing to Matilda&rsquo;s
wishing to keep her intention secret from her daughters until the ceremony
had taken place, she doesn&rsquo;t like applying to any of her friends
to give her away.&nbsp; I entertain an objection to making the affair
known to my acquaintance just now; and the consequence is, that I sent
to you to know whether you&rsquo;d oblige me by acting as father.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should have been most happy, I assure you,&rsquo; said Hicks,
in a tone of condolence; &lsquo;but, you see, I shall be acting as bridegroom.&nbsp;
One character is frequently a consequence of the other; but it is not
usual to act in both at the same time.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s Simpson&mdash;I
have no doubt he&rsquo;ll do it for you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t like to ask him,&rsquo; replied Calton, &lsquo;he&rsquo;s
such a donkey.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Septimus Hicks looked up at the ceiling, and down at the floor;
at last an idea struck him.&nbsp; &lsquo;Let the man of the house, Tibbs,
be the father,&rsquo; he suggested; and then he quoted, as peculiarly
applicable to Tibbs and the pair -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Oh Powers of Heaven! what dark eyes meets she there?<br />&lsquo;&rsquo;Tis&mdash;&rsquo;tis
her father&rsquo;s&mdash;fixed upon the pair.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;The idea has struck me already,&rsquo; said Mr. Calton: &lsquo;but,
you see, Matilda, for what reason I know not, is very anxious that Mrs.
Tibbs should know nothing about it, till it&rsquo;s all over.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s a natural delicacy, after all, you know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s the best-natured little man in existence, if you
manage him properly,&rsquo; said Mr. Septimus Hicks.&nbsp; &lsquo;Tell
him not to mention it to his wife, and assure him she won&rsquo;t mind
it, and he&rsquo;ll do it directly.&nbsp; My marriage is to be a secret
one, on account of the mother and <i>my</i> father; therefore he must
be enjoined to secrecy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A small double knock, like a presumptuous single one, was that instant
heard at the street-door.&nbsp; It was Tibbs; it could be no one else;
for no one else occupied five minutes in rubbing his shoes.&nbsp; He
had been out to pay the baker&rsquo;s bill.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Tibbs,&rsquo; called Mr. Calton in a very bland tone,
looking over the banisters.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sir!&rsquo; replied he of the dirty face.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you have the kindness to step up-stairs for a moment?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly, sir,&rsquo; said Tibbs, delighted to be taken notice
of.&nbsp; The bedroom-door was carefully closed, and Tibbs, having put
his hat on the floor (as most timid men do), and been accommodated with
a seat, looked as astounded as if he were suddenly summoned before the
familiars of the Inquisition.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A rather unpleasant occurrence, Mr. Tibbs,&rsquo; said Calton,
in a very portentous manner, &lsquo;obliges me to consult you, and to
beg you will not communicate what I am about to say, to your wife.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs acquiesced, wondering in his own mind what the deuce the other
could have done, and imagining that at least he must have broken the
best decanters.</p>
<p>Mr. Calton resumed; &lsquo;I am placed, Mr. Tibbs, in rather an unpleasant
situation.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs looked at Mr. Septimus Hicks, as if he thought Mr. H.&rsquo;s
being in the immediate vicinity of his fellow-boarder might constitute
the unpleasantness of his situation; but as he did not exactly know
what to say, he merely ejaculated the monosyllable &lsquo;Lor!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; continued the knocker, &lsquo;let me beg you will
exhibit no manifestations of surprise, which may be overheard by the
domestics, when I tell you&mdash;command your feelings of astonishment&mdash;that
two inmates of this house intend to be married to-morrow morning.&rsquo;&nbsp;
And he drew back his chair, several feet, to perceive the effect of
the unlooked-for announcement.</p>
<p>If Tibbs had rushed from the room, staggered down-stairs, and fainted
in the passage&mdash;if he had instantaneously jumped out of the window
into the mews behind the house, in an agony of surprise&mdash;his behaviour
would have been much less inexplicable to Mr. Calton than it was, when
he put his hands into his inexpressible-pockets, and said with a half-chuckle,
&lsquo;Just so.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are not surprised, Mr. Tibbs?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Calton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless you, no, sir,&rsquo; returned Tibbs; &lsquo;after all,
its very natural.&nbsp; When two young people get together, you know&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly, certainly,&rsquo; said Calton, with an indescribable
air of self-satisfaction.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s at all an out-of-the-way
affair then?&rsquo; asked Mr. Septimus Hicks, who had watched the countenance
of Tibbs in mute astonishment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, sir,&rsquo; replied Tibbs; &lsquo;I was just the same
at his age.&rsquo;&nbsp; He actually smiled when he said this.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How devilish well I must carry my years!&rsquo; thought the
delighted old beau, knowing he was at least ten years older than Tibbs
at that moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, then, to come to the point at once,&rsquo; he continued,
&lsquo;I have to ask you whether you will object to act as father on
the occasion?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly not,&rsquo; replied Tibbs; still without evincing
an atom of surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You will not?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Decidedly not,&rsquo; reiterated Tibbs, still as calm as a
pot of porter with the head off.</p>
<p>Mr. Calton seized the hand of the petticoat-governed little man,
and vowed eternal friendship from that hour.&nbsp; Hicks, who was all
admiration and surprise, did the same.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, confess,&rsquo; asked Mr. Calton of Tibbs, as he picked
up his hat, &lsquo;were you not a little surprised?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I b&rsquo;lieve you!&rsquo; replied that illustrious person,
holding up one hand; &lsquo;I b&rsquo;lieve you!&nbsp; When I first
heard of it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;So sudden,&rsquo; said Septimus Hicks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So strange to ask <i>me</i>, you know,&rsquo; said Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So odd altogether!&rsquo; said the superannuated love-maker;
and then all three laughed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say,&rsquo; said Tibbs, shutting the door which he had previously
opened, and giving full vent to a hitherto corked-up giggle, &lsquo;what
bothers me is, what <i>will</i> his father say?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Septimus Hicks looked at Mr. Calton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes; but the best of it is,&rsquo; said the latter, giggling
in his turn, &lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t got a father&mdash;he! he! he!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You haven&rsquo;t got a father.&nbsp; No; but <i>he</i> has,&rsquo;
said Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Who</i> has?&rsquo; inquired Septimus Hicks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why<i>, him</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Him, who?&nbsp; Do you know my secret?&nbsp; Do you mean me?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You!&nbsp; No; you know who I mean,&rsquo; returned Tibbs
with a knowing wink.</p>
<p>&lsquo;For Heaven&rsquo;s sake, whom do you mean?&rsquo; inquired
Mr. Calton, who, like Septimus Hicks, was all but out of his senses
at the strange confusion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why Mr. Simpson, of course,&rsquo; replied Tibbs; &lsquo;who
else could I mean?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I see it all,&rsquo; said the Byron-quoter; &lsquo;Simpson
marries Julia Maplesone to-morrow morning!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Undoubtedly,&rsquo; replied Tibbs, thoroughly satisfied, &lsquo;of
course he does.&rsquo;</p>
<p>It would require the pencil of Hogarth to illustrate&mdash;our feeble
pen is inadequate to describe&mdash;the expression which the countenances
of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks respectively assumed, at this unexpected
announcement.&nbsp; Equally impossible is it to describe, although perhaps
it is easier for our lady readers to imagine, what arts the three ladies
could have used, so completely to entangle their separate partners.&nbsp;
Whatever they were, however, they were successful.&nbsp; The mother
was perfectly aware of the intended marriage of both daughters; and
the young ladies were equally acquainted with the intention of their
estimable parent.&nbsp; They agreed, however, that it would have a much
better appearance if each feigned ignorance of the other&rsquo;s engagement;
and it was equally desirable that all the marriages should take place
on the same day, to prevent the discovery of one clandestine alliance,
operating prejudicially on the others.&nbsp; Hence, the mystification
of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks, and the pre-engagement of the
unwary Tibbs.</p>
<p>On the following morning, Mr. Septimus Hicks was united to Miss Matilda
Maplesone.&nbsp; Mr. Simpson also entered into a &lsquo;holy alliance&rsquo;
with Miss Julia; Tibbs acting as father, &lsquo;his first appearance
in that character.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Calton, not being quite so eager
as the two young men, was rather struck by the double discovery; and
as he had found some difficulty in getting any one to give the lady
away, it occurred to him that the best mode of obviating the inconvenience
would be not to take her at all.&nbsp; The lady, however, &lsquo;appealed,&rsquo;
as her counsel said on the trial of the cause, <i>Maplesone</i> v.<i>
Calton</i>, for a breach of promise, &lsquo;with a broken heart, to
the outraged laws of her country.&rsquo;&nbsp; She recovered damages
to the amount of 1,000<i>l</i>. which the unfortunate knocker was compelled
to pay.&nbsp; Mr. Septimus Hicks having walked the hospitals, took it
into his head to walk off altogether.&nbsp; His injured wife is at present
residing with her mother at Boulogne.&nbsp; Mr. Simpson, having the
misfortune to lose his wife six weeks after marriage (by her eloping
with an officer during his temporary sojourn in the Fleet Prison, in
consequence of his inability to discharge her little mantua-maker&rsquo;s
bill), and being disinherited by his father, who died soon afterwards,
was fortunate enough to obtain a permanent engagement at a fashionable
haircutter&rsquo;s; hairdressing being a science to which he had frequently
directed his attention.&nbsp; In this situation he had necessarily many
opportunities of making himself acquainted with the habits, and style
of thinking, of the exclusive portion of the nobility of this kingdom.&nbsp;
To this fortunate circumstance are we indebted for the production of
those brilliant efforts of genius, his fashionable novels, which so
long as good taste, unsullied by exaggeration, cant, and quackery, continues
to exist, cannot fail to instruct and amuse the thinking portion of
the community.</p>
<p>It only remains to add, that this complication of disorders completely
deprived poor Mrs. Tibbs of all her inmates, except the one whom she
could have best spared&mdash;her husband.&nbsp; That wretched little
man returned home, on the day of the wedding, in a state of partial
intoxication; and, under the influence of wine, excitement, and despair,
actually dared to brave the anger of his wife.&nbsp; Since that ill-fated
hour he has constantly taken his meals in the kitchen, to which apartment,
it is understood, his witticisms will be in future confined: a turn-up
bedstead having been conveyed there by Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s order for
his exclusive accommodation.&nbsp; It is possible that he will be enabled
to finish, in that seclusion, his story of the volunteers.</p>
<p>The advertisement has again appeared in the morning papers.&nbsp;
Results must be reserved for another chapter.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>CHAPTER THE SECOND.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Well!&rsquo; said little Mrs. Tibbs to herself, as she sat
in the front parlour of the Coram-street mansion one morning, mending
a piece of stair-carpet off the first Landings;&mdash;&lsquo;Things
have not turned out so badly, either, and if I only get a favourable
answer to the advertisement, we shall be full again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs resumed her occupation of making worsted lattice-work
in the carpet, anxiously listening to the twopenny postman, who was
hammering his way down the street, at the rate of a penny a knock.&nbsp;
The house was as quiet as possible.&nbsp; There was only one low sound
to be heard&mdash;it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen&rsquo;s
boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise,
in wretched mockery of humming a tune.</p>
<p>The postman drew near the house.&nbsp; He paused&mdash;so did Mrs.
Tibbs.&nbsp; A knock&mdash;a bustle&mdash;a letter&mdash;post-paid.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;T. I. presents compt. to I. T. and T. I. begs To say that
i see the advertisement And she will Do Herself the pleasure of calling
On you at 12 o&rsquo;clock to-morrow morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;T. I. as To apologise to I. T. for the shortness Of the notice
But i hope it will not unconvenience you.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I remain yours Truly</p>
<p>&lsquo;Wednesday evening.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Little Mrs. Tibbs perused the document, over and over again; and
the more she read it, the more was she confused by the mixture of the
first and third person; the substitution of the &lsquo;i&rsquo; for
the &lsquo;T. I.;&rsquo; and the transition from the &lsquo;I.&nbsp;
T.&rsquo; to the &lsquo;You.&rsquo;&nbsp; The writing looked like a
skein of thread in a tangle, and the note was ingeniously folded into
a perfect square, with the direction squeezed up into the right-hand
corner, as if it were ashamed of itself.&nbsp; The back of the epistle
was pleasingly ornamented with a large red wafer, which, with the addition
of divers ink-stains, bore a marvellous resemblance to a black beetle
trodden upon.&nbsp; One thing, however, was perfectly clear to the perplexed
Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; Somebody was to call at twelve.&nbsp; The drawing-room
was forthwith dusted for the third time that morning; three or four
chairs were pulled out of their places, and a corresponding number of
books carefully upset, in order that there might be a due absence of
formality.&nbsp; Down went the piece of stair-carpet before noticed,
and up ran Mrs. Tibbs &lsquo;to make herself tidy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The clock of New Saint Pancras Church struck twelve, and the Foundling,
with laudable politeness, did the same ten minutes afterwards, Saint
something else struck the quarter, and then there arrived a single lady
with a double knock, in a pelisse the colour of the interior of a damson
pie; a bonnet of the same, with a regular conservatory of artificial
flowers; a white veil, and a green parasol, with a cobweb border.</p>
<p>The visitor (who was very fat and red-faced) was shown into the drawing-room;
Mrs. Tibbs presented herself, and the negotiation commenced.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I called in consequence of an advertisement,&rsquo; said the
stranger, in a voice as if she had been playing a set of Pan&rsquo;s
pipes for a fortnight without leaving off.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes!&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs, rubbing her hands very slowly,
and looking the applicant full in the face&mdash;two things she always
did on such occasions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Money isn&rsquo;t no object whatever to me,&rsquo; said the
lady, &lsquo;so much as living in a state of retirement and obtrusion.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs, as a matter of course, acquiesced in such an exceedingly
natural desire.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am constantly attended by a medical man,&rsquo; resumed
the pelisse wearer; &lsquo;I have been a shocking unitarian for some
time&mdash;I, indeed, have had very little peace since the death of
Mr. Bloss.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of the departed Bloss, and thought
he must have had very little peace in his time.&nbsp; Of course she
could not say so; so she looked very sympathising.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shall be a good deal of trouble to you,&rsquo; said Mrs.
Bloss; &lsquo;but, for that trouble I am willing to pay.&nbsp; I am
going through a course of treatment which renders attention necessary.&nbsp;
I have one mutton-chop in bed at half-past eight, and another at ten,
every morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs, as in duty bound, expressed the pity she felt for anybody
placed in such a distressing situation; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss
proceeded to arrange the various preliminaries with wonderful despatch.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Now mind,&rsquo; said that lady, after terms were arranged; &lsquo;I
am to have the second-floor front, for my bed-room?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And you&rsquo;ll find room for my little servant Agnes?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I can have one of the cellars in the area for my bottled
porter.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;With the greatest pleasure;&mdash;James shall get it ready
for you by Saturday.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I&rsquo;ll join the company at the breakfast-table on
Sunday morning,&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp; &lsquo;I shall get up
on purpose.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; returned Mrs. Tibbs, in her most amiable
tone; for satisfactory references had &lsquo;been given and required,&rsquo;
and it was quite certain that the new-comer had plenty of money.&nbsp;
&lsquo;It&rsquo;s rather singular,&rsquo; continued Mrs. Tibbs, with
what was meant for a most bewitching smile, &lsquo;that we have a gentleman
now with us, who is in a very delicate state of health&mdash;a Mr. Gobler.&mdash;His
apartment is the back drawing-room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The next room?&rsquo; inquired Mrs. Bloss.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The next room,&rsquo; repeated the hostess.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How very promiscuous!&rsquo; ejaculated the widow.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He hardly ever gets up,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs in a whisper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor!&rsquo; cried Mrs. Bloss, in an equally low tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And when he is up,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs, &lsquo;we never
can persuade him to go to bed again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; said the astonished Mrs. Bloss, drawing her
chair nearer Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; &lsquo;What is his complaint?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, the fact is,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Tibbs, with a most communicative
air, &lsquo;he has no stomach whatever.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No what?&rsquo; inquired Mrs. Bloss, with a look of the most
indescribable alarm.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No stomach,&rsquo; repeated Mrs. Tibbs, with a shake of the
head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lord bless us! what an extraordinary case!&rsquo; gasped Mrs.
Bloss, as if she understood the communication in its literal sense,
and was astonished at a gentleman without a stomach finding it necessary
to board anywhere.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I say he has no stomach,&rsquo; explained the chatty
little Mrs. Tibbs, &lsquo;I mean that his digestion is so much impaired,
and his interior so deranged, that his stomach is not of the least use
to him;&mdash;in fact, it&rsquo;s an inconvenience.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never heard such a case in my life!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs.
Bloss.&nbsp; &lsquo;Why, he&rsquo;s worse than I am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, yes!&rsquo; replied Mrs. Tibbs;&mdash;&lsquo;certainly.&rsquo;&nbsp;
She said this with great confidence, for the damson pelisse suggested
that Mrs. Bloss, at all events, was not suffering under Mr. Gobler&rsquo;s
complaint.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You have quite incited my curiosity,&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss,
as she rose to depart.&nbsp; &lsquo;How I long to see him!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He generally comes down, once a week,&rsquo; replied Mrs.
Tibbs; &lsquo;I dare say you&rsquo;ll see him on Sunday.&rsquo;&nbsp;
With this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss was obliged to be contented.&nbsp;
She accordingly walked slowly down the stairs, detailing her complaints
all the way; and Mrs. Tibbs followed her, uttering an exclamation of
compassion at every step.&nbsp; James (who looked very gritty, for he
was cleaning the knives) fell up the kitchen-stairs, and opened the
street-door; and, after mutual farewells, Mrs. Bloss slowly departed,
down the shady side of the street.</p>
<p>It is almost superfluous to say, that the lady whom we have just
shown out at the street-door (and whom the two female servants are now
inspecting from the second-floor windows) was exceedingly vulgar, ignorant,
and selfish.&nbsp; Her deceased better-half had been an eminent cork-cutter,
in which capacity he had amassed a decent fortune.&nbsp; He had no relative
but his nephew, and no friend but his cook.&nbsp; The former had the
insolence one morning to ask for the loan of fifteen pounds; and, by
way of retaliation, he married the latter next day; he made a will immediately
afterwards, containing a burst of honest indignation against his nephew
(who supported himself and two sisters on 100<i>l</i>. a year), and
a bequest of his whole property to his wife.&nbsp; He felt ill after
breakfast, and died after dinner.&nbsp; There is a mantelpiece-looking
tablet in a civic parish church, setting forth his virtues, and deploring
his loss.&nbsp; He never dishonoured a bill, or gave away a halfpenny.</p>
<p>The relict and sole executrix of this noble-minded man was an odd
mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality and meanness.&nbsp;
Bred up as she had been, she knew no mode of living so agreeable as
a boarding-house: and having nothing to do, and nothing to wish for,
she naturally imagined she must be ill&mdash;an impression which was
most assiduously promoted by her medical attendant, Dr. Wosky, and her
handmaid Agnes: both of whom, doubtless for good reasons, encouraged
all her extravagant notions.</p>
<p>Since the catastrophe recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Tibbs had
been very shy of young-lady boarders.&nbsp; Her present inmates were
all lords of the creation, and she availed herself of the opportunity
of their assemblage at the dinner-table, to announce the expected arrival
of Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp; The gentlemen received the communication with stoical
indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for
the reception of the valetudinarian.&nbsp; The second-floor front was
scrubbed, and washed, and flannelled, till the wet went through to the
drawing-room ceiling.&nbsp; Clean white counterpanes, and curtains,
and napkins, water-bottles as clear as crystal, blue jugs, and mahogany
furniture, added to the splendour, and increased the comfort, of the
apartment.&nbsp; The warming-pan was in constant requisition, and a
fire lighted in the room every day.&nbsp; The chattels of Mrs. Bloss
were forwarded by instalments.&nbsp; First, there came a large hamper
of Guinness&rsquo;s stout, and an umbrella; then, a train of trunks;
then, a pair of clogs and a bandbox; then, an easy chair with an air-cushion;
then, a variety of suspicious-looking packages; and&mdash;&lsquo;though
last not least&rsquo;&mdash;Mrs. Bloss and Agnes: the latter in a cherry-coloured
merino dress, open-work stockings, and shoes with sandals: like a disguised
Columbine.</p>
<p>The installation of the Duke of Wellington, as Chancellor of the
University of Oxford, was nothing, in point of bustle and turmoil, to
the installation of Mrs. Bloss in her new quarters.&nbsp; True, there
was no bright doctor of civil law to deliver a classical address on
the occasion; but there were several other old women present, who spoke
quite as much to the purpose, and understood themselves equally well.&nbsp;
The chop-eater was so fatigued with the process of removal that she
declined leaving her room until the following morning; so a mutton-chop,
pickle, a pill, a pint bottle of stout, and other medicines, were carried
up-stairs for her consumption.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, what <i>do</i> you think, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; inquired
the inquisitive Agnes of her mistress, after they had been in the house
some three hours; &lsquo;what <i>do</i> you think, ma&rsquo;am? the
lady of the house is married.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Married!&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss, taking the pill and a draught
of Guinness&mdash;&lsquo;married!&nbsp; Unpossible!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She is indeed, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; returned the Columbine;
&lsquo;and her husband, ma&rsquo;am, lives&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;lives
in the kitchen, ma&rsquo;am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;In the kitchen!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am: and he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;the housemaid
says, he never goes into the parlour except on Sundays; and that Ms.
Tibbs makes him clean the gentlemen&rsquo;s boots; and that he cleans
the windows, too, sometimes; and that one morning early, when he was
in the front balcony cleaning the drawing-room windows, he called out
to a gentleman on the opposite side of the way, who used to live here&mdash;&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp;
Mr. Calton, sir, how are you?&rdquo;&rsquo;&nbsp; Here the attendant
laughed till Mrs. Bloss was in serious apprehension of her chuckling
herself into a fit.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, I never!&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes.&nbsp; And please, ma&rsquo;am, the servants gives him
gin-and-water sometimes; and then he cries, and says he hates his wife
and the boarders, and wants to tickle them.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tickle the boarders!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, seriously
alarmed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, ma&rsquo;am, not the boarders, the servants.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, is that all!&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss, quite satisfied.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He wanted to kiss me as I came up the kitchen-stairs, just
now,&rsquo; said Agnes, indignantly; &lsquo;but I gave it him&mdash;a
little wretch!&rsquo;</p>
<p>This intelligence was but too true.&nbsp; A long course of snubbing
and neglect; his days spent in the kitchen, and his nights in the turn-up
bedstead, had completely broken the little spirit that the unfortunate
volunteer had ever possessed.&nbsp; He had no one to whom he could detail
his injuries but the servants, and they were almost of necessity his
chosen confidants.&nbsp; It is no less strange than true, however, that
the little weaknesses which he had incurred, most probably during his
military career, seemed to increase as his comforts diminished.&nbsp;
He was actually a sort of journeyman Giovanni of the basement story.</p>
<p>The next morning, being Sunday, breakfast was laid in the front parlour
at ten o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; Nine was the usual time, but the family
always breakfasted an hour later on sabbath.&nbsp; Tibbs enrobed himself
in his Sunday costume&mdash;a black coat, and exceedingly short, thin
trousers; with a very large white waistcoat, white stockings and cravat,
and Blucher boots&mdash;and mounted to the parlour aforesaid.&nbsp;
Nobody had come down, and he amused himself by drinking the contents
of the milkpot with a teaspoon.</p>
<p>A pair of slippers were heard descending the stairs.&nbsp; Tibbs
flew to a chair; and a stern-looking man, of about fifty, with very
little hair on his head, and a Sunday paper in his hand, entered the
room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good morning, Mr. Evenson,&rsquo; said Tibbs, very humbly,
with something between a nod and a bow.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How do you do, Mr. Tibbs?&rsquo; replied he of the slippers,
as he sat himself down, and began to read his paper without saying another
word.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Wisbottle in town to-day, do you know, sir?&rsquo;
inquired Tibbs, just for the sake of saying something.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should think he was,&rsquo; replied the stern gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;He was whistling &ldquo;The Light Guitar,&rdquo; in the next
room to mine, at five o&rsquo;clock this morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s very fond of whistling,&rsquo; said Tibbs, with
a slight smirk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes&mdash;I ain&rsquo;t,&rsquo; was the laconic reply.</p>
<p>Mr. John Evenson was in the receipt of an independent income, arising
chiefly from various houses he owned in the different suburbs.&nbsp;
He was very morose and discontented.&nbsp; He was a thorough radical,
and used to attend a great variety of public meetings, for the express
purpose of finding fault with everything that was proposed.&nbsp; Mr.
Wisbottle, on the other hand, was a high Tory.&nbsp; He was a clerk
in the Woods and Forests Office, which he considered rather an aristocratic
employment; he knew the peerage by heart, and, could tell you, off-hand,
where any illustrious personage lived.&nbsp; He had a good set of teeth,
and a capital tailor.&nbsp; Mr. Evenson looked on all these qualifications
with profound contempt; and the consequence was that the two were always
disputing, much to the edification of the rest of the house.&nbsp; It
should be added, that, in addition to his partiality for whistling,
Mr. Wisbottle had a great idea of his singing powers.&nbsp; There were
two other boarders, besides the gentleman in the back drawing-room&mdash;Mr.
Alfred Tomkins and Mr. Frederick O&rsquo;Bleary.&nbsp; Mr. Tomkins was
a clerk in a wine-house; he was a connoisseur in paintings, and had
a wonderful eye for the picturesque.&nbsp; Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary was an
Irishman, recently imported; he was in a perfectly wild state; and had
come over to England to be an apothecary, a clerk in a government office,
an actor, a reporter, or anything else that turned up&mdash;he was not
particular.&nbsp; He was on familiar terms with two small Irish members,
and got franks for everybody in the house.&nbsp; He felt convinced that
his intrinsic merits must procure him a high destiny.&nbsp; He wore
shepherd&rsquo;s-plaid inexpressibles, and used to look under all the
ladies&rsquo; bonnets as he walked along the streets.&nbsp; His manners
and appearance reminded one of Orson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here comes Mr. Wisbottle,&rsquo; said Tibbs; and Mr. Wisbottle
forthwith appeared in blue slippers, and a shawl dressing-gown, whistling
&lsquo;<i>Di piacer</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good morning, sir,&rsquo; said Tibbs again.&nbsp; It was almost
the only thing he ever said to anybody</p>
<p>&lsquo;How are you, Tibbs?&rsquo; condescendingly replied the amateur;
and he walked to the window, and whistled louder than ever.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pretty air, that!&rsquo; said Evenson, with a snarl, and without
taking his eyes off the paper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Glad you like it,&rsquo; replied Wisbottle, highly gratified.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you think it would sound better, if you whistled
it a little louder?&rsquo; inquired the mastiff.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No; I don&rsquo;t think it would,&rsquo; rejoined the unconscious
Wisbottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Wisbottle,&rsquo; said Evenson,
who had been bottling up his anger for some hours&mdash;&lsquo;the next
time you feel disposed to whistle &ldquo;The Light Guitar&rdquo; at
five o&rsquo;clock in the morning, I&rsquo;ll trouble you to whistle
it with your head out o&rsquo; window.&nbsp; If you don&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;ll
learn the triangle&mdash;I will, by&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>The entrance of Mrs. Tibbs (with the keys in a little basket) interrupted
the threat, and prevented its conclusion.</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs apologised for being down rather late; the bell was rung;
James brought up the urn, and received an unlimited order for dry toast
and bacon.&nbsp; Tibbs sat down at the bottom of the table, and began
eating water-cresses like a Nebuchadnezzar.&nbsp; Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary
appeared, and Mr. Alfred Tomkins.&nbsp; The compliments of the morning
were exchanged, and the tea was made.</p>
<p>&lsquo;God bless me!&rsquo; exclaimed Tomkins, who had been looking
out at the window.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here&mdash;Wisbottle&mdash;pray come
here&mdash;make haste.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Wisbottle started from the table, and every one looked up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you see,&rsquo; said the connoisseur, placing Wisbottle
in the right position&mdash;&lsquo;a little more this way: there&mdash;do
you see how splendidly the light falls upon the left side of that broken
chimney-pot at No. 48?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&nbsp; I see,&rsquo; replied Wisbottle, in a tone
of admiration.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I never saw an object stand out so beautifully against the
clear sky in my life,&rsquo; ejaculated Alfred.&nbsp; Everybody (except
John Evenson) echoed the sentiment; for Mr. Tomkins had a great character
for finding out beauties which no one else could discover&mdash;he certainly
deserved it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have frequently observed a chimney-pot in College-green,
Dublin, which has a much better effect,&rsquo; said the patriotic O&rsquo;Bleary,
who never allowed Ireland to be outdone on any point.</p>
<p>The assertion was received with obvious incredulity, for Mr. Tomkins
declared that no other chimney-pot in the United Kingdom, broken or
unbroken, could be so beautiful as the one at No. 48.</p>
<p>The room-door was suddenly thrown open, and Agnes appeared, leading
in Mrs. Bloss, who was dressed in a geranium-coloured muslin gown, and
displayed a gold watch of huge dimensions; a chain to match; and a splendid
assortment of rings, with enormous stones.&nbsp; A general rush was
made for a chair, and a regular introduction took place.&nbsp; Mr. John
Evenson made a slight inclination of the head; Mr. Frederick O&rsquo;Bleary,
Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Wisbottle, bowed like the mandarins in a
grocer&rsquo;s shop; Tibbs rubbed hands, and went round in circles.&nbsp;
He was observed to close one eye, and to assume a clock-work sort of
expression with the other; this has been considered as a wink, and it
has been reported that Agnes was its object.&nbsp; We repel the calumny,
and challenge contradiction.</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs inquired after Mrs. Bloss&rsquo;s health in a low tone.&nbsp;
Mrs. Bloss, with a supreme contempt for the memory of Lindley Murray,
answered the various questions in a most satisfactory manner; and a
pause ensued, during which the eatables disappeared with awful rapidity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You must have been very much pleased with the appearance of
the ladies going to the Drawing-room the other day, Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary?&rsquo;
said Mrs. Tibbs, hoping to start a topic.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; replied Orson, with a mouthful of toast.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never saw anything like it before, I suppose?&rsquo; suggested
Wisbottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No&mdash;except the Lord Lieutenant&rsquo;s levees,&rsquo;
replied O&rsquo;Bleary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Are they at all equal to our drawing-rooms?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, infinitely superior!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gad!&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; said the aristocratic
Wisbottle, &lsquo;the Dowager Marchioness of Publiccash was most magnificently
dressed, and so was the Baron Slappenbachenhausen.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What was he presented on?&rsquo; inquired Evenson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;On his arrival in England.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I thought so,&rsquo; growled the radical; &lsquo;you never
hear of these fellows being presented on their going away again.&nbsp;
They know better than that.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Unless somebody pervades them with an apintment,&rsquo; said
Mrs. Bloss, joining in the conversation in a faint voice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Wisbottle, evading the point, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
a splendid sight.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And did it never occur to you,&rsquo; inquired the radical,
who never would be quiet; &lsquo;did it never occur to you, that you
pay for these precious ornaments of society?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It certainly <i>has</i> occurred to me,&rsquo; said Wisbottle,
who thought this answer was a poser; &lsquo;it <i>has</i> occurred to
me, and I am willing to pay for them.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, and it has occurred to me too,&rsquo; replied John Evenson,
&lsquo;and I ain&rsquo;t willing to pay for &rsquo;em.&nbsp; Then why
should I?&mdash;I say, why should I?&rsquo; continued the politician,
laying down the paper, and knocking his knuckles on the table.&nbsp;
&lsquo;There are two great principles&mdash;demand&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A cup of tea if you please, dear,&rsquo; interrupted Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And supply&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;May I trouble you to hand this tea to Mr. Tibbs?&rsquo; said
Mrs. Tibbs, interrupting the argument, and unconsciously illustrating
it.</p>
<p>The thread of the orator&rsquo;s discourse was broken.&nbsp; He drank
his tea and resumed the paper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If it&rsquo;s very fine,&rsquo; said Mr. Alfred Tomkins, addressing
the company in general, &lsquo;I shall ride down to Richmond to-day,
and come back by the steamer.&nbsp; There are some splendid effects
of light and shade on the Thames; the contrast between the blueness
of the sky and the yellow water is frequently exceedingly beautiful.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Mr. Wisbottle hummed, &lsquo;Flow on, thou shining river.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;We have some splendid steam-vessels in Ireland,&rsquo; said
O&rsquo;Bleary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss, delighted to find a subject
broached in which she could take part.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The accommodations are extraordinary,&rsquo; said O&rsquo;Bleary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Extraordinary indeed,&rsquo; returned Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp; &lsquo;When
Mr. Bloss was alive, he was promiscuously obligated to go to Ireland
on business.&nbsp; I went with him, and raly the manner in which the
ladies and gentlemen were accommodated with berths, is not creditable.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Tibbs, who had been listening to the dialogue, looked aghast, and
evinced a strong inclination to ask a question, but was checked by a
look from his wife.&nbsp; Mr. Wisbottle laughed, and said Tomkins had
made a pun; and Tomkins laughed too, and said he had not.</p>
<p>The remainder of the meal passed off as breakfasts usually do.&nbsp;
Conversation flagged, and people played with their teaspoons.&nbsp;
The gentlemen looked out at the window; walked about the room; and,
when they got near the door, dropped off one by one.&nbsp; Tibbs retired
to the back parlour by his wife&rsquo;s orders, to check the green-grocer&rsquo;s
weekly account; and ultimately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss were left alone
together.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh dear!&rsquo; said the latter, &lsquo;I feel alarmingly
faint; it&rsquo;s very singular.&rsquo;&nbsp; (It certainly was, for
she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.)&nbsp; &lsquo;By-the-bye,&rsquo;
said Mrs. Bloss, &lsquo;I have not seen Mr. What&rsquo;s-his-name yet.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Gobler?&rsquo; suggested Mrs. Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs, &lsquo;he is a most mysterious
person.&nbsp; He has his meals regularly sent up-stairs, and sometimes
don&rsquo;t leave his room for weeks together.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen or heard nothing of him,&rsquo; repeated
Mrs. Bloss.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I dare say you&rsquo;ll hear him to-night,&rsquo; replied
Mrs. Tibbs; &lsquo;he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,&rsquo;
ejaculated Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp; A little double-knock interrupted the conversation;
Dr. Wosky was announced, and duly shown in.&nbsp; He was a little man
with a red face&mdash;dressed of course in black, with a stiff white
neckerchief.&nbsp; He had a very good practice, and plenty of money,
which he had amassed by invariably humouring the worst fancies of all
the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into.&nbsp;
Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, my dear ma&rsquo;am, and how are we?&rsquo; inquired
Wosky, in a soothing tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very ill, doctor&mdash;very ill,&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss, in
a whisper</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! we must take care of ourselves;&mdash;we must, indeed,&rsquo;
said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his interesting patient.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How is our appetite?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bloss shook her head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our friend requires great care,&rsquo; said Wosky, appealing
to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course assented.&nbsp; &lsquo;I hope, however,
with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her
quite stout again.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind
what the patient would be when she was made quite stout.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We must take stimulants,&rsquo; said the cunning Wosky&mdash;&lsquo;plenty
of nourishment, and, above all, we must keep our nerves quiet; we positively
must not give way to our sensibilities.&nbsp; We must take all we can
get,&rsquo; concluded the doctor, as he pocketed his fee, &lsquo;and
we must keep quiet.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear man!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the doctor stepped
into the carriage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming creature indeed&mdash;quite a lady&rsquo;s man!&rsquo;
said Mrs. Tibbs, and Dr. Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate
females, and pocket fresh fees.</p>
<p>As we had occasion, in a former paper, to describe a dinner at Mrs.
Tibbs&rsquo;s; and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary
occasions; we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other
detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment.&nbsp;
We will therefore proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious
tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypochondriac; always
complaining and never ill.&nbsp; As his character in many respects closely
assimilated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon sprung
up between them.&nbsp; He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied
he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore
a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked, indeed, like a man who
had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will.</p>
<p>For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss&rsquo;s first appearance
in Coram-street, John Evenson was observed to become, every day, more
sarcastic and more ill-natured; and there was a degree of additional
importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had
discovered something, which he only wanted a proper opportunity of divulging.&nbsp;
He found it at last.</p>
<p>One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in
the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations.&nbsp; Mr. Gobler
and Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window,
playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semicircles on the music-stool,
turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and humming most melodiously;
Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round table, with his elbows duly
squared, making a pencil sketch of a head considerably larger than his
own; O&rsquo;Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he
understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s
work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs,&rsquo; said the radical, laying
his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; &lsquo;I can assure
you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare
would induce me to make this communication.&nbsp; I repeat, I fear Wisbottle
is endeavouring to gain the affections of that young woman, Agnes, and
that he is in the habit of meeting her in the store-room on the first
floor, over the leads.&nbsp; From my bedroom I distinctly heard voices
there, last night.&nbsp; I opened my door immediately, and crept very
softly on to the landing; there I saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it seems, had
been disturbed also.&mdash;Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change colour!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, no&mdash;it&rsquo;s nothing,&rsquo; returned Mrs. T. in
a hurried manner; &lsquo;it&rsquo;s only the heat of the room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A flush!&rsquo; ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table;
&lsquo;that&rsquo;s good for four.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs,
after a pause, &lsquo;he should leave this house instantly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go!&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And if I thought,&rsquo; continued the hostess with a most
threatening air, &lsquo;if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;One for his nob!&rsquo; said Gobler.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh,&rsquo; said Evenson, in a most soothing tone&mdash;he
liked to make mischief&mdash;&lsquo;I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not
in any way implicated.&nbsp; He always appeared to me very harmless.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have generally found him so,&rsquo; sobbed poor little Mrs.
Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush! hush! pray&mdash;Mrs. Tibbs&mdash;consider&mdash;we
shall be observed&mdash;pray, don&rsquo;t!&rsquo; said John Evenson,
fearing his whole plan would be interrupted.&nbsp; &lsquo;We will set
the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to
assist you in doing so.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When you think every one has retired to rest to-night,&rsquo;
said Evenson very pompously, &lsquo;if you&rsquo;ll meet me without
a light, just outside my bedroom door, by the staircase window, I think
we can ascertain who the parties really are, and you will afterwards
be enabled to proceed as you think proper.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was excited, her jealousy
was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made.&nbsp; She resumed
her work, and John Evenson walked up and down the room with his hands
in his pockets, looking as if nothing had happened.&nbsp; The game of
cribbage was over, and conversation began again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary,&rsquo; said the humming-top, turning
round on his pivot, and facing the company, &lsquo;what did you think
of Vauxhall the other night?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s very fair,&rsquo; replied Orson, who had been
enthusiastically delighted with the whole exhibition.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never saw anything like that Captain Ross&rsquo;s set-out&mdash;eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; returned the patriot, with his usual reservation&mdash;&lsquo;except
in Dublin.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens,&rsquo;
said Wisbottle; &lsquo;they appeared much delighted.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then it <i>must</i> be beautiful,&rsquo; snarled Evenson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done,&rsquo;
suggested Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp; &lsquo;In their shaggy white coats, they
look just like Polar bears&mdash;don&rsquo;t you think they do, Mr.
Evenson?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all
fours,&rsquo; replied the discontented one.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well,&rsquo;
gasped Gobler; &lsquo;only I caught a desperate cold which increased
my pain dreadfully!&nbsp; I was obliged to have several shower-baths,
before I could leave my room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital things those shower-baths!&rsquo; ejaculated Wisbottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Excellent!&rsquo; said Tomkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Delightful!&rsquo; chimed in O&rsquo;Bleary.&nbsp; (He had
once seen one, outside a tinman&rsquo;s.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Disgusting machines!&rsquo; rejoined Evenson, who extended
his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, feminine, or
neuter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Disgusting, Mr. Evenson!&rsquo; said Gobler, in a tone of
strong indignation.&mdash;&lsquo;Disgusting!&nbsp; Look at their utility&mdash;consider
how many lives they have saved by promoting perspiration.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Promoting perspiration, indeed,&rsquo; growled John Evenson,
stopping short in his walk across the large squares in the pattern of
the carpet&mdash;&lsquo;I was ass enough to be persuaded some time ago
to have one in my bedroom.&nbsp; &lsquo;Gad, I was in it once, and it
effectually cured <i>me</i>, for the mere sight of it threw me into
a profuse perspiration for six months afterwards.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A titter followed this announcement, and before it had subsided James
brought up &lsquo;the tray,&rsquo; containing the remains of a leg of
lamb which had made its <i>d&eacute;but</i> at dinner; bread; cheese;
an atom of butter in a forest of parsley; one pickled walnut and the
third of another; and so forth.&nbsp; The boy disappeared, and returned
again with another tray, containing glasses and jugs of hot and cold
water.&nbsp; The gentlemen brought in their spirit-bottles; the housemaid
placed divers plated bedroom candlesticks under the card-table; and
the servants retired for the night.</p>
<p>Chairs were drawn round the table, and the conversation proceeded
in the customary manner.&nbsp; John Evenson, who never ate supper, lolled
on the sofa, and amused himself by contradicting everybody.&nbsp; O&rsquo;Bleary
ate as much as he could conveniently carry, and Mrs. Tibbs felt a due
degree of indignation thereat; Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss conversed most
affectionately on the subject of pill-taking, and other innocent amusements;
and Tomkins and Wisbottle &lsquo;got into an argument;&rsquo; that is
to say, they both talked very loudly and vehemently, each flattering
himself that he had got some advantage about something, and neither
of them having more than a very indistinct idea of what they were talking
about.&nbsp; An hour or two passed away; and the boarders and the plated
candlesticks retired in pairs to their respective bedrooms.&nbsp; John
Evenson pulled off his boots, locked his door, and determined to sit
up until Mr. Gobler had retired.&nbsp; He always sat in the drawing-room
an hour after everybody else had left it, taking medicine, and groaning.</p>
<p>Great Coram-street was hushed into a state of profound repose: it
was nearly two o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; A hackney-coach now and then rumbled
slowly by; and occasionally some stray lawyer&rsquo;s clerk, on his
way home to Somers-town, struck his iron heel on the top of the coal-cellar
with a noise resembling the click of a smoke-Jack.&nbsp; A low, monotonous,
gushing sound was heard, which added considerably to the romantic dreariness
of the scene.&nbsp; It was the water &lsquo;coming in&rsquo; at number
eleven.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He must be asleep by this time,&rsquo; said John Evenson to
himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after
Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room.&nbsp; He listened for a few moments;
the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened
his bedroom door.&nbsp; The staircase was so dark that it was impossible
to see anything.</p>
<p>&lsquo;S-s-s!&rsquo; whispered the mischief-maker, making a noise
like the first indication a catherine-wheel gives of the probability
of its going off.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; whispered somebody else.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here;&rsquo; and the misty outline of Mrs. Tibbs appeared
at the staircase window, like the ghost of Queen Anne in the tent scene
in Richard.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This way, Mrs. Tibbs,&rsquo; whispered the delighted busybody:
&lsquo;give me your hand&mdash;there!&nbsp; Whoever these people are,
they are in the store-room now, for I have been looking down from my
window, and I could see that they accidentally upset their candlestick,
and are now in darkness.&nbsp; You have no shoes on, have you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said little Mrs. Tibbs, who could hardly speak
for trembling.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well; I have taken my boots off, so we can go down, close
to the store-room door, and listen over the banisters;&rsquo; and down-stairs
they both crept accordingly, every board creaking like a patent mangle
on a Saturday afternoon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s Wisbottle and somebody, I&rsquo;ll swear,&rsquo;
exclaimed the radical in an energetic whisper, when they had listened
for a few moments.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush&mdash;pray let&rsquo;s hear what they say!&rsquo; exclaimed
Mrs. Tibbs, the gratification of whose curiosity was now paramount to
every other consideration.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! if I could but believe you,&rsquo; said a female voice
coquettishly, &lsquo;I&rsquo;d be bound to settle my missis for life.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What does she say?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Evenson, who was not
quite so well situated as his companion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;She says she&rsquo;ll settle her missis&rsquo;s life,&rsquo;
replied Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; &lsquo;The wretch! they&rsquo;re plotting
murder.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know you want money,&rsquo; continued the voice, which belonged
to Agnes; &lsquo;and if you&rsquo;d secure me the five hundred pound,
I warrant she should take fire soon enough.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; inquired Evenson again.&nbsp; He
could just hear enough to want to hear more.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think she says she&rsquo;ll set the house on fire,&rsquo;
replied the affrighted Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; &lsquo;But thank God I&rsquo;m
insured in the Phoenix!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The moment I have secured your mistress, my dear,&rsquo; said
a man&rsquo;s voice in a strong Irish brogue, &lsquo;you may depend
on having the money.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless my soul, it&rsquo;s Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary!&rsquo; exclaimed
Mrs. Tibbs, in a parenthesis.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The villain!&rsquo; said the indignant Mr. Evenson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The first thing to be done,&rsquo; continued the Hibernian,
&lsquo;is to poison Mr. Gobler&rsquo;s mind.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, certainly,&rsquo; returned Agnes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; inquired Evenson again, in an agony
of curiosity and a whisper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He says she&rsquo;s to mind and poison Mr. Gobler,&rsquo;
replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast at this sacrifice of human life.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs,&rsquo; continued O&rsquo;Bleary.&mdash;Mrs.
Tibbs shuddered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; exclaimed Agnes, in a tone of the greatest alarm,
just as Mrs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge of a fainting fit.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; exclaimed Evenson, at the same moment to Mrs.
Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s somebody coming <i>up</i>-stairs,&rsquo; said
Agnes to O&rsquo;Bleary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s somebody coming <i>down</i>-stairs,&rsquo; whispered
Evenson to Mrs. Tibbs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go into the parlour, sir,&rsquo; said Agnes to her companion.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You will get there, before whoever it is, gets to the top of
the kitchen stairs.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs!&rsquo; whispered the astonished
Evenson to his equally astonished companion; and for the drawing-room
they both made, plainly hearing the rustling of two persons, one coming
down-stairs, and one coming up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What can it be?&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs.&nbsp; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
like a dream.&nbsp; I wouldn&rsquo;t be found in this situation for
the world!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nor I,&rsquo; returned Evenson, who could never bear a joke
at his own expense.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hush! here they are at the door.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What fun!&rsquo; whispered one of the new-comers.&mdash;It
was Wisbottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Glorious!&rsquo; replied his companion, in an equally low
tone.&mdash;This was Alfred Tomkins.&nbsp; &lsquo;Who would have thought
it?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I told you so,&rsquo; said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whisper.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention
for the last two months.&nbsp; I saw &rsquo;em when I was sitting at
the piano to-night.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, do you know I didn&rsquo;t notice it?&rsquo; interrupted
Tomkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not notice it!&rsquo; continued Wisbottle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Bless
you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I&rsquo;ll
swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;They&rsquo;re talking of <i>us</i>!&rsquo; exclaimed the agonised
Mrs. Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situation,
flashed upon her mind.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know it&mdash;I know it,&rsquo; replied Evenson, with a
melancholy consciousness that there was no mode of escape.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s to be done? we cannot both stop here!&rsquo;
ejaculated Mrs. Tibbs, in a state of partial derangement.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll get up the chimney,&rsquo; replied Evenson, who
really meant what he said.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You can&rsquo;t,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You can&rsquo;t&mdash;it&rsquo;s a register stove.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; repeated John Evenson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush&mdash;hush!&rsquo; cried somebody down-stairs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a d-d hushing!&rsquo; said Alfred Tomkins, who began
to get rather bewildered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There they are!&rsquo; exclaimed the sapient Wisbottle, as
a rustling noise was heard in the store-room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hark!&rsquo; whispered both the young men.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hark!&rsquo; repeated Mrs. Tibbs and Evenson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Let me alone, sir,&rsquo; said a female voice in the store-room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, Hagnes!&rsquo; cried another voice, which clearly belonged
to Tibbs, for nobody else ever owned one like it, &lsquo;Oh, Hagnes&mdash;lovely
creature!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be quiet, sir!&rsquo;&nbsp; (A bounce.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hag&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be quiet, sir&mdash;I am ashamed of you.&nbsp; Think of your
wife, Mr. Tibbs.&nbsp; Be quiet, sir!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My wife!&rsquo; exclaimed the valorous Tibbs, who was clearly
under the influence of gin-and-water, and a misplaced attachment; &lsquo;I
ate her!&nbsp; Oh, Hagnes! when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen
hundred and&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I declare I&rsquo;ll scream.&nbsp; Be quiet, sir, will you?&rsquo;&nbsp;
(Another bounce and a scuffle.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; exclaimed Tibbs, with a start.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s what?&rsquo; said Agnes, stopping short.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why that!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! you have done it nicely now, sir,&rsquo; sobbed the frightened
Agnes, as a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s bedroom door, which
would have beaten any dozen woodpeckers hollow.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Tibbs!&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs!&rsquo; called out Mrs. Bloss.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Mrs. Tibbs, pray get up.&rsquo;&nbsp; (Here the imitation of
a woodpecker was resumed with tenfold violence.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, dear&mdash;dear!&rsquo; exclaimed the wretched partner
of the depraved Tibbs.&nbsp; &lsquo;She&rsquo;s knocking at my door.&nbsp;
We must be discovered!&nbsp; What will they think?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Tibbs!&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs!&rsquo; screamed the woodpecker
again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter!&rsquo; shouted Gobler, bursting out
of the back drawing-room, like the dragon at Astley&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, Mr. Gobler!&rsquo; cried Mrs. Bloss, with a proper approximation
to hysterics; &lsquo;I think the house is on fire, or else there&rsquo;s
thieves in it.&nbsp; I have heard the most dreadful noises!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The devil you have!&rsquo; shouted Gobler again, bouncing
back into his den, in happy imitation of the aforesaid dragon, and returning
immediately with a lighted candle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Why, what&rsquo;s this?&nbsp;
Wisbottle!&nbsp; Tomkins!&nbsp; O&rsquo;Bleary!&nbsp; Agnes!&nbsp; What
the deuce! all up and dressed?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Astonishing!&rsquo; said Mrs. Bloss, who had run down-stairs,
and taken Mr. Gobler&rsquo;s arm.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Call Mrs. Tibbs directly, somebody,&rsquo; said Gobler, turning
into the front drawing-room.&mdash;&lsquo;What!&nbsp; Mrs. Tibbs and
Mr. Evenson!!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!&rsquo; repeated everybody, as
that unhappy pair were discovered: Mrs. Tibbs seated in an arm-chair
by the fireplace, and Mr. Evenson standing by her side,</p>
<p>We must leave the scene that ensued to the reader&rsquo;s imagination.&nbsp;
We could tell, how Mrs. Tibbs forthwith fainted away, and how it required
the united strength of Mr. Wisbottle and Mr. Alfred Tomkins to hold
her in her chair; how Mr. Evenson explained, and how his explanation
was evidently disbelieved; how Agnes repelled the accusations of Mrs.
Tibbs by proving that she was negotiating with Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary to
influence her mistress&rsquo;s affections in his behalf; and how Mr.
Gobler threw a damp counterpane on the hopes of Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary by
avowing that he (Gobler) had already proposed to, and been accepted
by, Mrs. Bloss; how Agnes was discharged from that lady&rsquo;s service;
how Mr. O&rsquo;Bleary discharged himself from Mrs. Tibbs&rsquo;s house,
without going through the form of previously discharging his bill; and
how that disappointed young gentleman rails against England and the
English, and vows there is no virtue or fine feeling extant, &lsquo;except
in Ireland.&rsquo;&nbsp; We repeat that we <i>could</i> tell all this,
but we love to exercise our self-denial, and we therefore prefer leaving
it to be imagined.</p>
<p>The lady whom we have hitherto described as Mrs. Bloss, is no more.&nbsp;
Mrs. Gobler exists: Mrs. Bloss has left us for ever.&nbsp; In a secluded
retreat in Newington Butts, far, far removed from the noisy strife of
that great boarding-house, the world, the enviable Gobler and his pleasing
wife revel in retirement: happy in their complaints, their table, and
their medicine, wafted through life by the grateful prayers of all the
purveyors of animal food within three miles round.</p>
<p>We would willingly stop here, but we have a painful duty imposed
upon us, which we must discharge.&nbsp; Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs have separated
by mutual consent, Mrs. Tibbs receiving one moiety of 43<i>l</i>.&nbsp;
15<i>s</i>. 10<i>d</i>., which we before stated to be the amount of
her husband&rsquo;s annual income, and Mr. Tibbs the other.&nbsp; He
is spending the evening of his days in retirement; and he is spending
also, annually, that small but honourable independence.&nbsp; He resides
among the original settlers at Walworth; and it has been stated, on
unquestionable authority, that the conclusion of the volunteer story
has been heard in a small tavern in that respectable neighbourhood.</p>
<p>The unfortunate Mrs. Tibbs has determined to dispose of the whole
of her furniture by public auction, and to retire from a residence in
which she has suffered so much.&nbsp; Mr. Robins has been applied to,
to conduct the sale, and the transcendent abilities of the literary
gentlemen connected with his establishment are now devoted to the task
of drawing up the preliminary advertisement.&nbsp; It is to contain,
among a variety of brilliant matter, seventy-eight words in large capitals,
and six original quotations in inverted commas.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II&mdash;MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said&mdash;of
about eight-and-forty as his friends said.&nbsp; He was always exceedingly
clean, precise, and tidy; perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring
man in the world.&nbsp; He usually wore a brown frock-coat without a
wrinkle, light inexplicables without a spot, a neat neckerchief with
a remarkably neat tie, and boots without a fault; moreover, he always
carried a brown silk umbrella with an ivory handle.&nbsp; He was a clerk
in Somerset-house, or, as he said himself, he held &lsquo;a responsible
situation under Government.&rsquo;&nbsp; He had a good and increasing
salary, in addition to some 10,000<i>l</i>. of his own (invested in
the funds), and he occupied a first floor in Tavistock-street, Covent-garden,
where he had resided for twenty years, having been in the habit of quarrelling
with his landlord the whole time: regularly giving notice of his intention
to quit on the first day of every quarter, and as regularly countermanding
it on the second.&nbsp; There were two classes of created objects which
he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror; these were dogs, and
children.&nbsp; He was not unamiable, but he could, at any time, have
viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with
the liveliest satisfaction.&nbsp; Their habits were at variance with
his love of order; and his love of order was as powerful as his love
of life.&nbsp; Mr. Augustus Minns had no relations, in or near London,
with the exception of his cousin, Mr. Octavius Budden, to whose son,
whom he had never seen (for he disliked the father), he had consented
to become godfather by proxy.&nbsp; Mr. Budden having realised a moderate
fortune by exercising the trade or calling of a corn-chandler, and having
a great predilection for the country, had purchased a cottage in the
vicinity of Stamford-hill, whither he retired with the wife of his bosom,
and his only son, Master Alexander Augustus Budden.&nbsp; One evening,
as Mr. and Mrs. B. were admiring their son, discussing his various merits,
talking over his education, and disputing whether the classics should
be made an essential part thereof, the lady pressed so strongly upon
her husband the propriety of cultivating the friendship of Mr. Minns
in behalf of their son, that Mr. Budden at last made up his mind, that
it should not be his fault if he and his cousin were not in future more
intimate.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll break the ice, my love,&rsquo; said Mr. Budden,
stirring up the sugar at the bottom of his glass of brandy-and-water,
and casting a sidelong look at his spouse to see the effect of the announcement
of his determination, &lsquo;by asking Minns down to dine with us, on
Sunday.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then pray, Budden, write to your cousin at once,&rsquo; replied
Mrs. Budden.&nbsp; &lsquo;Who knows, if we could only get him down here,
but he might take a fancy to our Alexander, and leave him his property?&mdash;Alick,
my dear, take your legs off the rail of the chair!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very true,&rsquo; said Mr. Budden, musing, &lsquo;very true
indeed, my love!&rsquo;&nbsp; On the following morning, as Mr. Minns
was sitting at his breakfast-table, alternately biting his dry toast
and casting a look upon the columns of his morning paper, which he always
read from the title to the printer&rsquo;s name, he heard a loud knock
at the street-door; which was shortly afterwards followed by the entrance
of his servant, who put into his hands a particularly small card, on
which was engraven in immense letters, &lsquo;Mr. Octavius Budden, Amelia
Cottage (Mrs. B.&rsquo;s name was Amelia), Poplar-walk, Stamford-hill.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Budden!&rsquo; ejaculated Minns, &lsquo;what can bring that
vulgar man here!&mdash;say I&rsquo;m asleep&mdash;say I&rsquo;m out,
and shall never be home again&mdash;anything to keep him down-stairs.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But please, sir, the gentleman&rsquo;s coming up,&rsquo; replied
the servant, and the fact was made evident, by an appalling creaking
of boots on the staircase accompanied by a pattering noise; the cause
of which, Minns could not, for the life of him, divine.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hem&mdash;show the gentleman in,&rsquo; said the unfortunate
bachelor.&nbsp; Exit servant, and enter Octavius preceded by a large
white dog, dressed in a suit of fleecy hosiery, with pink eyes, large
ears, and no perceptible tail.</p>
<p>The cause of the pattering on the stairs was but too plain.&nbsp;
Mr. Augustus Minns staggered beneath the shock of the dog&rsquo;s appearance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear fellow, how are you?&rsquo; said Budden, as he entered.</p>
<p>He always spoke at the top of his voice, and always said the same
thing half-a-dozen times.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How are you, my hearty?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;How do you do, Mr. Budden?&mdash;pray take a chair!&rsquo;
politely stammered the discomfited Minns.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you&mdash;thank you&mdash;well&mdash;how are you, eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Uncommonly well, thank you,&rsquo; said Minns, casting a diabolical
look at the dog, who, with his hind legs on the floor, and his fore
paws resting on the table, was dragging a bit of bread and butter out
of a plate, preparatory to devouring it, with the buttered side next
the carpet.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, you rogue!&rsquo; said Budden to his dog; &lsquo;you see,
Minns, he&rsquo;s like me, always at home, eh, my boy!&mdash;Egad, I&rsquo;m
precious hot and hungry!&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve walked all the way from Stamford-hill
this morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have you breakfasted?&rsquo; inquired Minns.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, no!&mdash;came to breakfast with you; so ring the bell,
my dear fellow, will you? and let&rsquo;s have another cup and saucer,
and the cold ham.&mdash;Make myself at home, you see!&rsquo; continued
Budden, dusting his boots with a table-napkin.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ha!&mdash;ha!&mdash;ha!
-&rsquo;pon my life, I&rsquo;m hungry.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Minns rang the bell, and tried to smile.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I decidedly never was so hot in my life,&rsquo; continued
Octavius, wiping his forehead; &lsquo;well, but how are you, Minns?&nbsp;
&lsquo;Pon my soul, you wear capitally!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;D&rsquo;ye think so?&rsquo; said Minns; and he tried another
smile.</p>
<p>&lsquo;&rsquo;Pon my life, I do!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. B. and&mdash;what&rsquo;s his name&mdash;quite well?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Alick&mdash;my son, you mean; never better&mdash;never better.&nbsp;
But at such a place as we&rsquo;ve got at Poplar-walk, you know, he
couldn&rsquo;t be ill if he tried.&nbsp; When I first saw it, by Jove!
it looked so knowing, with the front garden, and the green railings
and the brass knocker, and all that&mdash;I really thought it was a
cut above me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;d like the ham better,&rsquo;
interrupted Minns, &lsquo;if you cut it the other way?&rsquo;&nbsp;
He saw, with feelings which it is impossible to describe, that his visitor
was cutting or rather maiming the ham, in utter violation of all established
rules.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, thank ye,&rsquo; returned Budden, with the most barbarous
indifference to crime, &lsquo;I prefer it this way, it eats short.&nbsp;
But I say, Minns, when will you come down and see us?&nbsp; You will
be delighted with the place; I know you will.&nbsp; Amelia and I were
talking about you the other night, and Amelia said&mdash;another lump
of sugar, please; thank ye&mdash;she said, don&rsquo;t you think you
could contrive, my dear, to say to Mr. Minns, in a friendly way&mdash;come
down, sir&mdash;damn the dog! he&rsquo;s spoiling your curtains, Minns&mdash;ha!&mdash;ha!&mdash;ha!&rsquo;&nbsp;
Minns leaped from his seat as though he had received the discharge from
a galvanic battery.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come out, sir!&mdash;go out, hoo!&rsquo; cried poor Augustus,
keeping, nevertheless, at a very respectful distance from the dog; having
read of a case of hydrophobia in the paper of that morning.&nbsp; By
dint of great exertion, much shouting, and a marvellous deal of poking
under the tables with a stick and umbrella, the dog was at last dislodged,
and placed on the landing outside the door, where he immediately commenced
a most appalling howling; at the same time vehemently scratching the
paint off the two nicely-varnished bottom panels, until they resembled
the interior of a backgammon-board.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A good dog for the country that!&rsquo; coolly observed Budden
to the distracted Minns, &lsquo;but he&rsquo;s not much used to confinement.&nbsp;
But now, Minns, when will you come down?&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll take no denial,
positively.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s see, to-day&rsquo;s Thursday.&mdash;Will
you come on Sunday?&nbsp; We dine at five, don&rsquo;t say no&mdash;do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>After a great deal of pressing, Mr. Augustus Minns, driven to despair,
accepted the invitation, and promised to be at Poplar-walk on the ensuing
Sunday, at a quarter before five to the minute.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now mind the direction,&rsquo; said Budden: &lsquo;the coach
goes from the Flower-pot, in Bishopsgate-street, every half hour.&nbsp;
When the coach stops at the Swan, you&rsquo;ll see, immediately opposite
you, a white house.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Which is your house&mdash;I understand,&rsquo; said Minns,
wishing to cut short the visit, and the story, at the same time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, no, that&rsquo;s not mine; that&rsquo;s Grogus&rsquo;s,
the great ironmonger&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I was going to say&mdash;you turn
down by the side of the white house till you can&rsquo;t go another
step further&mdash;mind that!&mdash;and then you turn to your right,
by some stables&mdash;well; close to you, you&rsquo;ll see a wall with
&ldquo;Beware of the Dog&rdquo; written on it in large letters&mdash;(Minns
shuddered)&mdash;go along by the side of that wall for about a quarter
of a mile&mdash;and anybody will show you which is my place.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well&mdash;thank ye&mdash;good-bye.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be punctual.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly: good morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say, Minns, you&rsquo;ve got a card.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I have; thank ye.&rsquo;&nbsp; And Mr. Octavius Budden
departed, leaving his cousin looking forward to his visit on the following
Sunday, with the feelings of a penniless poet to the weekly visit of
his Scotch landlady.</p>
<p>Sunday arrived; the sky was bright and clear; crowds of people were
hurrying along the streets, intent on their different schemes of pleasure
for the day; everything and everybody looked cheerful and happy except
Mr. Augustus Minns.</p>
<p>The day was fine, but the heat was considerable; when Mr. Minns had
fagged up the shady side of Fleet-street, Cheapside, and Threadneedle-street,
he had become pretty warm, tolerably dusty, and it was getting late
into the bargain.&nbsp; By the most extraordinary good fortune, however,
a coach was waiting at the Flower-pot, into which Mr. Augustus Minns
got, on the solemn assurance of the cad that the vehicle would start
in three minutes&mdash;that being the very utmost extremity of time
it was allowed to wait by Act of Parliament.&nbsp; A quarter of an hour
elapsed, and there were no signs of moving.&nbsp; Minns looked at his
watch for the sixth time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Coachman, are you going or not?&rsquo; bawled Mr. Minns, with
his head and half his body out of the coach window.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Di-rectly, sir,&rsquo; said the coachman, with his hands in
his pockets, looking as much unlike a man in a hurry as possible.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bill, take them cloths off.&rsquo;&nbsp; Five minutes more
elapsed: at the end of which time the coachman mounted the box, from
whence he looked down the street, and up the street, and hailed all
the pedestrians for another five minutes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Coachman! if you don&rsquo;t go this moment, I shall get out,&rsquo;
said Mr. Minns, rendered desperate by the lateness of the hour, and
the impossibility of being in Poplar-walk at the appointed time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Going this minute, sir,&rsquo; was the reply;&mdash;and, accordingly,
the machine trundled on for a couple of hundred yards, and then stopped
again.&nbsp; Minns doubled himself up in a corner of the coach, and
abandoned himself to his fate, as a child, a mother, a bandbox and a
parasol, became his fellow-passengers.</p>
<p>The child was an affectionate and an amiable infant; the little dear
mistook Minns for his other parent, and screamed to embrace him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be quiet, dear,&rsquo; said the mamma, restraining the impetuosity
of the darling, whose little fat legs were kicking, and stamping, and
twining themselves into the most complicated forms, in an ecstasy of
impatience.&nbsp; &lsquo;Be quiet, dear, that&rsquo;s not your papa.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank Heaven I am not!&rsquo; thought Minns, as the first
gleam of pleasure he had experienced that morning shone like a meteor
through his wretchedness.</p>
<p>Playfulness was agreeably mingled with affection in the disposition
of the boy.&nbsp; When satisfied that Mr. Minns was not his parent,
he endeavoured to attract his notice by scraping his drab trousers with
his dirty shoes, poking his chest with his mamma&rsquo;s parasol, and
other nameless endearments peculiar to infancy, with which he beguiled
the tediousness of the ride, apparently very much to his own satisfaction.</p>
<p>When the unfortunate gentleman arrived at the Swan, he found to his
great dismay, that it was a quarter past five.&nbsp; The white house,
the stables, the &lsquo;Beware of the Dog,&rsquo;&mdash;every landmark
was passed, with a rapidity not unusual to a gentleman of a certain
age when too late for dinner.&nbsp; After the lapse of a few minutes,
Mr. Minns found himself opposite a yellow brick house with a green door,
brass knocker, and door-plate, green window-frames and ditto railings,
with &lsquo;a garden&rsquo; in front, that is to say, a small loose
bit of gravelled ground, with one round and two scalene triangular beds,
containing a fir-tree, twenty or thirty bulbs, and an unlimited number
of marigolds.&nbsp; The taste of Mr. and Mrs. Budden was further displayed
by the appearance of a Cupid on each side of the door, perched upon
a heap of large chalk flints, variegated with pink conch-shells.&nbsp;
His knock at the door was answered by a stumpy boy, in drab livery,
cotton stockings and high-lows, who, after hanging his hat on one of
the dozen brass pegs which ornamented the passage, denominated by courtesy
&lsquo;The Hall,&rsquo; ushered him into a front drawing-room commanding
a very extensive view of the backs of the neighbouring houses.&nbsp;
The usual ceremony of introduction, and so forth, over, Mr. Minns took
his seat: not a little agitated at finding that he was the last comer,
and, somehow or other, the Lion of about a dozen people, sitting together
in a small drawing-room, getting rid of that most tedious of all time,
the time preceding dinner.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, Brogson,&rsquo; said Budden, addressing an elderly gentleman
in a black coat, drab knee-breeches, and long gaiters, who, under pretence
of inspecting the prints in an Annual, had been engaged in satisfying
himself on the subject of Mr. Minns&rsquo;s general appearance, by looking
at him over the tops of the leaves&mdash;&lsquo;Well, Brogson, what
do ministers mean to do?&nbsp; Will they go out, or what?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh&mdash;why&mdash;really, you know, I&rsquo;m the last person
in the world to ask for news.&nbsp; Your cousin, from his situation,
is the most likely person to answer the question.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Minns assured the last speaker, that although he was in Somerset-house,
he possessed no official communication relative to the projects of his
Majesty&rsquo;s Ministers.&nbsp; But his remark was evidently received
incredulously; and no further conjectures being hazarded on the subject,
a long pause ensued, during which the company occupied themselves in
coughing and blowing their noses, until the entrance of Mrs. Budden
caused a general rise.</p>
<p>The ceremony of introduction being over, dinner was announced, and
down-stairs the party proceeded accordingly&mdash;Mr. Minns escorting
Mrs. Budden as far as the drawing-room door, but being prevented, by
the narrowness of the staircase, from extending his gallantry any farther.&nbsp;
The dinner passed off as such dinners usually do.&nbsp; Ever and anon,
amidst the clatter of knives and forks, and the hum of conversation,
Mr. B.&rsquo;s voice might be heard, asking a friend to take wine, and
assuring him he was glad to see him; and a great deal of by-play took
place between Mrs. B. and the servants, respecting the removal of the
dishes, during which her countenance assumed all the variations of a
weather-glass, from &lsquo;stormy&rsquo; to &lsquo;set fair.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Upon the dessert and wine being placed on the table, the servant,
in compliance with a significant look from Mrs. B., brought down &lsquo;Master
Alexander,&rsquo; habited in a sky-blue suit with silver buttons; and
possessing hair of nearly the same colour as the metal.&nbsp; After
sundry praises from his mother, and various admonitions as to his behaviour
from his father, he was introduced to his godfather.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, my little fellow&mdash;you are a fine boy, ain&rsquo;t
you?&rsquo; said Mr. Minns, as happy as a tomtit on birdlime.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;How old are you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eight, next We&rsquo;nsday.&nbsp; How old are <i>you</i>?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Alexander,&rsquo; interrupted his mother, &lsquo;how dare
you ask Mr. Minns how old he is!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He asked me how old <i>I</i> was,&rsquo; said the precocious
child, to whom Minns had from that moment internally resolved that he
never would bequeath one shilling.&nbsp; As soon as the titter occasioned
by the observation had subsided, a little smirking man with red whiskers,
sitting at the bottom of the table, who during the whole of dinner had
been endeavouring to obtain a listener to some stories about Sheridan,
called, out, with a very patronising air, &lsquo;Alick, what part of
speech is <i>be</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A verb.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s a good boy,&rsquo; said Mrs. Budden, with all
a mother&rsquo;s pride.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, you know what a verb is?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer;
as, I am&mdash;I rule&mdash;I am ruled.&nbsp; Give me an apple, Ma.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll give you an apple,&rsquo; replied the man with
the red whiskers, who was an established friend of the family, or in
other words was always invited by Mrs. Budden, whether Mr. Budden liked
it or not, &lsquo;if you&rsquo;ll tell me what is the meaning of <i>be</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be?&rsquo; said the prodigy, after a little hesitation&mdash;&lsquo;an
insect that gathers honey.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, dear,&rsquo; frowned Mrs. Budden; &lsquo;B double E is
the substantive.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think he knows much yet about <i>common</i>
substantives,&rsquo; said the smirking gentleman, who thought this an
admirable opportunity for letting off a joke.&nbsp; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
clear he&rsquo;s not very well acquainted with <i>proper names</i>.&nbsp;
He! he! he!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gentlemen,&rsquo; called out Mr. Budden, from the end of the
table, in a stentorian voice, and with a very important air, &lsquo;will
you have the goodness to charge your glasses?&nbsp; I have a toast to
propose.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hear! hear!&rsquo; cried the gentlemen, passing the decanters.&nbsp;
After they had made the round of the table, Mr. Budden proceeded&mdash;&lsquo;Gentlemen;
there is an individual present&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hear! hear!&rsquo; said the little man with red whiskers.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Pray</i> be quiet, Jones,&rsquo; remonstrated Budden.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say, gentlemen, there is an individual present,&rsquo; resumed
the host, &lsquo;in whose society, I am sure we must take great delight&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;the
conversation of that individual must have afforded to every one present,
the utmost pleasure.&rsquo;&nbsp; [&lsquo;Thank Heaven, he does not
mean me!&rsquo; thought Minns, conscious that his diffidence and exclusiveness
had prevented his saying above a dozen words since he entered the house.]&nbsp;
&lsquo;Gentlemen, I am but a humble individual myself, and I perhaps
ought to apologise for allowing any individual feeling of friendship
and affection for the person I allude to, to induce me to venture to
rise, to propose the health of that person&mdash;a person that, I am
sure&mdash;that is to say, a person whose virtues must endear him to
those who know him&mdash;and those who have not the pleasure of knowing
him, cannot dislike him.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hear! hear!&rsquo; said the company, in a tone of encouragement
and approval.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gentlemen,&rsquo; continued Budden, &lsquo;my cousin is a
man who&mdash;who is a relation of my own.&rsquo;&nbsp; (Hear! hear!)&nbsp;
Minns groaned audibly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Who I am most happy to see here,
and who, if he were not here, would certainly have deprived us of the
great pleasure we all feel in seeing him.&nbsp; (Loud cries of hear!)&nbsp;
Gentlemen, I feel that I have already trespassed on your attention for
too long a time.&nbsp; With every feeling&mdash;of&mdash;with every
sentiment of&mdash;of&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gratification&rsquo;&mdash;suggested the friend of the family.</p>
<p>&lsquo;- Of gratification, I beg to propose the health of Mr. Minns.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Standing, gentlemen!&rsquo; shouted the indefatigable little
man with the whiskers&mdash;&lsquo;and with the honours.&nbsp; Take
your time from me, if you please.&nbsp; Hip! hip! hip!&mdash;Za!&mdash;Hip!
hip! hip!&mdash;Za!&mdash;Hip hip!&mdash;Za-a-a!&rsquo;</p>
<p>All eyes were now fixed on the subject of the toast, who by gulping
down port wine at the imminent hazard of suffocation, endeavoured to
conceal his confusion.&nbsp; After as long a pause as decency would
admit, he rose, but, as the newspapers sometimes say in their reports,
&lsquo;we regret that we are quite unable to give even the substance
of the honourable gentleman&rsquo;s observations.&rsquo;&nbsp; The words
&lsquo;present company&mdash;honour&mdash;present occasion,&rsquo; and
&lsquo;great happiness&rsquo;&mdash;heard occasionally, and repeated
at intervals, with a countenance expressive of the utmost confusion
and misery, convinced the company that he was making an excellent speech;
and, accordingly, on his resuming his seat, they cried &lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo;
and manifested tumultuous applause.&nbsp; Jones, who had been long watching
his opportunity, then darted up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Budden,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;will you allow <i>me</i> to
propose a toast?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; replied Budden, adding in an under-tone
to Minns right across the table, &lsquo;Devilish sharp fellow that:
you&rsquo;ll be very much pleased with his speech.&nbsp; He talks equally
well on any subject.&rsquo;&nbsp; Minns bowed, and Mr. Jones proceeded:</p>
<p>&lsquo;It has on several occasions, in various instances, under many
circumstances, and in different companies, fallen to my lot to propose
a toast to those by whom, at the time, I have had the honour to be surrounded,
I have sometimes, I will cheerfully own&mdash;for why should I deny
it?&mdash;felt the overwhelming nature of the task I have undertaken,
and my own utter incapability to do justice to the subject.&nbsp; If
such have been my feelings, however, on former occasions, what must
they be now&mdash;now&mdash;under the extraordinary circumstances in
which I am placed.&nbsp; (Hear! hear!)&nbsp; To describe my feelings
accurately, would be impossible; but I cannot give you a better idea
of them, gentlemen, than by referring to a circumstance which happens,
oddly enough, to occur to my mind at the moment.&nbsp; On one occasion,
when that truly great and illustrious man, Sheridan, was&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, there is no knowing what new villainy in the form of a joke
would have been heaped on the grave of that very ill-used man, Mr. Sheridan,
if the boy in drab had not at that moment entered the room in a breathless
state, to report that, as it was a very wet night, the nine o&rsquo;clock
stage had come round, to know whether there was anybody going to town,
as, in that case, he (the nine o&rsquo;clock) had room for one inside.</p>
<p>Mr. Minns started up; and, despite countless exclamations of surprise,
and entreaties to stay, persisted in his determination to accept the
vacant place.&nbsp; But, the brown silk umbrella was nowhere to be found;
and as the coachman couldn&rsquo;t wait, he drove back to the Swan,
leaving word for Mr. Minns to &lsquo;run round&rsquo; and catch him.&nbsp;
However, as it did not occur to Mr. Minns for some ten minutes or so,
that he had left the brown silk umbrella with the ivory handle in the
other coach, coming down; and, moreover, as he was by no means remarkable
for speed, it is no matter of surprise that when he accomplished the
feat of &lsquo;running round&rsquo; to the Swan, the coach&mdash;the
last coach&mdash;had gone without him.</p>
<p>It was somewhere about three o&rsquo;clock in the morning, when Mr.
Augustus Minns knocked feebly at the street-door of his lodgings in
Tavistock-street, cold, wet, cross, and miserable.&nbsp; He made his
will next morning, and his professional man informs us, in that strict
confidence in which we inform the public, that neither the name of Mr.
Octavius Budden, nor of Mrs. Amelia Budden, nor of Master Alexander
Augustus Budden, appears therein.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III&mdash;SENTIMENT</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The Miss Crumptons, or to quote the authority of the inscription
on the garden-gate of Minerva House, Hammersmith, &lsquo;The Misses
Crumpton,&rsquo; were two unusually tall, particularly thin, and exceedingly
skinny personages: very upright, and very yellow.&nbsp; Miss Amelia
Crumpton owned to thirty-eight, and Miss Maria Crumpton admitted she
was forty; an admission which was rendered perfectly unnecessary by
the self-evident fact of her being at least fifty.&nbsp; They dressed
in the most interesting manner&mdash;like twins! and looked as happy
and comfortable as a couple of marigolds run to seed.&nbsp; They were
very precise, had the strictest possible ideas of propriety, wore false
hair, and always smelt very strongly of lavender.</p>
<p>Minerva House, conducted under the auspices of the two sisters, was
a &lsquo;finishing establishment for young ladies,&rsquo; where some
twenty girls of the ages of from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired
a smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing; instruction
in French and Italian, dancing lessons twice a-week; and other necessaries
of life.&nbsp; The house was a white one, a little removed from the
roadside, with close palings in front.&nbsp; The bedroom windows were
always left partly open, to afford a bird&rsquo;s-eye view of numerous
little bedsteads with very white dimity furniture, and thereby impress
the passer-by with a due sense of the luxuries of the establishment;
and there was a front parlour hung round with highly varnished maps
which nobody ever looked at, and filled with books which no one ever
read, appropriated exclusively to the reception of parents, who, whenever
they called, could not fail to be struck with the very deep appearance
of the place.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Amelia, my dear,&rsquo; said Miss Maria Crumpton, entering
the school-room one morning, with her false hair in papers: as she occasionally
did, in order to impress the young ladies with a conviction of its reality.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Amelia, my dear, here is a most gratifying note I have just received.&nbsp;
You needn&rsquo;t mind reading it aloud.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Miss Amelia, thus advised, proceeded to read the following note with
an air of great triumph:</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., presents his compliments
to Miss Crumpton, and will feel much obliged by Miss Crumpton&rsquo;s
calling on him, if she conveniently can, to-morrow morning at one o&rsquo;clock,
as Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., is anxious to see Miss Crumpton
on the subject of placing Miss Brook Dingwall under her charge.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Adelphi.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Monday morning.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;A Member of Parliament&rsquo;s daughter!&rsquo; ejaculated
Amelia, in an ecstatic tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Member of Parliament&rsquo;s daughter!&rsquo; repeated Miss
Maria, with a smile of delight, which, of course, elicited a concurrent
titter of pleasure from all the young ladies.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s exceedingly delightful!&rsquo; said Miss Amelia;
whereupon all the young ladies murmured their admiration again.&nbsp;
Courtiers are but school-boys, and court-ladies school-girl&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>So important an announcement at once superseded the business of the
day.&nbsp; A holiday was declared, in commemoration of the great event;
the Miss Crumptons retired to their private apartment to talk it over;
the smaller girls discussed the probable manners and customs of the
daughter of a Member of Parliament; and the young ladies verging on
eighteen wondered whether she was engaged, whether she was pretty, whether
she wore much bustle, and many other<i> whethers</i> of equal importance.</p>
<p>The two Miss Crumptons proceeded to the Adelphi at the appointed
time next day, dressed, of course, in their best style, and looking
as amiable as they possibly could&mdash;which, by-the-bye, is not saying
much for them.&nbsp; Having sent in their cards, through the medium
of a red-hot looking footman in bright livery, they were ushered into
the august presence of the profound Dingwall.</p>
<p>Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., was very haughty, solemn, and
portentous.&nbsp; He had, naturally, a somewhat spasmodic expression
of countenance, which was not rendered the less remarkable by his wearing
an extremely stiff cravat.&nbsp; He was wonderfully proud of the M.P.
attached to his name, and never lost an opportunity of reminding people
of his dignity.&nbsp; He had a great idea of his own abilities, which
must have been a great comfort to him, as no one else had; and in diplomacy,
on a small scale, in his own family arrangements, he considered himself
unrivalled.&nbsp; He was a county magistrate, and discharged the duties
of his station with all due justice and impartiality; frequently committing
poachers, and occasionally committing himself.&nbsp; Miss Brook Dingwall
was one of that numerous class of young ladies, who, like adverbs, may
be known by their answering to a commonplace question, and doing nothing
else.</p>
<p>On the present occasion, this talented individual was seated in a
small library at a table covered with papers, doing nothing, but trying
to look busy, playing at shop.&nbsp; Acts of Parliament, and letters
directed to &lsquo;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P.,&rsquo; were
ostentatiously scattered over the table; at a little distance from which,
Mrs. Brook Dingwall was seated at work.&nbsp; One of those public nuisances,
a spoiled child, was playing about the room, dressed after the most
approved fashion&mdash;in a blue tunic with a black belt&mdash;a quarter
of a yard wide, fastened with an immense buckle&mdash;looking like a
robber in a melodrama, seen through a diminishing glass.</p>
<p>After a little pleasantry from the sweet child, who amused himself
by running away with Miss Maria Crumpton&rsquo;s chair as fast as it
was placed for her, the visitors were seated, and Cornelius Brook Dingwall,
Esq., opened the conversation.</p>
<p>He had sent for Miss Crumpton, he said, in consequence of the high
character he had received of her establishment from his friend, Sir
Alfred Muggs.</p>
<p>Miss Crumpton murmured her acknowledgments to him (Muggs), and Cornelius
proceeded.</p>
<p>&lsquo;One of my principal reasons, Miss Crumpton, for parting with
my daughter, is, that she has lately acquired some sentimental ideas,
which it is most desirable to eradicate from her young mind.&rsquo;&nbsp;
(Here the little innocent before noticed, fell out of an arm-chair with
an awful crash.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Naughty boy!&rsquo; said his mamma, who appeared more surprised
at his taking the liberty of falling down, than at anything else; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll
ring the bell for James to take him away.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray don&rsquo;t check him, my love,&rsquo; said the diplomatist,
as soon as he could make himself heard amidst the unearthly howling
consequent upon the threat and the tumble.&nbsp; &lsquo;It all arises
from his great flow of spirits.&rsquo;&nbsp; This last explanation was
addressed to Miss Crumpton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly, sir,&rsquo; replied the antique Maria: not exactly
seeing, however, the connexion between a flow of animal spirits, and
a fall from an arm-chair.</p>
<p>Silence was restored, and the M.P. resumed: &lsquo;Now, I know nothing
so likely to effect this object, Miss Crumpton, as her mixing constantly
in the society of girls of her own age; and, as I know that in your
establishment she will meet such as are not likely to contaminate her
young mind, I propose to send her to you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The youngest Miss Crumpton expressed the acknowledgments of the establishment
generally.&nbsp; Maria was rendered speechless by bodily pain.&nbsp;
The dear little fellow, having recovered his animal spirits, was standing
upon her most tender foot, by way of getting his face (which looked
like a capital O in a red-lettered play-bill) on a level with the writing-table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Of course, Lavinia will be a parlour boarder,&rsquo; continued
the enviable father; &lsquo;and on one point I wish my directions to
be strictly observed.&nbsp; The fact is, that some ridiculous love affair,
with a person much her inferior in life, has been the cause of her present
state of mind.&nbsp; Knowing that of course, under your care, she can
have no opportunity of meeting this person, I do not object to&mdash;indeed,
I should rather prefer&mdash;her mixing with such society as you see
yourself.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This important statement was again interrupted by the high-spirited
little creature, in the excess of his joyousness breaking a pane of
glass, and nearly precipitating himself into an adjacent area.&nbsp;
James was rung for; considerable confusion and screaming succeeded;
two little blue legs were seen to kick violently in the air as the man
left the room, and the child was gone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Brook Dingwall would like Miss Brook Dingwall to learn
everything,&rsquo; said Mrs. Brook Dingwall, who hardly ever said anything
at all.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; said both the Miss Crumptons together.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And as I trust the plan I have devised will be effectual in
weaning my daughter from this absurd idea, Miss Crumpton,&rsquo; continued
the legislator, &lsquo;I hope you will have the goodness to comply,
in all respects, with any request I may forward to you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The promise was of course made; and after a lengthened discussion,
conducted on behalf of the Dingwalls with the most becoming diplomatic
gravity, and on that of the Crumptons with profound respect, it was
finally arranged that Miss Lavinia should be forwarded to Hammersmith
on the next day but one, on which occasion the half-yearly ball given
at the establishment was to take place.&nbsp; It might divert the dear
girl&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; This, by the way, was another bit of diplomacy.</p>
<p>Miss Lavinia was introduced to her future governess, and both the
Miss Crumptons pronounced her &lsquo;a most charming girl;&rsquo; an
opinion which, by a singular coincidence, they always entertained of
any new pupil.</p>
<p>Courtesies were exchanged, acknowledgments expressed, condescension
exhibited, and the interview terminated.</p>
<p>Preparations, to make use of theatrical phraseology, &lsquo;on a
scale of magnitude never before attempted,&rsquo; were incessantly made
at Minerva House to give every effect to the forthcoming ball.&nbsp;
The largest room in the house was pleasingly ornamented with blue calico
roses, plaid tulips, and other equally natural-looking artificial flowers,
the work of the young ladies themselves.&nbsp; The carpet was taken
up, the folding-doors were taken down, the furniture was taken out,
and rout-seats were taken in.&nbsp; The linen-drapers of Hammersmith
were astounded at the sudden demand for blue sarsenet ribbon, and long
white gloves.&nbsp; Dozens of geraniums were purchased for bouquets,
and a harp and two violins were bespoke from town, in addition to the
grand piano already on the premises.&nbsp; The young ladies who were
selected to show off on the occasion, and do credit to the establishment,
practised incessantly, much to their own satisfaction, and greatly to
the annoyance of the lame old gentleman over the way; and a constant
correspondence was kept up, between the Misses Crumpton and the Hammersmith
pastrycook.</p>
<p>The evening came; and then there was such a lacing of stays, and
tying of sandals, and dressing of hair, as never can take place with
a proper degree of bustle out of a boarding-school.&nbsp; The smaller
girls managed to be in everybody&rsquo;s way, and were pushed about
accordingly; and the elder ones dressed, and tied, and flattered, and
envied, one another, as earnestly and sincerely as if they had actually
<i>come out.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;How do I look, dear?&rsquo; inquired Miss Emily Smithers,
the belle of the house, of Miss Caroline Wilson, who was her bosom friend,
because she was the ugliest girl in Hammersmith, or out of it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! charming, dear.&nbsp; How do I?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Delightful! you never looked so handsome,&rsquo; returned
the belle, adjusting her own dress, and not bestowing a glance on her
poor companion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I hope young Hilton will come early,&rsquo; said another young
lady to Miss somebody else, in a fever of expectation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;m sure he&rsquo;d be highly flattered if he knew it,&rsquo;
returned the other, who was practising <i>l&rsquo;&eacute;t&eacute;.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! he&rsquo;s so handsome,&rsquo; said the first.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Such a charming person!&rsquo; added a second.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Such a <i>distingu&eacute;</i> air!&rsquo; said a third.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, what <i>do</i> you think?&rsquo; said another girl, running
into the room; &lsquo;Miss Crumpton says her cousin&rsquo;s coming.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What!&nbsp; Theodosius Butler?&rsquo; said everybody in raptures.</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;</i>Is <i>he</i> handsome?&rsquo; inquired a novice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, not particularly handsome,&rsquo; was the general reply;
&lsquo;but, oh, so clever!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Theodosius Butler was one of those immortal geniuses who are
to be met with in almost every circle.&nbsp; They have, usually, very
deep, monotonous voices.&nbsp; They always persuade themselves that
they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable,
though they don&rsquo;t precisely know why.&nbsp; They are very conceited,
and usually possess half an idea; but, with enthusiastic young ladies,
and silly young gentlemen, they are very wonderful persons.&nbsp; The
individual in question, Mr. Theodosius, had written a pamphlet containing
some very weighty considerations on the expediency of doing something
or other; and as every sentence contained a good many words of four
syllables, his admirers took it for granted that he meant a good deal.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Perhaps that&rsquo;s he,&rsquo; exclaimed several young ladies,
as the first pull of the evening threatened destruction to the bell
of the gate.</p>
<p>An awful pause ensued.&nbsp; Some boxes arrived and a young lady&mdash;Miss
Brook Dingwall, in full ball costume, with an immense gold chain round
her neck, and her dress looped up with a single rose; an ivory fan in
her hand, and a most interesting expression of despair in her face.</p>
<p>The Miss Crumptons inquired after the family, with the most excruciating
anxiety, and Miss Brook Dingwall was formally introduced to her future
companions.&nbsp; The Miss Crumptons conversed with the young ladies
in the most mellifluous tones, in order that Miss Brook Dingwall might
be properly impressed with their amiable treatment.</p>
<p>Another pull at the bell.&nbsp; Mr. Dadson the writing-master, and
his wife.&nbsp; The wife in green silk, with shoes and cap-trimmings
to correspond: the writing-master in a white waistcoat, black knee-shorts,
and ditto silk stockings, displaying a leg large enough for two writing-masters.&nbsp;
The young ladies whispered one another, and the writing-master and his
wife flattered the Miss Crumptons, who were dressed in amber, with long
sashes, like dolls.</p>
<p>Repeated pulls at the bell, and arrivals too numerous to particularise:
papas and mammas, and aunts and uncles, the owners and guardians of
the different pupils; the singing-master, Signor Lobskini, in a black
wig; the piano-forte player and the violins; the harp, in a state of
intoxication; and some twenty young men, who stood near the door, and
talked to one another, occasionally bursting into a giggle.&nbsp; A
general hum of conversation.&nbsp; Coffee handed round, and plentifully
partaken of by fat mammas, who looked like the stout people who come
on in pantomimes for the sole purpose of being knocked down.</p>
<p>The popular Mr. Hilton was the next arrival; and he having, at the
request of the Miss Crumptons, undertaken the office of Master of the
Ceremonies, the quadrilles commenced with considerable spirit.&nbsp;
The young men by the door gradually advanced into the middle of the
room, and in time became sufficiently at ease to consent to be introduced
to partners.&nbsp; The writing-master danced every set, springing about
with the most fearful agility, and his wife played a rubber in the back-parlour&mdash;a
little room with five book-shelves, dignified by the name of the study.&nbsp;
Setting her down to whist was a half-yearly piece of generalship on
the part of the Miss Crumptons; it was necessary to hide her somewhere,
on account of her being a fright.</p>
<p>The interesting Lavinia Brook Dingwall was the only girl present,
who appeared to take no interest in the proceedings of the evening.&nbsp;
In vain was she solicited to dance; in vain was the universal homage
paid to her as the daughter of a member of parliament.&nbsp; She was
equally unmoved by the splendid tenor of the inimitable Lobskini, and
the brilliant execution of Miss Laetitia Parsons, whose performance
of &lsquo;The Recollections of Ireland&rsquo; was universally declared
to be almost equal to that of Moscheles himself.&nbsp; Not even the
announcement of the arrival of Mr. Theodosius Butler could induce her
to leave the corner of the back drawing-room in which she was seated.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, Theodosius,&rsquo; said Miss Maria Crumpton, after that
enlightened pamphleteer had nearly run the gauntlet of the whole company,
&lsquo;I must introduce you to our new pupil.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Theodosius looked as if he cared for nothing earthly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;She&rsquo;s the daughter of a member of parliament,&rsquo;
said Maria.&mdash;Theodosius started.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And her name is&mdash;?&rsquo; he inquired.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Brook Dingwall.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Great Heaven!&rsquo; poetically exclaimed Theodosius, in a
low tone.</p>
<p>Miss Crumpton commenced the introduction in due form.&nbsp; Miss
Brook Dingwall languidly raised her head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Edward!&rsquo; she exclaimed, with a half-shriek, on seeing
the well-known nankeen legs.</p>
<p>Fortunately, as Miss Maria Crumpton possessed no remarkable share
of penetration, and as it was one of the diplomatic arrangements that
no attention was to be paid to Miss Lavinia&rsquo;s incoherent exclamations,
she was perfectly unconscious of the mutual agitation of the parties;
and therefore, seeing that the offer of his hand for the next quadrille
was accepted, she left him by the side of Miss Brook Dingwall.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, Edward!&rsquo; exclaimed that most romantic of all romantic
young ladies, as the light of science seated himself beside her, &lsquo;Oh,
Edward, is it you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Theodosius assured the dear creature, in the most impassioned
manner, that he was not conscious of being anybody but himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then why&mdash;why&mdash;this disguise?&nbsp; Oh!&nbsp; Edward
M&rsquo;Neville Walter, what have I not suffered on your account?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lavinia, hear me,&rsquo; replied the hero, in his most poetic
strain.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do not condemn me unheard.&nbsp; If anything that
emanates from the soul of such a wretch as I, can occupy a place in
your recollection&mdash;if any being, so vile, deserve your notice&mdash;you
may remember that I once published a pamphlet (and paid for its publication)
entitled &ldquo;Considerations on the Policy of Removing the Duty on
Bees&rsquo;-wax.&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I do&mdash;I do!&rsquo; sobbed Lavinia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;That,&rsquo; continued the lover, &lsquo;was a subject to
which your father was devoted heart and soul.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He was&mdash;he was!&rsquo; reiterated the sentimentalist.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I knew it,&rsquo; continued Theodosius, tragically; &lsquo;I
knew it&mdash;I forwarded him a copy.&nbsp; He wished to know me.&nbsp;
Could I disclose my real name?&nbsp; Never!&nbsp; No, I assumed that
name which you have so often pronounced in tones of endearment.&nbsp;
As M&rsquo;Neville Walter, I devoted myself to the stirring cause; as
M&rsquo;Neville Walter I gained your heart; in the same character I
was ejected from your house by your father&rsquo;s domestics; and in
no character at all have I since been enabled to see you.&nbsp; We now
meet again, and I proudly own that I am&mdash;Theodosius Butler.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The young lady appeared perfectly satisfied with this argumentative
address, and bestowed a look of the most ardent affection on the immortal
advocate of bees&rsquo;-wax.</p>
<p>&lsquo;May I hope,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;that the promise your father&rsquo;s
violent behaviour interrupted, may be renewed?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Let us join this set,&rsquo; replied Lavinia, coquettishly&mdash;for
girls of nineteen <i>can</i> coquette.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; ejaculated he of the nankeens.&nbsp; &lsquo;I stir
not from this spot, writhing under this torture of suspense.&nbsp; May
I&mdash;may I&mdash;hope?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You may.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The promise is renewed?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have your permission?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You have.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To the fullest extent?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You know it,&rsquo; returned the blushing Lavinia.&nbsp; The
contortions of the interesting Butler&rsquo;s visage expressed his raptures.</p>
<p>We could dilate upon the occurrences that ensued.&nbsp; How Mr. Theodosius
and Miss Lavinia danced, and talked, and sighed for the remainder of
the evening&mdash;how the Miss Crumptons were delighted thereat.&nbsp;
How the writing-master continued to frisk about with one-horse power,
and how his wife, from some unaccountable freak, left the whist-table
in the little back-parlour, and persisted in displaying her green head-dress
in the most conspicuous part of the drawing-room.&nbsp; How the supper
consisted of small triangular sandwiches in trays, and a tart here and
there by way of variety; and how the visitors consumed warm water disguised
with lemon, and dotted with nutmeg, under the denomination of negus.&nbsp;
These, and other matters of as much interest, however, we pass over,
for the purpose of describing a scene of even more importance.</p>
<p>A fortnight after the date of the ball, Cornelius Brook Dingwall,
Esq., M.P., was seated at the same library-table, and in the same room,
as we have before described.&nbsp; He was alone, and his face bore an
expression of deep thought and solemn gravity&mdash;he was drawing up
&lsquo;A Bill for the better observance of Easter Monday.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The footman tapped at the door&mdash;the legislator started from
his reverie, and &lsquo;Miss Crumpton&rsquo; was announced.&nbsp; Permission
was given for Miss Crumpton to enter the <i>sanctum</i>; Maria came
sliding in, and having taken her seat with a due portion of affectation,
the footman retired, and the governess was left alone with the M.P.&nbsp;
Oh! how she longed for the presence of a third party!&nbsp; Even the
facetious young gentleman would have been a relief.</p>
<p>Miss Crumpton began the duet.&nbsp; She hoped Mrs. Brook Dingwall
and the handsome little boy were in good health.</p>
<p>They were.&nbsp; Mrs. Brook Dingwall and little Frederick were at
Brighton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Much obliged to you, Miss Crumpton,&rsquo; said Cornelius,
in his most dignified manner, &lsquo;for your attention in calling this
morning.&nbsp; I should have driven down to Hammersmith, to see Lavinia,
but your account was so very satisfactory, and my duties in the House
occupy me so much, that I determined to postpone it for a week.&nbsp;
How has she gone on?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well indeed, sir,&rsquo; returned Maria, dreading to
inform the father that she had gone off.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, I thought the plan on which I proceeded would be a match
for her.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here was a favourable opportunity to say that somebody else had been
a match for her.&nbsp; But the unfortunate governess was unequal to
the task.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You have persevered strictly in the line of conduct I prescribed,
Miss Crumpton?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Strictly, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You tell me in your note that her spirits gradually improved.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very much indeed, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure.&nbsp; I was convinced they would.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But I fear, sir,&rsquo; said Miss Crumpton, with visible emotion,
&lsquo;I fear the plan has not succeeded, quite so well as we could
have wished.&rsquo;</p>
<p>No!&rsquo; exclaimed the prophet.&nbsp; &lsquo;Bless me!&nbsp; Miss
Crumpton, you look alarmed.&nbsp; What has happened?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Brook Dingwall, sir&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Has gone, sir&rsquo;&mdash;said Maria, exhibiting a strong
inclination to faint.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gone!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eloped, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eloped!&mdash;Who with&mdash;when&mdash;where&mdash;how?&rsquo;
almost shrieked the agitated diplomatist.</p>
<p>The natural yellow of the unfortunate Maria&rsquo;s face changed
to all the hues of the rainbow, as she laid a small packet on the member&rsquo;s
table.</p>
<p>He hurriedly opened it.&nbsp; A letter from his daughter, and another
from Theodosius.&nbsp; He glanced over their contents&mdash;&lsquo;Ere
this reaches you, far distant&mdash;appeal to feelings&mdash;love to
distraction&mdash;bees&rsquo;-wax&mdash;slavery,&rsquo; &amp;c., &amp;c.&nbsp;
He dashed his hand to his forehead, and paced the room with fearfully
long strides, to the great alarm of the precise Maria.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now mind; from this time forward,&rsquo; said Mr. Brook Dingwall,
suddenly stopping at the table, and beating time upon it with his hand;
&lsquo;from this time forward, I never will, under any circumstances
whatever, permit a man who writes pamphlets to enter any other room
of this house but the kitchen.&mdash;I&rsquo;ll allow my daughter and
her husband one hundred and fifty pounds a-year, and never see their
faces again: and, damme! ma&rsquo;am, I&rsquo;ll bring in a bill for
the abolition of finishing-schools.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Some time has elapsed since this passionate declaration.&nbsp; Mr.
and Mrs. Butler are at present rusticating in a small cottage at Ball&rsquo;s-pond,
pleasantly situated in the immediate vicinity of a brick-field.&nbsp;
They have no family.&nbsp; Mr. Theodosius looks very important, and
writes incessantly; but, in consequence of a gross combination on the
part of publishers, none of his productions appear in print.&nbsp; His
young wife begins to think that ideal misery is preferable to real unhappiness;
and that a marriage, contracted in haste, and repented at leisure, is
the cause of more substantial wretchedness than she ever anticipated.</p>
<p>On cool reflection, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., was reluctantly
compelled to admit that the untoward result of his admirable arrangements
was attributable, not to the Miss Crumptons, but his own diplomacy.&nbsp;
He, however, consoles himself, like some other small diplomatists, by
satisfactorily proving that if his plans did not succeed, they ought
to have done so.&nbsp; Minerva House is <i>in status quo</i>, and &lsquo;The
Misses Crumpton&rsquo; remain in the peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment
of all the advantages resulting from their Finishing-School.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV&mdash;THE TUGGSES AT RAMSGATE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Once upon a time there dwelt, in a narrow street on the Surrey side
of the water, within three minutes&rsquo; walk of old London Bridge,
Mr. Joseph Tuggs&mdash;a little dark-faced man, with shiny hair, twinkling
eyes, short legs, and a body of very considerable thickness, measuring
from the centre button of his waistcoat in front, to the ornamental
buttons of his coat behind.&nbsp; The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs,
if not perfectly symmetrical, was decidedly comfortable; and the form
of her only daughter, the accomplished Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast
ripening into that state of luxuriant plumpness which had enchanted
the eyes, and captivated the heart, of Mr. Joseph Tuggs in his earlier
days.&nbsp; Mr. Simon Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs&rsquo;s
only brother, was as differently formed in body, as he was differently
constituted in mind, from the remainder of his family.&nbsp; There was
that elongation in his thoughtful face, and that tendency to weakness
in his interesting legs, which tell so forcibly of a great mind and
romantic disposition.&nbsp; The slightest traits of character in such
a being, possess no mean interest to speculative minds.&nbsp; He usually
appeared in public, in capacious shoes with black cotton stockings;
and was observed to be particularly attached to a black glazed stock,
without tie or ornament of any description.</p>
<p>There is perhaps no profession, however useful; no pursuit, however
meritorious; which can escape the petty attacks of vulgar minds.&nbsp;
Mr. Joseph Tuggs was a grocer.&nbsp; It might be supposed that a grocer
was beyond the breath of calumny; but no&mdash;the neighbours stigmatised
him as a chandler; and the poisonous voice of envy distinctly asserted
that he dispensed tea and coffee by the quartern, retailed sugar by
the ounce, cheese by the slice, tobacco by the screw, and butter by
the pat.&nbsp; These taunts, however, were lost upon the Tuggses.&nbsp;
Mr. Tuggs attended to the grocery department; Mrs. Tuggs to the cheesemongery;
and Miss Tuggs to her education.&nbsp; Mr. Simon Tuggs kept his father&rsquo;s
books, and his own counsel.</p>
<p>One fine spring afternoon, the latter gentleman was seated on a tub
of weekly Dorset, behind the little red desk with a wooden rail, which
ornamented a corner of the counter; when a stranger dismounted from
a cab, and hastily entered the shop.&nbsp; He was habited in black cloth,
and bore with him, a green umbrella, and a blue bag.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Tuggs?&rsquo; said the stranger, inquiringly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>My</i> name is Tuggs,&rsquo; replied Mr. Simon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s the other Mr. Tuggs,&rsquo; said the stranger,
looking towards the glass door which led into the parlour behind the
shop, and on the inside of which, the round face of Mr. Tuggs, senior,
was distinctly visible, peeping over the curtain.</p>
<p>Mr. Simon gracefully waved his pen, as if in intimation of his wish
that his father would advance.&nbsp; Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with considerable
celerity, removed his face from the curtain and placed it before the
stranger.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I come from the Temple,&rsquo; said the man with the bag.</p>
<p>&lsquo;From the Temple!&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs, flinging open the
door of the little parlour and disclosing Miss Tuggs in perspective.</p>
<p>&lsquo;From the Temple!&rsquo; said Miss Tuggs and Mr. Simon Tuggs
at the same moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;From the Temple!&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, turning as
pale as a Dutch cheese.</p>
<p>&lsquo;From the Temple,&rsquo; repeated the man with the bag; &lsquo;from
Mr. Cower&rsquo;s, the solicitor&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Mr. Tuggs, I congratulate
you, sir.&nbsp; Ladies, I wish you joy of your prosperity!&nbsp; We
have been successful.&rsquo;&nbsp; And the man with the bag leisurely
divested himself of his umbrella and glove, as a preliminary to shaking
hands with Mr. Joseph Tuggs.</p>
<p>Now the words &lsquo;we have been successful,&rsquo; had no sooner
issued from the mouth of the man with the bag, than Mr. Simon Tuggs
rose from the tub of weekly Dorset, opened his eyes very wide, gasped
for breath, made figures of eight in the air with his pen, and finally
fell into the arms of his anxious mother, and fainted away without the
slightest ostensible cause or pretence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Water!&rsquo; screamed Mrs. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Look up, my son,&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Simon! dear Simon!&rsquo; shrieked Miss Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;m better now,&rsquo; said Mr. Simon Tuggs.&nbsp; &lsquo;What!
successful!&rsquo;&nbsp; And then, as corroborative evidence of his
being better, he fainted away again, and was borne into the little parlour
by the united efforts of the remainder of the family, and the man with
the bag.</p>
<p>To a casual spectator, or to any one unacquainted with the position
of the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable.&nbsp; To
those who understood the mission of the man with the bag, and were moreover
acquainted with the excitability of the nerves of Mr. Simon Tuggs, it
was quite comprehensible.&nbsp; A long-pending lawsuit respecting the
validity of a will, had been unexpectedly decided; and Mr. Joseph Tuggs
was the possessor of twenty thousand pounds.</p>
<p>A prolonged consultation took place, that night, in the little parlour&mdash;a
consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggses.&nbsp;
The shop was shut up, at an unusually early hour; and many were the
unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for quarterns
of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn&rsquo;orths of pepper,
which were to have been &lsquo;left till Saturday,&rsquo; but which
fortune had decreed were to be left alone altogether.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We must certainly give up business,&rsquo; said Miss Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, decidedly,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Simon shall go to the bar,&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I shall always sign myself &ldquo;Cymon&rdquo; in future,&rsquo;
said his son.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I shall call myself Charlotta,&rsquo; said Miss Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And you must always call <i>me</i> &ldquo;Ma,&rdquo; and father
&ldquo;Pa,&rdquo;&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, and Pa must leave off all his vulgar habits,&rsquo; interposed
Miss Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of all that,&rsquo; responded Mr. Joseph
Tuggs, complacently.&nbsp; He was, at that very moment, eating pickled
salmon with a pocket-knife.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We must leave town immediately,&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs.</p>
<p>Everybody concurred that this was an indispensable preliminary to
being genteel.&nbsp; The question then arose, Where should they go?</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gravesend?&rsquo; mildly suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs.&nbsp;
The idea was unanimously scouted.&nbsp; Gravesend was <i>low</i>.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Margate?&rsquo; insinuated Mrs. Tuggs.&nbsp; Worse and worse&mdash;nobody
there, but tradespeople.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Brighton?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Cymon Tuggs opposed an insurmountable
objection.&nbsp; All the coaches had been upset, in turn, within the
last three weeks; each coach had averaged two passengers killed, and
six wounded; and, in every case, the newspapers had distinctly understood
that &lsquo;no blame whatever was attributable to the coachman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ramsgate?&rsquo; ejaculated Mr. Cymon, thoughtfully.&nbsp;
To be sure; how stupid they must have been, not to have thought of that
before!&nbsp; Ramsgate was just the place of all others.</p>
<p>Two months after this conversation, the City of London Ramsgate steamer
was running gaily down the river.&nbsp; Her flag was flying, her band
was playing, her passengers were conversing; everything about her seemed
gay and lively.&mdash;No wonder&mdash;the Tuggses were on board.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming, ain&rsquo;t it?&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, in
a bottle-green great-coat, with a velvet collar of the same, and a blue
travelling-cap with a gold band.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Soul-inspiring,&rsquo; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs&mdash;he was
entered at the bar.&nbsp; &lsquo;Soul-inspiring!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Delightful morning, sir!&rsquo; said a stoutish, military-looking
gentleman in a blue surtout buttoned up to his chin, and white trousers
chained down to the soles of his boots.</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon Tuggs took upon himself the responsibility of answering
the observation.&nbsp; &lsquo;Heavenly!&rsquo; he replied.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of Nature,
sir?&rsquo; said the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am, sir,&rsquo; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Travelled much, sir?&rsquo; inquired the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not much,&rsquo; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ve been on the continent, of course?&rsquo; inquired
the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not exactly,&rsquo; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs&mdash;in a qualified
tone, as if he wished it to be implied that he had gone half-way and
come back again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You of course intend your son to make the grand tour, sir?&rsquo;
said the military gentleman, addressing Mr. Joseph Tuggs.</p>
<p>As Mr. Joseph Tuggs did not precisely understand what the grand tour
was, or how such an article was manufactured, he replied, &lsquo;Of
course.&rsquo;&nbsp; Just as he said the word, there came tripping up,
from her seat at the stern of the vessel, a young lady in a puce-coloured
silk cloak, and boots of the same; with long black ringlets, large black
eyes, brief petticoats, and unexceptionable ankles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Walter, my dear,&rsquo; said the young lady to the military
gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, Belinda, my love,&rsquo; responded the military gentleman
to the black-eyed young lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What have you left me alone so long for?&rsquo; said the young
lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;I have been stared out of countenance by those rude
young men.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What! stared at?&rsquo; exclaimed the military gentleman,
with an emphasis which made Mr. Cymon Tuggs withdraw his eyes from the
young lady&rsquo;s face with inconceivable rapidity.&nbsp; &lsquo;Which
young men&mdash;where?&rsquo; and the military gentleman clenched his
fist, and glared fearfully on the cigar-smokers around.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Be calm, Walter, I entreat,&rsquo; said the young lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I won&rsquo;t,&rsquo; said the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do, sir,&rsquo; interposed Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp; &lsquo;They
ain&rsquo;t worth your notice.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;they are not, indeed,&rsquo; urged the young
lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I <i>will</i> be calm,&rsquo; said the military gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You speak truly, sir.&nbsp; I thank you for a timely remonstrance,
which may have spared me the guilt of manslaughter.&rsquo;&nbsp; Calming
his wrath, the military gentleman wrung Mr. Cymon Tuggs by the hand.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My sister, sir!&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs; seeing that the
military gentleman was casting an admiring look towards Miss Charlotta.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My wife, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;Mrs. Captain Waters,&rsquo; said
the military gentleman, presenting the black-eyed young lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My mother, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;Mrs. Tuggs,&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon.&nbsp;
The military gentleman and his wife murmured enchanting courtesies;
and the Tuggses looked as unembarrassed as they could.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Walter, my dear,&rsquo; said the black-eyed young lady, after
they had sat chatting with the Tuggses some half-hour.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, my love,&rsquo; said the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you think this gentleman (with an inclination
of the head towards Mr. Cymon Tuggs) is very much like the Marquis Carriwini?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lord bless me, very!&rsquo; said the military gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It struck me, the moment I saw him,&rsquo; said the young
lady, gazing intently, and with a melancholy air, on the scarlet countenance
of Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp; Mr. Cymon Tuggs looked at everybody; and finding
that everybody was looking at him, appeared to feel some temporary difficulty
in disposing of his eyesight.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So exactly the air of the marquis,&rsquo; said the military
gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Quite extraordinary!&rsquo; sighed the military gentleman&rsquo;s
lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You don&rsquo;t know the marquis, sir?&rsquo; inquired the
military gentleman.</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon Tuggs stammered a negative.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If you did,&rsquo; continued Captain Walter Waters, &lsquo;you
would feel how much reason you have to be proud of the resemblance&mdash;a
most elegant man, with a most prepossessing appearance.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He is&mdash;he is indeed!&rsquo; exclaimed Belinda Waters
energetically.&nbsp; As her eye caught that of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, she
withdrew it from his features in bashful confusion.</p>
<p>All this was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Tuggses; and
when, in the course of farther conversation, it was discovered that
Miss Charlotta Tuggs was the <i>fac simile</i> of a titled relative
of Mrs. Belinda Waters, and that Mrs. Tuggs herself was the very picture
of the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton, their delight in the acquisition
of so genteel and friendly an acquaintance, knew no bounds.&nbsp; Even
the dignity of Captain Walter Waters relaxed, to that degree, that he
suffered himself to be prevailed upon by Mr. Joseph Tuggs, to partake
of cold pigeon-pie and sherry, on deck; and a most delightful conversation,
aided by these agreeable stimulants, was prolonged, until they ran alongside
Ramsgate Pier.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good-bye, dear!&rsquo; said Mrs. Captain Waters to Miss Charlotta
Tuggs, just before the bustle of landing commenced; &lsquo;we shall
see you on the sands in the morning; and, as we are sure to have found
lodgings before then, I hope we shall be inseparables for many weeks
to come.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! I hope so,&rsquo; said Miss Charlotta Tuggs, emphatically.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tickets, ladies and gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n,&rsquo; said the
man on the paddle-box.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Want a porter, sir?&rsquo; inquired a dozen men in smock-frocks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, my dear!&rsquo; said Captain Waters.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good-bye!&rsquo; said Mrs. Captain Waters&mdash;&lsquo;good-bye,
Mr. Cymon!&rsquo; and with a pressure of the hand which threw the amiable
young man&rsquo;s nerves into a state of considerable derangement, Mrs.
Captain Waters disappeared among the crowd.&nbsp; A pair of puce-coloured
boots were seen ascending the steps, a white handkerchief fluttered,
a black eye gleamed.&nbsp; The Waterses were gone, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs
was alone in a heartless world.</p>
<p>Silently and abstractedly, did that too sensitive youth follow his
revered parents, and a train of smock-frocks and wheelbarrows, along
the pier, until the bustle of the scene around, recalled him to himself.&nbsp;
The sun was shining brightly; the sea, dancing to its own music, rolled
merrily in; crowds of people promenaded to and fro; young ladies tittered;
old ladies talked; nursemaids displayed their charms to the greatest
possible advantage; and their little charges ran up and down, and to
and fro, and in and out, under the feet, and between the legs, of the
assembled concourse, in the most playful and exhilarating manner.&nbsp;
There were old gentlemen, trying to make out objects through long telescopes;
and young ones, making objects of themselves in open shirt-collars;
ladies, carrying about portable chairs, and portable chairs carrying
about invalids; parties, waiting on the pier for parties who had come
by the steam-boat; and nothing was to be heard but talking, laughing,
welcoming, and merriment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fly, sir?&rsquo; exclaimed a chorus of fourteen men and six
boys, the moment Mr. Joseph Tuggs, at the head of his little party,
set foot in the street.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n at last!&rsquo; said
one, touching his hat with mock politeness.&nbsp; &lsquo;Werry glad
to see you, sir,&mdash;been a-waitin&rsquo; for you these six weeks.&nbsp;
Jump in, if you please, sir!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nice light fly and a fast trotter, sir,&rsquo; said another:
&lsquo;fourteen mile a hour, and surroundin&rsquo; objects rendered
inwisible by ex-treme welocity!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Large fly for your luggage, sir,&rsquo; cried a third.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Werry large fly here, sir&mdash;reg&rsquo;lar bluebottle!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s <i>your</i> fly, sir!&rsquo; shouted another
aspiring charioteer, mounting the box, and inducing an old grey horse
to indulge in some imperfect reminiscences of a canter.&nbsp; &lsquo;Look
at him, sir!&mdash;temper of a lamb and haction of a steam-ingein!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Resisting even the temptation of securing the services of so valuable
a quadruped as the last named, Mr. Joseph Tuggs beckoned to the proprietor
of a dingy conveyance of a greenish hue, lined with faded striped calico;
and, the luggage and the family having been deposited therein, the animal
in the shafts, after describing circles in the road for a quarter of
an hour, at last consented to depart in quest of lodgings.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How many beds have you got?&rsquo; screamed Mrs. Tuggs out
of the fly, to the woman who opened the door of the first house which
displayed a bill intimating that apartments were to be let within.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How many did you want, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; was, of course,
the reply.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Three.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you step in, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo;&nbsp; Down got Mrs.
Tuggs.&nbsp; The family were delighted.&nbsp; Splendid view of the sea
from the front windows&mdash;charming!&nbsp; A short pause.&nbsp; Back
came Mrs. Tuggs again.&mdash;One parlour and a mattress.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why the devil didn&rsquo;t they say so at first?&rsquo; inquired
Mr. Joseph Tuggs, rather pettishly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Wretches!&rsquo; exclaimed the nervous Cymon.&nbsp; Another
bill&mdash;another stoppage.&nbsp; Same question&mdash;same answer&mdash;similar
result.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do they mean by this?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs,
thoroughly out of temper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; said the placid Mrs. Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Orvis the vay here, sir,&rsquo; said the driver, by way of
accounting for the circumstance in a satisfactory manner; and off they
went again, to make fresh inquiries, and encounter fresh disappointments.</p>
<p>It had grown dusk when the &lsquo;fly&rsquo;&mdash;the rate of whose
progress greatly belied its name&mdash;after climbing up four or five
perpendicular hills, stopped before the door of a dusty house, with
a bay window, from which you could obtain a beautiful glimpse of the
sea&mdash;if you thrust half of your body out of it, at the imminent
peril of falling into the area.&nbsp; Mrs. Tuggs alighted.&nbsp; One
ground-floor sitting-room, and three cells with beds in them up-stairs.&nbsp;
A double-house.&nbsp; Family on the opposite side.&nbsp; Five children
milk-and-watering in the parlour, and one little boy, expelled for bad
behaviour, screaming on his back in the passage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the terms?&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs.&nbsp; The
mistress of the house was considering the expediency of putting on an
extra guinea; so, she coughed slightly, and affected not to hear the
question.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the terms?&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs, in a louder
key.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Five guineas a week, ma&rsquo;am, <i>with</i> attendance,&rsquo;
replied the lodging-house keeper.&nbsp; (Attendance means the privilege
of ringing the bell as often as you like, for your own amusement.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Rather dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tuggs.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh dear,
no, ma&rsquo;am!&rsquo; replied the mistress of the house, with a benign
smile of pity at the ignorance of manners and customs, which the observation
betrayed.&nbsp; &lsquo;Very cheap!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Such an authority was indisputable.&nbsp; Mrs. Tuggs paid a week&rsquo;s
rent in advance, and took the lodgings for a month.&nbsp; In an hour&rsquo;s
time, the family were seated at tea in their new abode.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital srimps!&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon eyed his father with a rebellious scowl, as he emphatically
said &lsquo;<i>Shrimps</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, then, shrimps,&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.&nbsp; &lsquo;Srimps
or shrimps, don&rsquo;t much matter.&rsquo;</p>
<p>There was pity, blended with malignity, in Mr. Cymon&rsquo;s eye,
as he replied, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t matter, father!&nbsp; What would Captain
Waters say, if he heard such vulgarity?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or what would dear Mrs. Captain Waters say,&rsquo; added Charlotta,
&lsquo;if she saw mother&mdash;ma, I mean&mdash;eating them whole, heads
and all!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It won&rsquo;t bear thinking of!&rsquo; ejaculated Mr. Cymon,
with a shudder.&nbsp; &lsquo;How different,&rsquo; he thought, &lsquo;from
the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very pretty woman, Mrs. Captain Waters, is she not, Cymon?&rsquo;
inquired Miss Charlotta.</p>
<p>A glow of nervous excitement passed over the countenance of Mr. Cymon
Tuggs, as he replied, &lsquo;An angel of beauty!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hallo!&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hallo, Cymon,
my boy, take care.&nbsp; Married lady, you know;&rsquo; and he winked
one of his twinkling eyes knowingly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; exclaimed Cymon, starting up with an ebullition
of fury, as unexpected as alarming, &lsquo;why am I to be reminded of
that blight of my happiness, and ruin of my hopes?&nbsp; Why am I to
be taunted with the miseries which are heaped upon my head?&nbsp; Is
it not enough to&mdash;to&mdash;to&mdash;&rsquo; and the orator paused;
but whether for want of words, or lack of breath, was never distinctly
ascertained.</p>
<p>There was an impressive solemnity in the tone of this address, and
in the air with which the romantic Cymon, at its conclusion, rang the
bell, and demanded a flat candlestick, which effectually forbade a reply.&nbsp;
He stalked dramatically to bed, and the Tuggses went to bed too, half
an hour afterwards, in a state of considerable mystification and perplexity.</p>
<p>If the pier had presented a scene of life and bustle to the Tuggses
on their first landing at Ramsgate, it was far surpassed by the appearance
of the sands on the morning after their arrival.&nbsp; It was a fine,
bright, clear day, with a light breeze from the sea.&nbsp; There were
the same ladies and gentlemen, the same children, the same nursemaids,
the same telescopes, the same portable chairs.&nbsp; The ladies were
employed in needlework, or watch-guard making, or knitting, or reading
novels; the gentlemen were reading newspapers and magazines; the children
were digging holes in the sand with wooden spades, and collecting water
therein; the nursemaids, with their youngest charges in their arms,
were running in after the waves, and then running back with the waves
after them; and, now and then, a little sailing-boat either departed
with a gay and talkative cargo of passengers, or returned with a very
silent and particularly uncomfortable-looking one.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, I never!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, as she and Mr.
Joseph Tuggs, and Miss Charlotta Tuggs, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, with their
eight feet in a corresponding number of yellow shoes, seated themselves
on four rush-bottomed chairs, which, being placed in a soft part of
the sand, forthwith sunk down some two feet and a half&mdash;&lsquo;Well,
I never!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon, by an exertion of great personal strength, uprooted the
chairs, and removed them further back.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, I&rsquo;m blessed if there ain&rsquo;t some ladies a-going
in!&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with intense astonishment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor, pa!&rsquo; exclaimed Miss Charlotta.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There <i>is</i>, my dear,&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.&nbsp;
And, sure enough, four young ladies, each furnished with a towel, tripped
up the steps of a bathing-machine.&nbsp; In went the horse, floundering
about in the water; round turned the machine; down sat the driver; and
presently out burst the young ladies aforesaid, with four distinct splashes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, that&rsquo;s sing&rsquo;ler, too!&rsquo; ejaculated
Mr. Joseph Tuggs, after an awkward pause.&nbsp; Mr. Cymon coughed slightly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, here&rsquo;s some gentlemen a-going in on this side!&rsquo;
exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, in a tone of horror.</p>
<p>Three machines&mdash;three horses&mdash;three flounderings&mdash;three
turnings round&mdash;three splashes&mdash;three gentlemen, disporting
themselves in the water like so many dolphins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, <i>that&rsquo;s</i> sing&rsquo;ler!&rsquo; said Mr.
Joseph Tuggs again.&nbsp; Miss Charlotta coughed this time, and another
pause ensued.&nbsp; It was agreeably broken.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How d&rsquo;ye do, dear?&nbsp; We have been looking for you,
all the morning,&rsquo; said a voice to Miss Charlotta Tuggs.&nbsp;
Mrs. Captain Waters was the owner of it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How d&rsquo;ye do?&rsquo; said Captain Walter Waters, all
suavity; and a most cordial interchange of greetings ensued.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Belinda, my love,&rsquo; said Captain Walter Waters, applying
his glass to his eye, and looking in the direction of the sea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, my dear,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Captain Waters.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s Harry Thompson!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where?&rsquo; said Belinda, applying her glass to her eye.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bathing.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor, so it is!&nbsp; He don&rsquo;t see us, does he?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think he does&rsquo; replied the captain.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Bless my soul, how very singular!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What?&rsquo; inquired Belinda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s Mary Golding, too.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor!&mdash;where?&rsquo;&nbsp; (Up went the glass again.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;There!&rsquo; said the captain, pointing to one of the young
ladies before noticed, who, in her bathing costume, looked as if she
was enveloped in a patent Mackintosh, of scanty dimensions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So it is, I declare!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Captain Waters.&nbsp;
&lsquo;How very curious we should see them both!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very,&rsquo; said the captain, with perfect coolness.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s the reg&rsquo;lar thing here, you see,&rsquo; whispered
Mr. Cymon Tuggs to his father.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I see it is,&rsquo; whispered Mr. Joseph Tuggs in reply.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Queer, though&mdash;ain&rsquo;t it?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Cymon Tuggs
nodded assent.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you think of doing with yourself this morning?&rsquo;
inquired the captain.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shall we lunch at Pegwell?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should like that very much indeed,&rsquo; interposed Mrs.
Tuggs.&nbsp; She had never heard of Pegwell; but the word &lsquo;lunch&rsquo;
had reached her ears, and it sounded very agreeably.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How shall we go?&rsquo; inquired the captain; &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
too warm to walk.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A shay?&rsquo; suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Chaise,&rsquo; whispered Mr. Cymon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should think one would be enough,&rsquo; said Mr. Joseph
Tuggs aloud, quite unconscious of the meaning of the correction.&nbsp;
&lsquo;However, two shays if you like.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should like a donkey <i>so</i> much,&rsquo; said Belinda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, so should I!&rsquo; echoed Charlotta Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, we can have a fly,&rsquo; suggested the captain, &lsquo;and
you can have a couple of donkeys.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A fresh difficulty arose.&nbsp; Mrs. Captain Waters declared it would
be decidedly improper for two ladies to ride alone.&nbsp; The remedy
was obvious.&nbsp; Perhaps young Mr. Tuggs would be gallant enough to
accompany them.</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon Tuggs blushed, smiled, looked vacant, and faintly protested
that he was no horseman.&nbsp; The objection was at once overruled.&nbsp;
A fly was speedily found; and three donkeys&mdash;which the proprietor
declared on his solemn asseveration to be &lsquo;three parts blood,
and the other corn&rsquo;&mdash;were engaged in the service.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Kim up!&rsquo; shouted one of the two boys who followed behind,
to propel the donkeys, when Belinda Waters and Charlotta Tuggs had been
hoisted, and pushed, and pulled, into their respective saddles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hi&mdash;hi&mdash;hi!&rsquo; groaned the other boy behind
Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp; Away went the donkey, with the stirrups jingling
against the heels of Cymon&rsquo;s boots, and Cymon&rsquo;s boots nearly
scraping the ground.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Way&mdash;way!&nbsp; Wo&mdash;o&mdash;o -!&rsquo; cried Mr.
Cymon Tuggs as well as he could, in the midst of the jolting.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t make it gallop!&rsquo; screamed Mrs. Captain Waters,
behind.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My donkey <i>will</i> go into the public-house!&rsquo; shrieked
Miss Tuggs in the rear.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hi&mdash;hi&mdash;hi!&rsquo; groaned both the boys together;
and on went the donkeys as if nothing would ever stop them.</p>
<p>Everything has an end, however; even the galloping of donkeys will
cease in time.&nbsp; The animal which Mr. Cymon Tuggs bestrode, feeling
sundry uncomfortable tugs at the bit, the intent of which he could by
no means divine, abruptly sidled against a brick wall, and expressed
his uneasiness by grinding Mr. Cymon Tuggs&rsquo;s leg on the rough
surface.&nbsp; Mrs. Captain Waters&rsquo;s donkey, apparently under
the influence of some playfulness of spirit, rushed suddenly, head first,
into a hedge, and declined to come out again: and the quadruped on which
Miss Tuggs was mounted, expressed his delight at this humorous proceeding
by firmly planting his fore-feet against the ground, and kicking up
his hind-legs in a very agile, but somewhat alarming manner.</p>
<p>This abrupt termination to the rapidity of the ride, naturally occasioned
some confusion.&nbsp; Both the ladies indulged in vehement screaming
for several minutes; and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, besides sustaining intense
bodily pain, had the additional mental anguish of witnessing their distressing
situation, without having the power to rescue them, by reason of his
leg being firmly screwed in between the animal and the wall.&nbsp; The
efforts of the boys, however, assisted by the ingenious expedient of
twisting the tail of the most rebellious donkey, restored order in a
much shorter time than could have reasonably been expected, and the
little party jogged slowly on together.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now let &rsquo;em walk,&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp;
&lsquo;It&rsquo;s cruel to overdrive &rsquo;em.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Werry well, sir,&rsquo; replied the boy, with a grin at his
companion, as if he understood Mr. Cymon to mean that the cruelty applied
less to the animals than to their riders.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a lovely day, dear!&rsquo; said Charlotta.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming; enchanting, dear!&rsquo; responded Mrs. Captain
Waters.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a beautiful prospect, Mr. Tuggs!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Cymon looked full in Belinda&rsquo;s face, as he responded&mdash;&lsquo;Beautiful,
indeed!&rsquo;&nbsp; The lady cast down her eyes, and suffered the animal
she was riding to fall a little back.&nbsp; Cymon Tuggs instinctively
did the same.</p>
<p>There was a brief silence, broken only by a sigh from Mr. Cymon Tuggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Cymon,&rsquo; said the lady suddenly, in a low tone, &lsquo;Mr.
Cymon&mdash;I am another&rsquo;s.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon expressed his perfect concurrence in a statement which
it was impossible to controvert.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If I had not been&mdash;&rsquo; resumed Belinda; and there
she stopped.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&mdash;what?&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon earnestly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do
not torture me.&nbsp; What would you say?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;If I had not been&rsquo;&mdash;continued Mrs. Captain Waters&mdash;&lsquo;if,
in earlier life, it had been my fate to have known, and been beloved
by, a noble youth&mdash;a kindred soul&mdash;a congenial spirit&mdash;one
capable of feeling and appreciating the sentiments which&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Heavens! what do I hear?&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Is it possible! can I believe my&mdash;Come up!&rsquo;&nbsp;
(This last unsentimental parenthesis was addressed to the donkey, who,
with his head between his fore-legs, appeared to be examining the state
of his shoes with great anxiety.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hi&mdash;hi&mdash;hi,&rsquo; said the boys behind.&nbsp; &lsquo;Come
up,&rsquo; expostulated Cymon Tuggs again.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hi&mdash;hi&mdash;hi,&rsquo;
repeated the boys.&nbsp; And whether it was that the animal felt indignant
at the tone of Mr. Tuggs&rsquo;s command, or felt alarmed by the noise
of the deputy proprietor&rsquo;s boots running behind him; or whether
he burned with a noble emulation to outstrip the other donkeys; certain
it is that he no sooner heard the second series of &lsquo;hi&mdash;hi&rsquo;s,&rsquo;
than he started away, with a celerity of pace which jerked Mr. Cymon&rsquo;s
hat off, instantaneously, and carried him to the Pegwell Bay hotel in
no time, where he deposited his rider without giving him the trouble
of dismounting, by sagaciously pitching him over his head, into the
very doorway of the tavern.</p>
<p>Great was the confusion of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, when he was put right
end uppermost, by two waiters; considerable was the alarm of Mrs. Tuggs
in behalf of her son; agonizing were the apprehensions of Mrs. Captain
Waters on his account.&nbsp; It was speedily discovered, however, that
he had not sustained much more injury than the donkey&mdash;he was grazed,
and the animal was grazing&mdash;and then it <i>was</i> a delightful
party to be sure!&nbsp; Mr. and Mrs. Tuggs, and the captain, had ordered
lunch in the little garden behind:&mdash;small saucers of large shrimps,
dabs of butter, crusty loaves, and bottled ale.&nbsp; The sky was without
a cloud; there were flower-pots and turf before them; the sea, from
the foot of the cliff, stretching away as far as the eye could discern
anything at all; vessels in the distance with sails as white, and as
small, as nicely-got-up cambric handkerchiefs.&nbsp; The shrimps were
delightful, the ale better, and the captain even more pleasant than
either.&nbsp; Mrs. Captain Waters was in <i>such</i> spirits after lunch!&mdash;chasing,
first the captain across the turf, and among the flower-pots; and then
Mr. Cymon Tuggs; and then Miss Tuggs; and laughing, too, quite boisterously.&nbsp;
But as the captain said, it didn&rsquo;t matter; who knew what they
were, there?&nbsp; For all the people of the house knew, they might
be common people.&nbsp; To which Mr. Joseph Tuggs responded, &lsquo;To
be sure.&rsquo;&nbsp; And then they went down the steep wooden steps
a little further on, which led to the bottom of the cliff; and looked
at the crabs, and the seaweed, and the eels, till it was more than fully
time to go back to Ramsgate again.&nbsp; Finally, Mr. Cymon Tuggs ascended
the steps last, and Mrs. Captain Waters last but one; and Mr. Cymon
Tuggs discovered that the foot and ankle of Mrs. Captain Waters, were
even more unexceptionable than he had at first supposed.</p>
<p>Taking a donkey towards his ordinary place of residence, is a very
different thing, and a feat much more easily to be accomplished, than
taking him from it.&nbsp; It requires a great deal of foresight and
presence of mind in the one case, to anticipate the numerous flights
of his discursive imagination; whereas, in the other, all you have to
do, is, to hold on, and place a blind confidence in the animal.&nbsp;
Mr. Cymon Tuggs adopted the latter expedient on his return; and his
nerves were so little discomposed by the journey, that he distinctly
understood they were all to meet again at the library in the evening.</p>
<p>The library was crowded.&nbsp; There were the same ladies, and the
same gentlemen, who had been on the sands in the morning, and on the
pier the day before.&nbsp; There were young ladies, in maroon-coloured
gowns and black velvet bracelets, dispensing fancy articles in the shop,
and presiding over games of chance in the concert-room.&nbsp; There
were marriageable daughters, and marriage-making mammas, gaming and
promenading, and turning over music, and flirting.&nbsp; There were
some male beaux doing the sentimental in whispers, and others doing
the ferocious in moustache.&nbsp; There were Mrs. Tuggs in amber, Miss
Tuggs in sky-blue, Mrs. Captain Waters in pink.&nbsp; There was Captain
Waters in a braided surtout; there was Mr. Cymon Tuggs in pumps and
a gilt waistcoat; there was Mr. Joseph Tuggs in a blue coat and a shirt-frill.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Numbers three, eight, and eleven!&rsquo; cried one of the
young ladies in the maroon-coloured gowns.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Numbers three, eight, and eleven!&rsquo; echoed another young
lady in the same uniform.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Number three&rsquo;s gone,&rsquo; said the first young lady.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Numbers eight and eleven!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Numbers eight and eleven!&rsquo; echoed the second young lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Number eight&rsquo;s gone, Mary Ann,&rsquo; said the first
young lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Number eleven!&rsquo; screamed the second.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The numbers are all taken now, ladies, if you please,&rsquo;
said the first.&nbsp; The representatives of numbers three, eight, and
eleven, and the rest of the numbers, crowded round the table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you throw, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; said the presiding goddess,
handing the dice-box to the eldest daughter of a stout lady, with four
girls.</p>
<p>There was a profound silence among the lookers-on.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Throw, Jane, my dear,&rsquo; said the stout lady.&nbsp; An
interesting display of bashfulness&mdash;a little blushing in a cambric
handkerchief&mdash;a whispering to a younger sister.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Amelia, my dear, throw for your sister,&rsquo; said the stout
lady; and then she turned to a walking advertisement of Rowlands&rsquo;
Macassar Oil, who stood next her, and said, &lsquo;Jane is so <i>very</i>
modest and retiring; but I can&rsquo;t be angry with her for it.&nbsp;
An artless and unsophisticated girl is <i>so</i> truly amiable, that
I often wish Amelia was more like her sister!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The gentleman with the whiskers whispered his admiring approval.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, my dear!&rsquo; said the stout lady.&nbsp; Miss Amelia
threw&mdash;eight for her sister, ten for herself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nice figure, Amelia,&rsquo; whispered the stout lady to a
thin youth beside her.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Beautiful!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And <i>such</i> a spirit!&nbsp; I am like you in that respect.&nbsp;
I can <i>not</i> help admiring that life and vivacity.&nbsp; Ah! (a
sigh) I wish I could make poor Jane a little more like my dear Amelia!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The young gentleman cordially acquiesced in the sentiment; both he,
and the individual first addressed, were perfectly contented.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who&rsquo;s this?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Cymon Tuggs of Mrs.
Captain Waters, as a short female, in a blue velvet hat and feathers,
was led into the orchestra, by a fat man in black tights and cloudy
Berlins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Tippin, of the London theatres,&rsquo; replied Belinda,
referring to the programme of the concert.</p>
<p>The talented Tippin having condescendingly acknowledged the clapping
of hands, and shouts of &lsquo;bravo!&rsquo; which greeted her appearance,
proceeded to sing the popular cavatina of &lsquo;Bid me discourse,&rsquo;
accompanied on the piano by Mr. Tippin; after which, Mr. Tippin sang
a comic song, accompanied on the piano by Mrs. Tippin: the applause
consequent upon which, was only to be exceeded by the enthusiastic approbation
bestowed upon an air with variations on the guitar, by Miss Tippin,
accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin.</p>
<p>Thus passed the evening; thus passed the days and evenings of the
Tuggses, and the Waterses, for six weeks.&nbsp; Sands in the morning&mdash;donkeys
at noon&mdash;pier in the afternoon&mdash;library at night&mdash;and
the same people everywhere.</p>
<p>On that very night six weeks, the moon was shining brightly over
the calm sea, which dashed against the feet of the tall gaunt cliffs,
with just enough noise to lull the old fish to sleep, without disturbing
the young ones, when two figures were discernible&mdash;or would have
been, if anybody had looked for them&mdash;seated on one of the wooden
benches which are stationed near the verge of the western cliff.&nbsp;
The moon had climbed higher into the heavens, by two hours&rsquo; journeying,
since those figures first sat down&mdash;and yet they had moved not.&nbsp;
The crowd of loungers had thinned and dispersed; the noise of itinerant
musicians had died away; light after light had appeared in the windows
of the different houses in the distance; blockade-man after blockade-man
had passed the spot, wending his way towards his solitary post; and
yet those figures had remained stationary.&nbsp; Some portions of the
two forms were in deep shadow, but the light of the moon fell strongly
on a puce-coloured boot and a glazed stock.&nbsp; Mr. Cymon Tuggs and
Mrs. Captain Waters were seated on that bench.&nbsp; They spoke not,
but were silently gazing on the sea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Walter will return to-morrow,&rsquo; said Mrs. Captain Waters,
mournfully breaking silence.</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon Tuggs sighed like a gust of wind through a forest of gooseberry
bushes, as he replied, &lsquo;Alas! he will.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, Cymon!&rsquo; resumed Belinda, &lsquo;the chaste delight,
the calm happiness, of this one week of Platonic love, is too much for
me!&rsquo;&nbsp; Cymon was about to suggest that it was too little for
him, but he stopped himself, and murmured unintelligibly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And to think that even this gleam of happiness, innocent as
it is,&rsquo; exclaimed Belinda, &lsquo;is now to be lost for ever!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, do not say for ever, Belinda,&rsquo; exclaimed the excitable
Cymon, as two strongly-defined tears chased each other down his pale
face&mdash;it was so long that there was plenty of room for a chase.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Do not say for ever!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I must,&rsquo; replied Belinda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why?&rsquo; urged Cymon, &lsquo;oh why?&nbsp; Such Platonic
acquaintance as ours is so harmless, that even your husband can never
object to it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My husband!&rsquo; exclaimed Belinda.&nbsp; &lsquo;You little
know him.&nbsp; Jealous and revengeful; ferocious in his revenge&mdash;a
maniac in his jealousy!&nbsp; Would you be assassinated before my eyes?&rsquo;&nbsp;
Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a voice broken by emotion, expressed his disinclination
to undergo the process of assassination before the eyes of anybody.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then leave me,&rsquo; said Mrs. Captain Waters.&nbsp; &lsquo;Leave
me, this night, for ever.&nbsp; It is late: let us return.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Cymon Tuggs sadly offered the lady his arm, and escorted her
to her lodgings.&nbsp; He paused at the door&mdash;he felt a Platonic
pressure of his hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;Good night,&rsquo; he said, hesitating.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good night,&rsquo; sobbed the lady.&nbsp; Mr. Cymon Tuggs
paused again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Won&rsquo;t you walk in, sir?&rsquo; said the servant.&nbsp;
Mr. Tuggs hesitated.&nbsp; Oh, that hesitation!&nbsp; He <i>did</i>
walk in.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good night!&rsquo; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs again, when he reached
the drawing-room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good night!&rsquo; replied Belinda; &lsquo;and, if at any
period of my life, I&mdash;Hush!&rsquo;&nbsp; The lady paused and stared
with a steady gaze of horror, on the ashy countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs.&nbsp;
There was a double knock at the street-door.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is my husband!&rsquo; said Belinda, as the captain&rsquo;s
voice was heard below.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And my family!&rsquo; added Cymon Tuggs, as the voices of
his relatives floated up the staircase.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The curtain!&nbsp; The curtain!&rsquo; gasped Mrs. Captain
Waters, pointing to the window, before which some chintz hangings were
closely drawn.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But I have done nothing wrong,&rsquo; said the hesitating
Cymon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The curtain!&rsquo; reiterated the frantic lady: &lsquo;you
will be murdered.&rsquo;&nbsp; This last appeal to his feelings was
irresistible.&nbsp; The dismayed Cymon concealed himself behind the
curtain with pantomimic suddenness.</p>
<p>Enter the captain, Joseph Tuggs, Mrs. Tuggs, and Charlotta.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; said the captain, &lsquo;Lieutenant, Slaughter.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr. Cymon to advance,
and acknowledge the honour of the introduction.&nbsp; The sabre of the
lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the
table.&nbsp; Mr. Cymon&rsquo;s fears almost overcame his reason.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The brandy, my dear!&rsquo; said the captain.&nbsp; Here was
a situation!&nbsp; They were going to make a night of it!&nbsp; And
Mr. Cymon Tuggs was pent up behind the curtain and afraid to breathe!</p>
<p>&lsquo;Slaughter,&rsquo; said the captain, &lsquo;a cigar?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, Mr. Cymon Tuggs never could smoke without feeling it indispensably
necessary to retire, immediately, and never could smell smoke without
a strong disposition to cough.&nbsp; The cigars were introduced; the
captain was a professed smoker; so was the lieutenant; so was Joseph
Tuggs.&nbsp; The apartment was small, the door was closed, the smoke
powerful: it hung in heavy wreaths over the room, and at length found
its way behind the curtain.&nbsp; Cymon Tuggs held his nose, his mouth,
his breath.&nbsp; It was all of no use&mdash;out came the cough.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless my soul!&rsquo; said the captain, &lsquo;I beg your
pardon, Miss Tuggs.&nbsp; You dislike smoking?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, no; I don&rsquo;t indeed,&rsquo; said Charlotta.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It makes you cough.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh dear no.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You coughed just now.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Me, Captain Waters!&nbsp; Lor! how can you say so?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Somebody coughed,&rsquo; said the captain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I certainly thought so,&rsquo; said Slaughter.&nbsp; No; everybody
denied it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fancy,&rsquo; said the captain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Must be,&rsquo; echoed Slaughter.</p>
<p>Cigars resumed&mdash;more smoke&mdash;another cough&mdash;smothered,
but violent.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Damned odd!&rsquo; said the captain, staring about him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sing&rsquo;ler!&rsquo; ejaculated the unconscious Mr. Joseph
Tuggs.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Slaughter looked first at one person mysteriously, then
at another: then, laid down his cigar, then approached the window on
tiptoe, and pointed with his right thumb over his shoulder, in the direction
of the curtain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Slaughter!&rsquo; ejaculated the captain, rising from table,
&lsquo;what do you mean?&rsquo;</p>
<p>The lieutenant, in reply, drew back the curtain and discovered Mr.
Cymon Tuggs behind it: pallid with apprehension, and blue with wanting
to cough.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Aha!&rsquo; exclaimed the captain, furiously.&nbsp; &lsquo;What
do I see?&nbsp; Slaughter, your sabre!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Cymon!&rsquo; screamed the Tuggses.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mercy!&rsquo; said Belinda.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Platonic!&rsquo; gasped Cymon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Your sabre!&rsquo; roared the captain: &lsquo;Slaughter&mdash;unhand
me&mdash;the villain&rsquo;s life!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Murder!&rsquo; screamed the Tuggses.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hold him fast, sir!&rsquo; faintly articulated Cymon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Water!&rsquo; exclaimed Joseph Tuggs&mdash;and Mr. Cymon Tuggs
and all the ladies forthwith fainted away, and formed a tableau.</p>
<p>Most willingly would we conceal the disastrous termination of the
six weeks&rsquo; acquaintance.&nbsp; A troublesome form, and an arbitrary
custom, however, prescribe that a story should have a conclusion, in
addition to a commencement; we have therefore no alternative.&nbsp;
Lieutenant Slaughter brought a message&mdash;the captain brought an
action.&nbsp; Mr. Joseph Tuggs interposed&mdash;the lieutenant negotiated.&nbsp;
When Mr. Cymon Tuggs recovered from the nervous disorder into which
misplaced affection, and exciting circumstances, had plunged him, he
found that his family had lost their pleasant acquaintance; that his
father was minus fifteen hundred pounds; and the captain plus the precise
sum.&nbsp; The money was paid to hush the matter up, but it got abroad
notwithstanding; and there are not wanting some who affirm that three
designing impostors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters,
Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggses at Ramsgate.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V&mdash;HORATIO SPARKINS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention on the
last assembly night,&rsquo; said Mrs. Malderton, addressing her spouse,
who, after the fatigues of the day in the City, was sitting with a silk
handkerchief over his head, and his feet on the fender, drinking his
port;&mdash;&lsquo;very great attention; and I say again, every possible
encouragement ought to be given him.&nbsp; He positively must be asked
down here to dine.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who must?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, you know whom I mean, my dear&mdash;the young man with
the black whiskers and the white cravat, who has just come out at our
assembly, and whom all the girls are talking about.&nbsp; Young&mdash;dear
me! what&rsquo;s his name?&mdash;Marianne, what <i>is</i> his name?&rsquo;
continued Mrs. Malderton, addressing her youngest daughter, who was
engaged in netting a purse, and looking sentimental.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Horatio Sparkins, ma,&rsquo; replied Miss Marianne, with
a sigh.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! yes, to be sure&mdash;Horatio Sparkins,&rsquo; said Mrs.
Malderton.&nbsp; &lsquo;Decidedly the most gentleman-like young man
I ever saw.&nbsp; I am sure in the beautifully-made coat he wore the
other night, he looked like&mdash;like&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Like Prince Leopold, ma&mdash;so noble, so full of sentiment!&rsquo;
suggested Marianne, in a tone of enthusiastic admiration.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You should recollect, my dear,&rsquo; resumed Mrs. Malderton,
&lsquo;that Teresa is now eight-and-twenty; and that it really is very
important that something should be done.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Miss Teresa Malderton was a very little girl, rather fat, with vermilion
cheeks, but good-humoured, and still disengaged, although, to do her
justice, the misfortune arose from no lack of perseverance on her part.&nbsp;
In vain had she flirted for ten years; in vain had Mr. and Mrs. Malderton
assiduously kept up an extensive acquaintance among the young eligible
bachelors of Camberwell, and even of Wandsworth and Brixton; to say
nothing of those who &lsquo;dropped in&rsquo; from town.&nbsp; Miss
Malderton was as well known as the lion on the top of Northumberland
House, and had an equal chance of &lsquo;going off.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am quite sure you&rsquo;d like him,&rsquo; continued Mrs.
Malderton, &lsquo;he is so gentlemanly!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;So clever!&rsquo; said Miss Marianne.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And has such a flow of language!&rsquo; added Miss Teresa.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He has a great respect for you, my dear,&rsquo; said Mrs.
Malderton to her husband.&nbsp; Mr. Malderton coughed, and looked at
the fire.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes I&rsquo;m sure he&rsquo;s very much attached to pa&rsquo;s
society,&rsquo; said Miss Marianne.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt of it,&rsquo; echoed Miss Teresa.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed, he said as much to me in confidence,&rsquo; observed
Mrs. Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, well,&rsquo; returned Mr. Malderton, somewhat flattered;
&lsquo;if I see him at the assembly to-morrow, perhaps I&rsquo;ll ask
him down.&nbsp; I hope he knows we live at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, my
dear?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Of course&mdash;and that you keep a one-horse carriage.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll see about it,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton, composing
himself for a nap; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll see about it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Malderton was a man whose whole scope of ideas was limited to
Lloyd&rsquo;s, the Exchange, the India House, and the Bank.&nbsp; A
few successful speculations had raised him from a situation of obscurity
and comparative poverty, to a state of affluence.&nbsp; As frequently
happens in such cases, the ideas of himself and his family became elevated
to an extraordinary pitch as their means increased; they affected fashion,
taste, and many other fooleries, in imitation of their betters, and
had a very decided and becoming horror of anything which could, by possibility,
be considered low.&nbsp; He was hospitable from ostentation, illiberal
from ignorance, and prejudiced from conceit.&nbsp; Egotism and the love
of display induced him to keep an excellent table: convenience, and
a love of good things of this life, ensured him plenty of guests.&nbsp;
He liked to have clever men, or what he considered such, at his table,
because it was a great thing to talk about; but he never could endure
what he called &lsquo;sharp fellows.&rsquo;&nbsp; Probably, he cherished
this feeling out of compliment to his two sons, who gave their respected
parent no uneasiness in that particular.&nbsp; The family were ambitious
of forming acquaintances and connexions in some sphere of society superior
to that in which they themselves moved; and one of the necessary consequences
of this desire, added to their utter ignorance of the world beyond their
own small circle, was, that any one who could lay claim to an acquaintance
with people of rank and title, had a sure passport to the table at Oak
Lodge, Camberwell.</p>
<p>The appearance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins at the assembly, had excited
no small degree of surprise and curiosity among its regular frequenters.&nbsp;
Who could he be?&nbsp; He was evidently reserved, and apparently melancholy.&nbsp;
Was he a clergyman?&mdash;He danced too well.&nbsp; A barrister?&mdash;He
said he was not called.&nbsp; He used very fine words, and talked a
great deal.&nbsp; Could he be a distinguished foreigner, come to England
for the purpose of describing the country, its manners and customs;
and frequenting public balls and public dinners, with the view of becoming
acquainted with high life, polished etiquette, and English refinement?&mdash;No,
he had not a foreign accent.&nbsp; Was he a surgeon, a contributor to
the magazines, a writer of fashionable novels, or an artist?&mdash;No;
to each and all of these surmises, there existed some valid objection.&mdash;&lsquo;Then,&rsquo;
said everybody, &lsquo;he must be <i>somebody</i>.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I
should think he must be,&rsquo; reasoned Mr. Malderton, within himself,
&lsquo;because he perceives our superiority, and pays us so much attention.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The night succeeding the conversation we have just recorded, was
&lsquo;assembly night.&rsquo;&nbsp; The double-fly was ordered to be
at the door of Oak Lodge at nine o&rsquo;clock precisely.&nbsp; The
Miss Maldertons were dressed in sky-blue satin trimmed with artificial
flowers; and Mrs. M. (who was a little fat woman), in ditto ditto, looked
like her eldest daughter multiplied by two.&nbsp; Mr. Frederick Malderton,
the eldest son, in full-dress costume, was the very <i>beau id&eacute;al</i>
of a smart waiter; and Mr. Thomas Malderton, the youngest, with his
white dress-stock, blue coat, bright buttons, and red watch-ribbon,
strongly resembled the portrait of that interesting, but rash young
gentleman, George Barnwell.&nbsp; Every member of the party had made
up his or her mind to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins.&nbsp;
Miss Teresa, of course, was to be as amiable and interesting as ladies
of eight-and-twenty on the look-out for a husband, usually are.&nbsp;
Mrs. Malderton would be all smiles and graces.&nbsp; Miss Marianne would
request the favour of some verses for her album.&nbsp; Mr. Malderton
would patronise the great unknown by asking him to dinner.&nbsp; Tom
intended to ascertain the extent of his information on the interesting
topics of snuff and cigars.&nbsp; Even Mr. Frederick Malderton himself,
the family authority on all points of taste, dress, and fashionable
arrangement; who had lodgings of his own in town; who had a free admission
to Covent-garden theatre; who always dressed according to the fashions
of the months; who went up the water twice a-week in the season; and
who actually had an intimate friend who once knew a gentleman who formerly
lived in the Albany,&mdash;even he had determined that Mr. Horatio Sparkins
must be a devilish good fellow, and that he would do him the honour
of challenging him to a game at billiards.</p>
<p>The first object that met the anxious eyes of the expectant family
on their entrance into the ball-room, was the interesting Horatio, with
his hair brushed off his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
reclining in a contemplative attitude on one of the seats.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There he is, my dear,&rsquo; whispered Mrs. Malderton to Mr.
Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How like Lord Byron!&rsquo; murmured Miss Teresa.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or Montgomery!&rsquo; whispered Miss Marianne.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or the portraits of Captain Cook!&rsquo; suggested Tom.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tom&mdash;don&rsquo;t be an ass!&rsquo; said his father, who
checked him on all occasions, probably with a view to prevent his becoming
&lsquo;sharp&rsquo;&mdash;which was very unnecessary.</p>
<p>The elegant Sparkins attitudinised with admirable effect, until the
family had crossed the room.&nbsp; He then started up, with the most
natural appearance of surprise and delight; accosted Mrs. Malderton
with the utmost cordiality; saluted the young ladies in the most enchanting
manner; bowed to, and shook hands with Mr. Malderton, with a degree
of respect amounting almost to veneration; and returned the greetings
of the two young men in a half-gratified, half-patronising manner, which
fully convinced them that he must be an important, and, at the same
time, condescending personage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Malderton,&rsquo; said Horatio, after the ordinary salutations,
and bowing very low, &lsquo;may I be permitted to presume to hope that
you will allow me to have the pleasure&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t <i>think</i> I am engaged,&rsquo; said Miss
Teresa, with a dreadful affectation of indifference&mdash;&lsquo;but,
really&mdash;so many&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>Horatio looked handsomely miserable.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shall be most happy,&rsquo; simpered the interesting Teresa,
at last.&nbsp; Horatio&rsquo;s countenance brightened up, like an old
hat in a shower of rain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A very genteel young man, certainly!&rsquo; said the gratified
Mr. Malderton, as the obsequious Sparkins and his partner joined the
quadrille which was just forming.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He has a remarkably good address,&rsquo; said Mr. Frederick.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, he is a prime fellow,&rsquo; interposed Tom, who always
managed to put his foot in it&mdash;&lsquo;he talks just like an auctioneer.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tom!&rsquo; said his father solemnly, &lsquo;I think I desired
you, before, not to be a fool.&rsquo;&nbsp; Tom looked as happy as a
cock on a drizzly morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How delightful!&rsquo; said the interesting Horatio to his
partner, as they promenaded the room at the conclusion of the set&mdash;&lsquo;how
delightful, how refreshing it is, to retire from the cloudy storms,
the vicissitudes, and the troubles, of life, even if it be but for a
few short fleeting moments: and to spend those moments, fading and evanescent
though they be, in the delightful, the blessed society of one individual&mdash;whose
frowns would be death, whose coldness would be madness, whose falsehood
would be ruin, whose constancy would be bliss; the possession of whose
affection would be the brightest and best reward that Heaven could bestow
on man?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What feeling! what sentiment!&rsquo; thought Miss Teresa,
as she leaned more heavily on her companion&rsquo;s arm.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But enough&mdash;enough!&rsquo; resumed the elegant Sparkins,
with a theatrical air.&nbsp; &lsquo;What have I said? what have I&mdash;I&mdash;to
do with sentiments like these!&nbsp; Miss Malderton&rsquo;&mdash;here
he stopped short&mdash;&lsquo;may I hope to be permitted to offer the
humble tribute of&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Really, Mr. Sparkins,&rsquo; returned the enraptured Teresa,
blushing in the sweetest confusion, &lsquo;I must refer you to papa.&nbsp;
I never can, without his consent, venture to&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Surely he cannot object&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, yes.&nbsp; Indeed, indeed, you know him not!&rsquo; interrupted
Miss Teresa, well knowing there was nothing to fear, but wishing to
make the interview resemble a scene in some romantic novel.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He cannot object to my offering you a glass of negus,&rsquo;
returned the adorable Sparkins, with some surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is that all?&rsquo; thought the disappointed Teresa.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What a fuss about nothing!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It will give me the greatest pleasure, sir, to see you to
dinner at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, on Sunday next at five o&rsquo;clock,
if you have no better engagement,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton, at the
conclusion of the evening, as he and his sons were standing in conversation
with Mr. Horatio Sparkins.</p>
<p>Horatio bowed his acknowledgments, and accepted the flattering invitation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I must confess,&rsquo; continued the father, offering his
snuff-box to his new acquaintance, &lsquo;that I don&rsquo;t enjoy these
assemblies half so much as the comfort&mdash;I had almost said the luxury&mdash;of
Oak Lodge.&nbsp; They have no great charms for an elderly man.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And after all, sir, what is man?&rsquo; said the metaphysical
Sparkins.&nbsp; &lsquo;I say, what is man?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! very true,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton; &lsquo;very true.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;We know that we live and breathe,&rsquo; continued Horatio;
&lsquo;that we have wants and wishes, desires and appetites&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; said Mr. Frederick Malderton, looking profound.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say, we know that we exist,&rsquo; repeated Horatio, raising
his voice, &lsquo;but there we stop; there, is an end to our knowledge;
there, is the summit of our attainments; there, is the termination of
our ends.&nbsp; What more do we know?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nothing,&rsquo; replied Mr. Frederick&mdash;than whom no one
was more capable of answering for himself in that particular.&nbsp;
Tom was about to hazard something, but, fortunately for his reputation,
he caught his father&rsquo;s angry eye, and slunk off like a puppy convicted
of petty larceny.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Upon my word,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton the elder, as they
were returning home in the fly, &lsquo;that Mr. Sparkins is a wonderful
young man.&nbsp; Such surprising knowledge! such extraordinary information!
and such a splendid mode of expressing himself!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think he must be somebody in disguise,&rsquo; said Miss
Marianne.&nbsp; &lsquo;How charmingly romantic!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He talks very loud and nicely,&rsquo; timidly observed Tom,
&lsquo;but I don&rsquo;t exactly understand what he means.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I almost begin to despair of your understanding anything,
Tom,&rsquo; said his father, who, of course, had been much enlightened
by Mr. Horatio Sparkins&rsquo;s conversation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It strikes me, Tom,&rsquo; said Miss Teresa, &lsquo;that you
have made yourself very ridiculous this evening.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt of it,&rsquo; cried everybody&mdash;and the unfortunate
Tom reduced himself into the least possible space.&nbsp; That night,
Mr. and Mrs. Malderton had a long conversation respecting their daughter&rsquo;s
prospects and future arrangements.&nbsp; Miss Teresa went to bed, considering
whether, in the event of her marrying a title, she could conscientiously
encourage the visits of her present associates; and dreamed, all night,
of disguised noblemen, large routs, ostrich plumes, bridal favours,
and Horatio Sparkins.</p>
<p>Various surmises were hazarded on the Sunday morning, as to the mode
of conveyance which the anxiously-expected Horatio would adopt.&nbsp;
Did he keep a gig?&mdash;was it possible he could come on horseback?&mdash;or
would he patronize the stage?&nbsp; These, and other various conjectures
of equal importance, engrossed the attention of Mrs. Malderton and her
daughters during the whole morning after church.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Upon my word, my dear, it&rsquo;s a most annoying thing that
that vulgar brother of yours should have invited himself to dine here
to-day,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton to his wife.&nbsp; &lsquo;On account
of Mr. Sparkins&rsquo;s coming down, I purposely abstained from asking
any one but Flamwell.&nbsp; And then to think of your brother&mdash;a
tradesman&mdash;it&rsquo;s insufferable!&nbsp; I declare I wouldn&rsquo;t
have him mention his shop, before our new guest&mdash;no, not for a
thousand pounds!&nbsp; I wouldn&rsquo;t care if he had the good sense
to conceal the disgrace he is to the family; but he&rsquo;s so fond
of his horrible business, that he <i>will</i> let people know what he
is.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Jacob Barton, the individual alluded to, was a large grocer;
so vulgar, and so lost to all sense of feeling, that he actually never
scrupled to avow that he wasn&rsquo;t above his business: &lsquo;he&rsquo;d
made his money by it, and he didn&rsquo;t care who know&rsquo;d it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! Flamwell, my dear fellow, how d&rsquo;ye do?&rsquo; said
Mr. Malderton, as a little spoffish man, with green spectacles, entered
the room.&nbsp; &lsquo;You got my note?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I did; and here I am in consequence.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You don&rsquo;t happen to know this Mr. Sparkins by name?&nbsp;
You know everybody?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Flamwell was one of those gentlemen of remarkably extensive information
whom one occasionally meets in society, who pretend to know everybody,
but in reality know nobody.&nbsp; At Malderton&rsquo;s, where any stories
about great people were received with a greedy ear, he was an especial
favourite; and, knowing the kind of people he had to deal with, he carried
his passion of claiming acquaintance with everybody, to the most immoderate
length.&nbsp; He had rather a singular way of telling his greatest lies
in a parenthesis, and with an air of self-denial, as if he feared being
thought egotistical.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, no, I don&rsquo;t know him by that name,&rsquo; returned
Flamwell, in a low tone, and with an air of immense importance.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I have no doubt I know him, though.&nbsp; Is he tall?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Middle-sized,&rsquo; said Miss Teresa.</p>
<p>&lsquo;With black hair?&rsquo; inquired Flamwell, hazarding a bold
guess.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; returned Miss Teresa, eagerly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Rather a snub nose?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said the disappointed Teresa, &lsquo;he has a Roman
nose.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I said a Roman nose, didn&rsquo;t I?&rsquo; inquired Flamwell.&nbsp;
&lsquo;He&rsquo;s an elegant young man?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;With remarkably prepossessing manners?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, yes!&rsquo; said all the family together.&nbsp; &lsquo;You
must know him.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I thought you knew him, if he was anybody,&rsquo; triumphantly
exclaimed Mr. Malderton.&nbsp; &lsquo;Who d&rsquo;ye think he is?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, from your description,&rsquo; said Flamwell, ruminating,
and sinking his voice, almost to a whisper, &lsquo;he bears a strong
resemblance to the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne.&nbsp;
He&rsquo;s a very talented young man, and rather eccentric.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
extremely probable he may have changed his name for some temporary purpose.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Teresa&rsquo;s heart beat high.&nbsp; Could he be the Honourable
Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne!&nbsp; What a name to be
elegantly engraved upon two glazed cards, tied together with a piece
of white satin ribbon!&nbsp; &lsquo;The Honourable Mrs. Augustus Fitz-Edward
Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne!&rsquo;&nbsp; The thought was transport.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s five minutes to five,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton,
looking at his watch: &lsquo;I hope he&rsquo;s not going to disappoint
us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;There he is!&rsquo; exclaimed Miss Teresa, as a loud double-knock
was heard at the door.&nbsp; Everybody endeavoured to look&mdash;as
people when they particularly expect a visitor always do&mdash;as if
they were perfectly unsuspicious of the approach of anybody.</p>
<p>The room-door opened&mdash;&lsquo;Mr. Barton!&rsquo; said the servant.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Confound the man!&rsquo; murmured Malderton.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah!
my dear sir, how d&rsquo;ye do!&nbsp; Any news?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why no,&rsquo; returned the grocer, in his usual bluff manner.&nbsp;
&lsquo;No, none partickler.&nbsp; None that I am much aware of.&nbsp;
How d&rsquo;ye do, gals and boys?&nbsp; Mr. Flamwell, sir&mdash;glad
to see you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Mr. Sparkins!&rsquo; said Tom, who had been looking
out at the window, &lsquo;on <i>such</i> a black horse!&rsquo;&nbsp;
There was Horatio, sure enough, on a large black horse, curvetting and
prancing along, like an Astley&rsquo;s supernumerary.&nbsp; After a
great deal of reining in, and pulling up, with the accompaniments of
snorting, rearing, and kicking, the animal consented to stop at about
a hundred yards from the gate, where Mr. Sparkins dismounted, and confided
him to the care of Mr. Malderton&rsquo;s groom.&nbsp; The ceremony of
introduction was gone through, in all due form.&nbsp; Mr. Flamwell looked
from behind his green spectacles at Horatio with an air of mysterious
importance; and the gallant Horatio looked unutterable things at Teresa.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is he the Honourable Mr. Augustus What&rsquo;s-his-name?&rsquo;
whispered Mrs. Malderton to Flamwell, as he was escorting her to the
dining-room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, no&mdash;at least not exactly,&rsquo; returned that great
authority&mdash;&lsquo;not exactly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who <i>is</i> he then?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush!&rsquo; said Flamwell, nodding his head with a grave
air, importing that he knew very well; but was prevented, by some grave
reasons of state, from disclosing the important secret.&nbsp; It might
be one of the ministers making himself acquainted with the views of
the people.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Sparkins,&rsquo; said the delighted Mrs. Malderton, &lsquo;pray
divide the ladies.&nbsp; John, put a chair for the gentleman between
Miss Teresa and Miss Marianne.&rsquo;&nbsp; This was addressed to a
man who, on ordinary occasions, acted as half-groom, half-gardener;
but who, as it was important to make an impression on Mr. Sparkins,
had been forced into a white neckerchief and shoes, and touched up,
and brushed, to look like a second footman.</p>
<p>The dinner was excellent; Horatio was most attentive to Miss Teresa,
and every one felt in high spirits, except Mr. Malderton, who, knowing
the propensity of his brother-in-law, Mr. Barton, endured that sort
of agony which the newspapers inform us is experienced by the surrounding
neighbourhood when a pot-boy hangs himself in a hay-loft, and which
is &lsquo;much easier to be imagined than described.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have you seen your friend, Sir Thomas Noland, lately, Flamwell?&rsquo;
inquired Mr. Malderton, casting a sidelong look at Horatio, to see what
effect the mention of so great a man had upon him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, no&mdash;not very lately.&nbsp; I saw Lord Gubbleton
the day before yesterday.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;All!&nbsp; I hope his lordship is very well?&rsquo; said Malderton,
in a tone of the greatest interest.&nbsp; It is scarcely necessary to
say that, until that moment, he had been quite innocent of the existence
of such a person.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, yes; he was very well&mdash;very well indeed.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s
a devilish good fellow.&nbsp; I met him in the City, and had a long
chat with him.&nbsp; Indeed, I&rsquo;m rather intimate with him.&nbsp;
I couldn&rsquo;t stop to talk to him as long as I could wish, though,
because I was on my way to a banker&rsquo;s, a very rich man, and a
member of Parliament, with whom I am also rather, indeed I may say very,
intimate.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know whom you mean,&rsquo; returned the host, consequentially&mdash;in
reality knowing as much about the matter as Flamwell himself.&mdash;&lsquo;He
has a capital business.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This was touching on a dangerous topic.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Talking of business,&rsquo; interposed Mr. Barton, from the
centre of the table.&nbsp; &lsquo;A gentleman whom you knew very well,
Malderton, before you made that first lucky spec of yours, called at
our shop the other day, and&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Barton, may I trouble you for a potato?&rsquo; interrupted
the wretched master of the house, hoping to nip the story in the bud.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; returned the grocer, quite insensible of
his brother-in-law&rsquo;s object&mdash;&lsquo;and he said in a very
plain manner&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Floury</i>, if you please,&rsquo; interrupted Malderton
again; dreading the termination of the anecdote, and fearing a repetition
of the word &lsquo;shop.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He said, says he,&rsquo; continued the culprit, after despatching
the potato; &lsquo;says he, how goes on your business?&nbsp; So I said,
jokingly&mdash;you know my way&mdash;says I, I&rsquo;m never above my
business, and I hope my business will never be above me.&nbsp; Ha, ha!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Sparkins,&rsquo; said the host, vainly endeavouring to
conceal his dismay, &lsquo;a glass of wine?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;With the utmost pleasure, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Happy to see you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;We were talking the other evening,&rsquo; resumed the host,
addressing Horatio, partly with the view of displaying the conversational
powers of his new acquaintance, and partly in the hope of drowning the
grocer&rsquo;s stories&mdash;&lsquo;we were talking the other night
about the nature of man.&nbsp; Your argument struck me very forcibly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And me,&rsquo; said Mr. Frederick.&nbsp; Horatio made a graceful
inclination of the head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray, what is your opinion of woman, Mr. Sparkins?&rsquo;
inquired Mrs. Malderton.&nbsp; The young ladies simpered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Man,&rsquo; replied Horatio, &lsquo;man, whether he ranged
the bright, gay, flowery plains of a second Eden, or the more sterile,
barren, and I may say, commonplace regions, to which we are compelled
to accustom ourselves, in times such as these; man, under any circumstances,
or in any place&mdash;whether he were bending beneath the withering
blasts of the frigid zone, or scorching under the rays of a vertical
sun&mdash;man, without woman, would be&mdash;alone.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am very happy to find you entertain such honourable opinions,
Mr. Sparkins,&rsquo; said Mrs. Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I,&rsquo; added Miss Teresa.&nbsp; Horatio looked his
delight, and the young lady blushed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, it&rsquo;s my opinion&mdash;&rsquo; said Mr. Barton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know what you&rsquo;re going to say,&rsquo; interposed Malderton,
determined not to give his relation another opportunity, &lsquo;and
I don&rsquo;t agree with you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What!&rsquo; inquired the astonished grocer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am sorry to differ from you, Barton,&rsquo; said the host,
in as positive a manner as if he really were contradicting a position
which the other had laid down, &lsquo;but I cannot give my assent to
what I consider a very monstrous proposition.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But I meant to say&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You never can convince me,&rsquo; said Malderton, with an
air of obstinate determination.&nbsp; &lsquo;Never.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And I,&rsquo; said Mr. Frederick, following up his father&rsquo;s
attack, &lsquo;cannot entirely agree in Mr. Sparkins&rsquo;s argument.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What!&rsquo; said Horatio, who became more metaphysical, and
more argumentative, as he saw the female part of the family listening
in wondering delight&mdash;&lsquo;what!&nbsp; Is effect the consequence
of cause?&nbsp; Is cause the precursor of effect?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s the point,&rsquo; said Flamwell.</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure,&rsquo; said Mr. Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Because, if effect is the consequence of cause, and if cause
does precede effect, I apprehend you are wrong,&rsquo; added Horatio.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Decidedly,&rsquo; said the toad-eating Flamwell.</p>
<p>&lsquo;At least, I apprehend that to be the just and logical deduction?&rsquo;
said Sparkins, in a tone of interrogation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt of it,&rsquo; chimed in Flamwell again.&nbsp; &lsquo;It
settles the point.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, perhaps it does,&rsquo; said Mr. Frederick; &lsquo;I
didn&rsquo;t see it before.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t exactly see it now,&rsquo; thought the grocer;
&lsquo;but I suppose it&rsquo;s all right.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;How wonderfully clever he is!&rsquo; whispered Mrs. Malderton
to her daughters, as they retired to the drawing-room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s quite a love!&rsquo; said both the young ladies
together; &lsquo;he talks like an oracle.&nbsp; He must have seen a
great deal of life.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The gentlemen being left to themselves, a pause ensued, during which
everybody looked very grave, as if they were quite overcome by the profound
nature of the previous discussion.&nbsp; Flamwell, who had made up his
mind to find out who and what Mr. Horatio Sparkins really was, first
broke silence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Excuse me, sir,&rsquo; said that distinguished personage,
&lsquo;I presume you have studied for the bar?&nbsp; I thought of entering
once, myself&mdash;indeed, I&rsquo;m rather intimate with some of the
highest ornaments of that distinguished profession.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;N-no!&rsquo; said Horatio, with a little hesitation; &lsquo;not
exactly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But you have been much among the silk gowns, or I mistake?&rsquo;
inquired Flamwell, deferentially.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nearly all my life,&rsquo; returned Sparkins.</p>
<p>The question was thus pretty well settled in the mind of Mr. Flamwell.&nbsp;
He was a young gentleman &lsquo;about to be called.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t like to be a barrister,&rsquo; said Tom,
speaking for the first time, and looking round the table to find somebody
who would notice the remark.</p>
<p>No one made any reply.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t like to wear a wig,&rsquo; said Tom, hazarding
another observation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tom, I beg you will not make yourself ridiculous,&rsquo; said
his father.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray listen, and improve yourself by the conversation
you hear, and don&rsquo;t be constantly making these absurd remarks.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well, father,&rsquo; replied the unfortunate Tom, who
had not spoken a word since he had asked for another slice of beef at
a quarter-past five o&rsquo;clock, P.M., and it was then eight.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, Tom,&rsquo; observed his good-natured uncle, &lsquo;never
mind!&nbsp; <i>I</i> think with you.&nbsp; I shouldn&rsquo;t like to
wear a wig.&nbsp; I&rsquo;d rather wear an apron.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Malderton coughed violently.&nbsp; Mr. Barton resumed&mdash;&lsquo;For
if a man&rsquo;s above his business&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>The cough returned with tenfold violence, and did not cease until
the unfortunate cause of it, in his alarm, had quite forgotten what
he intended to say.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Sparkins,&rsquo; said Flamwell, returning to the charge,
&lsquo;do you happen to know Mr. Delafontaine, of Bedford-square?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have exchanged cards with him; since which, indeed, I have
had an opportunity of serving him considerably,&rsquo; replied Horatio,
slightly colouring; no doubt, at having been betrayed into making the
acknowledgment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are very lucky, if you have had an opportunity of obliging
that great man,&rsquo; observed Flamwell, with an air of profound respect.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know who he is,&rsquo; he whispered to Mr. Malderton,
confidentially, as they followed Horatio up to the drawing-room.&nbsp;
&lsquo;It&rsquo;s quite clear, however, that he belongs to the law,
and that he is somebody of great importance, and very highly connected.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt, no doubt,&rsquo; returned his companion.</p>
<p>The remainder of the evening passed away most delightfully.&nbsp;
Mr. Malderton, relieved from his apprehensions by the circumstance of
Mr. Barton&rsquo;s falling into a profound sleep, was as affable and
gracious as possible.&nbsp; Miss Teresa played the &lsquo;Fall of Paris,&rsquo;
as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a most masterly manner, and both of them,
assisted by Mr. Frederick, tried over glees and trios without number;
they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonised
beautifully.&nbsp; To be sure, they all sang the first part; and Horatio,
in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent
of knowing a note of music; still, they passed the time very agreeably,
and it was past twelve o&rsquo;clock before Mr. Sparkins ordered the
mourning-coach-looking steed to be brought out&mdash;an order which
was only complied with, on the distinct understanding that he was to
repeat his visit on the following Sunday.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, perhaps, Mr. Sparkins will form one of our party to-morrow
evening?&rsquo; suggested Mrs. M.&nbsp; &lsquo;Mr. Malderton intends
taking the girls to see the pantomime.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Sparkins bowed,
and promised to join the party in box 48, in the course of the evening.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We will not tax you for the morning,&rsquo; said Miss Teresa,
bewitchingly; &lsquo;for ma is going to take us to all sorts of places,
shopping.&nbsp; I know that gentlemen have a great horror of that employment.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Mr. Sparkins bowed again, and declared that he should be delighted,
but business of importance occupied him in the morning.&nbsp; Flamwell
looked at Malderton significantly.&mdash;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s term time!&rsquo;
he whispered.</p>
<p>At twelve o&rsquo;clock on the following morning, the &lsquo;fly&rsquo;
was at the door of Oak Lodge, to convey Mrs. Malderton and her daughters
on their expedition for the day.&nbsp; They were to dine and dress for
the play at a friend&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; First, driving thither with
their band-boxes, they departed on their first errand to make some purchases
at Messrs. Jones, Spruggins, and Smith&rsquo;s, of Tottenham-court-road;
after which, they were to go to Redmayne&rsquo;s in Bond-street; thence,
to innumerable places that no one ever heard of.&nbsp; The young ladies
beguiled the tediousness of the ride by eulogising Mr. Horatio Sparkins,
scolding their mamma for taking them so far to save a shilling, and
wondering whether they should ever reach their destination.&nbsp; At
length, the vehicle stopped before a dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper&rsquo;s
shop, with goods of all kinds, and labels of all sorts and sizes, in
the window.&nbsp; There were dropsical figures of seven with a little
three-farthings in the corner; &lsquo;perfectly invisible to the naked
eye;&rsquo; three hundred and fifty thousand ladies&rsquo; boas, <i>from</i>
one shilling and a penny halfpenny; real French kid shoes, at two and
ninepence per pair; green parasols, at an equally cheap rate; and &lsquo;every
description of goods,&rsquo; as the proprietors said&mdash;and they
must know best&mdash;&lsquo;fifty per cent. under cost price.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor! ma, what a place you have brought us to!&rsquo; said
Miss Teresa; &lsquo;what <i>would</i> Mr. Sparkins say if he could see
us!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! what, indeed!&rsquo; said Miss Marianne, horrified at
the idea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray be seated, ladies.&nbsp; What is the first article?&rsquo;
inquired the obsequious master of the ceremonies of the establishment,
who, in his large white neckcloth and formal tie, looked like a bad
&lsquo;portrait of a gentleman&rsquo; in the Somerset-house exhibition.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to see some silks,&rsquo; answered Mrs. Malderton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Directly, ma&rsquo;am.&mdash;Mr. Smith!&nbsp; Where <i>is</i>
Mr. Smith?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here, sir,&rsquo; cried a voice at the back of the shop.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray make haste, Mr. Smith,&rsquo; said the M.C.&nbsp; &lsquo;You
never are to be found when you&rsquo;re wanted, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Smith, thus enjoined to use all possible despatch, leaped over
the counter with great agility, and placed himself before the newly-arrived
customers.&nbsp; Mrs. Malderton uttered a faint scream; Miss Teresa,
who had been stooping down to talk to her sister, raised her head, and
beheld&mdash;Horatio Sparkins!</p>
<p>&lsquo;We will draw a veil,&rsquo; as novel-writers say, over the
scene that ensued.&nbsp; The mysterious, philosophical, romantic, metaphysical
Sparkins&mdash;he who, to the interesting Teresa, seemed like the embodied
idea of the young dukes and poetical exquisites in blue silk dressing-gowns,
and ditto ditto slippers, of whom she had read and dreamed, but had
never expected to behold, was suddenly converted into Mr. Samuel Smith,
the assistant at a &lsquo;cheap shop;&rsquo; the junior partner in a
slippery firm of some three weeks&rsquo; existence.&nbsp; The dignified
evanishment of the hero of Oak Lodge, on this unexpected recognition,
could only be equalled by that of a furtive dog with a considerable
kettle at his tail.&nbsp; All the hopes of the Maldertons were destined
at once to melt away, like the lemon ices at a Company&rsquo;s dinner;
Almack&rsquo;s was still to them as distant as the North Pole; and Miss
Teresa had as much chance of a husband as Captain Ross had of the north-west
passage.</p>
<p>Years have elapsed since the occurrence of this dreadful morning.&nbsp;
The daisies have thrice bloomed on Camberwell-green; the sparrows have
thrice repeated their vernal chirps in Camberwell-grove; but the Miss
Maldertons are still unmated.&nbsp; Miss Teresa&rsquo;s case is more
desperate than ever; but Flamwell is yet in the zenith of his reputation;
and the family have the same predilection for aristocratic personages,
with an increased aversion to anything <i>low</i>.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VI&mdash;THE BLACK VEIL</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>One winter&rsquo;s evening, towards the close of the year 1800, or
within a year or two of that time, a young medical practitioner, recently
established in business, was seated by a cheerful fire in his little
parlour, listening to the wind which was beating the rain in pattering
drops against the window, or rumbling dismally in the chimney.&nbsp;
The night was wet and cold; he had been walking through mud and water
the whole day, and was now comfortably reposing in his dressing-gown
and slippers, more than half asleep and less than half awake, revolving
a thousand matters in his wandering imagination.&nbsp; First, he thought
how hard the wind was blowing, and how the cold, sharp rain would be
at that moment beating in his face, if he were not comfortably housed
at home.&nbsp; Then, his mind reverted to his annual Christmas visit
to his native place and dearest friends; he thought how glad they would
all be to see him, and how happy it would make Rose if he could only
tell her that he had found a patient at last, and hoped to have more,
and to come down again, in a few months&rsquo; time, and marry her,
and take her home to gladden his lonely fireside, and stimulate him
to fresh exertions.&nbsp; Then, he began to wonder when his first patient
would appear, or whether he was destined, by a special dispensation
of Providence, never to have any patients at all; and then, he thought
about Rose again, and dropped to sleep and dreamed about her, till the
tones of her sweet merry voice sounded in his ears, and her soft tiny
hand rested on his shoulder.</p>
<p>There <i>was</i> a hand upon his shoulder, but it was neither soft
nor tiny; its owner being a corpulent round-headed boy, who, in consideration
of the sum of one shilling per week and his food, was let out by the
parish to carry medicine and messages.&nbsp; As there was no demand
for the medicine, however, and no necessity for the messages, he usually
occupied his unemployed hours&mdash;averaging fourteen a day&mdash;in
abstracting peppermint drops, taking animal nourishment, and going to
sleep.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A lady, sir&mdash;a lady!&rsquo; whispered the boy, rousing
his master with a shake.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What lady?&rsquo; cried our friend, starting up, not quite
certain that his dream was an illusion, and half expecting that it might
be Rose herself.&mdash;&lsquo;What lady?&nbsp; Where?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>There</i>, sir!&rsquo; replied the boy, pointing to the
glass door leading into the surgery, with an expression of alarm which
the very unusual apparition of a customer might have tended to excite.</p>
<p>The surgeon looked towards the door, and started himself, for an
instant, on beholding the appearance of his unlooked-for visitor.</p>
<p>It was a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep mourning, and standing
so close to the door that her face almost touched the glass.&nbsp; The
upper part of her figure was carefully muffled in a black shawl, as
if for the purpose of concealment; and her face was shrouded by a thick
black veil.&nbsp; She stood perfectly erect, her figure was drawn up
to its full height, and though the surgeon felt that the eyes beneath
the veil were fixed on him, she stood perfectly motionless, and evinced,
by no gesture whatever, the slightest consciousness of his having turned
towards her.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you wish to consult me?&rsquo; he inquired, with some hesitation,
holding open the door.&nbsp; It opened inwards, and therefore the action
did not alter the position of the figure, which still remained motionless
on the same spot.</p>
<p>She slightly inclined her head, in token of acquiescence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray walk in,&rsquo; said the surgeon.</p>
<p>The figure moved a step forward; and then, turning its head in the
direction of the boy&mdash;to his infinite horror&mdash;appeared to
hesitate.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Leave the room, Tom,&rsquo; said the young man, addressing
the boy, whose large round eyes had been extended to their utmost width
during this brief interview.&nbsp; &lsquo;Draw the curtain, and shut
the door.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The boy drew a green curtain across the glass part of the door, retired
into the surgery, closed the door after him, and immediately applied
one of his large eyes to the keyhole on the other side.</p>
<p>The surgeon drew a chair to the fire, and motioned the visitor to
a seat.&nbsp; The mysterious figure slowly moved towards it.&nbsp; As
the blaze shone upon the black dress, the surgeon observed that the
bottom of it was saturated with mud and rain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are very wet,&rsquo; be said.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am,&rsquo; said the stranger, in a low deep voice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And you are ill?&rsquo; added the surgeon, compassionately,
for the tone was that of a person in pain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am,&rsquo; was the reply&mdash;&lsquo;very ill; not bodily,
but mentally.&nbsp; It is not for myself, or on my own behalf,&rsquo;
continued the stranger, &lsquo;that I come to you.&nbsp; If I laboured
under bodily disease, I should not be out, alone, at such an hour, or
on such a night as this; and if I were afflicted with it, twenty-four
hours hence, God knows how gladly I would lie down and pray to die.&nbsp;
It is for another that I beseech your aid, sir.&nbsp; I may be mad to
ask it for him&mdash;I think I am; but, night after night, through the
long dreary hours of watching and weeping, the thought has been ever
present to my mind; and though even <i>I</i> see the hopelessness of
human assistance availing him, the bare thought of laying him in his
grave without it makes my blood run cold!&rsquo;&nbsp; And a shudder,
such as the surgeon well knew art could not produce, trembled through
the speaker&rsquo;s frame.</p>
<p>There was a desperate earnestness in this woman&rsquo;s manner, that
went to the young man&rsquo;s heart.&nbsp; He was young in his profession,
and had not yet witnessed enough of the miseries which are daily presented
before the eyes of its members, to have grown comparatively callous
to human suffering.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If,&rsquo; he said, rising hastily, &lsquo;the person of whom
you speak, be in so hopeless a condition as you describe, not a moment
is to be lost.&nbsp; I will go with you instantly.&nbsp; Why did you
not obtain medical advice before?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Because it would have been useless before&mdash;because it
is useless even now,&rsquo; replied the woman, clasping her hands passionately.</p>
<p>The surgeon gazed, for a moment, on the black veil, as if to ascertain
the expression of the features beneath it: its thickness, however, rendered
such a result impossible.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You <i>are</i> ill,&rsquo; he said, gently, &lsquo;although
you do not know it.&nbsp; The fever which has enabled you to bear, without
feeling it, the fatigue you have evidently undergone, is burning within
you now.&nbsp; Put that to your lips,&rsquo; he continued, pouring out
a glass of water&mdash;&lsquo;compose yourself for a few moments, and
then tell me, as calmly as you can, what the disease of the patient
is, and how long he has been ill.&nbsp; When I know what it is necessary
I should know, to render my visit serviceable to him, I am ready to
accompany you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The stranger lifted the glass of water to her mouth, without raising
the veil; put it down again untasted; and burst into tears.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know,&rsquo; she said, sobbing aloud, &lsquo;that what I
say to you now, seems like the ravings of fever.&nbsp; I have been told
so before, less kindly than by you.&nbsp; I am not a young woman; and
they do say, that as life steals on towards its final close, the last
short remnant, worthless as it may seem to all beside, is dearer to
its possessor than all the years that have gone before, connected though
they be with the recollection of old friends long since dead, and young
ones&mdash;children perhaps&mdash;who have fallen off from, and forgotten
one as completely as if they had died too.&nbsp; My natural term of
life cannot be many years longer, and should be dear on that account;
but I would lay it down without a sigh&mdash;with cheerfulness&mdash;with
joy&mdash;if what I tell you now, were only false, or imaginary.&nbsp;
To-morrow morning he of whom I speak will be, I <i>know</i>, though
I would fain think otherwise, beyond the reach of human aid; and yet,
to-night, though he is in deadly peril, you must not see, and could
not serve, him.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am unwilling to increase your distress,&rsquo; said the
surgeon, after a short pause, &lsquo;by making any comment on what you
have just said, or appearing desirous to investigate a subject you are
so anxious to conceal; but there is an inconsistency in your statement
which I cannot reconcile with probability.&nbsp; This person is dying
to-night, and I cannot see him when my assistance might possibly avail;
you apprehend it will be useless to-morrow, and yet you would have me
see him then!&nbsp; If he be, indeed, as dear to you, as your words
and manner would imply, why not try to save his life before delay and
the progress of his disease render it impracticable?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;God help me!&rsquo; exclaimed the woman, weeping bitterly,
&lsquo;how can I hope strangers will believe what appears incredible,
even to myself?&nbsp; You will <i>not</i> see him then, sir?&rsquo;
she added, rising suddenly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I did not say that I declined to see him,&rsquo; replied the
surgeon; &lsquo;but I warn you, that if you persist in this extraordinary
procrastination, and the individual dies, a fearful responsibility rests
with you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The responsibility will rest heavily somewhere,&rsquo; replied
the stranger bitterly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Whatever responsibility rests with
me, I am content to bear, and ready to answer.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;As I incur none,&rsquo; continued the surgeon, &lsquo;by acceding
to your request, I will see him in the morning, if you leave me the
address.&nbsp; At what hour can he be seen?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Nine</i>,&rsquo; replied the stranger.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You must excuse my pressing these inquiries,&rsquo; said the
surgeon.&nbsp; &lsquo;But is he in your charge now?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He is not,&rsquo; was the rejoinder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then, if I gave you instructions for his treatment through
the night, you could not assist him?&rsquo;</p>
<p>The woman wept bitterly, as she replied, &lsquo;I could not.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Finding that there was but little prospect of obtaining more information
by prolonging the interview; and anxious to spare the woman&rsquo;s
feelings, which, subdued at first by a violent effort, were now irrepressible
and most painful to witness; the surgeon repeated his promise of calling
in the morning at the appointed hour.&nbsp; His visitor, after giving
him a direction to an obscure part of Walworth, left the house in the
same mysterious manner in which she had entered it.</p>
<p>It will be readily believed that so extraordinary a visit produced
a considerable impression on the mind of the young surgeon; and that
he speculated a great deal and to very little purpose on the possible
circumstances of the case.&nbsp; In common with the generality of people,
he had often heard and read of singular instances, in which a presentiment
of death, at a particular day, or even minute, had been entertained
and realised.&nbsp; At one moment he was inclined to think that the
present might be such a case; but, then, it occurred to him that all
the anecdotes of the kind he had ever heard, were of persons who had
been troubled with a foreboding of their own death.&nbsp; This woman,
however, spoke of another person&mdash;a man; and it was impossible
to suppose that a mere dream or delusion of fancy would induce her to
speak of his approaching dissolution with such terrible certainty as
she had spoken.&nbsp; It could not be that the man was to be murdered
in the morning, and that the woman, originally a consenting party, and
bound to secrecy by an oath, had relented, and, though unable to prevent
the commission of some outrage on the victim, had determined to prevent
his death if possible, by the timely interposition of medical aid?&nbsp;
The idea of such things happening within two miles of the metropolis
appeared too wild and preposterous to be entertained beyond the instant.&nbsp;
Then, his original impression that the woman&rsquo;s intellects were
disordered, recurred; and, as it was the only mode of solving the difficulty
with any degree of satisfaction, he obstinately made up his mind to
believe that she was mad.&nbsp; Certain misgivings upon this point,
however, stole upon his thoughts at the time, and presented themselves
again and again through the long dull course of a sleepless night; during
which, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, he was unable to
banish the black veil from his disturbed imagination.</p>
<p>The back part of Walworth, at its greatest distance from town, is
a straggling miserable place enough, even in these days; but, five-and-thirty
years ago, the greater portion of it was little better than a dreary
waste, inhabited by a few scattered people of questionable character,
whose poverty prevented their living in any better neighbourhood, or
whose pursuits and mode of life rendered its solitude desirable.&nbsp;
Very many of the houses which have since sprung up on all sides, were
not built until some years afterwards; and the great majority even of
those which were sprinkled about, at irregular intervals, were of the
rudest and most miserable description.</p>
<p>The appearance of the place through which he walked in the morning,
was not calculated to raise the spirits of the young surgeon, or to
dispel any feeling of anxiety or depression which the singular kind
of visit he was about to make, had awakened.&nbsp; Striking off from
the high road, his way lay across a marshy common, through irregular
lanes, with here and there a ruinous and dismantled cottage fast falling
to pieces with decay and neglect.&nbsp; A stunted tree, or pool of stagnant
water, roused into a sluggish action by the heavy rain of the preceding
night, skirted the path occasionally; and, now and then, a miserable
patch of garden-ground, with a few old boards knocked together for a
summer-house, and old palings imperfectly mended with stakes pilfered
from the neighbouring hedges, bore testimony, at once to the poverty
of the inhabitants, and the little scruple they entertained in appropriating
the property of other people to their own use.&nbsp; Occasionally, a
filthy-looking woman would make her appearance from the door of a dirty
house, to empty the contents of some cooking utensil into the gutter
in front, or to scream after a little slip-shod girl, who had contrived
to stagger a few yards from the door under the weight of a sallow infant
almost as big as herself; but, scarcely anything was stirring around:
and so much of the prospect as could be faintly traced through the cold
damp mist which hung heavily over it, presented a lonely and dreary
appearance perfectly in keeping with the objects we have described.</p>
<p>After plodding wearily through the mud and mire; making many inquiries
for the place to which he had been directed; and receiving as many contradictory
and unsatisfactory replies in return; the young man at length arrived
before the house which had been pointed out to him as the object of
his destination.&nbsp; It was a small low building, one story above
the ground, with even a more desolate and unpromising exterior than
any he had yet passed.&nbsp; An old yellow curtain was closely drawn
across the window up-stairs, and the parlour shutters were closed, but
not fastened.&nbsp; The house was detached from any other, and, as it
stood at an angle of a narrow lane, there was no other habitation in
sight.</p>
<p>When we say that the surgeon hesitated, and walked a few paces beyond
the house, before he could prevail upon himself to lift the knocker,
we say nothing that need raise a smile upon the face of the boldest
reader.&nbsp; The police of London were a very different body in that
day; the isolated position of the suburbs, when the rage for building
and the progress of improvement had not yet begun to connect them with
the main body of the city and its environs, rendered many of them (and
this in particular) a place of resort for the worst and most depraved
characters.&nbsp; Even the streets in the gayest parts of London were
imperfectly lighted, at that time; and such places as these, were left
entirely to the mercy of the moon and stars.&nbsp; The chances of detecting
desperate characters, or of tracing them to their haunts, were thus
rendered very few, and their offences naturally increased in boldness,
as the consciousness of comparative security became the more impressed
upon them by daily experience.&nbsp; Added to these considerations,
it must be remembered that the young man had spent some time in the
public hospitals of the metropolis; and, although neither Burke nor
Bishop had then gained a horrible notoriety, his own observation might
have suggested to him how easily the atrocities to which the former
has since given his name, might be committed.&nbsp; Be this as it may,
whatever reflection made him hesitate, he <i>did</i> hesitate: but,
being a young man of strong mind and great personal courage, it was
only for an instant;&mdash;he stepped briskly back and knocked gently
at the door.</p>
<p>A low whispering was audible, immediately afterwards, as if some
person at the end of the passage were conversing stealthily with another
on the landing above.&nbsp; It was succeeded by the noise of a pair
of heavy boots upon the bare floor.&nbsp; The door-chain was softly
unfastened; the door opened; and a tall, ill-favoured man, with black
hair, and a face, as the surgeon often declared afterwards, as pale
and haggard, as the countenance of any dead man he ever saw, presented
himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Walk in, sir,&rsquo; he said in a low tone.</p>
<p>The surgeon did so, and the man having secured the door again, by
the chain, led the way to a small back parlour at the extremity of the
passage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Am I in time?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Too soon!&rsquo; replied the man.&nbsp; The surgeon turned
hastily round, with a gesture of astonishment not unmixed with alarm,
which he found it impossible to repress.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If you&rsquo;ll step in here, sir,&rsquo; said the man, who
had evidently noticed the action&mdash;&lsquo;if you&rsquo;ll step in
here, sir, you won&rsquo;t be detained five minutes, I assure you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The surgeon at once walked into the room.&nbsp; The man closed the
door, and left him alone.</p>
<p>It was a little cold room, with no other furniture than two deal
chairs, and a table of the same material.&nbsp; A handful of fire, unguarded
by any fender, was burning in the grate, which brought out the damp
if it served no more comfortable purpose, for the unwholesome moisture
was stealing down the walls, in long slug-like tracks.&nbsp; The window,
which was broken and patched in many places, looked into a small enclosed
piece of ground, almost covered with water.&nbsp; Not a sound was to
be heard, either within the house, or without.&nbsp; The young surgeon
sat down by the fireplace, to await the result of his first professional
visit.</p>
<p>He had not remained in this position many minutes, when the noise
of some approaching vehicle struck his ear.&nbsp; It stopped; the street-door
was opened; a low talking succeeded, accompanied with a shuffling noise
of footsteps, along the passage and on the stairs, as if two or three
men were engaged in carrying some heavy body to the room above.&nbsp;
The creaking of the stairs, a few seconds afterwards, announced that
the new-comers having completed their task, whatever it was, were leaving
the house.&nbsp; The door was again closed, and the former silence was
restored.</p>
<p>Another five minutes had elapsed, and the surgeon had resolved to
explore the house, in search of some one to whom he might make his errand
known, when the room-door opened, and his last night&rsquo;s visitor,
dressed in exactly the same manner, with the veil lowered as before,
motioned him to advance.&nbsp; The singular height of her form, coupled
with the circumstance of her not speaking, caused the idea to pass across
his brain for an instant, that it might be a man disguised in woman&rsquo;s
attire.&nbsp; The hysteric sobs which issued from beneath the veil,
and the convulsive attitude of grief of the whole figure, however, at
once exposed the absurdity of the suspicion; and he hastily followed.</p>
<p>The woman led the way up-stairs to the front room, and paused at
the door, to let him enter first.&nbsp; It was scantily furnished with
an old deal box, a few chairs, and a tent bedstead, without hangings
or cross-rails, which was covered with a patchwork counterpane.&nbsp;
The dim light admitted through the curtain which he had noticed from
the outside, rendered the objects in the room so indistinct, and communicated
to all of them so uniform a hue, that he did not, at first, perceive
the object on which his eye at once rested when the woman rushed frantically
past him, and flung herself on her knees by the bedside.</p>
<p>Stretched upon the bed, closely enveloped in a linen wrapper, and
covered with blankets, lay a human form, stiff and motionless.&nbsp;
The head and face, which were those of a man, were uncovered, save by
a bandage which passed over the head and under the chin.&nbsp; The eyes
were closed.&nbsp; The left arm lay heavily across the bed, and the
woman held the passive hand.</p>
<p>The surgeon gently pushed the woman aside, and took the hand in his.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My God!&rsquo; he exclaimed, letting it fall involuntarily&mdash;&lsquo;the
man is dead!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The woman started to her feet and beat her hands together.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t say so, sir,&rsquo; she exclaimed, with a
burst of passion, amounting almost to frenzy.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t
say so, sir!&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t bear it!&nbsp; Men have been brought
to life, before, when unskilful people have given them up for lost;
and men have died, who might have been restored, if proper means had
been resorted to.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t let him lie here, sir, without one
effort to save him!&nbsp; This very moment life may be passing away.&nbsp;
Do try, sir,&mdash;do, for Heaven&rsquo;s sake!&rsquo;&mdash;And while
speaking, she hurriedly chafed, first the forehead, and then the breast,
of the senseless form before her; and then, wildly beat the cold hands,
which, when she ceased to hold them, fell listlessly and heavily back
on the coverlet.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is of no use, my good woman,&rsquo; said the surgeon, soothingly,
as he withdrew his hand from the man&rsquo;s breast.&nbsp; &lsquo;Stay&mdash;undraw
that curtain!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why?&rsquo; said the woman, starting up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Undraw that curtain!&rsquo; repeated the surgeon in an agitated
tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I darkened the room on purpose,&rsquo; said the woman, throwing
herself before him as he rose to undraw it.&mdash;&lsquo;Oh! sir, have
pity on me!&nbsp; If it can be of no use, and he is really dead, do
not expose that form to other eyes than mine!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;This man died no natural or easy death,&rsquo; said the surgeon.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I <i>must</i> see the body!&rsquo;&nbsp; With a motion so sudden,
that the woman hardly knew that he had slipped from beside her, he tore
open the curtain, admitted the full light of day, and returned to the
bedside.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There has been violence here,&rsquo; he said, pointing towards
the body, and gazing intently on the face, from which the black veil
was now, for the first time, removed.&nbsp; In the excitement of a minute
before, the female had thrown off the bonnet and veil, and now stood
with her eyes fixed upon him.&nbsp; Her features were those of a woman
about fifty, who had once been handsome.&nbsp; Sorrow and weeping had
left traces upon them which not time itself would ever have produced
without their aid; her face was deadly pale; and there was a nervous
contortion of the lip, and an unnatural fire in her eye, which showed
too plainly that her bodily and mental powers had nearly sunk, beneath
an accumulation of misery.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There has been violence here,&rsquo; said the surgeon, preserving
his searching glance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There has!&rsquo; replied the woman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This man has been murdered.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That I call God to witness he has,&rsquo; said the woman,
passionately; &lsquo;pitilessly, inhumanly murdered!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;By whom?&rsquo; said the surgeon, seizing the woman by the
arm.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Look at the butchers&rsquo; marks, and then ask me!&rsquo;
she replied.</p>
<p>The surgeon turned his face towards the bed, and bent over the body
which now lay full in the light of the window.&nbsp; The throat was
swollen, and a livid mark encircled it.&nbsp; The truth flashed suddenly
upon him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This is one of the men who were hanged this morning!&rsquo;
he exclaimed, turning away with a shudder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is,&rsquo; replied the woman, with a cold, unmeaning stare.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who was he?&rsquo; inquired the surgeon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>My son</i>,&rsquo; rejoined the woman; and fell senseless
at his feet.</p>
<p>It was true.&nbsp; A companion, equally guilty with himself, had
been acquitted for want of evidence; and this man had been left for
death, and executed.&nbsp; To recount the circumstances of the case,
at this distant period, must be unnecessary, and might give pain to
some persons still alive.&nbsp; The history was an every-day one.&nbsp;
The mother was a widow without friends or money, and had denied herself
necessaries to bestow them on her orphan boy.&nbsp; That boy, unmindful
of her prayers, and forgetful of the sufferings she had endured for
him&mdash;incessant anxiety of mind, and voluntary starvation of body&mdash;had
plunged into a career of dissipation and crime.&nbsp; And this was the
result; his own death by the hangman&rsquo;s hands, and his mother&rsquo;s
shame, and incurable insanity.</p>
<p>For many years after this occurrence, and when profitable and arduous
avocations would have led many men to forget that such a miserable being
existed, the young surgeon was a daily visitor at the side of the harmless
mad woman; not only soothing her by his presence and kindness, but alleviating
the rigour of her condition by pecuniary donations for her comfort and
support, bestowed with no sparing hand.&nbsp; In the transient gleam
of recollection and consciousness which preceded her death, a prayer
for his welfare and protection, as fervent as mortal ever breathed,
rose from the lips of this poor friendless creature.&nbsp; That prayer
flew to Heaven, and was heard.&nbsp; The blessings he was instrumental
in conferring, have been repaid to him a thousand-fold; but, amid all
the honours of rank and station which have since been heaped upon him,
and which he has so well earned, he can have no reminiscence more gratifying
to his heart than that connected with The Black Veil.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VII&mdash;THE STEAM EXCURSION</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes was a law student, inhabiting a set of chambers
on the fourth floor, in one of those houses in Gray&rsquo;s-inn-square
which command an extensive view of the gardens, and their usual adjuncts&mdash;flaunting
nursery-maids, and town-made children, with parenthetical legs.&nbsp;
Mr. Percy Noakes was what is generally termed&mdash;&lsquo;a devilish
good fellow.&rsquo;&nbsp; He had a large circle of acquaintance, and
seldom dined at his own expense.&nbsp; He used to talk politics to papas,
flatter the vanity of mammas, do the amiable to their daughters, make
pleasure engagements with their sons, and romp with the younger branches.&nbsp;
Like those paragons of perfection, advertising footmen out of place,
he was always &lsquo;willing to make himself generally useful.&rsquo;&nbsp;
If any old lady, whose son was in India, gave a ball, Mr. Percy Noakes
was master of the ceremonies; if any young lady made a stolen match,
Mr. Percy Noakes gave her away; if a juvenile wife presented her husband
with a blooming cherub, Mr. Percy Noakes was either godfather, or deputy-godfather;
and if any member of a friend&rsquo;s family died, Mr. Percy Noakes
was invariably to be seen in the second mourning coach, with a white
handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing&mdash;to use his own appropriate and
expressive description&mdash;&lsquo;like winkin&rsquo;!&rsquo;</p>
<p>It may readily be imagined that these numerous avocations were rather
calculated to interfere with Mr. Percy Noakes&rsquo;s professional studies.&nbsp;
Mr. Percy Noakes was perfectly aware of the fact, and had, therefore,
after mature reflection, made up his mind not to study at all&mdash;a
laudable determination, to which he adhered in the most praiseworthy
manner.&nbsp; His sitting-room presented a strange chaos of dress-gloves,
boxing-gloves, caricatures, albums, invitation-cards, foils, cricket-bats,
cardboard drawings, paste, gum, and fifty other miscellaneous articles,
heaped together in the strangest confusion.&nbsp; He was always making
something for somebody, or planning some party of pleasure, which was
his great <i>forte</i>.&nbsp; He invariably spoke with astonishing rapidity;
was smart, spoffish, and eight-and-twenty.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Splendid idea, &rsquo;pon my life!&rsquo; soliloquised Mr.
Percy Noakes, over his morning coffee, as his mind reverted to a suggestion
which had been thrown out on the previous night, by a lady at whose
house he had spent the evening.&nbsp; &lsquo;Glorious idea!&mdash;Mrs.
Stubbs.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir,&rsquo; replied a dirty old woman with an inflamed
countenance, emerging from the bedroom, with a barrel of dirt and cinders.&mdash;This
was the laundress.&nbsp; &lsquo;Did you call, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; Mrs. Stubbs, I&rsquo;m going out.&nbsp; If that
tailor should call again, you&rsquo;d better say&mdash;you&rsquo;d better
say I&rsquo;m out of town, and shan&rsquo;t be back for a fortnight;
and if that bootmaker should come, tell him I&rsquo;ve lost his address,
or I&rsquo;d have sent him that little amount.&nbsp; Mind he writes
it down; and if Mr. Hardy should call&mdash;you know Mr. Hardy?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The funny gentleman, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah! the funny gentleman.&nbsp; If Mr. Hardy should call, say
I&rsquo;ve gone to Mrs. Taunton&rsquo;s about that water-party.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And if any fellow calls, and says he&rsquo;s come about a
steamer, tell him to be here at five o&rsquo;clock this afternoon, Mrs.
Stubbs.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes brushed his hat, whisked the crumbs off his inexpressibles
with a silk handkerchief, gave the ends of his hair a persuasive roll
round his forefinger, and sallied forth for Mrs. Taunton&rsquo;s domicile
in Great Marlborough-street, where she and her daughters occupied the
upper part of a house.&nbsp; She was a good-looking widow of fifty,
with the form of a giantess and the mind of a child.&nbsp; The pursuit
of pleasure, and some means of killing time, were the sole end of her
existence.&nbsp; She doted on her daughters, who were as frivolous as
herself.</p>
<p>A general exclamation of satisfaction hailed the arrival of Mr. Percy
Noakes, who went through the ordinary salutations, and threw himself
into an easy chair near the ladies&rsquo; work-table, with the ease
of a regularly established friend of the family.&nbsp; Mrs. Taunton
was busily engaged in planting immense bright bows on every part of
a smart cap on which it was possible to stick one; Miss Emily Taunton
was making a watch-guard; Miss Sophia was at the piano, practising a
new song&mdash;poetry by the young officer, or the police-officer, or
the custom-house officer, or some other interesting amateur.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You good creature!&rsquo; said Mrs. Taunton, addressing the
gallant Percy.&nbsp; &lsquo;You really are a good soul!&nbsp; You&rsquo;ve
come about the water-party, I know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should rather suspect I had,&rsquo; replied Mr. Noakes,
triumphantly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now, come here, girls, and I&rsquo;ll tell
you all about it.&rsquo;&nbsp; Miss Emily and Miss Sophia advanced to
the table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; continued Mr. Percy Noakes, &lsquo;it seems to
me that the best way will be, to have a committee of ten, to make all
the arrangements, and manage the whole set-out.&nbsp; Then, I propose
that the expenses shall be paid by these ten fellows jointly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Excellent, indeed!&rsquo; said Mrs. Taunton, who highly approved
of this part of the arrangements.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then, my plan is, that each of these ten fellows shall have
the power of asking five people.&nbsp; There must be a meeting of the
committee, at my chambers, to make all the arrangements, and these people
shall be then named; every member of the committee shall have the power
of black-balling any one who is proposed; and one black ball shall exclude
that person.&nbsp; This will ensure our having a pleasant party, you
know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a manager you are!&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Taunton again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Charming!&rsquo; said the lovely Emily.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I never did!&rsquo; ejaculated Sophia.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I think it&rsquo;ll do,&rsquo; replied Mr. Percy Noakes,
who was now quite in his element.&nbsp; &lsquo;I think it&rsquo;ll do.&nbsp;
Then you know we shall go down to the Nore, and back, and have a regular
capital cold dinner laid out in the cabin before we start, so that everything
may be ready without any confusion; and we shall have the lunch laid
out, on deck, in those little tea-garden-looking concerns by the paddle-boxes&mdash;I
don&rsquo;t know what you call &rsquo;em.&nbsp; Then, we shall hire
a steamer expressly for our party, and a band, and have the deck chalked,
and we shall be able to dance quadrilles all day; and then, whoever
we know that&rsquo;s musical, you know, why they&rsquo;ll make themselves
useful and agreeable; and&mdash;and&mdash;upon the whole, I really hope
we shall have a glorious day, you know!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The announcement of these arrangements was received with the utmost
enthusiasm.&nbsp; Mrs. Taunton, Emily, and Sophia, were loud in their
praises.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, but tell me, Percy,&rsquo; said Mrs. Taunton, &lsquo;who
are the ten gentlemen to be?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; I know plenty of fellows who&rsquo;ll be delighted
with the scheme,&rsquo; replied Mr. Percy Noakes; &lsquo;of course we
shall have&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Hardy!&rsquo; interrupted the servant, announcing a visitor.&nbsp;
Miss Sophia and Miss Emily hastily assumed the most interesting attitudes
that could be adopted on so short a notice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How are you?&rsquo; said a stout gentleman of about forty,
pausing at the door in the attitude of an awkward harlequin.&nbsp; This
was Mr. Hardy, whom we have before described, on the authority of Mrs.
Stubbs, as &lsquo;the funny gentleman.&rsquo;&nbsp; He was an Astley-Cooperish
Joe Miller&mdash;a practical joker, immensely popular with married ladies,
and a general favourite with young men.&nbsp; He was always engaged
in some pleasure excursion or other, and delighted in getting somebody
into a scrape on such occasions.&nbsp; He could sing comic songs, imitate
hackney-coachmen and fowls, play airs on his chin, and execute concertos
on the Jews&rsquo;-harp.&nbsp; He always eat and drank most immoderately,
and was the bosom friend of Mr. Percy Noakes.&nbsp; He had a red face,
a somewhat husky voice, and a tremendous laugh.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How<i> are</i> you?&rsquo; said this worthy, laughing, as
if it were the finest joke in the world to make a morning call, and
shaking hands with the ladies with as much vehemence as if their arms
had been so many pump-handles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;re just the very man I wanted,&rsquo; said Mr. Percy
Noakes, who proceeded to explain the cause of his being in requisition.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rsquo; shouted Hardy, after hearing the statement,
and receiving a detailed account of the proposed excursion.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh,
capital! glorious!&nbsp; What a day it will be! what fun!&mdash;But,
I say, when are you going to begin making the arrangements?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No time like the present&mdash;at once, if you please.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, charming!&rsquo; cried the ladies.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray,
do!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Writing materials were laid before Mr. Percy Noakes, and the names
of the different members of the committee were agreed on, after as much
discussion between him and Mr. Hardy as if the fate of nations had depended
on their appointment.&nbsp; It was then agreed that a meeting should
take place at Mr. Percy Noakes&rsquo;s chambers on the ensuing Wednesday
evening at eight o&rsquo;clock, and the visitors departed.</p>
<p>Wednesday evening arrived; eight o&rsquo;clock came, and eight members
of the committee were punctual in their attendance.&nbsp; Mr. Loggins,
the solicitor, of Boswell-court, sent an excuse, and Mr. Samuel Briggs,
the ditto of Furnival&rsquo;s Inn, sent his brother: much to his (the
brother&rsquo;s) satisfaction, and greatly to the discomfiture of Mr.
Percy Noakes.&nbsp; Between the Briggses and the Tauntons there existed
a degree of implacable hatred, quite unprecedented.&nbsp; The animosity
between the Montagues and Capulets, was nothing to that which prevailed
between these two illustrious houses.&nbsp; Mrs. Briggs was a widow,
with three daughters and two sons; Mr. Samuel, the eldest, was an attorney,
and Mr. Alexander, the youngest, was under articles to his brother.&nbsp;
They resided in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and moved in the same
orbit as the Tauntons&mdash;hence their mutual dislike.&nbsp; If the
Miss Briggses appeared in smart bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed
them with smarter.&nbsp; If Mrs. Taunton appeared in a cap of all the
hues of the rainbow, Mrs. Briggs forthwith mounted a toque, with all
the patterns of the kaleidoscope.&nbsp; If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt
a new song, two of the Miss Briggses came out with a new duet.&nbsp;
The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance
of a harp, but the Briggses brought three guitars into the field, and
effectually routed the enemy.&nbsp; There was no end to the rivalry
between them.</p>
<p>Now, as Mr. Samuel Briggs was a mere machine, a sort of self-acting
legal walking-stick; and as the party was known to have originated,
however remotely, with Mrs. Taunton, the female branches of the Briggs
family had arranged that Mr. Alexander should attend, instead of his
brother; and as the said Mr. Alexander was deservedly celebrated for
possessing all the pertinacity of a bankruptcy-court attorney, combined
with the obstinacy of that useful animal which browses on the thistle,
he required but little tuition.&nbsp; He was especially enjoined to
make himself as disagreeable as possible; and, above all, to black-ball
the Tauntons at every hazard.</p>
<p>The proceedings of the evening were opened by Mr. Percy Noakes.&nbsp;
After successfully urging on the gentlemen present the propriety of
their mixing some brandy-and-water, he briefly stated the object of
the meeting, and concluded by observing that the first step must be
the selection of a chairman, necessarily possessing some arbitrary&mdash;he
trusted not unconstitutional&mdash;powers, to whom the personal direction
of the whole of the arrangements (subject to the approval of the committee)
should be confided.&nbsp; A pale young gentleman, in a green stock and
spectacles of the same, a member of the honourable society of the Inner
Temple, immediately rose for the purpose of proposing Mr. Percy Noakes.&nbsp;
He had known him long, and this he would say, that a more honourable,
a more excellent, or a better-hearted fellow, never existed.&mdash;(Hear,
hear!)&nbsp; The young gentleman, who was a member of a debating society,
took this opportunity of entering into an examination of the state of
the English law, from the days of William the Conqueror down to the
present period; he briefly adverted to the code established by the ancient
Druids; slightly glanced at the principles laid down by the Athenian
law-givers; and concluded with a most glowing eulogium on pic-nics and
constitutional rights.</p>
<p>Mr. Alexander Briggs opposed the motion.&nbsp; He had the highest
esteem for Mr. Percy Noakes as an individual, but he did consider that
he ought not to be intrusted with these immense powers&mdash;(oh, oh!)&mdash;He
believed that in the proposed capacity Mr. Percy Noakes would not act
fairly, impartially, or honourably; but he begged it to be distinctly
understood, that he said this, without the slightest personal disrespect.&nbsp;
Mr. Hardy defended his honourable friend, in a voice rendered partially
unintelligible by emotion and brandy-and-water.&nbsp; The proposition
was put to the vote, and there appearing to be only one dissentient
voice, Mr. Percy Noakes was declared duly elected, and took the chair
accordingly.</p>
<p>The business of the meeting now proceeded with rapidity.&nbsp; The
chairman delivered in his estimate of the probable expense of the excursion,
and every one present subscribed his portion thereof.&nbsp; The question
was put that &lsquo;The Endeavour&rsquo; be hired for the occasion;
Mr. Alexander Briggs moved as an amendment, that the word &lsquo;Fly&rsquo;
be substituted for the word &lsquo;Endeavour&rsquo;; but after some
debate consented to withdraw his opposition.&nbsp; The important ceremony
of balloting then commenced.&nbsp; A tea-caddy was placed on a table
in a dark corner of the apartment, and every one was provided with two
backgammon men, one black and one white.</p>
<p>The chairman with great solemnity then read the following list of
the guests whom he proposed to introduce:- Mrs. Taunton and two daughters,
Mr. Wizzle, Mr. Simson.&nbsp; The names were respectively balloted for,
and Mrs. Taunton and her daughters were declared to be black-balled.&nbsp;
Mr. Percy Noakes and Mr. Hardy exchanged glances.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is your list prepared, Mr. Briggs?&rsquo; inquired the chairman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is,&rsquo; replied Alexander, delivering in the following:-
&lsquo;Mrs. Briggs and three daughters, Mr. Samuel Briggs.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The previous ceremony was repeated, and Mrs. Briggs and three daughters
were declared to be black-balled.&nbsp; Mr. Alexander Briggs looked
rather foolish, and the remainder of the company appeared somewhat overawed
by the mysterious nature of the proceedings.</p>
<p>The balloting proceeded; but, one little circumstance which Mr. Percy
Noakes had not originally foreseen, prevented the system from working
quite as well as he had anticipated.&nbsp; Everybody was black-balled.&nbsp;
Mr. Alexander Briggs, by way of retaliation, exercised his power of
exclusion in every instance, and the result was, that after three hours
had been consumed in hard balloting, the names of only three gentlemen
were found to have been agreed to.&nbsp; In this dilemma what was to
be done? either the whole plan must fall to the ground, or a compromise
must be effected.&nbsp; The latter alternative was preferable; and Mr.
Percy Noakes therefore proposed that the form of balloting should be
dispensed with, and that every gentleman should merely be required to
state whom he intended to bring.&nbsp; The proposal was acceded to;
the Tauntons and the Briggses were reinstated; and the party was formed.</p>
<p>The next Wednesday was fixed for the eventful day, and it was unanimously
resolved that every member of the committee should wear a piece of blue
sarsenet ribbon round his left arm.&nbsp; It appeared from the statement
of Mr. Percy Noakes, that the boat belonged to the General Steam Navigation
Company, and was then lying off the Custom-house; and, as he proposed
that the dinner and wines should be provided by an eminent city purveyor,
it was arranged that Mr. Percy Noakes should be on board by seven o&rsquo;clock
to superintend the arrangements, and that the remaining members of the
committee, together with the company generally, should be expected to
join her by nine o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; More brandy-and-water was despatched;
several speeches were made by the different law students present; thanks
were voted to the chairman; and the meeting separated.</p>
<p>The weather had been beautiful up to this period, and beautiful it
continued to be.&nbsp; Sunday passed over, and Mr. Percy Noakes became
unusually fidgety&mdash;rushing, constantly, to and from the Steam Packet
Wharf, to the astonishment of the clerks, and the great emolument of
the Holborn cabmen.&nbsp; Tuesday arrived, and the anxiety of Mr. Percy
Noakes knew no bounds.&nbsp; He was every instant running to the window,
to look out for clouds; and Mr. Hardy astonished the whole square by
practising a new comic song for the occasion, in the chairman&rsquo;s
chambers.</p>
<p>Uneasy were the slumbers of Mr. Percy Noakes that night; he tossed
and tumbled about, and had confused dreams of steamers starting off,
and gigantic clocks with the hands pointing to a quarter-past nine,
and the ugly face of Mr. Alexander Briggs looking over the boat&rsquo;s
side, and grinning, as if in derision of his fruitless attempts to move.&nbsp;
He made a violent effort to get on board, and awoke.&nbsp; The bright
sun was shining cheerfully into the bedroom, and Mr. Percy Noakes started
up for his watch, in the dreadful expectation of finding his worst dreams
realised.</p>
<p>It was just five o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; He calculated the time&mdash;he
should be a good half-hour dressing himself; and as it was a lovely
morning, and the tide would be then running down, he would walk leisurely
to Strand-lane, and have a boat to the Custom-house.</p>
<p>He dressed himself, took a hasty apology for a breakfast, and sallied
forth.&nbsp; The streets looked as lonely and deserted as if they had
been crowded, overnight, for the last time.&nbsp; Here and there, an
early apprentice, with quenched-looking sleepy eyes, was taking down
the shutters of a shop; and a policeman or milkwoman might occasionally
be seen pacing slowly along; but the servants had not yet begun to clean
the doors, or light the kitchen fires, and London looked the picture
of desolation.&nbsp; At the corner of a by-street, near Temple-bar,
was stationed a &lsquo;street-breakfast.&rsquo;&nbsp; The coffee was
boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread and butter were
piled one upon the other, like deals in a timber-yard.&nbsp; The company
were seated on a form, which, with a view both to security and comfort,
was placed against a neighbouring wall.&nbsp; Two young men, whose uproarious
mirth and disordered dress bespoke the conviviality of the preceding
evening, were treating three &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; and an Irish labourer.&nbsp;
A little sweep was standing at a short distance, casting a longing eye
at the tempting delicacies; and a policeman was watching the group from
the opposite side of the street.&nbsp; The wan looks and gaudy finery
of the thinly-clad women contrasted as strangely with the gay sunlight,
as did their forced merriment with the boisterous hilarity of the two
young men, who, now and then, varied their amusements by &lsquo;bonneting&rsquo;
the proprietor of this itinerant coffee-house.</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes walked briskly by, and when he turned down Strand-lane,
and caught a glimpse of the glistening water, he thought he had never
felt so important or so happy in his life.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Boat, sir?&rsquo; cried one of the three watermen who were
mopping out their boats, and all whistling.&nbsp; &lsquo;Boat, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; replied Mr. Percy Noakes, rather sharply; for the
inquiry was not made in a manner at all suitable to his dignity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Would you prefer a wessel, sir?&rsquo; inquired another, to
the infinite delight of the &lsquo;Jack-in-the-water.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes replied with a look of supreme contempt.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you want to be put on board a steamer, sir?&rsquo; inquired
an old fireman-waterman, very confidentially.&nbsp; He was dressed in
a faded red suit, just the colour of the cover of a very old Court-guide.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, make haste&mdash;the Endeavour&mdash;off the Custom-house.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Endeavour!&rsquo; cried the man who had convulsed the &lsquo;Jack&rsquo;
before.&nbsp; &lsquo;Vy, I see the Endeavour go up half an hour ago.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;So did I,&rsquo; said another; &lsquo;and I should think she&rsquo;d
gone down by this time, for she&rsquo;s a precious sight too full of
ladies and gen&rsquo;lemen.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes affected to disregard these representations, and
stepped into the boat, which the old man, by dint of scrambling, and
shoving, and grating, had brought up to the causeway.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shove
her off!&rsquo; cried Mr. Percy Noakes, and away the boat glided down
the river; Mr. Percy Noakes seated on the recently mopped seat, and
the watermen at the stairs offering to bet him any reasonable sum that
he&rsquo;d never reach the &lsquo;Custum-us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here she is, by Jove!&rsquo; said the delighted Percy, as
they ran alongside the Endeavour.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hold hard!&rsquo; cried the steward over the side, and Mr.
Percy Noakes jumped on board.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hope you will find everything as you wished, sir.&nbsp; She
looks uncommon well this morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She does, indeed,&rsquo; replied the manager, in a state of
ecstasy which it is impossible to describe.&nbsp; The deck was scrubbed,
and the seats were scrubbed, and there was a bench for the band, and
a place for dancing, and a pile of camp-stools, and an awning; and then
Mr. Percy Noakes bustled down below, and there were the pastrycook&rsquo;s
men, and the steward&rsquo;s wife, laying out the dinner on two tables
the whole length of the cabin; and then Mr. Percy Noakes took off his
coat and rushed backwards and forwards, doing nothing, but quite convinced
he was assisting everybody; and the steward&rsquo;s wife laughed till
she cried, and Mr. Percy Noakes panted with the violence of his exertions.&nbsp;
And then the bell at London-bridge wharf rang; and a Margate boat was
just starting; and a Gravesend boat was just starting, and people shouted,
and porters ran down the steps with luggage that would crush any men
but porters; and sloping boards, with bits of wood nailed on them, were
placed between the outside boat and the inside boat; and the passengers
ran along them, and looked like so many fowls coming out of an area;
and then, the bell ceased, and the boards were taken away, and the boats
started, and the whole scene was one of the most delightful bustle and
confusion.</p>
<p>The time wore on; half-past eight o&rsquo;clock arrived; the pastry-cook&rsquo;s
men went ashore; the dinner was completely laid out; and Mr. Percy Noakes
locked the principal cabin, and put the key in his pocket, in order
that it might be suddenly disclosed, in all its magnificence, to the
eyes of the astonished company.&nbsp; The band came on board, and so
did the wine.</p>
<p>Ten minutes to nine, and the committee embarked in a body.&nbsp;
There was Mr. Hardy, in a blue jacket and waistcoat, white trousers,
silk stockings, and pumps&mdash;in full aquatic costume, with a straw
hat on his head, and an immense telescope under his arm; and there was
the young gentleman with the green spectacles, in nankeen inexplicables,
with a ditto waistcoat and bright buttons, like the pictures of Paul&mdash;not
the saint, but he of Virginia notoriety.&nbsp; The remainder of the
committee, dressed in white hats, light jackets, waistcoats, and trousers,
looked something between waiters and West India planters.</p>
<p>Nine o&rsquo;clock struck, and the company arrived in shoals.&nbsp;
Mr. Samuel Briggs, Mrs. Briggs, and the Misses Briggs, made their appearance
in a smart private wherry.&nbsp; The three guitars, in their respective
dark green cases, were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat,
accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take
at least a week&rsquo;s incessant playing to get through.&nbsp; The
Tauntons arrived at the same moment with more music, and a lion&mdash;a
gentleman with a bass voice and an incipient red moustache.&nbsp; The
colours of the Taunton party were pink; those of the Briggses a light
blue.&nbsp; The Tauntons had artificial flowers in their bonnets; here
the Briggses gained a decided advantage&mdash;they wore feathers.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How d&rsquo;ye do, dear?&rsquo; said the Misses Briggs to
the Misses Taunton.&nbsp; (The word &lsquo;dear&rsquo; among girls is
frequently synonymous with &lsquo;wretch.&rsquo;)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Quite well, thank you, dear,&rsquo; replied the Misses Taunton
to the Misses Briggs; and then, there was such a kissing, and congratulating,
and shaking of hands, as might have induced one to suppose that the
two families were the best friends in the world, instead of each wishing
the other overboard, as they most sincerely did.</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes received the visitors, and bowed to the strange
gentleman, as if he should like to know who he was.&nbsp; This was just
what Mrs. Taunton wanted.&nbsp; Here was an opportunity to astonish
the Briggses.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; I beg your pardon,&rsquo; said the general of the
Taunton party, with a careless air.&mdash;&lsquo;Captain Helves&mdash;Mr.
Percy Noakes&mdash;Mrs. Briggs&mdash;Captain Helves.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes bowed very low; the gallant captain did the same
with all due ferocity, and the Briggses were clearly overcome.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our friend, Mr. Wizzle, being unfortunately prevented from
coming,&rsquo; resumed Mrs. Taunton, &lsquo;I did myself the pleasure
of bringing the captain, whose musical talents I knew would be a great
acquisition.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;In the name of the committee I have to thank you for doing
so, and to offer you welcome, sir,&rsquo; replied Percy.&nbsp; (Here
the scraping was renewed.)&nbsp; &lsquo;But pray be seated&mdash;won&rsquo;t
you walk aft?&nbsp; Captain, will you conduct Miss Taunton?&mdash;Miss
Briggs, will you allow me?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where could they have picked up that military man?&rsquo;
inquired Mrs. Briggs of Miss Kate Briggs, as they followed the little
party.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine,&rsquo; replied Miss Kate, bursting
with vexation; for the very fierce air with which the gallant captain
regarded the company, had impressed her with a high sense of his importance.</p>
<p>Boat after boat came alongside, and guest after guest arrived.&nbsp;
The invites had been excellently arranged: Mr. Percy Noakes having considered
it as important that the number of young men should exactly tally with
that of the young ladies, as that the quantity of knives on board should
be in precise proportion to the forks.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, is every one on board?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Percy Noakes.&nbsp;
The committee (who, with their bits of blue ribbon, looked as if they
were all going to be bled) bustled about to ascertain the fact, and
reported that they might safely start.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go on!&rsquo; cried the master of the boat from the top of
one of the paddle-boxes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Go on!&rsquo; echoed the boy, who was stationed over the hatchway
to pass the directions down to the engineer; and away went the vessel
with that agreeable noise which is peculiar to steamers, and which is
composed of a mixture of creaking, gushing, clanging, and snorting.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hoi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-o-i-i-i!&rsquo; shouted half-a-dozen voices
from a boat, a quarter of a mile astern.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ease her!&rsquo; cried the captain: &lsquo;do these people
belong to us, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Noakes,&rsquo; exclaimed Hardy, who had been looking at every
object far and near, through the large telescope, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields&mdash;and two children with them,
by Jove!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a shame to bring children!&rsquo; said everybody; &lsquo;how
very inconsiderate!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say, it would be a good joke to pretend not to see &rsquo;em,
wouldn&rsquo;t it?&rsquo; suggested Hardy, to the immense delight of
the company generally.&nbsp; A council of war was hastily held, and
it was resolved that the newcomers should be taken on board, on Mr.
Hardy solemnly pledging himself to tease the children during the whole
of the day.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stop her!&rsquo; cried the captain.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stop her!&rsquo; repeated the boy; whizz went the steam, and
all the young ladies, as in duty bound, screamed in concert.&nbsp; They
were only appeased by the assurance of the martial Helves, that the
escape of steam consequent on stopping a vessel was seldom attended
with any great loss of human life.</p>
<p>Two men ran to the side; and after some shouting, and swearing, and
angling for the wherry with a boat-hook, Mr. Fleetwood, and Mrs. Fleetwood,
and Master Fleetwood, and Mr. Wakefield, and Mrs. Wakefield, and Miss
Wakefield, were safely deposited on the deck.&nbsp; The girl was about
six years old, the boy about four; the former was dressed in a white
frock with a pink sash and dog&rsquo;s-eared-looking little spencer:
a straw bonnet and green veil, six inches by three and a half; the latter,
was attired for the occasion in a nankeen frock, between the bottom
of which, and the top of his plaid socks, a considerable portion of
two small mottled legs was discernible.&nbsp; He had a light blue cap
with a gold band and tassel on his head, and a damp piece of gingerbread
in his hand, with which he had slightly embossed his countenance.</p>
<p>The boat once more started off; the band played &lsquo;Off she goes:&rsquo;
the major part of the company conversed cheerfully in groups; and the
old gentlemen walked up and down the deck in pairs, as perseveringly
and gravely as if they were doing a match against time for an immense
stake.&nbsp; They ran briskly down the Pool; the gentlemen pointed out
the Docks, the Thames Police-office, and other elegant public edifices;
and the young ladies exhibited a proper display of horror at the appearance
of the coal-whippers and ballast-heavers.&nbsp; Mr. Hardy told stories
to the married ladies, at which they laughed very much in their pocket-handkerchiefs,
and hit him on the knuckles with their fans, declaring him to be &lsquo;a
naughty man&mdash;a shocking creature&rsquo;&mdash;and so forth; and
Captain Helves gave slight descriptions of battles and duels, with a
most bloodthirsty air, which made him the admiration of the women, and
the envy of the men.&nbsp; Quadrilling commenced; Captain Helves danced
one set with Miss Emily Taunton, and another set with Miss Sophia Taunton.&nbsp;
Mrs. Taunton was in ecstasies.&nbsp; The victory appeared to be complete;
but alas! the inconstancy of man!&nbsp; Having performed this necessary
duty, he attached himself solely to Miss Julia Briggs, with whom he
danced no less than three sets consecutively, and from whose side he
evinced no intention of stirring for the remainder of the day.</p>
<p>Mr. Hardy, having played one or two very brilliant fantasias on the
Jews&rsquo;-harp, and having frequently repeated the exquisitely amusing
joke of slily chalking a large cross on the back of some member of the
committee, Mr. Percy Noakes expressed his hope that some of their musical
friends would oblige the company by a display of their abilities.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Perhaps,&rsquo; he said in a very insinuating manner, &lsquo;Captain
Helves will oblige us?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Taunton&rsquo;s countenance
lighted up, for the captain only sang duets, and couldn&rsquo;t sing
them with anybody but one of her daughters.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Really,&rsquo; said that warlike individual, &lsquo;I should
be very happy, &lsquo;but&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! pray do,&rsquo; cried all the young ladies.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Emily, have you any objection to join in a duet?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! not the slightest,&rsquo; returned the young lady, in
a tone which clearly showed she had the greatest possible objection.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Shall I accompany you, dear?&rsquo; inquired one of the Miss
Briggses, with the bland intention of spoiling the effect.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very much obliged to you, Miss Briggs,&rsquo; sharply retorted
Mrs. Taunton, who saw through the manoeuvre; &lsquo;my daughters always
sing without accompaniments.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And without voices,&rsquo; tittered Mrs. Briggs, in a low
tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Perhaps,&rsquo; said Mrs. Taunton, reddening, for she guessed
the tenor of the observation, though she had not heard it clearly&mdash;&lsquo;Perhaps
it would be as well for some people, if their voices were not quite
so audible as they are to other people.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And, perhaps, if gentlemen who are kidnapped to pay attention
to some persons&rsquo; daughters, had not sufficient discernment to
pay attention to other persons&rsquo; daughters,&rsquo; returned Mrs.
Briggs, &lsquo;some persons would not be so ready to display that ill-temper
which, thank God, distinguishes them from other persons.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Persons!&rsquo; ejaculated Mrs. Taunton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Persons,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Briggs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Insolence!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Creature!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush! hush!&rsquo; interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes, who was one
of the very few by whom this dialogue had been overheard.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hush!&mdash;pray,
silence for the duet.&rsquo;</p>
<p>After a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming, the captain
began the following duet from the opera of &lsquo;Paul and Virginia,&rsquo;
in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, Heaven knows where,
without the remotest chance of ever getting up again.&nbsp; This, in
private circles, is frequently designated &lsquo;a bass voice.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;See (sung the captain) from o-ce-an ri-sing<br />Bright flames
the or-b of d-ay.<br />From yon gro-ove, the varied so-ongs&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Here, the singer was interrupted by varied cries of the most dreadful
description, proceeding from some grove in the immediate vicinity of
the starboard paddle-box.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My child!&rsquo; screamed Mrs. Fleetwood.&nbsp; &lsquo;My
child! it is his voice&mdash;I know it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Fleetwood, accompanied by several gentlemen, here rushed to the
quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and an exclamation of horror
burst from the company; the general impression being, that the little
innocent had either got his head in the water, or his legs in the machinery.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What is the matter?&rsquo; shouted the agonised father, as
he returned with the child in his arms.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! oh! oh!&rsquo; screamed the small sufferer again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What is the matter, dear?&rsquo; inquired the father once
more&mdash;hastily stripping off the nankeen frock, for the purpose
of ascertaining whether the child had one bone which was not smashed
to pieces.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! oh!&mdash;I&rsquo;m so frightened!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What at, dear?&mdash;what at?&rsquo; said the mother, soothing
the sweet infant.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! he&rsquo;s been making such dreadful faces at me,&rsquo;
cried the boy, relapsing into convulsions at the bare recollection.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He!&mdash;who?&rsquo; cried everybody, crowding round him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&mdash;him!&rsquo; replied the child, pointing at Hardy,
who affected to be the most concerned of the whole group.</p>
<p>The real state of the case at once flashed upon the minds of all
present, with the exception of the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields.&nbsp;
The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child
to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with
the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror.&nbsp;
Of course, he now observed that it was hardly necessary for him to deny
the accusation; and the unfortunate little victim was accordingly led
below, after receiving sundry thumps on the head from both his parents,
for having the wickedness to tell a story.</p>
<p>This little interruption having been adjusted, the captain resumed,
and Miss Emily chimed in, in due course.&nbsp; The duet was loudly applauded,
and, certainly, the perfect independence of the parties deserved great
commendation.&nbsp; Miss Emily sung her part, without the slightest
reference to the captain; and the captain sang so loud, that he had
not the slightest idea what was being done by his partner.&nbsp; After
having gone through the last few eighteen or nineteen bars by himself,
therefore, he acknowledged the plaudits of the circle with that air
of self-denial which men usually assume when they think they have done
something to astonish the company.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said Mr. Percy Noakes, who had just ascended from
the fore-cabin, where he had been busily engaged in decanting the wine,
&lsquo;if the Misses Briggs will oblige us with something before dinner,
I am sure we shall be very much delighted.&rsquo;</p>
<p>One of those hums of admiration followed the suggestion, which one
frequently hears in society, when nobody has the most distant notion
what he is expressing his approval of.&nbsp; The three Misses Briggs
looked modestly at their mamma, and the mamma looked approvingly at
her daughters, and Mrs. Taunton looked scornfully at all of them.&nbsp;
The Misses Briggs asked for their guitars, and several gentlemen seriously
damaged the cases in their anxiety to present them.&nbsp; Then, there
was a very interesting production of three little keys for the aforesaid
cases, and a melodramatic expression of horror at finding a string broken;
and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, and winding, and tuning,
during which Mrs. Briggs expatiated to those near her on the immense
difficulty of playing a guitar, and hinted at the wondrous proficiency
of her daughters in that mystic art.&nbsp; Mrs. Taunton whispered to
a neighbour that it was &lsquo;quite sickening!&rsquo; and the Misses
Taunton looked as if they knew how to play, but disdained to do it.</p>
<p>At length, the Misses Briggs began in real earnest.&nbsp; It was
a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars.&nbsp;
The effect was electrical.&nbsp; All eyes were turned upon the captain,
who was reported to have once passed through Spain with his regiment,
and who must be well acquainted with the national music.&nbsp; He was
in raptures.&nbsp; This was sufficient; the trio was encored; the applause
was universal; and never had the Tauntons suffered such a complete defeat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bravo! bravo!&rsquo; ejaculated the captain;&mdash;&lsquo;bravo!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pretty! isn&rsquo;t it, sir?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Samuel Briggs,
with the air of a self-satisfied showman.&nbsp; By-the-bye, these were
the first words he had been heard to utter since he left Boswell-court
the evening before.</p>
<p>&lsquo;De-lightful!&rsquo; returned the captain, with a flourish,
and a military cough;&mdash;&lsquo;de-lightful!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sweet instrument!&rsquo; said an old gentleman with a bald
head, who had been trying all the morning to look through a telescope,
inside the glass of which Mr. Hardy had fixed a large black wafer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?&rsquo; inquired
that jocular individual.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did <i>you</i> ever hear a tom-tom, sir?&rsquo; sternly inquired
the captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real
or pretended.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A what?&rsquo; asked Hardy, rather taken aback.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A tom-tom.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nor a gum-gum?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What <i>is</i> a gum-gum?&rsquo; eagerly inquired several
young ladies.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I was in the East Indies,&rsquo; replied the captain&mdash;(here
was a discovery&mdash;he had been in the East Indies!)&mdash;&lsquo;when
I was in the East Indies, I was once stopping a few thousand miles up
the country, on a visit at the house of a very particular friend of
mine, Ram Chowdar Doss Azuph Al Bowlar&mdash;a devilish pleasant fellow.&nbsp;
As we were enjoying our hookahs, one evening, in the cool verandah in
front of his villa, we were rather surprised by the sudden appearance
of thirty-four of his Kit-ma-gars (for he had rather a large establishment
there), accompanied by an equal number of Con-su-mars, approaching the
house with a threatening aspect, and beating a tom-tom.&nbsp; The Ram
started up&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who?&rsquo; inquired the bald gentleman, intensely interested.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The Ram&mdash;Ram Chowdar&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; said the old gentleman, &lsquo;beg your pardon;
pray go on.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;&mdash;Started up and drew a pistol.&nbsp; &ldquo;Helves,&rdquo;
said he, &ldquo;my boy,&rdquo;&mdash;he always called me, my boy&mdash;&ldquo;Helves,&rdquo;
said he, &ldquo;do you hear that tom-tom?&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;I do,&rdquo;
said I.&nbsp; His countenance, which before was pale, assumed a most
frightful appearance; his whole visage was distorted, and his frame
shaken by violent emotions.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do you see that gum-gum?&rdquo;
said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, staring about me.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
don&rsquo;t?&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ll be damned if
I do,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and what&rsquo;s more, I don&rsquo;t know
what a gum-gum is,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; I really thought the Ram would
have dropped.&nbsp; He drew me aside, and with an expression of agony
I shall never forget, said in a low whisper&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dinner&rsquo;s on the table, ladies,&rsquo; interrupted the
steward&rsquo;s wife.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you allow me?&rsquo; said the captain, immediately suiting
the action to the word, and escorting Miss Julia Briggs to the cabin,
with as much ease as if he had finished the story.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What an extraordinary circumstance!&rsquo; ejaculated the
same old gentleman, preserving his listening attitude.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a traveller!&rsquo; said the young ladies.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a singular name!&rsquo; exclaimed the gentlemen, rather
confused by the coolness of the whole affair.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I wish he had finished the story,&rsquo; said an old lady.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I wonder what a gum-gum really is?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;By Jove!&rsquo; exclaimed Hardy, who until now had been lost
in utter amazement, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know what it may be in India,
but in England I think a gum-gum has very much the same meaning as a
hum-bug.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;How illiberal! how envious!&rsquo; cried everybody, as they
made for the cabin, fully impressed with a belief in the captain&rsquo;s
amazing adventures.&nbsp; Helves was the sole lion for the remainder
of the day&mdash;impudence and the marvellous are pretty sure passports
to any society.</p>
<p>The party had by this time reached their destination, and put about
on their return home.&nbsp; The wind, which had been with them the whole
day, was now directly in their teeth; the weather had become gradually
more and more overcast; and the sky, water, and shore, were all of that
dull, heavy, uniform lead-colour, which house-painters daub in the first
instance over a street-door which is gradually approaching a state of
convalescence.&nbsp; It had been &lsquo;spitting&rsquo; with rain for
the last half-hour, and now began to pour in good earnest.&nbsp; The
wind was freshening very fast, and the waterman at the wheel had unequivocally
expressed his opinion that there would shortly be a squall.&nbsp; A
slight emotion on the part of the vessel, now and then, seemed to suggest
the possibility of its pitching to a very uncomfortable extent in the
event of its blowing harder; and every timber began to creak, as if
the boat were an overladen clothes-basket.&nbsp; Sea-sickness, however,
is like a belief in ghosts&mdash;every one entertains some misgivings
on the subject, but few will acknowledge any.&nbsp; The majority of
the company, therefore, endeavoured to look peculiarly happy, feeling
all the while especially miserable.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t it rain?&rsquo; inquired the old gentleman before
noticed, when, by dint of squeezing and jamming, they were all seated
at table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think it does&mdash;a little,&rsquo; replied Mr. Percy Noakes,
who could hardly hear himself speak, in consequence of the pattering
on the deck.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t it blow?&rsquo; inquired some one else.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think it does,&rsquo; responded Hardy, sincerely
wishing that he could persuade himself that it did not; for he sat near
the door, and was almost blown off his seat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;ll soon clear up,&rsquo; said Mr. Percy Noakes, in
a cheerful tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, certainly!&rsquo; ejaculated the committee generally.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt of it!&rsquo; said the remainder of the company,
whose attention was now pretty well engrossed by the serious business
of eating, carving, taking wine, and so forth.</p>
<p>The throbbing motion of the engine was but too perceptible.&nbsp;
There was a large, substantial, cold boiled leg of mutton, at the bottom
of the table, shaking like blancmange; a previously hearty sirloin of
beef looked as if it had been suddenly seized with the palsy; and some
tongues, which were placed on dishes rather too large for them, went
through the most surprising evolutions; darting from side to side, and
from end to end, like a fly in an inverted wine-glass.&nbsp; Then, the
sweets shook and trembled, till it was quite impossible to help them,
and people gave up the attempt in despair; and the pigeon-pies looked
as if the birds, whose legs were stuck outside, were trying to get them
in.&nbsp; The table vibrated and started like a feverish pulse, and
the very legs were convulsed&mdash;everything was shaking and jarring.&nbsp;
The beams in the roof of the cabin seemed as if they were put there
for the sole purpose of giving people head-aches, and several elderly
gentlemen became ill-tempered in consequence.&nbsp; As fast as the steward
put the fire-irons up, they <i>would</i> fall down again; and the more
the ladies and gentlemen tried to sit comfortably on their seats, the
more the seats seemed to slide away from the ladies and gentlemen.&nbsp;
Several ominous demands were made for small glasses of brandy; the countenances
of the company gradually underwent most extraordinary changes; one gentleman
was observed suddenly to rush from table without the slightest ostensible
reason, and dart up the steps with incredible swiftness: thereby greatly
damaging both himself and the steward, who happened to be coming down
at the same moment.</p>
<p>The cloth was removed; the dessert was laid on the table; and the
glasses were filled.&nbsp; The motion of the boat increased; several
members of the party began to feel rather vague and misty, and looked
as if they had only just got up.&nbsp; The young gentleman with the
spectacles, who had been in a fluctuating state for some time&mdash;at
one moment bright, and at another dismal, like a revolving light on
the sea-coast&mdash;rashly announced his wish to propose a toast.&nbsp;
After several ineffectual attempts to preserve his perpendicular, the
young gentleman, having managed to hook himself to the centre leg of
the table with his left hand, proceeded as follows:</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ladies and gentlemen.&nbsp; A gentleman is among us&mdash;I
may say a stranger&mdash;(here some painful thought seemed to strike
the orator; he paused, and looked extremely odd)&mdash;whose talents,
whose travels, whose cheerfulness&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&rsquo; hastily interrupted Mr.
Percy Noakes,&mdash;&lsquo;Hardy, what&rsquo;s the matter?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nothing,&rsquo; replied the &lsquo;funny gentleman,&rsquo;
who had just life enough left to utter two consecutive syllables.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you have some brandy?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No!&rsquo; replied Hardy in a tone of great indignation, and
looking as comfortable as Temple-bar in a Scotch mist; &lsquo;what should
I want brandy for?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Will you go on deck?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, I will <i>not</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp; This was said with a most
determined air, and in a voice which might have been taken for an imitation
of anything; it was quite as much like a guinea-pig as a bassoon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&rsquo; said the courteous Percy;
&lsquo;I thought our friend was ill.&nbsp; Pray go on.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A pause.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pray go on.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Edkins <i>is</i> gone,&rsquo; cried somebody.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rsquo; said the steward, running up
to Mr. Percy Noakes, &lsquo;I beg your pardon, sir, but the gentleman
as just went on deck&mdash;him with the green spectacles&mdash;is uncommon
bad, to be sure; and the young man as played the wiolin says, that unless
he has some brandy he can&rsquo;t answer for the consequences.&nbsp;
He says he has a wife and two children, whose werry subsistence depends
on his breaking a wessel, and he expects to do so every moment.&nbsp;
The flageolet&rsquo;s been werry ill, but he&rsquo;s better, only he&rsquo;s
in a dreadful prusperation.&rsquo;</p>
<p>All disguise was now useless; the company staggered on deck; the
gentlemen tried to see nothing but the clouds; and the ladies, muffled
up in such shawls and cloaks as they had brought with them, lay about
on the seats, and under the seats, in the most wretched condition.&nbsp;
Never was such a blowing, and raining, and pitching, and tossing, endured
by any pleasure party before.&nbsp; Several remonstrances were sent
down below, on the subject of Master Fleetwood, but they were totally
unheeded in consequence of the indisposition of his natural protectors.&nbsp;
That interesting child screamed at the top of his voice, until he had
no voice left to scream with; and then, Miss Wakefield began, and screamed
for the remainder of the passage.</p>
<p>Mr. Hardy was observed, some hours afterwards, in an attitude which
induced his friends to suppose that he was busily engaged in contemplating
the beauties of the deep; they only regretted that his taste for the
picturesque should lead him to remain so long in a position, very injurious
at all times, but especially so, to an individual labouring under a
tendency of blood to the head.</p>
<p>The party arrived off the Custom-house at about two o&rsquo;clock
on the Thursday morning dispirited and worn out.&nbsp; The Tauntons
were too ill to quarrel with the Briggses, and the Briggses were too
wretched to annoy the Tauntons.&nbsp; One of the guitar-cases was lost
on its passage to a hackney-coach, and Mrs. Briggs has not scrupled
to state that the Tauntons bribed a porter to throw it down an area.&nbsp;
Mr. Alexander Briggs opposes vote by ballot&mdash;he says from personal
experience of its inefficacy; and Mr. Samuel Briggs, whenever he is
asked to express his sentiments on the point, says he has no opinion
on that or any other subject.</p>
<p>Mr. Edkins&mdash;the young gentleman in the green spectacles&mdash;makes
a speech on every occasion on which a speech can possibly be made: the
eloquence of which can only be equalled by its length.&nbsp; In the
event of his not being previously appointed to a judgeship, it is probable
that he will practise as a barrister in the New Central Criminal Court.</p>
<p>Captain Helves continued his attention to Miss Julia Briggs, whom
he might possibly have espoused, if it had not unfortunately happened
that Mr. Samuel arrested him, in the way of business, pursuant to instructions
received from Messrs.&nbsp; Scroggins and Payne, whose town-debts the
gallant captain had condescended to collect, but whose accounts, with
the indiscretion sometimes peculiar to military minds, he had omitted
to keep with that dull accuracy which custom has rendered necessary.&nbsp;
Mrs. Taunton complains that she has been much deceived in him.&nbsp;
He introduced himself to the family on board a Gravesend steam-packet,
and certainly, therefore, ought to have proved respectable.</p>
<p>Mr. Percy Noakes is as light-hearted and careless as ever.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VIII&mdash;THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The little town of Great Winglebury is exactly forty-two miles and
three-quarters from Hyde Park corner.&nbsp; It has a long, straggling,
quiet High-street, with a great black and white clock at a small red
Town-hall, half-way up&mdash;a market-place&mdash;a cage&mdash;an assembly-room&mdash;a
church&mdash;a bridge&mdash;a chapel&mdash;a theatre&mdash;a library&mdash;an
inn&mdash;a pump&mdash;and a Post-office.&nbsp; Tradition tells of a
&lsquo;Little Winglebury,&rsquo; down some cross-road about two miles
off; and, as a square mass of dirty paper, supposed to have been originally
intended for a letter, with certain tremulous characters inscribed thereon,
in which a lively imagination might trace a remote resemblance to the
word &lsquo;Little,&rsquo; was once stuck up to be owned in the sunny
window of the Great Winglebury Post-office, from which it only disappeared
when it fell to pieces with dust and extreme old age, there would appear
to be some foundation for the legend.&nbsp; Common belief is inclined
to bestow the name upon a little hole at the end of a muddy lane about
a couple of miles long, colonised by one wheelwright, four paupers,
and a beer-shop; but, even this authority, slight as it is, must be
regarded with extreme suspicion, inasmuch as the inhabitants of the
hole aforesaid, concur in opining that it never had any name at all,
from the earliest ages down to the present day.</p>
<p>The Winglebury Arms, in the centre of the High-street, opposite the
small building with the big clock, is the principal inn of Great Winglebury&mdash;the
commercial-inn, posting-house, and excise-office; the &lsquo;Blue&rsquo;
house at every election, and the judges&rsquo; house at every assizes.&nbsp;
It is the head-quarters of the Gentlemen&rsquo;s Whist Club of Winglebury
Blues (so called in opposition to the Gentlemen&rsquo;s Whist Club of
Winglebury Buffs, held at the other house, a little further down): and
whenever a juggler, or wax-work man, or concert-giver, takes Great Winglebury
in his circuit, it is immediately placarded all over the town that Mr.
So-and-so, &lsquo;trusting to that liberal support which the inhabitants
of Great Winglebury have long been so liberal in bestowing, has at a
great expense engaged the elegant and commodious assembly-rooms, attached
to the Winglebury Arms.&rsquo;&nbsp; The house is a large one, with
a red brick and stone front; a pretty spacious hall, ornamented with
evergreen plants, terminates in a perspective view of the bar, and a
glass case, in which are displayed a choice variety of delicacies ready
for dressing, to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters,
and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch.&nbsp; Opposite
doors lead to the &lsquo;coffee&rsquo; and &lsquo;commercial&rsquo;
rooms; and a great wide, rambling staircase,&mdash;three stairs and
a landing&mdash;four stairs and another landing&mdash;one step and another
landing&mdash;half-a-dozen stairs and another landing&mdash;and so on&mdash;conducts
to galleries of bedrooms, and labyrinths of sitting-rooms, denominated
&lsquo;private,&rsquo; where you may enjoy yourself, as privately as
you can in any place where some bewildered being walks into your room
every five minutes, by mistake, and then walks out again, to open all
the doors along the gallery until he finds his own.</p>
<p>Such is the Winglebury Arms, at this day, and such was the Winglebury
Arms some time since&mdash;no matter when&mdash;two or three minutes
before the arrival of the London stage.&nbsp; Four horses with cloths
on&mdash;change for a coach&mdash;were standing quietly at the corner
of the yard surrounded by a listless group of post-boys in shiny hats
and smock-frocks, engaged in discussing the merits of the cattle; half
a dozen ragged boys were standing a little apart, listening with evident
interest to the conversation of these worthies; and a few loungers were
collected round the horse-trough, awaiting the arrival of the coach.</p>
<p>The day was hot and sunny, the town in the zenith of its dulness,
and with the exception of these few idlers, not a living creature was
to be seen.&nbsp; Suddenly, the loud notes of a key-bugle broke the
monotonous stillness of the street; in came the coach, rattling over
the uneven paving with a noise startling enough to stop even the large-faced
clock itself.&nbsp; Down got the outsides, up went the windows in all
directions, out came the waiters, up started the ostlers, and the loungers,
and the post-boys, and the ragged boys, as if they were electrified&mdash;unstrapping,
and unchaining, and unbuckling, and dragging willing horses out, and
forcing reluctant horses in, and making a most exhilarating bustle.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Lady inside, here!&rsquo; said the guard.&nbsp; &lsquo;Please
to alight, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; said the waiter.&nbsp; &lsquo;Private
sitting-room?&rsquo; interrogated the lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Certainly,
ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; responded the chamber-maid.&nbsp; &lsquo;Nothing
but these &rsquo;ere trunks, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; inquired the guard.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Nothing more,&rsquo; replied the lady.&nbsp; Up got the outsides
again, and the guard, and the coachman; off came the cloths, with a
jerk; &lsquo;All right,&rsquo; was the cry; and away they went.&nbsp;
The loungers lingered a minute or two in the road, watching the coach
until it turned the corner, and then loitered away one by one.&nbsp;
The street was clear again, and the town, by contrast, quieter than
ever.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lady in number twenty-five,&rsquo; screamed the landlady.&mdash;&lsquo;Thomas!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Letter just been left for the gentleman in number nineteen.&nbsp;
Boots at the Lion left it.&nbsp; No answer.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Letter for you, sir,&rsquo; said Thomas, depositing the letter
on number nineteen&rsquo;s table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;For me?&rsquo; said number nineteen, turning from the window,
out of which he had been surveying the scene just described.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, sir,&rsquo;&mdash;(waiters always speak in hints, and
never utter complete sentences,)&mdash;&lsquo;yes, sir,&mdash;Boots
at the Lion, sir,&mdash;Bar, sir,&mdash;Missis said number nineteen,
sir&mdash;Alexander Trott, Esq., sir?&mdash;Your card at the bar, sir,
I think, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My name <i>is</i> Trott,&rsquo; replied number nineteen, breaking
the seal.&nbsp; &lsquo;You may go, waiter.&rsquo;&nbsp; The waiter pulled
down the window-blind, and then pulled it up again&mdash;for a regular
waiter must do something before he leaves the room&mdash;adjusted the
glasses on the side-board, brushed a place that was <i>not</i> dusty,
rubbed his hands very hard, walked stealthily to the door, and evaporated.</p>
<p>There was, evidently, something in the contents of the letter, of
a nature, if not wholly unexpected, certainly extremely disagreeable.&nbsp;
Mr. Alexander Trott laid it down, and took it up again, and walked about
the room on particular squares of the carpet, and even attempted, though
unsuccessfully, to whistle an air.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t do.&nbsp;
He threw himself into a chair, and read the following epistle aloud:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Blue Lion and Stomach-warmer,<br />&lsquo;Great Winglebury.<br />&lsquo;Wednesday
Morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sir.&nbsp; Immediately on discovering your intentions, I left
our counting-house, and followed you.&nbsp; I know the purport of your
journey;&mdash;that journey shall never be completed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have no friend here, just now, on whose secrecy I can rely.&nbsp;
This shall be no obstacle to my revenge.&nbsp; Neither shall Emily Brown
be exposed to the mercenary solicitations of a scoundrel, odious in
her eyes, and contemptible in everybody else&rsquo;s: nor will I tamely
submit to the clandestine attacks of a base umbrella-maker.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sir.&nbsp; From Great Winglebury church, a footpath leads
through four meadows to a retired spot known to the townspeople as Stiffun&rsquo;s
Acre.&rsquo;&nbsp; [Mr. Trott shuddered.]&nbsp; &lsquo;I shall be waiting
there alone, at twenty minutes before six o&rsquo;clock to-morrow morning.&nbsp;
Should I be disappointed in seeing you there, I will do myself the pleasure
of calling with a horsewhip.</p>
<p>&lsquo;HORACE HUNTER.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PS.&nbsp; There is a gunsmiths in the High-street; and they
won&rsquo;t sell gunpowder after dark&mdash;you understand me.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PPS.&nbsp; You had better not order your breakfast in the
morning until you have met me.&nbsp; It may be an unnecessary expense.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Desperate-minded villain!&nbsp; I knew how it would be!&rsquo;
ejaculated the terrified Trott.&nbsp; &lsquo;I always told father, that
once start me on this expedition, and Hunter would pursue me like the
Wandering Jew.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s bad enough as it is, to marry with the
old people&rsquo;s commands, and without the girl&rsquo;s consent; but
what will Emily think of me, if I go down there breathless with running
away from this infernal salamander?&nbsp; What <i>shall</i> I do?&nbsp;
What <i>can</i> I do?&nbsp; If I go back to the city, I&rsquo;m disgraced
for ever&mdash;lose the girl&mdash;and, what&rsquo;s more, lose the
money too.&nbsp; Even if I did go on to the Browns&rsquo; by the coach,
Hunter would be after me in a post-chaise; and if I go to this place,
this Stiffun&rsquo;s Acre (another shudder), I&rsquo;m as good as dead.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve seen him hit the man at the Pall-mall shooting-gallery, in
the second button-hole of the waistcoat, five times out of every six,
and when he didn&rsquo;t hit him there, he hit him in the head.&rsquo;&nbsp;
With this consolatory reminiscence Mr. Alexander Trott again ejaculated,
&lsquo;What shall I do?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Long and weary were his reflections, as, burying his face in his
hand, he sat, ruminating on the best course to be pursued.&nbsp; His
mental direction-post pointed to London.&nbsp; He thought of the &lsquo;governor&rsquo;s&rsquo;
anger, and the loss of the fortune which the paternal Brown had promised
the paternal Trott his daughter should contribute to the coffers of
his son.&nbsp; Then the words &lsquo;To Brown&rsquo;s&rsquo; were legibly
inscribed on the said direction-post, but Horace Hunter&rsquo;s denunciation
rung in his ears;&mdash;last of all it bore, in red letters, the words,
&lsquo;To Stiffun&rsquo;s Acre;&rsquo; and then Mr. Alexander Trott
decided on adopting a plan which he presently matured.</p>
<p>First and foremost, he despatched the under-boots to the Blue Lion
and Stomach-warmer, with a gentlemanly note to Mr. Horace Hunter, intimating
that he thirsted for his destruction and would do himself the pleasure
of slaughtering him next morning, without fail.&nbsp; He then wrote
another letter, and requested the attendance of the other boots&mdash;for
they kept a pair.&nbsp; A modest knock at the room door was heard.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Come in,&rsquo; said Mr. Trott.&nbsp; A man thrust in a red head
with one eye in it, and being again desired to &lsquo;come in,&rsquo;
brought in the body and the legs to which the head belonged, and a fur
cap which belonged to the head.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are the upper-boots, I think?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I am the upper-boots,&rsquo; replied a voice from inside
a velveteen case, with mother-of-pearl buttons&mdash;&lsquo;that is,
I&rsquo;m the boots as b&rsquo;longs to the house; the other man&rsquo;s
my man, as goes errands and does odd jobs.&nbsp; Top-boots and half-boots,
I calls us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;re from London?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Driv a cab once,&rsquo; was the laconic reply.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why don&rsquo;t you drive it now?&rsquo; asked Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Over-driv the cab, and driv over a &rsquo;ooman,&rsquo; replied
the top-boots, with brevity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you know the mayor&rsquo;s house?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Rather,&rsquo; replied the boots, significantly, as if he
had some good reason to remember it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you think you could manage to leave a letter there?&rsquo;
interrogated Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t wonder,&rsquo; responded boots.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But this letter,&rsquo; said Trott, holding a deformed note
with a paralytic direction in one hand, and five shillings in the other&mdash;&lsquo;this
letter is anonymous.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A&mdash;what?&rsquo; interrupted the boots.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Anonymous&mdash;he&rsquo;s not to know who it comes from.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; I see,&rsquo; responded the reg&rsquo;lar, with
a knowing wink, but without evincing the slightest disinclination to
undertake the charge&mdash;&lsquo;I see&mdash;bit o&rsquo; Sving, eh?&rsquo;
and his one eye wandered round the room, as if in quest of a dark lantern
and phosphorus-box.&nbsp; &lsquo;But, I say!&rsquo; he continued, recalling
the eye from its search, and bringing it to bear on Mr. Trott.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I say, he&rsquo;s a lawyer, our mayor, and insured in the County.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;ve a spite agen him, you&rsquo;d better not burn his house
down&mdash;blessed if I don&rsquo;t think it would be the greatest favour
you could do him.&rsquo;&nbsp; And he chuckled inwardly.</p>
<p>If Mr. Alexander Trott had been in any other situation, his first
act would have been to kick the man down-stairs by deputy; or, in other
words, to ring the bell, and desire the landlord to take his boots off.&nbsp;
He contented himself, however, with doubling the fee and explaining
that the letter merely related to a breach of the peace.&nbsp; The top-boots
retired, solemnly pledged to secrecy; and Mr. Alexander Trott sat down
to a fried sole, maintenon cutlet, Madeira, and sundries, with greater
composure than he had experienced since the receipt of Horace Hunter&rsquo;s
letter of defiance.</p>
<p>The lady who alighted from the London coach had no sooner been installed
in number twenty-five, and made some alteration in her travelling-dress,
than she indited a note to Joseph Overton, esquire, solicitor, and mayor
of Great Winglebury, requesting his immediate attendance on private
business of paramount importance&mdash;a summons which that worthy functionary
lost no time in obeying; for after sundry openings of his eyes, divers
ejaculations of &lsquo;Bless me!&rsquo; and other manifestations of
surprise, he took his broad-brimmed hat from its accustomed peg in his
little front office, and walked briskly down the High-street to the
Winglebury Arms; through the hall and up the staircase of which establishment
he was ushered by the landlady, and a crowd of officious waiters, to
the door of number twenty-five.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Show the gentleman in,&rsquo; said the stranger lady, in reply
to the foremost waiter&rsquo;s announcement.&nbsp; The gentleman was
shown in accordingly.</p>
<p>The lady rose from the sofa; the mayor advanced a step from the door;
and there they both paused, for a minute or two, looking at one another
as if by mutual consent.&nbsp; The mayor saw before him a buxom, richly-dressed
female of about forty; the lady looked upon a sleek man, about ten years
older, in drab shorts and continuations, black coat, neckcloth, and
gloves.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Julia Manners!&rsquo; exclaimed the mayor at length,
&lsquo;you astonish me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s very unfair of you, Overton,&rsquo; replied Miss
Julia, &lsquo;for I have known you, long enough, not to be surprised
at anything you do, and you might extend equal courtesy to me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But to run away&mdash;actually run away&mdash;with a young
man!&rsquo; remonstrated the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t have me actually run away with an old one,
I presume?&rsquo; was the cool rejoinder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And then to ask me&mdash;me&mdash;of all people in the world&mdash;a
man of my age and appearance&mdash;mayor of the town&mdash;to promote
such a scheme!&rsquo; pettishly ejaculated Joseph Overton; throwing
himself into an arm-chair, and producing Miss Julia&rsquo;s letter from
his pocket, as if to corroborate the assertion that he <i>had</i> been
asked.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, Overton,&rsquo; replied the lady, &lsquo;I want your
assistance in this matter, and I must have it.&nbsp; In the lifetime
of that poor old dear, Mr. Cornberry, who&mdash;who&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who was to have married you, and didn&rsquo;t, because he
died first; and who left you his property unencumbered with the addition
of himself,&rsquo; suggested the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; replied Miss Julia, reddening slightly, &lsquo;in
the lifetime of the poor old dear, the property had the incumbrance
of your management; and all I will say of that, is, that I only wonder
it didn&rsquo;t die of consumption instead of its master.&nbsp; You
helped yourself then:- help me now.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Joseph Overton was a man of the world, and an attorney; and as
certain indistinct recollections of an odd thousand pounds or two, appropriated
by mistake, passed across his mind he hemmed deprecatingly, smiled blandly,
remained silent for a few seconds; and finally inquired, &lsquo;What
do you wish me to do?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rsquo; replied Miss Julia&mdash;&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll
tell you in three words.&nbsp; Dear Lord Peter&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s the young man, I suppose&mdash;&rsquo; interrupted
the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s the young Nobleman,&rsquo; replied the lady,
with a great stress on the last word.&nbsp; &lsquo;Dear Lord Peter is
considerably afraid of the resentment of his family; and we have therefore
thought it better to make the match a stolen one.&nbsp; He left town,
to avoid suspicion, on a visit to his friend, the Honourable Augustus
Flair, whose seat, as you know, is about thirty miles from this, accompanied
only by his favourite tiger.&nbsp; We arranged that I should come here
alone in the London coach; and that he, leaving his tiger and cab behind
him, should come on, and arrive here as soon as possible this afternoon.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; observed Joseph Overton, &lsquo;and then
he can order the chaise, and you can go on to Gretna Green together,
without requiring the presence or interference of a third party, can&rsquo;t
you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; replied Miss Julia.&nbsp; &lsquo;We have every
reason to believe&mdash;dear Lord Peter not being considered very prudent
or sagacious by his friends, and they having discovered his attachment
to me&mdash;that, immediately on his absence being observed, pursuit
will be made in this direction:- to elude which, and to prevent our
being traced, I wish it to be understood in this house, that dear Lord
Peter is slightly deranged, though perfectly harmless; and that I am,
unknown to him, awaiting his arrival to convey him in a post-chaise
to a private asylum&mdash;at Berwick, say.&nbsp; If I don&rsquo;t show
myself much, I dare say I can manage to pass for his mother.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The thought occurred to the mayor&rsquo;s mind that the lady might
show herself a good deal without fear of detection; seeing that she
was about double the age of her intended husband.&nbsp; He said nothing,
however, and the lady proceeded.</p>
<p>&lsquo;With the whole of this arrangement dear Lord Peter is acquainted;
and all I want you to do, is, to make the delusion more complete by
giving it the sanction of your influence in this place, and assigning
this as a reason to the people of the house for my taking the young
gentleman away.&nbsp; As it would not be consistent with the story that
I should see him until after he has entered the chaise, I also wish
you to communicate with him, and inform him that it is all going on
well.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Has he arrived?&rsquo; inquired Overton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; replied the lady.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then how am I to know!&rsquo; inquired the mayor.&nbsp; &lsquo;Of
course he will not give his own name at the bar.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I begged him, immediately on his arrival, to write you a note,&rsquo;
replied Miss Manners; &lsquo;and to prevent the possibility of our project
being discovered through its means, I desired him to write anonymously,
and in mysterious terms, to acquaint you with the number of his room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless me!&rsquo; exclaimed the mayor, rising from his seat,
and searching his pockets&mdash;&lsquo;most extraordinary circumstance&mdash;he
has arrived&mdash;mysterious note left at my house in a most mysterious
manner, just before yours&mdash;didn&rsquo;t know what to make of it
before, and certainly shouldn&rsquo;t have attended to it.&mdash;Oh!
here it is.&rsquo;&nbsp; And Joseph Overton pulled out of an inner coat-pocket
the identical letter penned by Alexander Trott.&nbsp; &lsquo;Is this
his lordship&rsquo;s hand?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh yes,&rsquo; replied Julia; &lsquo;good, punctual creature!&nbsp;
I have not seen it more than once or twice, but I know he writes very
badly and very large.&nbsp; These dear, wild young noblemen, you know,
Overton&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ay, ay, I see,&rsquo; replied the mayor.&mdash;&lsquo;Horses
and dogs, play and wine&mdash;grooms, actresses, and cigars&mdash;the
stable, the green-room, the saloon, and the tavern; and the legislative
assembly at last.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s what he says,&rsquo; pursued the mayor; &lsquo;&ldquo;Sir,&mdash;A
young gentleman in number nineteen at the Winglebury Arms, is bent on
committing a rash act to-morrow morning at an early hour.&rdquo;&nbsp;
(That&rsquo;s good&mdash;he means marrying.)&nbsp; &ldquo;If you have
any regard for the peace of this town, or the preservation of one&mdash;it
may be two&mdash;human lives&rdquo;&mdash;What the deuce does he mean
by that?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That he&rsquo;s so anxious for the ceremony, he will expire
if it&rsquo;s put off, and that I may possibly do the same,&rsquo; replied
the lady with great complacency.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; I see&mdash;not much fear of that;&mdash;well&mdash;&ldquo;two
human lives, you will cause him to be removed to-night.&rdquo;&nbsp;
(He wants to start at once.)&nbsp; &ldquo;Fear not to do this on your
responsibility: for to-morrow the absolute necessity of the proceeding
will be but too apparent.&nbsp; Remember: number nineteen.&nbsp; The
name is Trott.&nbsp; No delay; for life and death depend upon your promptitude.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Passionate language, certainly.&nbsp; Shall I see him?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do,&rsquo; replied Miss Julia; &lsquo;and entreat him to act
his part well.&nbsp; I am half afraid of him.&nbsp; Tell him to be cautious.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; said the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Settle all the arrangements.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; said the mayor again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And say I think the chaise had better be ordered for one o&rsquo;clock.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; said the mayor once more; and, ruminating
on the absurdity of the situation in which fate and old acquaintance
had placed him, he desired a waiter to herald his approach to the temporary
representative of number nineteen.</p>
<p>The announcement, &lsquo;Gentleman to speak with you, sir,&rsquo;
induced Mr. Trott to pause half-way in the glass of port, the contents
of which he was in the act of imbibing at the moment; to rise from his
chair; and retreat a few paces towards the window, as if to secure a
retreat, in the event of the visitor assuming the form and appearance
of Horace Hunter.&nbsp; One glance at Joseph Overton, however, quieted
his apprehensions.&nbsp; He courteously motioned the stranger to a seat.&nbsp;
The waiter, after a little jingling with the decanter and glasses, consented
to leave the room; and Joseph Overton, placing the broad-brimmed hat
on the chair next him, and bending his body gently forward, opened the
business by saying in a very low and cautious tone,</p>
<p>&lsquo;My lord&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eh?&rsquo; said Mr. Alexander Trott, in a loud key, with the
vacant and mystified stare of a chilly somnambulist.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush&mdash;hush!&rsquo; said the cautious attorney: &lsquo;to
be sure&mdash;quite right&mdash;no titles here&mdash;my name is Overton,
sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Overton?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes: the mayor of this place&mdash;you sent me a letter with
anonymous information, this afternoon.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I, sir?&rsquo; exclaimed Trott with ill-dissembled surprise;
for, coward as he was, he would willingly have repudiated the authorship
of the letter in question.&nbsp; &lsquo;I, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, you, sir; did you not?&rsquo; responded Overton, annoyed
with what he supposed to be an extreme degree of unnecessary suspicion.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Either this letter is yours, or it is not.&nbsp; If it be, we
can converse securely upon the subject at once.&nbsp; If it be not,
of course I have no more to say.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stay, stay,&rsquo; said Trott, &lsquo;it <i>is</i> mine; I
<i>did</i> write it.&nbsp; What could I do, sir?&nbsp; I had no friend
here.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure, to be sure,&rsquo; said the mayor, encouragingly,
&lsquo;you could not have managed it better.&nbsp; Well, sir; it will
be necessary for you to leave here to-night in a post-chaise and four.&nbsp;
And the harder the boys drive, the better.&nbsp; You are not safe from
pursuit.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless me!&rsquo; exclaimed Trott, in an agony of apprehension,
&lsquo;can such things happen in a country like this?&nbsp; Such unrelenting
and cold-blooded hostility!&rsquo;&nbsp; He wiped off the concentrated
essence of cowardice that was oozing fast down his forehead, and looked
aghast at Joseph Overton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It certainly is a very hard case,&rsquo; replied the mayor
with a smile, &lsquo;that, in a free country, people can&rsquo;t marry
whom they like, without being hunted down as if they were criminals.&nbsp;
However, in the present instance the lady is willing, you know, and
that&rsquo;s the main point, after all.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lady willing,&rsquo; repeated Trott, mechanically.&nbsp; &lsquo;How
do you know the lady&rsquo;s willing?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come, that&rsquo;s a good one,&rsquo; said the mayor, benevolently
tapping Mr. Trott on the arm with his broad-brimmed hat; &lsquo;I have
known her, well, for a long time; and if anybody could entertain the
remotest doubt on the subject, I assure you I have none, nor need you
have.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; said Mr. Trott, ruminating.&nbsp; &lsquo;This
is <i>very</i> extraordinary!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, Lord Peter,&rsquo; said the mayor, rising.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lord Peter?&rsquo; repeated Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh&mdash;ah, I forgot.&nbsp; Mr. Trott, then&mdash;Trott&mdash;very
good, ha! ha!&mdash;Well, sir, the chaise shall be ready at half-past
twelve.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what is to become of me until then?&rsquo; inquired Mr.
Trott, anxiously.&nbsp; &lsquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t it save appearances, if
I were placed under some restraint?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; replied Overton, &lsquo;very good thought&mdash;capital
idea indeed.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll send somebody up directly.&nbsp; And if
you make a little resistance when we put you in the chaise it wouldn&rsquo;t
be amiss&mdash;look as if you didn&rsquo;t want to be taken away, you
know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure,&rsquo; said Trott&mdash;&lsquo;to be sure.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, my lord,&rsquo; said Overton, in a low tone, &lsquo;until
then, I wish your lordship a good evening.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lord&mdash;lordship?&rsquo; ejaculated Trott again, falling
back a step or two, and gazing, in unutterable wonder, on the countenance
of the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ha-ha!&nbsp; I see, my lord&mdash;practising the madman?&mdash;very
good indeed&mdash;very vacant look&mdash;capital, my lord, capital&mdash;good
evening, Mr.&mdash;Trott&mdash;ha! ha! ha!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That mayor&rsquo;s decidedly drunk,&rsquo; soliloquised Mr.
Trott, throwing himself back in his chair, in an attitude of reflection.</p>
<p>&lsquo;He is a much cleverer fellow than I thought him, that young
nobleman&mdash;he carries it off uncommonly well,&rsquo; thought Overton,
as he went his way to the bar, there to complete his arrangements.&nbsp;
This was soon done.&nbsp; Every word of the story was implicitly believed,
and the one-eyed boots was immediately instructed to repair to number
nineteen, to act as custodian of the person of the supposed lunatic
until half-past twelve o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; In pursuance of this direction,
that somewhat eccentric gentleman armed himself with a walking-stick
of gigantic dimensions, and repaired, with his usual equanimity of manner,
to Mr. Trott&rsquo;s apartment, which he entered without any ceremony,
and mounted guard in, by quietly depositing himself on a chair near
the door, where he proceeded to beguile the time by whistling a popular
air with great apparent satisfaction.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you want here, you scoundrel?&rsquo; exclaimed Mr.
Alexander Trott, with a proper appearance of indignation at his detention.</p>
<p>The boots beat time with his head, as he looked gently round at Mr.
Trott with a smile of pity, and whistled an <i>adagio</i> movement.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you attend in this room by Mr. Overton&rsquo;s desire?&rsquo;
inquired Trott, rather astonished at the man&rsquo;s demeanour.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Keep yourself to yourself, young feller,&rsquo; calmly responded
the boots, &lsquo;and don&rsquo;t say nothing to nobody.&rsquo;&nbsp;
And he whistled again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now mind!&rsquo; ejaculated Mr. Trott, anxious to keep up
the farce of wishing with great earnestness to fight a duel if they&rsquo;d
let him.&nbsp; &lsquo;I protest against being kept here.&nbsp; I deny
that I have any intention of fighting with anybody.&nbsp; But as it&rsquo;s
useless contending with superior numbers, I shall sit quietly down.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;d better,&rsquo; observed the placid boots, shaking
the large stick expressively.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Under protest, however,&rsquo; added Alexander Trott, seating
himself with indignation in his face, but great content in his heart.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Under protest.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, certainly!&rsquo; responded the boots; &lsquo;anything
you please.&nbsp; If you&rsquo;re happy, I&rsquo;m transported; only
don&rsquo;t talk too much&mdash;it&rsquo;ll make you worse.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Make me worse?&rsquo; exclaimed Trott, in unfeigned astonishment:
&lsquo;the man&rsquo;s drunk!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;d better be quiet, young feller,&rsquo; remarked
the boots, going through a threatening piece of pantomime with the stick.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or mad!&rsquo; said Mr. Trott, rather alarmed.&nbsp; &lsquo;Leave
the room, sir, and tell them to send somebody else.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Won&rsquo;t do!&rsquo; replied the boots.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Leave the room!&rsquo; shouted Trott, ringing the bell violently:
for he began to be alarmed on a new score.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Leave that &rsquo;ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!&rsquo;
said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his
chair, and brandishing the stick aloft.&nbsp; &lsquo;Be quiet, you miserable
object, and don&rsquo;t let everybody know there&rsquo;s a madman in
the house.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He <i>is</i> a madman!&nbsp; He <i>is</i> a madman!&rsquo;
exclaimed the terrified Mr. Trott, gazing on the one eye of the red-headed
boots with a look of abject horror.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Madman!&rsquo; replied the boots, &lsquo;dam&rsquo;me, I think
he <i>is</i> a madman with a vengeance!&nbsp; Listen to me, you unfortunate.&nbsp;
Ah! would you?&rsquo; [a slight tap on the head with the large stick,
as Mr. Trott made another move towards the bell-handle] &lsquo;I caught
you there! did I?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Spare my life!&rsquo; exclaimed Trott, raising his hands imploringly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t want your life,&rsquo; replied the boots, disdainfully,
&lsquo;though I think it &rsquo;ud be a charity if somebody took it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, no, it wouldn&rsquo;t,&rsquo; interrupted poor Mr. Trott,
hurriedly, &lsquo;no, no, it wouldn&rsquo;t!&nbsp; I&mdash;I-&rsquo;d
rather keep it!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;O werry well,&rsquo; said the boots: &lsquo;that&rsquo;s a
mere matter of taste&mdash;ev&rsquo;ry one to his liking.&nbsp; Hows&rsquo;ever,
all I&rsquo;ve got to say is this here: You sit quietly down in that
chair, and I&rsquo;ll sit hoppersite you here, and if you keep quiet
and don&rsquo;t stir, I won&rsquo;t damage you; but, if you move hand
or foot till half-past twelve o&rsquo;clock, I shall alter the expression
of your countenance so completely, that the next time you look in the
glass you&rsquo;ll ask vether you&rsquo;re gone out of town, and ven
you&rsquo;re likely to come back again.&nbsp; So sit down.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will&mdash;I will,&rsquo; responded the victim of mistakes;
and down sat Mr. Trott and down sat the boots too, exactly opposite
him, with the stick ready for immediate action in case of emergency.</p>
<p>Long and dreary were the hours that followed.&nbsp; The bell of Great
Winglebury church had just struck ten, and two hours and a half would
probably elapse before succour arrived.</p>
<p>For half an hour, the noise occasioned by shutting up the shops in
the street beneath, betokened something like life in the town, and rendered
Mr. Trott&rsquo;s situation a little less insupportable; but, when even
these ceased, and nothing was heard beyond the occasional rattling of
a post-chaise as it drove up the yard to change horses, and then drove
away again, or the clattering of horses&rsquo; hoofs in the stables
behind, it became almost unbearable.&nbsp; The boots occasionally moved
an inch or two, to knock superfluous bits of wax off the candles, which
were burning low, but instantaneously resumed his former position; and
as he remembered to have heard, somewhere or other, that the human eye
had an unfailing effect in controlling mad people, he kept his solitary
organ of vision constantly fixed on Mr. Alexander Trott.&nbsp; That
unfortunate individual stared at his companion in his turn, until his
features grew more and more indistinct&mdash;his hair gradually less
red&mdash;and the room more misty and obscure.&nbsp; Mr. Alexander Trott
fell into a sound sleep, from which he was awakened by a rumbling in
the street, and a cry of &lsquo;Chaise-and-four for number twenty-five!&rsquo;&nbsp;
A bustle on the stairs succeeded; the room door was hastily thrown open;
and Mr. Joseph Overton entered, followed by four stout waiters, and
Mrs. Williamson, the stout landlady of the Winglebury Arms.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Overton!&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Alexander Trott, jumping
up in a frenzy.&nbsp; &lsquo;Look at this man, sir; consider the situation
in which I have been placed for three hours past&mdash;the person you
sent to guard me, sir, was a madman&mdash;a madman&mdash;a raging, ravaging,
furious madman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo; whispered Mr. Overton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Poor dear!&rsquo; said the compassionate Mrs. Williamson,
&lsquo;mad people always thinks other people&rsquo;s mad.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Poor dear!&rsquo; ejaculated Mr. Alexander Trott.&nbsp; &lsquo;What
the devil do you mean by poor dear!&nbsp; Are you the landlady of this
house?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, yes,&rsquo; replied the stout old lady, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t
exert yourself, there&rsquo;s a dear!&nbsp; Consider your health, now;
do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Exert myself!&rsquo; shouted Mr. Alexander Trott; &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
a mercy, ma&rsquo;am, that I have any breath to exert myself with!&nbsp;
I might have been assassinated three hours ago by that one-eyed monster
with the oakum head.&nbsp; How dare you have a madman, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;how
dare you have a madman, to assault and terrify the visitors to your
house?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll never have another,&rsquo; said Mrs. Williamson,
casting a look of reproach at the mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital, capital,&rsquo; whispered Overton again, as he enveloped
Mr. Alexander Trott in a thick travelling-cloak.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital, sir!&rsquo; exclaimed Trott, aloud; &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
horrible.&nbsp; The very recollection makes me shudder.&nbsp; I&rsquo;d
rather fight four duels in three hours, if I survived the first three,
than I&rsquo;d sit for that time face to face with a madman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Keep it up, my lord, as you go down-stairs,&rsquo; whispered
Overton, &lsquo;your bill is paid, and your portmanteau in the chaise.&rsquo;&nbsp;
And then he added aloud, &lsquo;Now, waiters, the gentleman&rsquo;s
ready.&rsquo;</p>
<p>At this signal, the waiters crowded round Mr. Alexander Trott.&nbsp;
One took one arm; another, the other; a third, walked before with a
candle; the fourth, behind with another candle; the boots and Mrs. Williamson
brought up the rear; and down-stairs they went: Mr. Alexander Trott
expressing alternately at the very top of his voice either his feigned
reluctance to go, or his unfeigned indignation at being shut up with
a madman.</p>
<p>Mr. Overton was waiting at the chaise-door, the boys were ready mounted,
and a few ostlers and stable nondescripts were standing round to witness
the departure of &lsquo;the mad gentleman.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Alexander
Trott&rsquo;s foot was on the step, when he observed (which the dim
light had prevented his doing before) a figure seated in the chaise,
closely muffled up in a cloak like his own.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; he inquired of Overton, in a whisper.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush, hush,&rsquo; replied the mayor: &lsquo;the other party
of course.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The other party!&rsquo; exclaimed Trott, with an effort to
retreat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, yes; you&rsquo;ll soon find that out, before you go far,
I should think&mdash;but make a noise, you&rsquo;ll excite suspicion
if you whisper to me so much.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I won&rsquo;t go in this chaise!&rsquo; shouted Mr. Alexander
Trott, all his original fears recurring with tenfold violence.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I shall be assassinated&mdash;I shall be&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bravo, bravo,&rsquo; whispered Overton.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll
push you in.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But I won&rsquo;t go,&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Trott.&nbsp; &lsquo;Help
here, help!&nbsp; They&rsquo;re carrying me away against my will.&nbsp;
This is a plot to murder me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Poor dear!&rsquo; said Mrs. Williamson again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, boys, put &rsquo;em along,&rsquo; cried the mayor, pushing
Trott in and slamming the door.&nbsp; &lsquo;Off with you, as quick
as you can, and stop for nothing till you come to the next stage&mdash;all
right!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Horses are paid, Tom,&rsquo; screamed Mrs. Williamson; and
away went the chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, with Mr.
Alexander Trott and Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up in the inside.</p>
<p>Mr. Alexander Trott remained coiled up in one corner of the chaise,
and his mysterious companion in the other, for the first two or three
miles; Mr. Trott edging more and more into his corner, as he felt his
companion gradually edging more and more from hers; and vainly endeavouring
in the darkness to catch a glimpse of the furious face of the supposed
Horace Hunter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We may speak now,&rsquo; said his fellow-traveller, at length;
&lsquo;the post-boys can neither see nor hear us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s not Hunter&rsquo;s voice!&rsquo;&mdash;thought
Alexander, astonished.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear Lord Peter!&rsquo; said Miss Julia, most winningly: putting
her arm on Mr. Trott&rsquo;s shoulder.&nbsp; &lsquo;Dear Lord Peter.&nbsp;
Not a word?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, it&rsquo;s a woman!&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Trott, in a
low tone of excessive wonder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&nbsp; Whose voice is that?&rsquo; said Julia; &lsquo;&rsquo;tis
not Lord Peter&rsquo;s.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&mdash;it&rsquo;s mine,&rsquo; replied Mr. Trott.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yours!&rsquo; ejaculated Miss Julia Manners; &lsquo;a strange
man!&nbsp; Gracious heaven!&nbsp; How came you here!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Whoever you are, you might have known that I came against
my will, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; replied Alexander, &lsquo;for I made noise
enough when I got in.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you come from Lord Peter?&rsquo; inquired Miss Manners.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Confound Lord Peter,&rsquo; replied Trott pettishly.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know any Lord Peter.&nbsp; I never heard of him
before to-night, when I&rsquo;ve been Lord Peter&rsquo;d by one and
Lord Peter&rsquo;d by another, till I verily believe I&rsquo;m mad,
or dreaming&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Whither are we going?&rsquo; inquired the lady tragically.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How should <i>I</i> know, ma&rsquo;am?&rsquo; replied Trott
with singular coolness; for the events of the evening had completely
hardened him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stop stop!&rsquo; cried the lady, letting down the front glasses
of the chaise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stay, my dear ma&rsquo;am!&rsquo; said Mr. Trott, pulling
the glasses up again with one hand, and gently squeezing Miss Julia&rsquo;s
waist with the other.&nbsp; &lsquo;There is some mistake here; give
me till the end of this stage to explain my share of it.&nbsp; We must
go so far; you cannot be set down here alone, at this hour of the night.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The lady consented; the mistake was mutually explained.&nbsp; Mr.
Trott was a young man, had highly promising whiskers, an undeniable
tailor, and an insinuating address&mdash;he wanted nothing but valour,
and who wants that with three thousand a-year?&nbsp; The lady had this,
and more; she wanted a young husband, and the only course open to Mr.
Trott to retrieve his disgrace was a rich wife.&nbsp; So, they came
to the conclusion that it would be a pity to have all this trouble and
expense for nothing; and that as they were so far on the road already,
they had better go to Gretna Green, and marry each other; and they did
so.&nbsp; And the very next preceding entry in the Blacksmith&rsquo;s
book, was an entry of the marriage of Emily Brown with Horace Hunter.&nbsp;
Mr. Hunter took his wife home, and begged pardon, and <i>was</i> pardoned;
and Mr. Trott took <i>his</i> wife home, begged pardon too, and was
pardoned also.&nbsp; And Lord Peter, who had been detained beyond his
time by drinking champagne and riding a steeple-chase, went back to
the Honourable Augustus Flair&rsquo;s, and drank more champagne, and
rode another steeple-chase, and was thrown and killed.&nbsp; And Horace
Hunter took great credit to himself for practising on the cowardice
of Alexander Trott; and all these circumstances were discovered in time,
and carefully noted down; and if you ever stop a week at the Winglebury
Arms, they will give you just this account of The Great Winglebury Duel.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IX&mdash;MRS. JOSEPH PORTER</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Most extensive were the preparations at Rose Villa, Clapham Rise,
in the occupation of Mr. Gattleton (a stock-broker in especially comfortable
circumstances), and great was the anxiety of Mr. Gattleton&rsquo;s interesting
family, as the day fixed for the representation of the Private Play
which had been &lsquo;many months in preparation,&rsquo; approached.&nbsp;
The whole family was infected with the mania for Private Theatricals;
the house, usually so clean and tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattleton&rsquo;s
expressive description, &lsquo;regularly turned out o&rsquo; windows;&rsquo;
the large dining-room, dismantled of its furniture, and ornaments, presented
a strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder
and lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and various other
messes in theatrical slang included under the comprehensive name of
&lsquo;properties.&rsquo;&nbsp; The bedrooms were crowded with scenery,
the kitchen was occupied by carpenters.&nbsp; Rehearsals took place
every other night in the drawing-room, and every sofa in the house was
more or less damaged by the perseverance and spirit with which Mr. Sempronius
Gattleton, and Miss Lucina, rehearsed the smothering scene in &lsquo;Othello&rsquo;&mdash;it
having been determined that that tragedy should form the first portion
of the evening&rsquo;s entertainments.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When we&rsquo;re a <i>leetle</i> more perfect, I think it
will go admirably,&rsquo; said Mr. Sempronius, addressing his <i>corps
dramatique</i>, at the conclusion of the hundred and fiftieth rehearsal.&nbsp;
In consideration of his sustaining the trifling inconvenience of bearing
all the expenses of the play, Mr. Sempronius had been, in the most handsome
manner, unanimously elected stage-manager.&nbsp; &lsquo;Evans,&rsquo;
continued Mr. Gattleton, the younger, addressing a tall, thin, pale
young gentleman, with extensive whiskers&mdash;&lsquo;Evans, you play
<i>Roderigo</i> beautifully.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Beautifully,&rsquo; echoed the three Miss Gattletons; for
Mr. Evans was pronounced by all his lady friends to be &lsquo;quite
a dear.&rsquo;&nbsp; He looked so interesting, and had such lovely whiskers:
to say nothing of his talent for writing verses in albums and playing
the flute!&nbsp; <i>Roderigo</i> simpered and bowed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But I think,&rsquo; added the manager, &lsquo;you are hardly
perfect in the&mdash;fall&mdash;in the fencing-scene, where you are&mdash;you
understand?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s very difficult,&rsquo; said Mr. Evans, thoughtfully;
&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve fallen about, a good deal, in our counting-house lately,
for practice, only I find it hurts one so.&nbsp; Being obliged to fall
backward you see, it bruises one&rsquo;s head a good deal.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But you must take care you don&rsquo;t knock a wing down,&rsquo;
said Mr. Gattleton, the elder, who had been appointed prompter, and
who took as much interest in the play as the youngest of the company.&nbsp;
&lsquo;The stage is very narrow, you know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t be afraid,&rsquo; said Mr. Evans, with a very
self-satisfied air; &lsquo;I shall fall with my head &ldquo;off,&rdquo;
and then I can&rsquo;t do any harm.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, egad,&rsquo; said the manager, rubbing his hands, &lsquo;we
shall make a decided hit in &ldquo;Masaniello.&rdquo;&nbsp; Harleigh
sings that music admirably.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Everybody echoed the sentiment.&nbsp; Mr. Harleigh smiled, and looked
foolish&mdash;not an unusual thing with him&mdash;hummed&rsquo;&nbsp;
Behold how brightly breaks the morning,&rsquo; and blushed as red as
the fisherman&rsquo;s nightcap he was trying on.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Let&rsquo;s see,&rsquo; resumed the manager, telling the number
on his fingers, &lsquo;we shall have three dancing female peasants,
besides <i>Fenella</i>, and four fishermen.&nbsp; Then, there&rsquo;s
our man Tom; he can have a pair of ducks of mine, and a check shirt
of Bob&rsquo;s, and a red nightcap, and he&rsquo;ll do for another&mdash;that&rsquo;s
five.&nbsp; In the choruses, of course, we can sing at the sides; and
in the market-scene we can walk about in cloaks and things.&nbsp; When
the revolt takes place, Tom must keep rushing in on one side and out
on the other, with a pickaxe, as fast as he can.&nbsp; The effect will
be electrical; it will look exactly as if there were an immense number
of &rsquo;em.&nbsp; And in the eruption-scene we must burn the red fire,
and upset the tea-trays, and make all sorts of noises&mdash;and it&rsquo;s
sure to do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sure! sure!&rsquo; cried all the performers <i>un&acirc; voce</i>&mdash;and
away hurried Mr. Sempronius Gattleton to wash the burnt cork off his
face, and superintend the &lsquo;setting up&rsquo; of some of the amateur-painted,
but never-sufficiently-to-be-admired, scenery.</p>
<p>Mrs. Gattleton was a kind, good-tempered, vulgar soul, exceedingly
fond of her husband and children, and entertaining only three dislikes.&nbsp;
In the first place, she had a natural antipathy to anybody else&rsquo;s
unmarried daughters; in the second, she was in bodily fear of anything
in the shape of ridicule; lastly&mdash;almost a necessary consequence
of this feeling&mdash;she regarded, with feelings of the utmost horror,
one Mrs. Joseph Porter over the way.&nbsp; However, the good folks of
Clapham and its vicinity stood very much in awe of scandal and sarcasm;
and thus Mrs. Joseph Porter was courted, and flattered, and caressed,
and invited, for much the same reason that induces a poor author, without
a farthing in his pocket, to behave with extraordinary civility to a
twopenny postman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never mind, ma,&rsquo; said Miss Emma Porter, in colloquy
with her respected relative, and trying to look unconcerned; &lsquo;if
they had invited me, you know that neither you nor pa would have allowed
me to take part in such an exhibition.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Just what I should have thought from your high sense of propriety,&rsquo;
returned the mother.&nbsp; &lsquo;I am glad to see, Emma, you know how
to designate the proceeding.&rsquo;&nbsp; Miss P., by-the-bye, had only
the week before made &lsquo;an exhibition&rsquo; of herself for four
days, behind a counter at a fancy fair, to all and every of her Majesty&rsquo;s
liege subjects who were disposed to pay a shilling each for the privilege
of seeing some four dozen girls flirting with strangers, and playing
at shop.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There!&rsquo; said Mrs. Porter, looking out of window; &lsquo;there
are two rounds of beef and a ham going in&mdash;clearly for sandwiches;
and Thomas, the pastry-cook, says, there have been twelve dozen tarts
ordered, besides blancmange and jellies.&nbsp; Upon my word! think of
the Miss Gattletons in fancy dresses, too!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s too ridiculous!&rsquo; said Miss Porter, hysterically.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll manage to put them a little out of conceit with
the business, however,&rsquo; said Mrs. Porter; and out she went on
her charitable errand.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, my dear Mrs. Gattleton,&rsquo; said Mrs. Joseph Porter,
after they had been closeted for some time, and when, by dint of indefatigable
pumping, she had managed to extract all the news about the play, &lsquo;well,
my dear, people may say what they please; indeed we know they will,
for some folks are <i>so</i> ill-natured.&nbsp; Ah, my dear Miss Lucina,
how d&rsquo;ye do?&nbsp; I was just telling your mamma that I have heard
it said, that&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mrs. Porter is alluding to the play, my dear,&rsquo; said
Mrs. Gattleton; &lsquo;she was, I am sorry to say, just informing me
that&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, now pray don&rsquo;t mention it,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs.
Porter; &lsquo;it&rsquo;s most absurd&mdash;quite as absurd as young
What&rsquo;s-his-name saying he wondered how Miss Caroline, with such
a foot and ankle, could have the vanity to play <i>Fenella</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Highly impertinent, whoever said it,&rsquo; said Mrs. Gattleton,
bridling up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly, my dear,&rsquo; chimed in the delighted Mrs. Porter;
&lsquo;most undoubtedly!&nbsp; Because, as I said, if Miss Caroline
<i>does</i> play <i>Fenella</i>, it doesn&rsquo;t follow, as a matter
of course, that she should think she has a pretty foot;&mdash;and then&mdash;such
puppies as these young men are&mdash;he had the impudence to say, that&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>How far the amiable Mrs. Porter might have succeeded in her pleasant
purpose, it is impossible to say, had not the entrance of Mr. Thomas
Balderstone, Mrs. Gattleton&rsquo;s brother, familiarly called in the
family &lsquo;Uncle Tom,&rsquo; changed the course of conversation,
and suggested to her mind an excellent plan of operation on the evening
of the play.</p>
<p>Uncle Tom was very rich, and exceedingly fond of his nephews and
nieces: as a matter of course, therefore, he was an object of great
importance in his own family.&nbsp; He was one of the best-hearted men
in existence: always in a good temper, and always talking.&nbsp; It
was his boast that he wore top-boots on all occasions, and had never
worn a black silk neckerchief; and it was his pride that he remembered
all the principal plays of Shakspeare from beginning to end&mdash;and
so he did.&nbsp; The result of this parrot-like accomplishment was,
that he was not only perpetually quoting himself, but that he could
never sit by, and hear a misquotation from the &lsquo;Swan of Avon&rsquo;
without setting the unfortunate delinquent right.&nbsp; He was also
something of a wag; never missed an opportunity of saying what he considered
a good thing, and invariably laughed until he cried at anything that
appeared to him mirth-moving or ridiculous.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, girls!&rsquo; said Uncle Tom, after the preparatory
ceremony of kissing and how-d&rsquo;ye-do-ing had been gone through&mdash;&lsquo;how
d&rsquo;ye get on?&nbsp; Know your parts, eh?&mdash;Lucina, my dear,
act II., scene I&mdash;place, left-cue&mdash;&ldquo;Unknown fate,&rdquo;&mdash;What&rsquo;s
next, eh?&mdash;Go on&mdash;&ldquo;The Heavens&mdash;&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, yes,&rsquo; said Miss Lucina, &lsquo;I recollect -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;The heavens forbid<br />But that our loves and comforts should
increase<br />Even as our days do grow!&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Make a pause here and there,&rsquo; said the old gentleman,
who was a great critic.&nbsp; &lsquo;&ldquo;But that our loves and comforts
should increase&rdquo;&mdash;emphasis on the last syllable, &ldquo;crease,&rdquo;&mdash;loud
&ldquo;even,&rdquo;&mdash;one, two, three, four; then loud again, &ldquo;as
our days do grow;&rdquo; emphasis on <i>days</i>.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s
the way, my dear; trust to your uncle for emphasis.&nbsp; Ah!&nbsp;
Sem, my boy, how are you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very well, thankee, uncle,&rsquo; returned Mr. Sempronius,
who had just appeared, looking something like a ringdove, with a small
circle round each eye: the result of his constant corking.&nbsp; &lsquo;Of
course we see you on Thursday.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Of course, of course, my dear boy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a pity it is your nephew didn&rsquo;t think of making
you prompter, Mr. Balderstone!&rsquo; whispered Mrs. Joseph Porter;
&lsquo;you would have been invaluable.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, I flatter myself, I <i>should</i> have been tolerably
up to the thing,&rsquo; responded Uncle Tom.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I must bespeak sitting next you on the night,&rsquo; resumed
Mrs. Porter; &lsquo;and then, if our dear young friends here, should
be at all wrong, you will be able to enlighten me.&nbsp; I shall be
so interested.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am sure I shall be most happy to give you any assistance
in my power&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mind, it&rsquo;s a bargain.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know how it is,&rsquo; said Mrs. Gattleton to
her daughters, as they were sitting round the fire in the evening, looking
over their parts, &lsquo;but I really very much wish Mrs. Joseph Porter
wasn&rsquo;t coming on Thursday.&nbsp; I am sure she&rsquo;s scheming
something.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She can&rsquo;t make us ridiculous, however,&rsquo; observed
Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, haughtily.</p>
<p>The long-looked-for Thursday arrived in due course, and brought with
it, as Mr. Gattleton, senior, philosophically observed, &lsquo;no disappointments,
to speak of.&rsquo;&nbsp; True, it was yet a matter of doubt whether
<i>Cassio</i> would be enabled to get into the dress which had been
sent for him from the masquerade warehouse.&nbsp; It was equally uncertain
whether the principal female singer would be sufficiently recovered
from the influenza to make her appearance; Mr. Harleigh, the <i>Masaniello</i>
of the night, was hoarse, and rather unwell, in consequence of the great
quantity of lemon and sugar-candy he had eaten to improve his voice;
and two flutes and a violoncello had pleaded severe colds.&nbsp; What
of that? the audience were all coming.&nbsp; Everybody knew his part:
the dresses were covered with tinsel and spangles; the white plumes
looked beautiful; Mr. Evans had practised falling until he was bruised
from head to foot and quite perfect; <i>Iago</i> was sure that, in the
stabbing-scene, he should make &lsquo;a decided hit.&rsquo;&nbsp; A
self-taught deaf gentleman, who had kindly offered to bring his flute,
would be a most valuable addition to the orchestra; Miss Jenkins&rsquo;s
talent for the piano was too well known to be doubted for an instant;
Mr. Cape had practised the violin accompaniment with her frequently;
and Mr. Brown, who had kindly undertaken, at a few hours&rsquo; notice,
to bring his violoncello, would, no doubt, manage extremely well.</p>
<p>Seven o&rsquo;clock came, and so did the audience; all the rank and
fashion of Clapham and its vicinity was fast filling the theatre.&nbsp;
There were the Smiths, the Gubbinses, the Nixons, the Dixons, the Hicksons,
people with all sorts of names, two aldermen, a sheriff in perspective,
Sir Thomas Glumper (who had been knighted in the last reign for carrying
up an address on somebody&rsquo;s escaping from nothing); and last,
not least, there were Mrs. Joseph Porter and Uncle Tom, seated in the
centre of the third row from the stage; Mrs. P. amusing Uncle Tom with
all sorts of stories, and Uncle Tom amusing every one else by laughing
most immoderately.</p>
<p>Ting, ting, ting! went the prompter&rsquo;s bell at eight o&rsquo;clock
precisely, and dash went the orchestra into the overture to &lsquo;The
Men of Prometheus.&rsquo;&nbsp; The pianoforte player hammered away
with laudable perseverance; and the violoncello, which struck in at
intervals, &lsquo;sounded very well, considering.&rsquo;&nbsp; The unfortunate
individual, however, who had undertaken to play the flute accompaniment
&lsquo;at sight,&rsquo; found, from fatal experience, the perfect truth
of the old adage, &lsquo;ought of sight, out of mind;&rsquo; for being
very near-sighted, and being placed at a considerable distance from
his music-book, all he had an opportunity of doing was to play a bar
now and then in the wrong place, and put the other performers out.&nbsp;
It is, however, but justice to Mr. Brown to say that he did this to
admiration.&nbsp; The overture, in fact, was not unlike a race between
the different instruments; the piano came in first by several bars,
and the violoncello next, quite distancing the poor flute; for the deaf
gentleman <i>too-too&rsquo;d</i> away, quite unconscious that he was
at all wrong, until apprised, by the applause of the audience, that
the overture was concluded.&nbsp; A considerable bustle and shuffling
of feet was then heard upon the stage, accompanied by whispers of &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s
a pretty go!&mdash;what&rsquo;s to be done?&rsquo; &amp;c.&nbsp; The
audience applauded again, by way of raising the spirits of the performers;
and then Mr. Sempronius desired the prompter, in a very audible voice,
to &lsquo;clear the stage, and ring up.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again.&nbsp; Everybody sat down;
the curtain shook; rose sufficiently high to display several pair of
yellow boots paddling about; and there remained.</p>
<p>Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again.&nbsp; The curtain was violently
convulsed, but rose no higher; the audience tittered; Mrs. Porter looked
at Uncle Tom; Uncle Tom looked at everybody, rubbing his hands, and
laughing with perfect rapture.&nbsp; After as much ringing with the
little bell as a muffin-boy would make in going down a tolerably long
street, and a vast deal of whispering, hammering, and calling for nails
and cord, the curtain at length rose, and discovered Mr. Sempronius
Gattleton <i>solus</i>, and decked for <i>Othello</i>.&nbsp; After three
distinct rounds of applause, during which Mr. Sempronius applied his
right hand to his left breast, and bowed in the most approved manner,
the manager advanced and said:</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ladies and Gentlemen&mdash;I assure you it is with sincere
regret, that I regret to be compelled to inform you, that <i>Iago</i>
who was to have played Mr. Wilson&mdash;I beg your pardon, Ladies and
Gentlemen, but I am naturally somewhat agitated (applause)&mdash;I mean,
Mr. Wilson, who was to have played <i>Iago</i>, is&mdash;that is, has
been&mdash;or, in other words, Ladies and Gentlemen, the fact is, that
I have just received a note, in which I am informed that <i>Iago</i>
is unavoidably detained at the Post-office this evening.&nbsp; Under
these circumstances, I trust&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;amateur performance&mdash;a&mdash;another
gentleman undertaken to read the part&mdash;request indulgence for a
short time&mdash;courtesy and kindness of a British audience.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Overwhelming applause.&nbsp; Exit Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and curtain
falls.</p>
<p>The audience were, of course, exceedingly good-humoured; the whole
business was a joke; and accordingly they waited for an hour with the
utmost patience, being enlivened by an interlude of rout-cakes and lemonade.&nbsp;
It appeared by Mr. Sempronius&rsquo;s subsequent explanation, that the
delay would not have been so great, had it not so happened that when
the substitute <i>Iago</i> had finished dressing, and just as the play
was on the point of commencing, the original <i>Iago</i> unexpectedly
arrived.&nbsp; The former was therefore compelled to undress, and the
latter to dress for his part; which, as he found some difficulty in
getting into his clothes, occupied no inconsiderable time.&nbsp; At
last, the tragedy began in real earnest.&nbsp; It went off well enough,
until the third scene of the first act, in which <i>Othello</i> addresses
the Senate: the only remarkable circumstance being, that as <i>Iago</i>
could not get on any of the stage boots, in consequence of his feet
being violently swelled with the heat and excitement, he was under the
necessity of playing the part in a pair of Wellingtons, which contrasted
rather oddly with his richly embroidered pantaloons.&nbsp; When <i>Othello</i>
started with his address to the Senate (whose dignity was represented
by, the <i>Duke, a</i> carpenter, two men engaged on the recommendation
of the gardener, and a boy), Mrs. Porter found the opportunity she so
anxiously sought.</p>
<p>Mr. Sempronius proceeded:</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,<br />My
very noble and approv&rsquo;d good masters,<br />That I have ta&rsquo;en
away this old man&rsquo;s daughter,<br />It is most true;&mdash;rude
am I in my speech&mdash;&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;Is that right?&rsquo; whispered Mrs. Porter to Uncle Tom.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tell him so, then.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will.&nbsp; Sem!&rsquo; called out Uncle Tom, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s
wrong, my boy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s wrong, uncle?&rsquo; demanded <i>Othello</i>,
quite forgetting the dignity of his situation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ve left out something.&nbsp; &ldquo;True I have
married&mdash;&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, ah!&rsquo; said Mr. Sempronius, endeavouring to hide his
confusion as much and as ineffectually as the audience attempted to
conceal their half-suppressed tittering, by coughing with extraordinary
violence -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>- &lsquo;&ldquo;true I have married her; -<br />The very head and
front of my offending<br />Hath this extent; no more.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>(Aside</i>) Why don&rsquo;t you prompt, father?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Because I&rsquo;ve mislaid my spectacles,&rsquo; said poor
Mr. Gattleton, almost dead with the heat and bustle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There, now it&rsquo;s &ldquo;rude am I,&rdquo;&rsquo; said
Uncle Tom.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I know it is,&rsquo; returned the unfortunate manager,
proceeding with his part.</p>
<p>It would be useless and tiresome to quote the number of instances
in which Uncle Tom, now completely in his element, and instigated by
the mischievous Mrs. Porter, corrected the mistakes of the performers;
suffice it to say, that having mounted his hobby, nothing could induce
him to dismount; so, during the whole remainder of the play, he performed
a kind of running accompaniment, by muttering everybody&rsquo;s part
as it was being delivered, in an under-tone.&nbsp; The audience were
highly amused, Mrs. Porter delighted, the performers embarrassed; Uncle
Tom never was better pleased in all his life; and Uncle Tom&rsquo;s
nephews and nieces had never, although the declared heirs to his large
property, so heartily wished him gathered to his fathers as on that
memorable occasion.</p>
<p>Several other minor causes, too, united to damp the ardour of the
<i>dramatis personae</i>.&nbsp; None of the performers could walk in
their tights, or move their arms in their jackets; the pantaloons were
too small, the boots too large, and the swords of all shapes and sizes.&nbsp;
Mr. Evans, naturally too tall for the scenery, wore a black velvet hat
with immense white plumes, the glory of which was lost in &lsquo;the
flies;&rsquo; and the only other inconvenience of which was, that when
it was off his head he could not put it on, and when it was on he could
not take it off.&nbsp; Notwithstanding all his practice, too, he fell
with his head and shoulders as neatly through one of the side scenes,
as a harlequin would jump through a panel in a Christmas pantomime.&nbsp;
The pianoforte player, overpowered by the extreme heat of the room,
fainted away at the commencement of the entertainments, leaving the
music of &lsquo;Masaniello&rsquo; to the flute and violoncello.&nbsp;
The orchestra complained that Mr. Harleigh put them out, and Mr. Harleigh
declared that the orchestra prevented his singing a note.&nbsp; The
fishermen, who were hired for the occasion, revolted to the very life,
positively refusing to play without an increased allowance of spirits;
and, their demand being complied with, getting drunk in the eruption-scene
as naturally as possible.&nbsp; The red fire, which was burnt at the
conclusion of the second act, not only nearly suffocated the audience,
but nearly set the house on fire into the bargain; and, as it was, the
remainder of the piece was acted in a thick fog.</p>
<p>In short, the whole affair was, as Mrs. Joseph Porter triumphantly
told everybody, &lsquo;a complete failure.&rsquo;&nbsp; The audience
went home at four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, exhausted with laughter,
suffering from severe headaches, and smelling terribly of brimstone
and gunpowder.&nbsp; The Messrs. Gattleton, senior and junior, retired
to rest, with the vague idea of emigrating to Swan River early in the
ensuing week.</p>
<p>Rose Villa has once again resumed its wonted appearance; the dining-room
furniture has been replaced; the tables are as nicely polished as formerly;
the horsehair chairs are ranged against the wall, as regularly as ever;
Venetian blinds have been fitted to every window in the house to intercept
the prying gaze of Mrs. Joseph Porter.&nbsp; The subject of theatricals
is never mentioned in the Gattleton family, unless, indeed, by Uncle
Tom, who cannot refrain from sometimes expressing his surprise and regret
at finding that his nephews and nieces appear to have lost the relish
they once possessed for the beauties of Shakspeare, and quotations from
the works of that immortal bard.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER X&mdash;A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>CHAPTER THE FIRST</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking.&nbsp; Like an over-weening
predilection for brandy-and-water, it is a misfortune into which a man
easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to extricate
himself.&nbsp; It is of no use telling a man who is timorous on these
points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over.&nbsp; They say the
same thing at the Old Bailey, and the unfortunate victims derive as
much comfort from the assurance in the one case as in the other.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather uncommon compound of strong uxorious
inclinations, and an unparalleled degree of anti-connubial timidity.&nbsp;
He was about fifty years of age; stood four feet six inches and three-quarters
in his socks&mdash;for he never stood in stockings at all&mdash;plump,
clean, and rosy.&nbsp; He looked something like a vignette to one of
Richardson&rsquo;s novels, and had a clean-cravatish formality of manner,
and kitchen-pokerness of carriage, which Sir Charles Grandison himself
might have envied.&nbsp; He lived on an annuity, which was well adapted
to the individual who received it, in one respect&mdash;it was rather
small.&nbsp; He received it in periodical payments on every alternate
Monday; but he ran himself out, about a day after the expiration of
the first week, as regularly as an eight-day clock; and then, to make
the comparison complete, his landlady wound him up, and he went on with
a regular tick.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle had long lived in a state of single blessedness,
as bachelors say, or single cursedness, as spinsters think; but the
idea of matrimony had never ceased to haunt him.&nbsp; Wrapt in profound
reveries on this never-failing theme, fancy transformed his small parlour
in Cecil-street, Strand, into a neat house in the suburbs; the half-hundredweight
of coals under the kitchen-stairs suddenly sprang up into three tons
of the best Walls-end; his small French bedstead was converted into
a regular matrimonial four-poster; and in the empty chair on the opposite
side of the fireplace, imagination seated a beautiful young lady, with
a very little independence or will of her own, and a very large independence
under a will of her father&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle, as
a gentle tap at his room-door disturbed these meditations one evening.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, my dear fellow, how <i>do</i> you do?&rsquo; said
a short elderly gentleman with a gruffish voice, bursting into the room,
and replying to the question by asking another.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Told you I should drop in some evening,&rsquo; said the short
gentleman, as he delivered his hat into Tottle&rsquo;s hand, after a
little struggling and dodging.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Delighted to see you, I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins
Tottle, wishing internally that his visitor had &lsquo;dropped in&rsquo;
to the Thames at the bottom of the street, instead of dropping into
his parlour.&nbsp; The fortnight was nearly up, and Watkins was hard
up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How is Mrs. Gabriel Parsons?&rsquo; inquired Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Quite well, thank you,&rsquo; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons,
for that was the name the short gentleman revelled in.&nbsp; Here there
was a pause; the short gentleman looked at the left hob of the fireplace;
Mr. Watkins Tottle stared vacancy out of countenance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Quite well,&rsquo; repeated the short gentleman, when five
minutes had expired.&nbsp; &lsquo;I may say remarkably well.&rsquo;&nbsp;
And he rubbed the palms of his hands as hard as if he were going to
strike a light by friction.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What will you take?&rsquo; inquired Tottle, with the desperate
suddenness of a man who knew that unless the visitor took his leave,
he stood very little chance of taking anything else.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;have you any whiskey?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; replied Tottle, very slowly, for all this was
gaining time, &lsquo;I <i>had</i> some capital, and remarkably strong
whiskey last week; but it&rsquo;s all gone&mdash;and therefore its strength&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is much beyond proof; or, in other words, impossible to be
proved,&rsquo; said the short gentleman; and he laughed very heartily,
and seemed quite glad the whiskey had been drunk.&nbsp; Mr. Tottle smiled&mdash;but
it was the smile of despair.&nbsp; When Mr. Gabriel Parsons had done
laughing, he delicately insinuated that, in the absence of whiskey,
he would not be averse to brandy.&nbsp; And Mr. Watkins Tottle, lighting
a flat candle very ostentatiously; and displaying an immense key, which
belonged to the street-door, but which, for the sake of appearances,
occasionally did duty in an imaginary wine-cellar; left the room to
entreat his landlady to charge their glasses, and charge them in the
bill.&nbsp; The application was successful; the spirits were speedily
called&mdash;not from the vasty deep, but the adjacent wine-vaults.&nbsp;
The two short gentlemen mixed their grog; and then sat cosily down before
the fire&mdash;a pair of shorts, airing themselves.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &lsquo;you know my
way&mdash;off-hand, open, say what I mean, mean what I say, hate reserve,
and can&rsquo;t bear affectation.&nbsp; One, is a bad domino which only
hides what good people have about &rsquo;em, without making the bad
look better; and the other is much about the same thing as pinking a
white cotton stocking to make it look like a silk one.&nbsp; Now listen
to what I&rsquo;m going to say.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here, the little gentleman paused, and took a long pull at his brandy-and-water.&nbsp;
Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip of his, stirred the fire, and assumed
an air of profound attention.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s of no use humming and ha&rsquo;ing about the matter,&rsquo;
resumed the short gentleman.&mdash;&lsquo;You want to get married.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle evasively; for he trembled
violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; &lsquo;why&mdash;I
should certainly&mdash;at least, I <i>think</i> I should like&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Won&rsquo;t do,&rsquo; said the short gentleman.&mdash;&lsquo;Plain
and free&mdash;or there&rsquo;s an end of the matter.&nbsp; Do you want
money?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You know I do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You admire the sex?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And you&rsquo;d like to be married?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then you shall be.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s an end of that.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Thus saying, Mr. Gabriel Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and mixed another
glass.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Let me entreat you to be more explanatory,&rsquo; said Tottle.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Really, as the party principally interested, I cannot consent
to be disposed of, in this way.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rsquo; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, warming
with the subject, and the brandy-and-water&mdash;&lsquo;I know a lady&mdash;she&rsquo;s
stopping with my wife now&mdash;who is just the thing for you.&nbsp;
Well educated; talks French; plays the piano; knows a good deal about
flowers, and shells, and all that sort of thing; and has five hundred
a year, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it, by her last will
and testament.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll pay my addresses to her,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins
Tottle.&nbsp; &lsquo;She isn&rsquo;t <i>very</i> young&mdash;is she?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not very; just the thing for you.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve said that
already.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What coloured hair has the lady?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Watkins
Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Egad, I hardly recollect,&rsquo; replied Gabriel, with coolness.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Perhaps I ought to have observed, at first, she wears a front.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A what?&rsquo; ejaculated Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;One of those things with curls, along here,&rsquo; said Parsons,
drawing a straight line across his forehead, just over his eyes, in
illustration of his meaning.&nbsp; &lsquo;I know the front&rsquo;s black;
I can&rsquo;t speak quite positively about her own hair; because, unless
one walks behind her, and catches a glimpse of it under her bonnet,
one seldom sees it; but I should say that it was <i>rather</i> lighter
than the front&mdash;a shade of a greyish tinge, perhaps.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle looked as if he had certain misgivings of mind.&nbsp;
Mr. Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and thought it would be safe to begin
the next attack without delay.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, were you ever in love, Tottle?&rsquo; he inquired.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to the eyes, and down to the chin,
and exhibited a most extensive combination of colours as he confessed
the soft impeachment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I suppose you popped the question, more than once, when you
were a young&mdash;I beg your pardon&mdash;a younger&mdash;man,&rsquo;
said Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never in my life!&rsquo; replied his friend, apparently indignant
at being suspected of such an act.&nbsp; &lsquo;Never!&nbsp; The fact
is, that I entertain, as you know, peculiar opinions on these subjects.&nbsp;
I am not afraid of ladies, young or old&mdash;far from it; but, I think,
that in compliance with the custom of the present day, they allow too
much freedom of speech and manner to marriageable men.&nbsp; Now, the
fact is, that anything like this easy freedom I never could acquire;
and as I am always afraid of going too far, I am generally, I dare say,
considered formal and cold.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if you were,&rsquo; replied Parsons,
gravely; &lsquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder.&nbsp; However, you&rsquo;ll
be all right in this case; for the strictness and delicacy of this lady&rsquo;s
ideas greatly exceed your own.&nbsp; Lord bless you, why, when she came
to our house, there was an old portrait of some man or other, with two
large, black, staring eyes, hanging up in her bedroom; she positively
refused to go to bed there, till it was taken down, considering it decidedly
wrong.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think so, too,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins Tottle; &lsquo;certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And then, the other night&mdash;I never laughed so much in
my life&rsquo;&mdash;resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons; &lsquo;I had driven
home in an easterly wind, and caught a devil of a face-ache.&nbsp; Well;
as Fanny&mdash;that&rsquo;s Mrs. Parsons, you know&mdash;and this friend
of hers, and I, and Frank Ross, were playing a rubber, I said, jokingly,
that when I went to bed I should wrap my head in Fanny&rsquo;s flannel
petticoat.&nbsp; She instantly threw up her cards, and left the room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Quite right!&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins Tottle; &lsquo;she could
not possibly have behaved in a more dignified manner.&nbsp; What did
you do?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do?&mdash;Frank took dummy; and I won sixpence.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, didn&rsquo;t you apologise for hurting her feelings?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Devil a bit.&nbsp; Next morning at breakfast, we talked it
over.&nbsp; She contended that any reference to a flannel petticoat
was improper;&mdash;men ought not to be supposed to know that such things
were.&nbsp; I pleaded my coverture; being a married man.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what did the lady say to that?&rsquo; inquired Tottle,
deeply interested.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Changed her ground, and said that Frank being a single man,
its impropriety was obvious.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Noble-minded creature!&rsquo; exclaimed the enraptured Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! both Fanny and I said, at once, that she was regularly
cut out for you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A gleam of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr.
Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s one thing I can&rsquo;t understand,&rsquo; said
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he rose to depart; &lsquo;I cannot, for the
life and soul of me, imagine how the deuce you&rsquo;ll ever contrive
to come together.&nbsp; The lady would certainly go into convulsions
if the subject were mentioned.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat
down again, and laughed until he was weak.&nbsp; Tottle owed him money,
so he had a perfect right to laugh at Tottle&rsquo;s expense.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle feared, in his own mind, that this was another
characteristic which he had in common with this modern Lucretia.&nbsp;
He, however, accepted the invitation to dine with the Parsonses on the
next day but one, with great firmness: and looked forward to the introduction,
when again left alone, with tolerable composure.</p>
<p>The sun that rose on the next day but one, had never beheld a sprucer
personage on the outside of the Norwood stage, than Mr. Watkins Tottle;
and when the coach drew up before a cardboard-looking house with disguised
chimneys, and a lawn like a large sheet of green letter-paper, he certainly
had never lighted to his place of destination a gentleman who felt more
uncomfortable.</p>
<p>The coach stopped, and Mr. Watkins Tottle jumped&mdash;we beg his
pardon&mdash;alighted, with great dignity.&nbsp; &lsquo;All right!&rsquo;
said he, and away went the coach up the hill with that beautiful equanimity
of pace for which &lsquo;short&rsquo; stages are generally remarkable.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle gave a faltering jerk to the handle of the garden-gate
bell.&nbsp; He essayed a more energetic tug, and his previous nervousness
was not at all diminished by hearing the bell ringing like a fire alarum.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Parsons at home?&rsquo; inquired Tottle of the man
who opened the gate.&nbsp; He could hardly hear himself speak, for the
bell had not yet done tolling.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here I am,&rsquo; shouted a voice on the lawn,&mdash;and there
was Mr. Gabriel Parsons in a flannel jacket, running backwards and forwards,
from a wicket to two hats piled on each other, and from the two hats
to the wicket, in the most violent manner, while another gentleman with
his coat off was getting down the area of the house, after a ball.&nbsp;
When the gentleman without the coat had found it&mdash;which he did
in less than ten minutes&mdash;he ran back to the hats, and Gabriel
Parsons pulled up.&nbsp; Then, the gentleman without the coat called
out &lsquo;play,&rsquo; very loudly, and bowled.&nbsp; Then Mr. Gabriel
Parsons knocked the ball several yards, and took another run.&nbsp;
Then, the other gentleman aimed at the wicket, and didn&rsquo;t hit
it; and Mr. Gabriel Parsons, having finished running on his own account,
laid down the bat and ran after the ball, which went into a neighbouring
field.&nbsp; They called this cricket.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, will you &ldquo;go in?&rdquo;&rsquo; inquired Mr.
Gabriel Parsons, as he approached him, wiping the perspiration off his
face.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle declined the offer, the bare idea of accepting
which made him even warmer than his friend.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then we&rsquo;ll go into the house, as it&rsquo;s past four,
and I shall have to wash my hands before dinner,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel
Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here, I hate ceremony, you know!&nbsp; Timson,
that&rsquo;s Tottle&mdash;Tottle, that&rsquo;s Timson; bred for the
church, which I fear will never be bread for him;&rsquo; and he chuckled
at the old joke.&nbsp; Mr. Timson bowed carelessly.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins
Tottle bowed stiffly.&nbsp; Mr. Gabriel Parsons led the way to the house.&nbsp;
He was a rich sugar-baker, who mistook rudeness for honesty, and abrupt
bluntness for an open and candid manner; many besides Gabriel mistake
bluntness for sincerity.</p>
<p>Mrs. Gabriel Parsons received the visitors most graciously on the
steps, and preceded them to the drawing-room.&nbsp; On the sofa, was
seated a lady of very prim appearance, and remarkably inanimate.&nbsp;
She was one of those persons at whose age it is impossible to make any
reasonable guess; her features might have been remarkably pretty when
she was younger, and they might always have presented the same appearance.&nbsp;
Her complexion&mdash;with a slight trace of powder here and there&mdash;was
as clear as that of a well-made wax doll, and her face as expressive.&nbsp;
She was handsomely dressed, and was winding up a gold watch.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton, my dear, this is our friend Mr. Watkins Tottle;
a very old acquaintance I assure you,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, presenting
the Strephon of Cecil-street, Strand.&nbsp; The lady rose, and made
a deep courtesy; Mr. Watkins Tottle made a bow.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Splendid, majestic creature!&rsquo; thought Tottle.</p>
<p>Mr. Timson advanced, and Mr. Watkins Tottle began to hate him.&nbsp;
Men generally discover a rival, instinctively, and Mr. Watkins Tottle
felt that his hate was deserved.</p>
<p>&lsquo;May I beg,&rsquo; said the reverend gentleman,&mdash;&lsquo;May
I beg to call upon you, Miss Lillerton, for some trifling donation to
my soup, coals, and blanket distribution society?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Put my name down, for two sovereigns, if you please,&rsquo;
responded Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are truly charitable, madam,&rsquo; said the Reverend
Mr. Timson, &lsquo;and we know that charity will cover a multitude of
sins.&nbsp; Let me beg you to understand that I do not say this from
the supposition that you have many sins which require palliation; believe
me when I say that I never yet met any one who had fewer to atone for,
than Miss Lillerton.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Something like a bad imitation of animation lighted up the lady&rsquo;s
face, as she acknowledged the compliment.&nbsp; Watkins Tottle incurred
the sin of wishing that the ashes of the Reverend Charles Timson were
quietly deposited in the churchyard of his curacy, wherever it might
be.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what,&rsquo; interrupted Parsons, who
had just appeared with clean hands, and a black coat, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
my private opinion, Timson, that your &ldquo;distribution society&rdquo;
is rather a humbug.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are so severe,&rsquo; replied Timson, with a Christian
smile: he disliked Parsons, but liked his dinners.</p>
<p>&lsquo;So positively unjust!&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; observed Tottle.&nbsp; The lady looked up;
her eyes met those of Mr. Watkins Tottle.&nbsp; She withdrew them in
a sweet confusion, and Watkins Tottle did the same&mdash;the confusion
was mutual.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; urged Mr. Parsons, pursuing his objections, &lsquo;what
on earth is the use of giving a man coals who has nothing to cook, or
giving him blankets when he hasn&rsquo;t a bed, or giving him soup when
he requires substantial food?&mdash;&ldquo;like sending them ruffles
when wanting a shirt.&rdquo;&nbsp; Why not give &rsquo;em a trifle of
money, as I do, when I think they deserve it, and let them purchase
what they think best?&nbsp; Why?&mdash;because your subscribers wouldn&rsquo;t
see their names flourishing in print on the church-door&mdash;that&rsquo;s
the reason.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Really, Mr. Parsons, I hope you don&rsquo;t mean to insinuate
that I wish to see <i>my</i> name in print, on the church-door,&rsquo;
interrupted Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I hope not,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, putting in another
word, and getting another glance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly not,&rsquo; replied Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;I dare
say you wouldn&rsquo;t mind seeing it in writing, though, in the church
register&mdash;eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Register!&nbsp; What register?&rsquo; inquired the lady gravely.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, the register of marriages, to be sure,&rsquo; replied
Parsons, chuckling at the sally, and glancing at Tottle.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins
Tottle thought he should have fainted for shame, and it is quite impossible
to imagine what effect the joke would have had upon the lady, if dinner
had not been, at that moment, announced.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins Tottle, with
an unprecedented effort of gallantry, offered the tip of his little
finger; Miss Lillerton accepted it gracefully, with maiden modesty;
and they proceeded in due state to the dinner-table, where they were
soon deposited side by side.&nbsp; The room was very snug, the dinner
very good, and the little party in spirits.&nbsp; The conversation became
pretty general, and when Mr. Watkins Tottle had extracted one or two
cold observations from his neighbour, and had taken wine with her, he
began to acquire confidence rapidly.&nbsp; The cloth was removed; Mrs.
Gabriel Parsons drank four glasses of port on the plea of being a nurse
just then; and Miss Lillerton took about the same number of sips, on
the plea of not wanting any at all.&nbsp; At length, the ladies retired,
to the great gratification of Mr. Gabriel Parsons, who had been coughing
and frowning at his wife, for half-an-hour previously&mdash;signals
which Mrs. Parsons never happened to observe, until she had been pressed
to take her ordinary quantum, which, to avoid giving trouble, she generally
did at once.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What do you think of her?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons
of Mr. Watkins Tottle, in an under-tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I dote on her with enthusiasm already!&rsquo; replied Mr.
Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Gentlemen, pray let us drink &ldquo;the ladies,&rdquo;&rsquo;
said the Reverend Mr. Timson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The ladies!&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, emptying his glass.&nbsp;
In the fulness of his confidence, he felt as if he could make love to
a dozen ladies, off-hand.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &lsquo;I remember when
I was a young man&mdash;fill your glass, Timson.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have this moment emptied it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then fill again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will,&rsquo; said Timson, suiting the action to the word.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I remember,&rsquo; resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &lsquo;when
I was a younger man, with what a strange compound of feelings I used
to drink that toast, and how I used to think every woman was an angel.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Was that before you were married?&rsquo; mildly inquired Mr.
Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! certainly,&rsquo; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;I
have never thought so since; and a precious milksop I must have been,
ever to have thought so at all.&nbsp; But, you know, I married Fanny
under the oddest, and most ridiculous circumstances possible.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What were they, if one may inquire?&rsquo; asked Timson, who
had heard the story, on an average, twice a week for the last six months.&nbsp;
Mr. Watkins Tottle listened attentively, in the hope of picking up some
suggestion that might be useful to him in his new undertaking.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I spent my wedding-night in a back-kitchen chimney,&rsquo;
said Parsons, by way of a beginning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;In a back-kitchen chimney!&rsquo; ejaculated Watkins Tottle.&nbsp;
&lsquo;How dreadful!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, it wasn&rsquo;t very pleasant,&rsquo; replied the small
host.&nbsp; &lsquo;The fact is, Fanny&rsquo;s father and mother liked
me well enough as an individual, but had a decided objection to my becoming
a husband.&nbsp; You see, I hadn&rsquo;t any money in those days, and
they had; and so they wanted Fanny to pick up somebody else.&nbsp; However,
we managed to discover the state of each other&rsquo;s affections somehow.&nbsp;
I used to meet her, at some mutual friends&rsquo; parties; at first
we danced together, and talked, and flirted, and all that sort of thing;
then, I used to like nothing so well as sitting by her side&mdash;we
didn&rsquo;t talk so much then, but I remember I used to have a great
notion of looking at her out of the extreme corner of my left eye&mdash;and
then I got very miserable and sentimental, and began to write verses,
and use Macassar oil.&nbsp; At last I couldn&rsquo;t bear it any longer,
and after I had walked up and down the sunny side of Oxford-street in
tight boots for a week&mdash;and a devilish hot summer it was too&mdash;in
the hope of meeting her, I sat down and wrote a letter, and begged her
to manage to see me clandestinely, for I wanted to hear her decision
from her own mouth.&nbsp; I said I had discovered, to my perfect satisfaction,
that I couldn&rsquo;t live without her, and that if she didn&rsquo;t
have me, I had made up my mind to take prussic acid, or take to drinking,
or emigrate, so as to take myself off in some way or other.&nbsp; Well,
I borrowed a pound, and bribed the housemaid to give her the note, which
she did.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what was the reply?&rsquo; inquired Timson, who had found,
before, that to encourage the repetition of old stories is to get a
general invitation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, the usual one!&nbsp; Fanny expressed herself very miserable;
hinted at the possibility of an early grave; said that nothing should
induce her to swerve from the duty she owed her parents; implored me
to forget her, and find out somebody more deserving, and all that sort
of thing.&nbsp; She said she could, on no account, think of meeting
me unknown to her pa and ma; and entreated me, as she should be in a
particular part of Kensington Gardens at eleven o&rsquo;clock next morning,
not to attempt to meet her there.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You didn&rsquo;t go, of course?&rsquo; said Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Didn&rsquo;t I?&mdash;Of course I did.&nbsp; There she was,
with the identical housemaid in perspective, in order that there might
be no interruption.&nbsp; We walked about, for a couple of hours; made
ourselves delightfully miserable; and were regularly engaged.&nbsp;
Then, we began to &ldquo;correspond&rdquo;&mdash;that is to say, we
used to exchange about four letters a day; what we used to say in &rsquo;em
I can&rsquo;t imagine.&nbsp; And I used to have an interview, in the
kitchen, or the cellar, or some such place, every evening.&nbsp; Well,
things went on in this way for some time; and we got fonder of each
other every day.&nbsp; At last, as our love was raised to such a pitch,
and as my salary had been raised too, shortly before, we determined
on a secret marriage.&nbsp; Fanny arranged to sleep at a friend&rsquo;s,
on the previous night; we were to be married early in the morning; and
then we were to return to her home and be pathetic.&nbsp; She was to
fall at the old gentleman&rsquo;s feet, and bathe his boots with her
tears; and I was to hug the old lady and call her &ldquo;mother,&rdquo;
and use my pocket-handkerchief as much as possible.&nbsp; Married we
were, the next morning; two girls-friends of Fanny&rsquo;s&mdash;acting
as bridesmaids; and a man, who was hired for five shillings and a pint
of porter, officiating as father.&nbsp; Now, the old lady unfortunately
put off her return from Ramsgate, where she had been paying a visit,
until the next morning; and as we placed great reliance on her, we agreed
to postpone our confession for four-and-twenty hours.&nbsp; My newly-made
wife returned home, and I spent my wedding-day in strolling about Hampstead-heath,
and execrating my father-in-law.&nbsp; Of course, I went to comfort
my dear little wife at night, as much as I could, with the assurance
that our troubles would soon be over.&nbsp; I opened the garden-gate,
of which I had a key, and was shown by the servant to our old place
of meeting&mdash;a back kitchen, with a stone-floor and a dresser: upon
which, in the absence of chairs, we used to sit and make love.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Make love upon a kitchen-dresser!&rsquo; interrupted Mr. Watkins
Tottle, whose ideas of decorum were greatly outraged.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&nbsp; On a kitchen-dresser!&rsquo; replied Parsons.&nbsp;
&lsquo;And let me tell you, old fellow, that, if you were really over
head-and-ears in love, and had no other place to make love in, you&rsquo;d
be devilish glad to avail yourself of such an opportunity.&nbsp; However,
let me see;&mdash;where was I?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;On the dresser,&rsquo; suggested Timson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh&mdash;ah!&nbsp; Well, here I found poor Fanny, quite disconsolate
and uncomfortable.&nbsp; The old boy had been very cross all day, which
made her feel still more lonely; and she was quite out of spirits.&nbsp;
So, I put a good face on the matter, and laughed it off, and said we
should enjoy the pleasures of a matrimonial life more by contrast; and,
at length, poor Fanny brightened up a little.&nbsp; I stopped there,
till about eleven o&rsquo;clock, and, just as I was taking my leave
for the fourteenth time, the girl came running down the stairs, without
her shoes, in a great fright, to tell us that the old villain&mdash;Heaven
forgive me for calling him so, for he is dead and gone now!&mdash;prompted
I suppose by the prince of darkness, was coming down, to draw his own
beer for supper&mdash;a thing he had not done before, for six months,
to my certain knowledge; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen.&nbsp;
If he discovered me there, explanation would have been out of the question;
for he was so outrageously violent, when at all excited, that he never
would have listened to me.&nbsp; There was only one thing to be done.&nbsp;
The chimney was a very wide one; it had been originally built for an
oven; went up perpendicularly for a few feet, and then shot backward
and formed a sort of small cavern.&nbsp; My hopes and fortune&mdash;the
means of our joint existence almost&mdash;were at stake.&nbsp; I scrambled
in like a squirrel; coiled myself up in this recess; and, as Fanny and
the girl replaced the deal chimney-board, I could see the light of the
candle which my unconscious father-in-law carried in his hand.&nbsp;
I heard him draw the beer; and I never heard beer run so slowly.&nbsp;
He was just leaving the kitchen, and I was preparing to descend, when
down came the infernal chimney-board with a tremendous crash.&nbsp;
He stopped and put down the candle and the jug of beer on the dresser;
he was a nervous old fellow, and any unexpected noise annoyed him.&nbsp;
He coolly observed that the fire-place was never used, and sending the
frightened servant into the next kitchen for a hammer and nails, actually
nailed up the board, and locked the door on the outside.&nbsp; So, there
was I, on my wedding-night, in the light kerseymere trousers, fancy
waistcoat, and blue coat, that I had been married in in the morning,
in a back-kitchen chimney, the bottom of which was nailed up, and the
top of which had been formerly raised some fifteen feet, to prevent
the smoke from annoying the neighbours.&nbsp; And there,&rsquo; added
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he passed the bottle, &lsquo;there I remained
till half-past seven the next morning, when the housemaid&rsquo;s sweetheart,
who was a carpenter, unshelled me.&nbsp; The old dog had nailed me up
so securely, that, to this very hour, I firmly believe that no one but
a carpenter could ever have got me out.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what did Mrs. Parsons&rsquo;s father say, when he found
you were married?&rsquo; inquired Watkins Tottle, who, although he never
saw a joke, was not satisfied until he heard a story to the very end.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, the affair of the chimney so tickled his fancy, that
he pardoned us off-hand, and allowed us something to live on till he
went the way of all flesh.&nbsp; I spent the next night in his second-floor
front, much more comfortably than I had spent the preceding one; for,
as you will probably guess&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Please, sir, missis has made tea,&rsquo; said a middle-aged
female servant, bobbing into the room.</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s the very housemaid that figures in my story,&rsquo;
said Mr. Gabriel Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;She went into Fanny&rsquo;s service
when we were first married, and has been with us ever since; but I don&rsquo;t
think she has felt one atom of respect for me since the morning she
saw me released, when she went into violent hysterics, to which she
has been subject ever since.&nbsp; Now, shall we join the ladies?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;If you please,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;By all means,&rsquo; added the obsequious Mr. Timson; and
the trio made for the drawing-room accordingly.</p>
<p>Tea being concluded, and the toast and cups having been duly handed,
and occasionally upset, by Mr. Watkins Tottle, a rubber was proposed.&nbsp;
They cut for partners&mdash;Mr. and Mrs. Parsons; and Mr. Watkins Tottle
and Miss Lillerton.&nbsp; Mr. Timson having conscientious scruples on
the subject of card-playing, drank brandy-and-water, and kept up a running
spar with Mr. Watkins Tottle.&nbsp; The evening went off well; Mr. Watkins
Tottle was in high spirits, having some reason to be gratified with
his reception by Miss Lillerton; and before he left, a small party was
made up to visit the Beulah Spa on the following Saturday.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s all right, I think,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons
to Mr. Watkins Tottle as he opened the garden gate for him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I hope so,&rsquo; he replied, squeezing his friend&rsquo;s
hand.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll be down by the first coach on Saturday,&rsquo;
said Mr. Gabriel Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Undoubtedly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>But fortune had decreed that Mr. Watkins Tottle should not be down
by the first coach on Saturday.&nbsp; His adventures on that day, however,
and the success of his wooing, are subjects for another chapter.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>CHAPTER THE SECOND</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;The first coach has not come in yet, has it, Tom?&rsquo; inquired
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he very complacently paced up and down the fourteen
feet of gravel which bordered the &lsquo;lawn,&rsquo; on the Saturday
morning which had been fixed upon for the Beulah Spa jaunt.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, sir; I haven&rsquo;t seen it,&rsquo; replied a gardener
in a blue apron, who let himself out to do the ornamental for half-a-crown
a day and his &lsquo;keep.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Time Tottle was down,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, ruminating&mdash;&lsquo;Oh,
here he is, no doubt,&rsquo; added Gabriel, as a cab drove rapidly up
the hill; and he buttoned his dressing-gown, and opened the gate to
receive the expected visitor.&nbsp; The cab stopped, and out jumped
a man in a coarse Petersham great-coat, whity-brown neckerchief, faded
black suit, gamboge-coloured top-boots, and one of those large-crowned
hats, formerly seldom met with, but now very generally patronised by
gentlemen and costermongers.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Parsons?&rsquo; said the man, looking at the superscription
of a note he held in his hand, and addressing Gabriel with an inquiring
air.</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>My</i> name is Parsons,&rsquo; responded the sugar-baker.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve brought this here note,&rsquo; replied the individual
in the painted tops, in a hoarse whisper: &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve brought
this here note from a gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n as come to our house this
mornin&rsquo;.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I expected the gentleman at my house,&rsquo; said Parsons,
as he broke the seal, which bore the impression of her Majesty&rsquo;s
profile as it is seen on a sixpence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve no doubt the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n would ha&rsquo;
been here, replied the stranger, &lsquo;if he hadn&rsquo;t happened
to call at our house first; but we never trusts no gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n
furder nor we can see him&mdash;no mistake about that there&rsquo;&mdash;added
the unknown, with a facetious grin; &lsquo;beg your pardon, sir, no
offence meant, only&mdash;once in, and I wish you may&mdash;catch the
idea, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons was not remarkable for catching anything suddenly,
but a cold.&nbsp; He therefore only bestowed a glance of profound astonishment
on his mysterious companion, and proceeded to unfold the note of which
he had been the bearer.&nbsp; Once opened and the idea was caught with
very little difficulty.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins Tottle had been suddenly arrested
for 33<i>l</i>. 10<i>s</i>. 4<i>d</i>., and dated his communication
from a lock-up house in the vicinity of Chancery-lane.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Unfortunate affair this!&rsquo; said Parsons, refolding the
note.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! nothin&rsquo; ven you&rsquo;re used to it,&rsquo; coolly
observed the man in the Petersham.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tom!&rsquo; exclaimed Parsons, after a few minutes&rsquo;
consideration, &lsquo;just put the horse in, will you?&mdash;Tell the
gentleman that I shall be there almost as soon as you are,&rsquo; he
continued, addressing the sheriff-officer&rsquo;s Mercury.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Werry well,&rsquo; replied that important functionary; adding,
in a confidential manner, &lsquo;I&rsquo;d adwise the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n&rsquo;s
friends to settle.&nbsp; You see it&rsquo;s a mere trifle; and, unless
the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n means to go up afore the court, it&rsquo;s
hardly worth while waiting for detainers, you know.&nbsp; Our governor&rsquo;s
wide awake, he is.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll never say nothin&rsquo; agin him,
nor no man; but he knows what&rsquo;s o&rsquo;clock, he does, uncommon.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Having delivered this eloquent, and, to Parsons, particularly intelligible
harangue, the meaning of which was eked out by divers nods and winks,
the gentleman in the boots reseated himself in the cab, which went rapidly
off, and was soon out of sight.&nbsp; Mr. Gabriel Parsons continued
to pace up and down the pathway for some minutes, apparently absorbed
in deep meditation.&nbsp; The result of his cogitations seemed to be
perfectly satisfactory to himself, for he ran briskly into the house;
said that business had suddenly summoned him to town; that he had desired
the messenger to inform Mr. Watkins Tottle of the fact; and that they
would return together to dinner.&nbsp; He then hastily equipped himself
for a drive, and mounting his gig, was soon on his way to the establishment
of Mr. Solomon Jacobs, situate (as Mr. Watkins Tottle had informed him)
in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane.</p>
<p>When a man is in a violent hurry to get on, and has a specific object
in view, the attainment of which depends on the completion of his journey,
the difficulties which interpose themselves in his way appear not only
to be innumerable, but to have been called into existence especially
for the occasion.&nbsp; The remark is by no means a new one, and Mr.
Gabriel Parsons had practical and painful experience of its justice
in the course of his drive.&nbsp; There are three classes of animated
objects which prevent your driving with any degree of comfort or celerity
through streets which are but little frequented&mdash;they are pigs,
children, and old women.&nbsp; On the occasion we are describing, the
pigs were luxuriating on cabbage-stalks, and the shuttlecocks fluttered
from the little deal battledores, and the children played in the road;
and women, with a basket in one hand, and the street-door key in the
other, <i>would</i> cross just before the horse&rsquo;s head, until
Mr. Gabriel Parsons was perfectly savage with vexation, and quite hoarse
with hoi-ing and imprecating.&nbsp; Then, when he got into Fleet-street,
there was &lsquo;a stoppage,&rsquo; in which people in vehicles have
the satisfaction of remaining stationary for half an hour, and envying
the slowest pedestrians; and where policemen rush about, and seize hold
of horses&rsquo; bridles, and back them into shop-windows, by way of
clearing the road and preventing confusion.&nbsp; At length Mr. Gabriel
Parsons turned into Chancery-lane, and having inquired for, and been
directed to Cursitor-street (for it was a locality of which he was quite
ignorant), he soon found himself opposite the house of Mr. Solomon Jacobs.&nbsp;
Confiding his horse and gig to the care of one of the fourteen boys
who had followed him from the other side of Blackfriars-bridge on the
chance of his requiring their services, Mr. Gabriel Parsons crossed
the road and knocked at an inner door, the upper part of which was of
glass, grated like the windows of this inviting mansion with iron bars&mdash;painted
white to look comfortable.</p>
<p>The knock was answered by a sallow-faced, red-haired, sulky boy,
who, after surveying Mr. Gabriel Parsons through the glass, applied
a large key to an immense wooden excrescence, which was in reality a
lock, but which, taken in conjunction with the iron nails with which
the panels were studded, gave the door the appearance of being subject
to warts.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to see Mr. Watkins Tottle,&rsquo; said Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s the gentleman that come in this morning, Jem,&rsquo;
screamed a voice from the top of the kitchen-stairs, which belonged
to a dirty woman who had just brought her chin to a level with the passage-floor.&nbsp;
&lsquo;The gentleman&rsquo;s in the coffee-room.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Up-stairs, sir,&rsquo; said the boy, just opening the door
wide enough to let Parsons in without squeezing him, and double-locking
it the moment he had made his way through the aperture&mdash;&lsquo;First
floor&mdash;door on the left.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons thus instructed, ascended the uncarpeted and
ill-lighted staircase, and after giving several subdued taps at the
before-mentioned &lsquo;door on the left,&rsquo; which were rendered
inaudible by the hum of voices within the room, and the hissing noise
attendant on some frying operations which were carrying on below stairs,
turned the handle, and entered the apartment.&nbsp; Being informed that
the unfortunate object of his visit had just gone up-stairs to write
a letter, he had leisure to sit down and observe the scene before him.</p>
<p>The room&mdash;which was a small, confined den&mdash;was partitioned
off into boxes, like the common-room of some inferior eating-house.&nbsp;
The dirty floor had evidently been as long a stranger to the scrubbing-brush
as to carpet or floor-cloth: and the ceiling was completely blackened
by the flare of the oil-lamp by which the room was lighted at night.&nbsp;
The gray ashes on the edges of the tables, and the cigar ends which
were plentifully scattered about the dusty grate, fully accounted for
the intolerable smell of tobacco which pervaded the place; and the empty
glasses and half-saturated slices of lemon on the tables, together with
the porter pots beneath them, bore testimony to the frequent libations
in which the individuals who honoured Mr. Solomon Jacobs by a temporary
residence in his house indulged.&nbsp; Over the mantel-shelf was a paltry
looking-glass, extending about half the width of the chimney-piece;
but by way of counterpoise, the ashes were confined by a rusty fender
about twice as long as the hearth.</p>
<p>From this cheerful room itself, the attention of Mr. Gabriel Parsons
was naturally directed to its inmates.&nbsp; In one of the boxes two
men were playing at cribbage with a very dirty pack of cards, some with
blue, some with green, and some with red backs&mdash;selections from
decayed packs.&nbsp; The cribbage board had been long ago formed on
the table by some ingenious visitor with the assistance of a pocket-knife
and a two-pronged fork, with which the necessary number of holes had
been made in the table at proper distances for the reception of the
wooden pegs.&nbsp; In another box a stout, hearty-looking man, of about
forty, was eating some dinner which his wife&mdash;an equally comfortable-looking
personage&mdash;had brought him in a basket: and in a third, a genteel-looking
young man was talking earnestly, and in a low tone, to a young female,
whose face was concealed by a thick veil, but whom Mr. Gabriel Parsons
immediately set down in his own mind as the debtor&rsquo;s wife.&nbsp;
A young fellow of vulgar manners, dressed in the very extreme of the
prevailing fashion, was pacing up and down the room, with a lighted
cigar in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, ever and anon puffing
forth volumes of smoke, and occasionally applying, with much apparent
relish, to a pint pot, the contents of which were &lsquo;chilling&rsquo;
on the hob.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fourpence more, by gum!&rsquo; exclaimed one of the cribbage-players,
lighting a pipe, and addressing his adversary at the close of the game;
&lsquo;one &rsquo;ud think you&rsquo;d got luck in a pepper-cruet, and
shook it out when you wanted it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, that a&rsquo;n&rsquo;t a bad un,&rsquo; replied the
other, who was a horse-dealer from Islington.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No; I&rsquo;m blessed if it is,&rsquo; interposed the jolly-looking
fellow, who, having finished his dinner, was drinking out of the same
glass as his wife, in truly conjugal harmony, some hot gin-and-water.&nbsp;
The faithful partner of his cares had brought a plentiful supply of
the anti-temperance fluid in a large flat stone bottle, which looked
like a half-gallon jar that had been successfully tapped for the dropsy.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You&rsquo;re a rum chap, you are, Mr. Walker&mdash;will you dip
your beak into this, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank&rsquo;ee, sir,&rsquo; replied Mr. Walker, leaving his
box, and advancing to the other to accept the proffered glass.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s your health, sir, and your good &rsquo;ooman&rsquo;s
here.&nbsp; Gentlemen all&mdash;yours, and better luck still.&nbsp;
Well, Mr. Willis,&rsquo; continued the facetious prisoner, addressing
the young man with the cigar, &lsquo;you seem rather down to-day&mdash;floored,
as one may say.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s the matter, sir?&nbsp; Never say
die, you know.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m all right,&rsquo; replied the smoker.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I shall be bailed out to-morrow.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Shall you, though?&rsquo; inquired the other.&nbsp; &lsquo;Damme,
I wish I could say the same.&nbsp; I am as regularly over head and ears
as the Royal George, and stand about as much chance of being <i>bailed
out</i>.&nbsp; Ha! ha! ha!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; said the young man, stopping short, and speaking
in a very loud key, &lsquo;look at me.&nbsp; What d&rsquo;ye think I&rsquo;ve
stopped here two days for?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;&rsquo;Cause you couldn&rsquo;t get out, I suppose,&rsquo;
interrupted Mr. Walker, winking to the company.&nbsp; &lsquo;Not that
you&rsquo;re exactly obliged to stop here, only you can&rsquo;t help
it.&nbsp; No compulsion, you know, only you must&mdash;eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A&rsquo;n&rsquo;t he a rum un?&rsquo; inquired the delighted
individual, who had offered the gin-and-water, of his wife.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, he just is!&rsquo; replied the lady, who was quite overcome
by these flashes of imagination.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, my case,&rsquo; frowned the victim, throwing the end
of his cigar into the fire, and illustrating his argument by knocking
the bottom of the pot on the table, at intervals,&mdash;&lsquo;my case
is a very singular one.&nbsp; My father&rsquo;s a man of large property,
and I am his son.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;That&rsquo;s a very strange circumstance!&rsquo; interrupted
the jocose Mr. Walker, <i>en passant.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;&mdash;I am his son, and have received a liberal education.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t owe no man nothing&mdash;not the value of a farthing,
but I was induced, you see, to put my name to some bills for a friend&mdash;bills
to a large amount, I may say a very large amount, for which I didn&rsquo;t
receive no consideration.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s the consequence?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, I suppose the bills went out, and you came in.&nbsp;
The acceptances weren&rsquo;t taken up, and you were, eh?&rsquo; inquired
Walker.</p>
<p>&lsquo;To be sure,&rsquo; replied the liberally educated young gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;To be sure; and so here I am, locked up for a matter of twelve
hundred pound.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why don&rsquo;t you ask your old governor to stump up?&rsquo;
inquired Walker, with a somewhat sceptical air.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! bless you, he&rsquo;d never do it,&rsquo; replied the
other, in a tone of expostulation&mdash;&lsquo;Never!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, it is very odd to&mdash;be&mdash;sure,&rsquo; interposed
the owner of the flat bottle, mixing another glass, &lsquo;but I&rsquo;ve
been in difficulties, as one may say, now for thirty year.&nbsp; I went
to pieces when I was in a milk-walk, thirty year ago; arterwards, when
I was a fruiterer, and kept a spring wan; and arter that again in the
coal and &rsquo;tatur line&mdash;but all that time I never see a youngish
chap come into a place of this kind, who wasn&rsquo;t going out again
directly, and who hadn&rsquo;t been arrested on bills which he&rsquo;d
given a friend and for which he&rsquo;d received nothing whatsomever&mdash;not
a fraction.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s always the cry,&rsquo; said Walker.&nbsp; &lsquo;I
can&rsquo;t see the use on it; that&rsquo;s what makes me so wild.&nbsp;
Why, I should have a much better opinion of an individual, if he&rsquo;d
say at once in an honourable and gentlemanly manner as he&rsquo;d done
everybody he possibly could.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ay, to be sure,&rsquo; interposed the horse-dealer, with whose
notions of bargain and sale the axiom perfectly coincided, &lsquo;so
should I.&rsquo;&nbsp; The young gentleman, who had given rise to these
observations, was on the point of offering a rather angry reply to these
sneers, but the rising of the young man before noticed, and of the female
who had been sitting by him, to leave the room, interrupted the conversation.&nbsp;
She had been weeping bitterly, and the noxious atmosphere of the room
acting upon her excited feelings and delicate frame, rendered the support
of her companion necessary as they quitted it together.</p>
<p>There was an air of superiority about them both, and something in
their appearance so unusual in such a place, that a respectful silence
was observed until the <i>whirr&mdash;r&mdash;bang</i> of the spring
door announced that they were out of hearing.&nbsp; It was broken by
the wife of the ex-fruiterer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Poor creetur!&rsquo; said she, quenching a sigh in a rivulet
of gin-and-water.&nbsp; &lsquo;She&rsquo;s very young.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She&rsquo;s a nice-looking &rsquo;ooman too,&rsquo; added
the horse-dealer.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s he in for, Ikey?&rsquo; inquired Walker, of an
individual who was spreading a cloth with numerous blotches of mustard
upon it, on one of the tables, and whom Mr. Gabriel Parsons had no difficulty
in recognising as the man who had called upon him in the morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Vy,&rsquo; responded the factotum, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s one of
the rummiest rigs you ever heard on.&nbsp; He come in here last Vensday,
which by-the-bye he&rsquo;s a-going over the water to-night&mdash;hows&rsquo;ever
that&rsquo;s neither here nor there.&nbsp; You see I&rsquo;ve been a
going back&rsquo;ards and for&rsquo;ards about his business, and ha&rsquo;
managed to pick up some of his story from the servants and them; and
so far as I can make it out, it seems to be summat to this here effect&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Cut it short, old fellow,&rsquo; interrupted Walker, who knew
from former experience that he of the top-boots was neither very concise
nor intelligible in his narratives.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Let me alone,&rsquo; replied Ikey, &lsquo;and I&rsquo;ll ha&rsquo;
wound up, and made my lucky in five seconds.&nbsp; This here young gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n&rsquo;s
father&mdash;so I&rsquo;m told, mind ye&mdash;and the father o&rsquo;
the young voman, have always been on very bad, out-and-out, rig&rsquo;lar
knock-me-down sort o&rsquo; terms; but somehow or another, when he was
a wisitin&rsquo; at some gentlefolk&rsquo;s house, as he knowed at college,
he came into contract with the young lady.&nbsp; He seed her several
times, and then he up and said he&rsquo;d keep company with her, if
so be as she vos agreeable.&nbsp; Vell, she vos as sweet upon him as
he vos upon her, and so I s&rsquo;pose they made it all right; for they
got married &rsquo;bout six months arterwards, unbeknown, mind ye, to
the two fathers&mdash;leastways so I&rsquo;m told.&nbsp; When they heard
on it&mdash;my eyes, there was such a combustion!&nbsp; Starvation vos
the very least that vos to be done to &rsquo;em.&nbsp; The young gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n&rsquo;s
father cut him off vith a bob, &rsquo;cos he&rsquo;d cut himself off
vith a wife; and the young lady&rsquo;s father he behaved even worser
and more unnat&rsquo;ral, for he not only blow&rsquo;d her up dreadful,
and swore he&rsquo;d never see her again, but he employed a chap as
I knows&mdash;and as you knows, Mr. Valker, a precious sight too well&mdash;to
go about and buy up the bills and them things on which the young husband,
thinking his governor &rsquo;ud come round agin, had raised the vind
just to blow himself on vith for a time; besides vich, he made all the
interest he could to set other people agin him.&nbsp; Consequence vos,
that he paid as long as he could; but things he never expected to have
to meet till he&rsquo;d had time to turn himself round, come fast upon
him, and he vos nabbed.&nbsp; He vos brought here, as I said afore,
last Vensday, and I think there&rsquo;s about&mdash;ah, half-a-dozen
detainers agin him down-stairs now.&nbsp; I have been,&rsquo; added
Ikey, &lsquo;in the purfession these fifteen year, and I never met vith
such windictiveness afore!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Poor creeturs!&rsquo; exclaimed the coal-dealer&rsquo;s wife
once more: again resorting to the same excellent prescription for nipping
a sigh in the bud.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah! when they&rsquo;ve seen as much
trouble as I and my old man here have, they&rsquo;ll be as comfortable
under it as we are.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The young lady&rsquo;s a pretty creature,&rsquo; said Walker,
&lsquo;only she&rsquo;s a little too delicate for my taste&mdash;there
ain&rsquo;t enough of her.&nbsp; As to the young cove, he may be very
respectable and what not, but he&rsquo;s too down in the mouth for me&mdash;he
ain&rsquo;t game.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Game!&rsquo; exclaimed Ikey, who had been altering the position
of a green-handled knife and fork at least a dozen times, in order that
he might remain in the room under the pretext of having something to
do.&nbsp; &lsquo;He&rsquo;s game enough ven there&rsquo;s anything to
be fierce about; but who could be game as you call it, Mr. Walker, with
a pale young creetur like that, hanging about him?&mdash;It&rsquo;s
enough to drive any man&rsquo;s heart into his boots to see &rsquo;em
together&mdash;and no mistake at all about it.&nbsp; I never shall forget
her first comin&rsquo; here; he wrote to her on the Thursday to come&mdash;I
know he did, &rsquo;cos I took the letter.&nbsp; Uncommon fidgety he
was all day to be sure, and in the evening he goes down into the office,
and he says to Jacobs, says he, &ldquo;Sir, can I have the loan of a
private room for a few minutes this evening, without incurring any additional
expense&mdash;just to see my wife in?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; Jacobs looked
as much as to say&mdash;&ldquo;Strike me bountiful if you ain&rsquo;t
one of the modest sort!&rdquo; but as the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n who had
been in the back parlour had just gone out, and had paid for it for
that day, he says&mdash;werry grave&mdash;&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he,
&ldquo;it&rsquo;s agin our rules to let private rooms to our lodgers
on gratis terms, but,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;for a gentleman, I don&rsquo;t
mind breaking through them for once.&rdquo;&nbsp; So then he turns round
to me, and says, &ldquo;Ikey, put two mould candles in the back parlour,
and charge &rsquo;em to this gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n&rsquo;s account,&rdquo;
vich I did.&nbsp; Vell, by-and-by a hackney-coach comes up to the door,
and there, sure enough, was the young lady, wrapped up in a hopera-cloak,
as it might be, and all alone.&nbsp; I opened the gate that night, so
I went up when the coach come, and he vos a waitin&rsquo; at the parlour
door&mdash;and wasn&rsquo;t he a trembling, neither?&nbsp; The poor
creetur see him, and could hardly walk to meet him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,
Harry!&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;that it should have come to this; and
all for my sake,&rdquo; says she, putting her hand upon his shoulder.&nbsp;
So he puts his arm round her pretty little waist, and leading her gently
a little way into the room, so that he might be able to shut the door,
he says, so kind and soft-like&mdash;&ldquo;Why, Kate,&rdquo; says he&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s the gentleman you want,&rsquo; said Ikey, abruptly
breaking off in his story, and introducing Mr. Gabriel Parsons to the
crest-fallen Watkins Tottle, who at that moment entered the room.&nbsp;
Watkins advanced with a wooden expression of passive endurance, and
accepted the hand which Mr. Gabriel Parsons held out.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to speak to you,&rsquo; said Gabriel, with a look strongly
expressive of his dislike of the company.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This way,&rsquo; replied the imprisoned one, leading the way
to the front drawing-room, where rich debtors did the luxurious at the
rate of a couple of guineas a day.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, here I am,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins, as he sat down on
the sofa; and placing the palms of his hands on his knees, anxiously
glanced at his friend&rsquo;s countenance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes; and here you&rsquo;re likely to be,&rsquo; said Gabriel,
coolly, as he rattled the money in his unmentionable pockets, and looked
out of the window.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the amount with the costs?&rsquo; inquired Parsons,
after an awkward pause.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have you any money?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nine and sixpence halfpenny.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons walked up and down the room for a few seconds,
before he could make up his mind to disclose the plan he had formed;
he was accustomed to drive hard bargains, but was always most anxious
to conceal his avarice.&nbsp; At length he stopped short, and said,
&lsquo;Tottle, you owe me fifty pounds.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And from all I see, I infer that you are likely to owe it
to me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I fear I am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Though you have every disposition to pay me if you could?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &lsquo;listen: here&rsquo;s
my proposition.&nbsp; You know my way of old.&nbsp; Accept it&mdash;yes
or no&mdash;I will or I won&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll pay the debt and
costs, and I&rsquo;ll lend you 10<i>l</i>. more (which, added to your
annuity, will enable you to carry on the war well) if you&rsquo;ll give
me your note of hand to pay me one hundred and fifty pounds within six
months after you are married to Miss Lillerton.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stop a minute&mdash;on one condition; and that is, that you
propose to Miss Lillerton at once.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;At once!&nbsp; My dear Parsons, consider.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s for you to consider, not me.&nbsp; She knows you
well from reputation, though she did not know you personally until lately.&nbsp;
Notwithstanding all her maiden modesty, I think she&rsquo;d be devilish
glad to get married out of hand with as little delay as possible.&nbsp;
My wife has sounded her on the subject, and she has confessed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&mdash;what?&rsquo; eagerly interrupted the enamoured
Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; replied Parsons, &lsquo;to say exactly what she
has confessed, would be rather difficult, because they only spoke in
hints, and so forth; but my wife, who is no bad judge in these cases,
declared to me that what she had confessed was as good as to say that
she was not insensible of your merits&mdash;in fact, that no other man
should have her.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle rose hastily from his seat, and rang the bell.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s that for?&rsquo; inquired Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to send the man for the bill stamp,&rsquo; replied
Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then you&rsquo;ve made up your mind?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have,&rsquo;&mdash;and they shook hands most cordially.&nbsp;
The note of hand was given&mdash;the debt and costs were paid&mdash;Ikey
was satisfied for his trouble, and the two friends soon found themselves
on that side of Mr. Solomon Jacobs&rsquo;s establishment, on which most
of his visitors were very happy when they found themselves once again&mdash;to
wit, the <i>out</i>side.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as they drove to Norwood
together&mdash;&lsquo;you shall have an opportunity to make the disclosure
to-night, and mind you speak out, Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will&mdash;I will!&rsquo; replied Watkins, valorously.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How I should like to see you together,&rsquo; ejaculated Mr.
Gabriel Parsons.&mdash;&lsquo;What fun!&rsquo; and he laughed so long
and so loudly, that he disconcerted Mr. Watkins Tottle, and frightened
the horse.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s Fanny and your intended walking about on the
lawn,&rsquo; said Gabriel, as they approached the house.&nbsp; &lsquo;Mind
your eye, Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never fear,&rsquo; replied Watkins, resolutely, as he made
his way to the spot where the ladies were walking.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Mr. Tottle, my dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons,
addressing Miss Lillerton.&nbsp; The lady turned quickly round, and
acknowledged his courteous salute with the same sort of confusion that
Watkins had noticed on their first interview, but with something like
a slight expression of disappointment or carelessness.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you see how glad she was to see you?&rsquo; whispered
Parsons to his friend.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, I really thought she looked as if she would rather have
seen somebody else,&rsquo; replied Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pooh, nonsense!&rsquo; whispered Parsons again&mdash;&lsquo;it&rsquo;s
always the way with the women, young or old.&nbsp; They never show how
delighted they are to see those whose presence makes their hearts beat.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s the way with the whole sex, and no man should have lived
to your time of life without knowing it.&nbsp; Fanny confessed it to
me, when we were first married, over and over again&mdash;see what it
is to have a wife.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; whispered Tottle, whose courage was vanishing
fast.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, now, you&rsquo;d better begin to pave the way,&rsquo;
said Parsons, who, having invested some money in the speculation, assumed
the office of director.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, yes, I will&mdash;presently,&rsquo; replied Tottle, greatly
flurried.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Say something to her, man,&rsquo; urged Parsons again.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Confound it! pay her a compliment, can&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No! not till after dinner,&rsquo; replied the bashful Tottle,
anxious to postpone the evil moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, gentlemen,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, &lsquo;you are
really very polite; you stay away the whole morning, after promising
to take us out, and when you do come home, you stand whispering together
and take no notice of us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;We were talking of the <i>business</i>, my dear, which detained
us this morning,&rsquo; replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,&rsquo; said
Miss Lillerton, referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state
occasions, whether it required it or not.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think it has passed very slowly,&rsquo; mildly suggested
Tottle.</p>
<p>(&lsquo;That&rsquo;s right&mdash;bravo!&rsquo;) whispered Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic
surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society,
madam,&rsquo; said Watkins, &lsquo;and that of Mrs. Parsons.&rsquo;</p>
<p>During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to
the house.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment
for?&rsquo; inquired Parsons, as they followed together; &lsquo;it quite
spoilt the effect.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! it really would have been too broad without,&rsquo; replied
Watkins Tottle, &lsquo;much too broad!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s mad!&rsquo; Parsons whispered his wife, as they
entered the drawing-room, &lsquo;mad from modesty.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; ejaculated the lady, &lsquo;I never heard
of such a thing.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,&rsquo;
said Mrs. Parsons, when they sat down to table: &lsquo;Miss Lillerton
is one of us, and, of course, we make no stranger of you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a hope that the Parsons family never
would make a stranger of him; and wished internally that his bashfulness
would allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off the covers, Martha,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, directing
the shifting of the scenery with great anxiety.&nbsp; The order was
obeyed, and a pair of boiled fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were
displayed at the top, and a fillet of veal at the bottom.&nbsp; On one
side of the table two green sauce-tureens, with ladles of the same,
were setting to each other in a green dish; and on the other was a curried
rabbit, in a brown suit, turned up with lemon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton, my dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, &lsquo;shall
I assist you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you, no; I think I&rsquo;ll trouble Mr. Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Watkins started&mdash;trembled&mdash;helped the rabbit&mdash;and
broke a tumbler.&nbsp; The countenance of the lady of the house, which
had been all smiles previously, underwent an awful change.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Extremely sorry,&rsquo; stammered Watkins, assisting himself
to currie and parsley and butter, in the extremity of his confusion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not the least consequence,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Parsons, in
a tone which implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible,&mdash;directing
aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for
the bits of broken glass.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I presume,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;that Mr. Tottle
is aware of the interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases;
a dozen glasses for one is the lowest penalty.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend an admonitory tread on the toe.&nbsp;
Here was a clear hint that the sooner he ceased to be a bachelor and
emancipated himself from such penalties, the better.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins
Tottle viewed the observation in the same light, and challenged Mrs.
Parsons to take wine, with a degree of presence of mind, which, under
all the circumstances, was really extraordinary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton,&rsquo; said Gabriel, &lsquo;may I have the
pleasure?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shall be most happy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, will you assist Miss Lillerton, and pass the decanter.&nbsp;
Thank you.&rsquo;&nbsp; (The usual pantomimic ceremony of nodding and
sipping gone through) -</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk?&rsquo; inquired the master
of the house, who was burning to tell one of his seven stock stories.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; responded Watkins, adding, by way of a saving clause,
&lsquo;but I&rsquo;ve been in Devonshire.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; replied Gabriel, &lsquo;it was in Suffolk that
a rather singular circumstance happened to me many years ago.&nbsp;
Did you ever happen to hear me mention it?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle <i>had</i> happened to hear his friend mention
it some four hundred times.&nbsp; Of course he expressed great curiosity,
and evinced the utmost impatience to hear the story again.&nbsp; Mr.
Gabriel Parsons forthwith attempted to proceed, in spite of the interruptions
to which, as our readers must frequently have observed, the master of
the house is often exposed in such cases.&nbsp; We will attempt to give
them an idea of our meaning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I was in Suffolk&mdash;&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off the fowls first, Martha,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I beg your pardon, my dear.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I was in Suffolk,&rsquo; resumed Mr. Parsons, with an
impatient glance at his wife, who pretended not to observe it, &lsquo;which
is now years ago, business led me to the town of Bury St. Edmund&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
I had to stop at the principal places in my way, and therefore, for
the sake of convenience, I travelled in a gig.&nbsp; I left Sudbury
one dark night&mdash;it was winter time&mdash;about nine o&rsquo;clock;
the rain poured in torrents, the wind howled among the trees that skirted
the roadside, and I was obliged to proceed at a foot-pace, for I could
hardly see my hand before me, it was so dark&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;John,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, in a low, hollow voice,
&lsquo;don&rsquo;t spill that gravy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fanny,&rsquo; said Parsons impatiently, &lsquo;I wish you&rsquo;d
defer these domestic reproofs to some more suitable time.&nbsp; Really,
my dear, these constant interruptions are very annoying.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear, I didn&rsquo;t interrupt you,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, my dear, you <i>did</i> interrupt me,&rsquo; remonstrated
Mr. Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How very absurd you are, my love!&nbsp; I must give directions
to the servants; I am quite sure that if I sat here and allowed John
to spill the gravy over the new carpet, you&rsquo;d be the first to
find fault when you saw the stain to-morrow morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; continued Gabriel with a resigned air, as if
he knew there was no getting over the point about the carpet, &lsquo;I
was just saying, it was so dark that I could hardly see my hand before
me.&nbsp; The road was very lonely, and I assure you, Tottle (this was
a device to arrest the wandering attention of that individual, which
was distracted by a confidential communication between Mrs. Parsons
and Martha, accompanied by the delivery of a large bunch of keys), I
assure you, Tottle, I became somehow impressed with a sense of the loneliness
of my situation&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pie to your master,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, again
directing the servant.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, pray, my dear,&rsquo; remonstrated Parsons once more,
very pettishly.&nbsp; Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eyebrows, and
appealed in dumb show to Miss Lillerton.&nbsp; &lsquo;As I turned a
corner of the road,&rsquo; resumed Gabriel, &lsquo;the horse stopped
short, and reared tremendously.&nbsp; I pulled up, jumped out, ran to
his head, and found a man lying on his back in the middle of the road,
with his eyes fixed on the sky.&nbsp; I thought he was dead; but no,
he was alive, and there appeared to be nothing the matter with him.&nbsp;
He jumped up, and putting his hand to his chest, and fixing upon me
the most earnest gaze you can imagine, exclaimed&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pudding here,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s no use,&rsquo; exclaimed the host, now rendered
desperate.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here, Tottle; a glass of wine.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
useless to attempt relating anything when Mrs. Parsons is present.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This attack was received in the usual way.&nbsp; Mrs. Parsons talked
<i>to</i> Miss Lillerton and <i>at</i> her better half; expatiated on
the impatience of men generally; hinted that her husband was peculiarly
vicious in this respect, and wound up by insinuating that she must be
one of the best tempers that ever existed, or she never could put up
with it.&nbsp; Really what she had to endure sometimes, was more than
any one who saw her in every-day life could by possibility suppose.&mdash;The
story was now a painful subject, and therefore Mr. Parsons declined
to enter into any details, and contented himself by stating that the
man was a maniac, who had escaped from a neighbouring mad-house.</p>
<p>The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss
Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room overhead, very loudly,
for the edification of the visitor.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins Tottle and Mr.
Gabriel Parsons sat chatting comfortably enough, until the conclusion
of the second bottle, when the latter, in proposing an adjournment to
the drawing-room, informed Watkins that he had concerted a plan with
his wife, for leaving him and Miss Lillerton alone, soon after tea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say,&rsquo; said Tottle, as they went up-stairs, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t
you think it would be better if we put it off till-till-to-morrow?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t <i>you</i> think it would have been much better
if I had left you in that wretched hole I found you in this morning?&rsquo;
retorted Parsons bluntly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well&mdash;well&mdash;I only made a suggestion,&rsquo; said
poor Watkins Tottle, with a deep sigh.</p>
<p>Tea was soon concluded, and Miss Lillerton, drawing a small work-table
on one side of the fire, and placing a little wooden frame upon it,
something like a miniature clay-mill without the horse, was soon busily
engaged in making a watch-guard with brown silk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;God bless me!&rsquo; exclaimed Parsons, starting up with well-feigned
surprise, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve forgotten those confounded letters.&nbsp;
Tottle, I know you&rsquo;ll excuse me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>If Tottle had been a free agent, he would have allowed no one to
leave the room on any pretence, except himself.&nbsp; As it was, however,
he was obliged to look cheerful when Parsons quitted the apartment.</p>
<p>He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the room, with&mdash;&lsquo;Please,
ma&rsquo;am, you&rsquo;re wanted.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after her, and
Mr. Watkins Tottle was left alone with Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>For the first five minutes there was a dead silence.&mdash;Mr. Watkins
Tottle was thinking how he should begin, and Miss Lillerton appeared
to be thinking of nothing.&nbsp; The fire was burning low; Mr. Watkins
Tottle stirred it, and put some coals on.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hem!&rsquo; coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle thought
the fair creature had spoken.&nbsp; &lsquo;I beg your pardon,&rsquo;
said he.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I thought you spoke.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would
like to look at them,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of
another five minutes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, thank you,&rsquo; returned Watkins; and then he added,
with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, &lsquo;Madam,
that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To me!&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from
her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces.&mdash;&lsquo;Speak&mdash;to
me!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To you, madam&mdash;and on the subject of the state of your
affections.&rsquo;&nbsp; The lady hastily rose and would have left the
room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle gently detained her by the hand, and holding
it as far from him as the joint length of their arms would permit, he
thus proceeded: &lsquo;Pray do not misunderstand me, or suppose that
I am led to address you, after so short an acquaintance, by any feeling
of my own merits&mdash;for merits I have none which could give me a
claim to your hand.&nbsp; I hope you will acquit me of any presumption
when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs. Parsons, with
the state&mdash;that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told me&mdash;at least,
not Mrs. Parsons, but&mdash;&rsquo; here Watkins began to wander, but
Miss Lillerton relieved him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted
you with my feeling&mdash;my affection&mdash;I mean my respect, for
an individual of the opposite sex?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She has.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then, what?&rsquo; inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face,
with a girlish air, &lsquo;what could induce <i>you</i> to seek such
an interview as this?&nbsp; What can your object be?&nbsp; How can I
promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here was the time for a flourish&mdash;&lsquo;By allowing me,&rsquo;
replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons
and a waistcoat-string, in the act&mdash;&lsquo;By allowing me to be
your slave, your servant&mdash;in short, by unreservedly making me the
confidant of your heart&rsquo;s feelings&mdash;may I say for the promotion
of your own happiness&mdash;may I say, in order that you may become
the wife of a kind and affectionate husband?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Disinterested creature!&rsquo; exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding
her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might possibly
alter her opinion on this last point.&nbsp; He raised the tip of her
middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got off his knees, as gracefully
as he could.&nbsp; &lsquo;My information was correct?&rsquo; he tremulously
inquired, when he was once more on his feet.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It was.&rsquo;&nbsp; Watkins elevated his hands, and looked
up to the ornament in the centre of the ceiling, which had been made
for a lamp, by way of expressing his rapture.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our situation, Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; resumed the lady, glancing
at him through one of the eyelet-holes, &lsquo;is a most peculiar and
delicate one.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is,&rsquo; said Mr. Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our acquaintance has been of <i>so</i> short duration,&rsquo;
said Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Only a week,&rsquo; assented Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! more than that,&rsquo; exclaimed the lady, in a tone of
surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; said Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;More than a month&mdash;more than two months!&rsquo; said
Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Rather odd, this,&rsquo; thought Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; he said, recollecting Parsons&rsquo;s assurance
that she had known him from report, &lsquo;I understand.&nbsp; But,
my dear madam, pray, consider.&nbsp; The longer this acquaintance has
existed, the less reason is there for delay now.&nbsp; Why not at once
fix a period for gratifying the hopes of your devoted admirer?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It has been represented to me again and again that this is
the course I ought to pursue,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;but
pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle&mdash;pray excuse this embarrassment&mdash;I
have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never
could summon up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then allow <i>me</i> to name it,&rsquo; said Tottle eagerly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should like to fix it myself,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton,
bashfully, &lsquo;but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a
third party.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A third party!&rsquo; thought Watkins Tottle; &lsquo;who the
deuce is that to be, I wonder!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; continued Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;you have
made me a most disinterested and kind offer&mdash;that offer I accept.&nbsp;
Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to&mdash;to Mr. Timson?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Timson!&rsquo; said Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;After what has passed between us,&rsquo; responded Miss Lillerton,
still averting her head, &lsquo;you must understand whom I mean; Mr.
Timson, the&mdash;the&mdash;clergyman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Timson, the clergyman!&rsquo; ejaculated Watkins Tottle,
in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own
success.&nbsp; &lsquo;Angel!&nbsp; Certainly&mdash;this moment!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll prepare it immediately,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton,
making for the door; &lsquo;the events of this day have flurried me
so much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall not leave my room again this evening;
I will send you the note by the servant.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stay,&mdash;stay,&rsquo; cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping
a most respectful distance from the lady; &lsquo;when shall we meet
again?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly,
&lsquo;when <i>we</i> are married, I can never see you too often, nor
thank you too much;&rsquo; and she left the room.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged
in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of
&lsquo;Five hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of
disposing of it by her last will and testament,&rsquo; was somehow or
other the foremost.&nbsp; He had gone through the interview so well,
and it had terminated so admirably, that he almost began to wish he
had expressly stipulated for the settlement of the annual five hundred
on himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;May I come in?&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in
at the door.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You may,&rsquo; replied Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, have you done it?&rsquo; anxiously inquired Gabriel.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have I done it!&rsquo; said Watkins Tottle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hush&mdash;I&rsquo;m
going to the clergyman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No!&rsquo; said Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;How well you have managed
it!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where does Timson live?&rsquo; inquired Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;At his uncle&rsquo;s,&rsquo; replied Gabriel, &lsquo;just
round the lane.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s waiting for a living, and has been
assisting his uncle here for the last two or three months.&nbsp; But
how well you have done it&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t think you could have
carried it off so!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian
principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he
was interrupted by the entrance of Martha, with a little pink note folded
like a fancy cocked-hat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton&rsquo;s compliments,&rsquo; said Martha, as
she delivered it into Tottle&rsquo;s hands, and vanished.</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;</i>Do you observe the delicacy?&rsquo; said Tottle, appealing
to Mr. Gabriel Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>Compliments</i>, not <i>love</i>,
by the servant, eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn&rsquo;t exactly know what reply to make,
so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth
ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come,&rsquo; said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent
on this practical jest, had subsided, &lsquo;we&rsquo;ll be off at once&mdash;let&rsquo;s
lose no time.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital!&rsquo; echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes
they were at the garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr.
Timson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Watkins
Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson&rsquo;s uncle&rsquo;s man.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Charles <i>is</i> at home,&rsquo; replied the man, stammering;
&lsquo;but he desired me to say he couldn&rsquo;t be interrupted, sir,
by any of the parishioners.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>I</i> am not a parishioner,&rsquo; replied Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?&rsquo; inquired Parsons,
thrusting himself forward.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he&rsquo;s not exactly writing a sermon,
but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict
orders not to be disturbed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Say I&rsquo;m here,&rsquo; replied Gabriel, leading the way
across the garden; &lsquo;Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and
particular business.&rsquo;</p>
<p>They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver
his message.&nbsp; The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps
were heard on the stairs; and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook
hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Game!&rsquo; exclaimed Ikey, who had been altering the position
of a green-handled knife and fork at least a dozen times, in order that
he might remain in the room under the pretext of having something to
do.&nbsp; &lsquo;He&rsquo;s game enough ven there&rsquo;s anything to
be fierce about; but who could be game as you call it, Mr. Walker, with
a pale young creetur like that, hanging about him?&mdash;It&rsquo;s
enough to drive any man&rsquo;s heart into his boots to see &rsquo;em
together&mdash;and no mistake at all about it.&nbsp; I never shall forget
her first comin&rsquo; here; he wrote to her on the Thursday to come&mdash;I
know he did, &rsquo;cos I took the letter.&nbsp; Uncommon fidgety he
was all day to be sure, and in the evening he goes down into the office,
and he says to Jacobs, says he, &ldquo;Sir, can I have the loan of a
private room for a few minutes this evening, without incurring any additional
expense&mdash;just to see my wife in?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; Jacobs looked
as much as to say&mdash;&ldquo;Strike me bountiful if you ain&rsquo;t
one of the modest sort!&rdquo; but as the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n who had
been in the back parlour had just gone out, and had paid for it for
that day, he says&mdash;werry grave&mdash;&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he,
&ldquo;it&rsquo;s agin our rules to let private rooms to our lodgers
on gratis terms, but,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;for a gentleman, I don&rsquo;t
mind breaking through them for once.&rdquo;&nbsp; So then he turns found
to me, and says, &ldquo;Ikey, put two mould candles in the back parlour,
and charge &rsquo;em to this gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n&rsquo;s account,&rdquo;
vich I did.&nbsp; Vell, by-and-by a hackney-coach comes up to the door,
and there, sure enough, was the young lady, wrapped up in a hopera-cloak,
as it might be, and all alone.&nbsp; I opened the gate that night, so
I went up when the coach come, and he vos a waitin&rsquo; at the parlour
door&mdash;and wasn&rsquo;t he a trembling, neither?&nbsp; The poor
creetur see him, and could hardly walk to meet him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,
Harry!&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;that it should have come to this; and
all for my sake,&rdquo; says she, putting her hand upon his shoulder.&nbsp;
So he puts his arm round her pretty little waist, and leading her gently
a little way into the room, so that he might be able to shut the door,
he says, so kind and soft-like&mdash;&ldquo;Why, Kate,&rdquo; says he&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s the gentleman you want,&rsquo; said Ikey, abruptly
breaking off in his story, and introducing Mr. Gabriel Parsons to the
crest-fallen Watkins Tottle, who at that moment entered the room.&nbsp;
Watkins advanced with a wooden expression of passive endurance, and
accepted the hand which Mr. Gabriel Parsons held out.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to speak to you,&rsquo; said Gabriel, with a look strongly
expressive of his dislike of the company.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This way,&rsquo; replied the imprisoned one, leading the way
to the front drawing-room, where rich debtors did the luxurious at the
rate of a couple of guineas a day.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, here I am,&rsquo; said Mr. Watkins, as he sat down on
the sofa; and placing the palms of his hands on his knees, anxiously
glanced at his friend&rsquo;s countenance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes; and here you&rsquo;re likely to be,&rsquo; said Gabriel,
coolly, as he rattled the money in his unmentionable pockets, and looked
out of the window.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the amount with the costs?&rsquo; inquired Parsons,
after an awkward pause.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have you any money?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nine and sixpence halfpenny.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons walked up and down the room for a few seconds,
before he could make up his mind to disclose the plan he had formed;
he was accustomed to drive hard bargains, but was always most anxious
to conceal his avarice.&nbsp; At length he stopped short, and said,
&lsquo;Tottle, you owe me fifty pounds.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I do.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And from all I see, I infer that you are likely to owe it
to me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I fear I am.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Though you have every disposition to pay me if you could?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &lsquo;listen: here&rsquo;s
my proposition.&nbsp; You know my way of old.&nbsp; Accept it&mdash;yes
or no&mdash;I will or I won&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll pay the debt and
costs, and I&rsquo;ll lend you 10<i>l</i>. more (which, added to your
annuity, will enable you to carry on the war well) if you&rsquo;ll give
me your note of hand to pay me one hundred and fifty pounds within six
months after you are married to Miss Lillerton.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stop a minute&mdash;on one condition; and that is, that you
propose to Miss Lillerton at once.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;At once!&nbsp; My dear Parsons, consider.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s for you to consider, not me.&nbsp; She knows you
well from reputation, though she did not know you personally until lately.&nbsp;
Notwithstanding all her maiden modesty, I think she&rsquo;d be devilish
glad to get married out of hand with as little delay as possible.&nbsp;
My wife has sounded her on the subject, and she has confessed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&mdash;what?&rsquo; eagerly interrupted the enamoured
Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; replied Parsons, &lsquo;to say exactly what she
has confessed, would be rather difficult, because they only spoke in
hints, and so forth; but my wife, who is no bad judge in these cases,
declared to me that what she had confessed was as good as to say that
she was not insensible of your merits&mdash;in fact, that no other man
should have her.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle rose hastily from his seat, and rang the bell.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What&rsquo;s that for?&rsquo; inquired Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to send the man for the bill stamp,&rsquo; replied
Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then you&rsquo;ve made up your mind?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have,&rsquo;&mdash;and they shook hands most cordially.&nbsp;
The note of hand was given&mdash;the debt and costs were paid&mdash;Ikey
was satisfied for his trouble, and the two friends soon found themselves
on that side of Mr. Solomon Jacobs&rsquo;s establishment, on which most
of his visitors were very happy when they found themselves once again&mdash;to
wit, the outside.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as they drove to Norwood
together&mdash;&lsquo;you shall have an opportunity to make the disclosure
to-night, and mind you speak out, Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I will&mdash;I will!&rsquo; replied Watkins, valorously.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How I should like to see you together,&rsquo; ejaculated Mr.
Gabriel Parsons.&mdash;&lsquo;What fun!&rsquo; and he laughed so long
and so loudly, that he disconcerted Mr. Watkins Tottle, and frightened
the horse.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s Fanny and your intended walking about on the
lawn,&rsquo; said Gabriel, as they approached the house.&nbsp; &lsquo;Mind
your eye, Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never fear,&rsquo; replied Watkins, resolutely, as he made
his way to the spot where the ladies were walking.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here&rsquo;s Mr. Tottle, my dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons,
addressing Miss Lillerton.&nbsp; The lady turned quickly round, and
acknowledged his courteous salute with the same sort of confusion that
Watkins had noticed on their first interview, but with something like
a slight expression of disappointment or carelessness.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you see how glad she was to see you?&rsquo; whispered
Parsons to his friend.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, I really thought she looked as if she would rather have
seen somebody else,&rsquo; replied Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pooh, nonsense!&rsquo; whispered Parsons again&mdash;&lsquo;it&rsquo;s
always the way with the women, young or old.&nbsp; They never show how
delighted they are to see those whose presence makes their hearts beat.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s the way with the whole sex, and no man should have lived
to your time of life without knowing it.&nbsp; Fanny confessed it to
me, when we were first married, over and over again&mdash;see what it
is to have a wife.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; whispered Tottle, whose courage was vanishing
fast.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, now, you&rsquo;d better begin to pave the way,&rsquo;
said Parsons, who, having invested some money in the speculation, assumed
the office of director.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, yes, I will&mdash;presently,&rsquo; replied Tottle, greatly
flurried.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Say something to her, man,&rsquo; urged Parsons again.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Confound it! pay her a compliment, can&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No! not till after dinner,&rsquo; replied the bashful Tottle,
anxious to postpone the evil moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, gentlemen,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, &lsquo;you are
really very polite; you stay away the whole morning, after promising
to take us out, and when you do come home, you stand whispering together
and take no notice of us.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;We were talking of the <i>business</i>, my dear, which detained
us this morning,&rsquo; replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,&rsquo; said
Miss Lillerton, referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state
occasions, whether it required it or not.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think it has passed very slowly,&rsquo; mildly suggested
Tottle.</p>
<p>(&lsquo;That&rsquo;s right&mdash;bravo!&rsquo;) whispered Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic
surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society,
madam,&rsquo; said Watkins, &lsquo;and that of Mrs. Parsons.&rsquo;</p>
<p>During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to
the house.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment
for?&rsquo; inquired Parsons, as they followed together; &lsquo;it quite
spoilt the effect.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! it really would have been too broad without,&rsquo; replied
Watkins Tottle, &lsquo;much too broad!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s mad!&rsquo; Parsons whispered his wife, as they
entered the drawing-room, &lsquo;mad from modesty.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me!&rsquo; ejaculated the lady, &lsquo;I never heard
of such a thing.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,&rsquo;
said Mrs. Parsons, when they sat down to table: &lsquo;Miss Lillerton
is one of us, and, of course, we make no stranger of you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a hope that the Parsons family never
would make a stranger of him; and wished internally that his bashfulness
would allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off the covers, Martha,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, directing
the shifting of the scenery with great anxiety.&nbsp; The order was
obeyed, and a pair of boiled fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were
displayed at the top, and a fillet of veal at the bottom.&nbsp; On one
side of the table two green sauce-tureens, with ladles of the same,
were setting to each other in a green dish; and on the other was a curried
rabbit, in a brown suit, turned up with lemon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton, my dear,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons, &lsquo;shall
I assist you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you, no; I think I&rsquo;ll trouble Mr. Tottle.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Watkins started&mdash;trembled&mdash;helped the rabbit&mdash;and
broke a tumbler.&nbsp; The countenance of the lady of the house, which
had been all smiles previously, underwent an awful change.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Extremely sorry,&rsquo; stammered Watkins, assisting himself
to currie and parsley and butter, in the extremity of his confusion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not the least consequence,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Parsons, in
a tone which implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible,&mdash;directing
aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for
the bits of broken glass.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I presume,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;that Mr. Tottle
is aware of the interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases;
a dozen glasses for one is the lowest penalty.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend an admonitory tread on the toe.&nbsp;
Here was a clear hint that the sooner he ceased to be a bachelor and
emancipated himself from such penalties, the better.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins
Tottle viewed the observation in the same light, and challenged Mrs.
Parsons to take wine, with a degree of presence of mind, which, under
all the circumstances, was really extraordinary.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton,&rsquo; said Gabriel, &lsquo;may I have the
pleasure?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I shall be most happy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, will you assist Miss Lillerton, and pass the decanter.&nbsp;
Thank you.&rsquo;&nbsp; (The usual pantomimic ceremony of nodding and
sipping gone through) -</p>
<p>&lsquo;Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk?&rsquo; inquired the master
of the house, who was burning to tell one of his seven stock stories.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; responded Watkins, adding, by way of a saving clause,
&lsquo;but I&rsquo;ve been in Devonshire.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; replied Gabriel, &lsquo;it was in Suffolk that
a rather singular circumstance happened to me many years ago.&nbsp;
Did you ever happen to hear me mention it?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle <i>had</i> happened to hear his friend mention
it some four hundred times.&nbsp; Of course he expressed great curiosity,
and evinced the utmost impatience to hear the story again.&nbsp; Mr.
Gabriel Parsons forthwith attempted to proceed, in spite of the interruptions
to which, as our readers must frequently have observed, the master of
the house is often exposed in such cases.&nbsp; We will attempt to give
them an idea of our meaning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I was in Suffolk&mdash;&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take off the fowls first, Martha,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I beg your pardon, my dear.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;When I was in Suffolk,&rsquo; resumed Mr. Parsons, with an
impatient glance at his wife, who pretended not to observe it, &lsquo;which
is now years ago, business led me to the town of Bury St. Edmund&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
I had to stop at the principal places in my way, and therefore, for
the sake of convenience, I travelled in a gig.&nbsp; I left Sudbury
one dark night&mdash;it was winter time&mdash;about nine o&rsquo;clock;
the rain poured in torrents, the wind howled among the trees that skirted
the roadside, and I was obliged to proceed at a foot-pace, for I could
hardly see my hand before me, it was so dark&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;John,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, in a low, hollow voice,
&lsquo;don&rsquo;t spill that gravy.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fanny,&rsquo; said Parsons impatiently, &lsquo;I wish you&rsquo;d
defer these domestic reproofs to some more suitable time.&nbsp; Really,
my dear, these constant interruptions are very annoying.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear, I didn&rsquo;t interrupt you,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, my dear, you did interrupt me,&rsquo; remonstrated Mr.
Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How very absurd you are, my love!&nbsp; I must give directions
to the servants; I am quite sure that if I sat here and allowed John
to spill the gravy over the new carpet, you&rsquo;d be the first to
find fault when you saw the stain to-morrow morning.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; continued Gabriel with a resigned air, as if
he knew there was no getting over the point about the carpet, &lsquo;I
was just saying, it was so dark that I could hardly see my hand before
me.&nbsp; The road was very lonely, and I assure you, Tottle (this was
a device to arrest the wandering attention of that individual, which
was distracted by a confidential communication between Mrs. Parsons
and Martha, accompanied by the delivery of a large bunch of keys), I
assure you, Tottle, I became somehow impressed with a sense of the loneliness
of my situation&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pie to your master,&rsquo; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, again
directing the servant.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, pray, my dear,&rsquo; remonstrated Parsons once more,
very pettishly.&nbsp; Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eyebrows, and
appealed in dumb show to Miss Lillerton.&nbsp; &lsquo;As I turned a
corner of the road,&rsquo; resumed Gabriel, &lsquo;the horse stopped
short, and reared tremendously.&nbsp; I pulled up, jumped out, ran to
his head, and found a man lying on his back in the middle of the road,
with his eyes fixed on the sky.&nbsp; I thought he was dead; but no,
he was alive, and there appeared to be nothing the matter with him.&nbsp;
He jumped up, and potting his hand to his chest, and fixing upon me
the most earnest gaze you can imagine, exclaimed&mdash;&lsquo;Pudding
here,&rsquo; said Mrs. Parsons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s no use,&rsquo; exclaimed the host, now rendered
desperate.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here, Tottle; a glass of wine.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
useless to attempt relating anything when Mrs. Parsons is present.&rsquo;</p>
<p>This attack was received in the usual way.&nbsp; Mrs. Parsons talked
<i>to</i> Miss Lillerton and <i>at</i> her better half; expatiated on
the impatience of men generally; hinted that her husband was peculiarly
vicious in this respect, and wound up by insinuating that she must be
one of the best tempers that ever existed, or she never could put up
with it.&nbsp; Really what she had to endure sometimes, was more than
any one who saw her in every-day life could by possibility suppose.&mdash;The
story was now a painful subject, and therefore Mr. Parsons declined
to enter into any details, and contented himself by stating that the
man was a maniac, who had escaped from a neighbouring mad-house.</p>
<p>The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss
Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room overhead, very loudly,
for the edification of the visitor.&nbsp; Mr. Watkins Tottle and Mr.
Gabriel Parsons sat chatting comfortably enough, until the conclusion
of the second bottle, when the latter, in proposing an adjournment to
the drawing-room, informed Watkins that he had concerted a plan with
his wife, for leaving him and Miss Lillerton alone, soon after tea.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say,&rsquo; said Tottle, as they went up-stairs, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t
you think it would be better if we put it off till-till-to-morrow?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t <i>you</i> think it would have been much better
if I had left you in that wretched hole I found you in this morning?&rsquo;
retorted Parsons bluntly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well&mdash;well&mdash;I only made a suggestion,&rsquo; said
poor Watkins Tottle, with a deep sigh.</p>
<p>Tea was soon concluded, and Miss Lillerton, drawing a small work-table
on one side of the fire, and placing a little wooden frame upon it,
something like a miniature clay-mill without the horse, was soon busily
engaged in making a watch-guard with brown silk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;God bless me!&rsquo; exclaimed Parsons, starting up with well-feigned
surprise, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve forgotten those confounded letters.&nbsp;
Tottle, I know you&rsquo;ll excuse me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>If Tottle had been a free agent, he would have allowed no one to
leave the room on any pretence, except himself.&nbsp; As it was, however,
he was obliged to look cheerful when Parsons quitted the apartment.</p>
<p>He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the room, with&mdash;&lsquo;Please,
ma&rsquo;am, you&rsquo;re wanted.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after her, and
Mr. Watkins Tottle was left alone with Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>For the first five minutes there was a dead silence.&mdash;Mr. Watkins
Tottle was thinking how he should begin, and Miss Lillerton appeared
to be thinking of nothing.&nbsp; The fire was burning low; Mr. Watkins
Tottle stirred it, and put some coals on.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hem!&rsquo; coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle thought
the fair creature had spoken.&nbsp; &lsquo;I beg your pardon,&rsquo;
said he.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I thought you spoke.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would
like to look at them,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of
another five minutes.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, thank you,&rsquo; returned Watkins; and then he added,
with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, &lsquo;Madam,
that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To me!&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from
her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces.&mdash;&lsquo;Speak&mdash;to
me!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;To you, madam&mdash;and on the subject of the state of your
affections.&rsquo;&nbsp; The lady hastily rose and would have left the
room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle gently detained her by the hand, and holding
it as far from him as the joint length of their arms would permit, he
thus proceeded: &lsquo;Pray do not misunderstand me, or suppose that
I am led to address you, after so short an acquaintance, by any feeling
of my own merits&mdash;for merits I have none which could give me a
claim to your hand.&nbsp; I hope you will acquit me of any presumption
when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs. Parsons, with
the state&mdash;that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told me&mdash;at least,
not Mrs. Parsons, but&mdash;&rsquo; here Watkins began to wander, but
Miss Lillerton relieved him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted
you with my feeling&mdash;my affection&mdash;I mean my respect, for
an individual of the opposite sex?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;She has.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then, what?&rsquo; inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face,
with a girlish air, &lsquo;what could induce <i>you</i> to seek such
an interview as this?&nbsp; What can your object be?&nbsp; How can I
promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here was the time for a flourish&mdash;&lsquo;By allowing me,&rsquo;
replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons
and a waistcoat-string, in the act&mdash;&lsquo;By allowing me to be
your slave, your servant&mdash;in short, by unreservedly making me the
confidant of your heart&rsquo;s feelings&mdash;may I say for the promotion
of your own happiness&mdash;may I say, in order that you may become
the wife of a kind and affectionate husband?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Disinterested creature!&rsquo; exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding
her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might possibly
alter her opinion on this last point.&nbsp; He raised the tip of her
middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got off his knees, as gracefully
as he could.&nbsp; &lsquo;My information was correct?&rsquo; he tremulously
inquired, when he was once more on his feet.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It was.&rsquo;&nbsp; Watkins elevated his hands, and looked
up to the ornament in the centre of the ceiling, which had been made
for a lamp, by way of expressing his rapture.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our situation, Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; resumed the lady, glancing
at him through one of the eyelet-holes, &lsquo;is a most peculiar. and
delicate one.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It is,&rsquo; said Mr. Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our acquaintance has been of <i>so</i> short duration,&rsquo;
said Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Only a week,&rsquo; assented Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! more than that,&rsquo; exclaimed the lady, in a tone of
surprise.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; said Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;More than a month&mdash;more than two months!&rsquo; said
Miss Lillerton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Rather odd, this,&rsquo; thought Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; he said, recollecting Parsons&rsquo;s assurance
that she had known him from report, &lsquo;I understand.&nbsp; But,
my dear madam, pray, consider.&nbsp; The longer this acquaintance has
existed, the less reason is I there for delay now.&nbsp; Why not at
once fix a period for gratifying the hopes of your devoted admirer?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It has been represented to me again and again that this is
the course I ought to pursue,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;but
pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle&mdash;pray excuse this embarrassment&mdash;I
have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never
could summon up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then allow <i>me</i> to name it,&rsquo; said Tottle eagerly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should like to fix it myself,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton,
bashfully, but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A third party!&rsquo; thought Watkins Tottle; &lsquo;who the
deuce is that to be, I wonder!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; continued Miss Lillerton, &lsquo;you have
made me a most disinterested and kind offer&mdash;that offer I accept.&nbsp;
Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to&mdash;to Mr. Timson?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Timson!&rsquo; said Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;After what has passed between us,&rsquo; responded Miss Lillerton,
still averting her head, &lsquo;you must understand whom I mean; Mr.
Timson, the&mdash;the&mdash;clergyman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Timson, the clergyman!&rsquo; ejaculated Watkins Tottle,
in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own
success.&nbsp; &lsquo;Angel!&nbsp; Certainly&mdash;this moment!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll prepare it immediately,&rsquo; said Miss Lillerton,
making for the door; &lsquo;the events of this day have flurried me
so much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall not leave my room again this evening;
I will send you the note by the servant.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Stay,&mdash;stay,&rsquo; cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping
a most respectful distance from the lady; &lsquo;when shall we meet
again?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!&nbsp; Mr. Tottle,&rsquo; replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly,
&lsquo;when we are married, I can never see you too often, nor thank
you too much;&rsquo; and she left the room.</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged
in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of
&lsquo;Five hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of
disposing of it by her last will and testament,&rsquo; was somehow or
other the foremost.&nbsp; He had gone through the interview so well,
and it had terminated so admirably, that he almost began to wish he
had expressly stipulated for the settlement of the annual five hundred
on himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;May I come in?&rsquo; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in
at the door.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You may,&rsquo; replied Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, have you done it?&rsquo; anxiously inquired Gabriel.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have I done it!&rsquo; said Watkins Tottle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hush&mdash;I&rsquo;m
going to the clergyman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No!&rsquo; said Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;How well you have managed
it!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where does Timson live?&rsquo; inquired Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;At his uncle&rsquo;s,&rsquo; replied Gabriel, &lsquo;just
round the lane.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s waiting for a living, and has been
assisting his uncle here for the last two or three months.&nbsp; But
how well you have done it&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t think you could have
carried it off so!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian
principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he
was interrupted by the entrance of Martha, with a little pink note folded
like a fancy cocked-hat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lillerton&rsquo;s compliments,&rsquo; said Martha, as
she delivered it into Tottle&rsquo;s hands, and vanished.</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;</i>Do you observe the delicacy?&rsquo; said Tottle, appealing
to Mr. Gabriel Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>Compliments</i>, not <i>love</i>,
by the servant, eh?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn&rsquo;t exactly know what reply to make,
so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth
ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Come,&rsquo; said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent
on this practical jest, had subsided, &lsquo;we&rsquo;ll be off at once&mdash;let&rsquo;s
lose no time.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital!&rsquo; echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes
they were at the garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr.
Timson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?&rsquo; inquired Mr. Watkins
Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson&rsquo;s uncle&rsquo;s man.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Charles <i>is</i> at home,&rsquo; replied the man, stammering;
&lsquo;but he desired me to say he couldn&rsquo;t be interrupted, sir,
by any of the parishioners.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>I</i> am not a parishioner,&rsquo; replied Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?&rsquo; inquired Parsons,
thrusting himself forward.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he&rsquo;s not exactly writing a sermon,
but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict
orders not to be disturbed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Say I&rsquo;m here,&rsquo; replied Gabriel, leading the way
across the garden; &lsquo;Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and
particular business.&rsquo;</p>
<p>They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver
his message.&nbsp; The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps
were heard on the stairs; and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook
hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How do you do, sir?&rsquo; said Watkins Tottle, with great
solemnity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How do <i>you</i> do, sir?&rsquo; replied Timson, with as
much coldness as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him
how he did, as it very likely was.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg to deliver this note to you,&rsquo; said Watkins Tottle,
producing the cocked-hat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;From Miss Lillerton!&rsquo; said Timson, suddenly changing
colour.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray sit down.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down; and while Timson perused the note, fixed
his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
which hung over the fireplace.</p>
<p>Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and
looked dubiously at Parsons.&nbsp; &lsquo;May I ask,&rsquo; he inquired,
appealing to Watkins Tottle, &lsquo;whether our friend here is acquainted
with the object of your visit?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Our friend is in <i>my</i> confidence,&rsquo; replied Watkins,
with considerable importance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Then, sir,&rsquo; said Timson, seizing both Tottle&rsquo;s
hands, &lsquo;allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly
and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He thinks I recommended him,&rsquo; thought Tottle.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their
fees.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear
sir,&rsquo; continued Timson.&nbsp; &lsquo;Disinterested and manly,
indeed!&nbsp; There are very few men who would have acted as you have
done.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark
was anything but complimentary.&nbsp; He therefore inquired, rather
hastily, &lsquo;When is it to be?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;On Thursday,&rsquo; replied Timson,&mdash;&lsquo;on Thursday
morning at half-past eight.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Uncommonly early,&rsquo; observed Watkins Tottle, with an
air of triumphant self-denial.&nbsp; &lsquo;I shall hardly be able to
get down here by that hour.&rsquo;&nbsp; (This was intended for a joke.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never mind, my dear fellow,&rsquo; replied Timson, all suavity,
shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, &lsquo;so long as we
see you to breakfast, you know&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Eh!&rsquo; said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary
expressions of countenance that ever appeared in a human face.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What!&rsquo; ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,&rsquo; replied
Timson, &lsquo;we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though
of course your presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes
on Timson with appalling perseverance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Timson,&rsquo; said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with
his left arm, &lsquo;when you say &ldquo;us,&rdquo; whom do you mean?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, &lsquo;Why&mdash;Mrs.
Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now don&rsquo;t stare at that idiot in the corner,&rsquo;
angrily exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins
Tottle&rsquo;s countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson,&mdash;&lsquo;but
have the goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;This note,&rsquo; replied Timson, &lsquo;is from Miss Lillerton,
to whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged.&nbsp;
Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have hitherto
prevented my bringing the engagement to that termination which I so
anxiously desire.&nbsp; She informs me here, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons
with the view of making her her confidante and go-between, that Mrs.
Parsons informed this elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance,
and that he, in the most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist
us in any way, and even undertook to convey this note, which contains
the promise I have long sought in vain&mdash;an act of kindness for
which I can never be sufficiently grateful.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good night, Timson,&rsquo; said Parsons, hurrying off, and
carrying the bewildered Tottle with him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Won&rsquo;t you stay&mdash;and have something?&rsquo; said
Timson.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, thank ye,&rsquo; replied Parsons; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve had
quite enough;&rsquo; and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in
a state of stupefaction.</p>
<p>Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of
a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said -</p>
<p>&lsquo;You are a clever fellow, Tottle, ain&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rsquo; said the unfortunate Watkins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ll say this is Fanny&rsquo;s fault, won&rsquo;t
you?&rsquo; inquired Gabriel.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about it,&rsquo; replied the bewildered
Tottle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home,
&lsquo;the next time you make an offer, you had better speak plainly,
and don&rsquo;t throw a chance away.&nbsp; And the next time you&rsquo;re
locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I come and take
you out, there&rsquo;s a good fellow.&rsquo;</p>
<p>How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street
is unknown.&nbsp; His boots were seen outside his bedroom-door next
morning; but we have the authority of his landlady for stating that
he neither emerged therefrom nor accepted sustenance for four-and-twenty
hours.&nbsp; At the expiration of that period, and when a council of
war was being held in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the
parochial beadle to break his door open, he rang his bell, and demanded
a cup of milk-and-water.&nbsp; The next morning he went through the
formalities of eating and drinking as usual, but a week afterwards he
was seized with a relapse, while perusing the list of marriages in a
morning paper, from which he never perfectly recovered.</p>
<p>A few weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman
unknown, was found in the Regent&rsquo;s canal.&nbsp; In the trousers-pockets
were four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement
from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper:
a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would
have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for
the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it.&nbsp; Mr.
Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before.&nbsp;
A bill, which has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and
a bill, which has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in
his parlour-window.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XI&mdash;THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, &lsquo;long
Dumps,&rsquo; was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross,
cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured.&nbsp; He was never happy but when
he was miserable; and always miserable when he had the best reason to
be happy.&nbsp; The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody
about him wretched&mdash;then he might be truly said to enjoy life.&nbsp;
He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year,
and he rented a &lsquo;first-floor furnished,&rsquo; at Pentonville,
which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an
adjacent churchyard.&nbsp; He was familiar with the face of every tombstone,
and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy.&nbsp;
His friends said he was surly&mdash;he insisted he was nervous; they
thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was &lsquo;the most
unfortunate man in the world.&rsquo;&nbsp; Cold as he was, and wretched
as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments.&nbsp;
He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable
whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient
adversary.&nbsp; He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents;
and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child.&nbsp; However,
he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he disliked
everything in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs,
old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus
cads.&nbsp; He subscribed to the &lsquo;Society for the Suppression
of Vice&rsquo; for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements;
and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist
parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people
happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears
for the next.</p>
<p>Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a year, and who
was somewhat of a favourite with his uncle, because he was an admirable
subject to exercise his misery-creating powers upon.&nbsp; Mr. Charles
Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and
a broad, good-humoured countenance.&nbsp; He looked like a faded giant,
with the head and face partially restored; and he had a cast in his
eye which rendered it quite impossible for any one with whom he conversed
to know where he was looking.&nbsp; His eyes appeared fixed on the wall,
and he was staring you out of countenance; in short, there was no catching
his eye, and perhaps it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that
such eyes are not catching.&nbsp; In addition to these characteristics,
it may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous
and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took <i>to</i> himself
a wife, and <i>for</i> himself a house in Great Russell-street, Bedford-square.&nbsp;
(Uncle Dumps always dropped the &lsquo;Bedford-square,&rsquo; and inserted
in lieu thereof the dreadful words &lsquo;Tottenham-court-road.&rsquo;)</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, but, uncle, &rsquo;pon my life you must&mdash;you must
promise to be godfather,&rsquo; said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation
with his respected relative one morning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I cannot, indeed I cannot,&rsquo; returned Dumps.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, but why not?&nbsp; Jemima will think it very unkind.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s very little trouble.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;As to the trouble,&rsquo; rejoined the most unhappy man in
existence, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t mind that; but my nerves are in that
state&mdash;I cannot go through the ceremony.&nbsp; You know I don&rsquo;t
like going out.&mdash;For God&rsquo;s sake, Charles, don&rsquo;t fidget
with that stool so; you&rsquo;ll drive me mad.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Kitterbell,
quite regardless of his uncle&rsquo;s nerves, had occupied himself for
some ten minutes in describing a circle on the floor with one leg of
the office-stool on which he was seated, keeping the other three up
in the air, and holding fast on by the desk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, uncle,&rsquo; said Kitterbell, quite abashed,
suddenly releasing his hold of the desk, and bringing the three wandering
legs back to the floor, with a force sufficient to drive them through
it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But come, don&rsquo;t refuse.&nbsp; If it&rsquo;s a boy, you
know, we must have two godfathers.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>If</i> it&rsquo;s a boy!&rsquo; said Dumps; &lsquo;why
can&rsquo;t you say at once whether it <i>is</i> a boy or not?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should be very happy to tell you, but it&rsquo;s impossible
I can undertake to say whether it&rsquo;s a girl or a boy, if the child
isn&rsquo;t born yet.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not born yet!&rsquo; echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope lighting
up his lugubrious visage.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, well, it <i>may</i> be a
girl, and then you won&rsquo;t want me; or if it is a boy, it <i>may</i>
die before it is christened.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I hope not,&rsquo; said the father that expected to be, looking
very grave.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I hope not,&rsquo; acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with
the subject.&nbsp; He was beginning to get happy.&nbsp; &lsquo;I hope
not, but distressing cases frequently occur during the first two or
three days of a child&rsquo;s life; fits, I am told, are exceedingly
common, and alarming convulsions are almost matters of course.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lord, uncle!&rsquo; ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping
for breath.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes; my landlady was confined&mdash;let me see&mdash;last
Tuesday: an uncommonly fine boy.&nbsp; On the Thursday night the nurse
was sitting with him upon her knee before the fire, and he was as well
as possible.&nbsp; Suddenly he became black in the face, and alarmingly
spasmodic.&nbsp; The medical man was instantly sent for, and every remedy
was tried, but&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;How frightful!&rsquo; interrupted the horror-stricken Kitterbell.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The child died, of course.&nbsp; However, your child <i>may</i>
not die; and if it should be a boy, and should <i>live</i> to be christened,
why I suppose I must be one of the sponsors.&rsquo;&nbsp; Dumps was
evidently good-natured on the faith of his anticipations.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you, uncle,&rsquo; said his agitated nephew, grasping
his hand as warmly as if he had done him some essential service.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Perhaps I had better not tell Mrs. K. what you have mentioned.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, if she&rsquo;s low-spirited, perhaps you had better not
mention the melancholy case to her,&rsquo; returned Dumps, who of course
had invented the whole story; &lsquo;though perhaps it would be but
doing your duty as a husband to prepare her for the <i>worst</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A day or two afterwards, as Dumps was perusing a morning paper at
the chop-house which he regularly frequented, the following-paragraph
met his eyes:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>&lsquo;Births</i>.&mdash;On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great
Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;It <i>is</i> a boy!&rsquo; he exclaimed, dashing down the
paper, to the astonishment of the waiters.&nbsp; &lsquo;It <i>is</i>
a boy!&rsquo;&nbsp; But he speedily regained his composure as his eye
rested on a paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills
of mortality.</p>
<p>Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been received
from the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter himself that the
child was dead, when the following note painfully resolved his doubts:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>&lsquo;Great Russell-street,<br />Monday morning.</i></p>
<p>DEAR UNCLE,&mdash;You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima
has left her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally.&nbsp;
He was very thin at first, but he is getting much larger, and nurse
says he is filling out every day.&nbsp; He cries a good deal, and is
a very singular colour, which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable;
but as nurse says it&rsquo;s natural, and as of course we know nothing
about these things yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse says.&nbsp;
We think he will be a sharp child; and nurse says she&rsquo;s sure he
will, because he never goes to sleep.&nbsp; You will readily believe
that we are all very happy, only we&rsquo;re a little worn out for want
of rest, as he keeps us awake all night; but this we must expect, nurse
says, for the first six or eight months.&nbsp; He has been vaccinated,
but in consequence of the operation being rather awkwardly performed,
some small particles of glass were introduced into the arm with the
matter.&nbsp; Perhaps this may in some degree account for his being
rather fractious; at least, so nurse says.&nbsp; We propose to have
him christened at twelve o&rsquo;clock on Friday, at Saint George&rsquo;s
church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles William.&nbsp;
Pray don&rsquo;t be later than a quarter before twelve.&nbsp; We shall
have a very few friends in the evening, when of course we shall see
you.&nbsp; I am sorry to say that the dear boy appears rather restless
and uneasy to-day: the cause, I fear, is fever.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Believe me, dear Uncle,<br />&lsquo;Yours affectionately,<br />&lsquo;CHARLES
KITTERBELL.</p>
<p>&lsquo;P.S.&mdash;I open this note to say that we have just discovered
the cause of little Frederick&rsquo;s restlessness.&nbsp; It is not
fever, as I apprehended, but a small pin, which nurse accidentally stuck
in his leg yesterday evening.&nbsp; We have taken it out, and he appears
more composed, though he still sobs a good deal.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>It is almost unnecessary to say that the perusal of the above interesting
statement was no great relief to the mind of the hypochondriacal Dumps.&nbsp;
It was impossible to recede, however, and so he put the best face&mdash;that
is to say, an uncommonly miserable one&mdash;upon the matter; and purchased
a handsome silver mug for the infant Kitterbell, upon which he ordered
the initials &lsquo;F. C. W. K.,&rsquo; with the customary untrained
grape-vine-looking flourishes, and a large full stop, to be engraved
forthwith.</p>
<p>Monday was a fine day, Tuesday was delightful, Wednesday was equal
to either, and Thursday was finer than ever; four successive fine days
in London!&nbsp; Hackney-coachmen became revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers
began to doubt the existence of a First Cause.&nbsp; The <i>Morning
Herald</i> informed its readers that an old woman in Camden Town had
been heard to say that the fineness of the season was &lsquo;unprecedented
in the memory of the oldest inhabitant;&rsquo; and Islington clerks,
with large families and small salaries, left off their black gaiters,
disdained to carry their once green cotton umbrellas, and walked to
town in the conscious pride of white stockings and cleanly brushed Bluchers.&nbsp;
Dumps beheld all this with an eye of supreme contempt&mdash;his triumph
was at hand.&nbsp; He knew that if it had been fine for four weeks instead
of four days, it would rain when he went out; he was lugubriously happy
in the conviction that Friday would be a wretched day&mdash;and so it
was.&nbsp; &lsquo;I knew how it would be,&rsquo; said Dumps, as he turned
round opposite the Mansion-house at half-past eleven o&rsquo;clock on
the Friday morning.&nbsp; &lsquo;I knew how it would be.&nbsp; <i>I</i>
am concerned, and that&rsquo;s enough;&rsquo;&mdash;and certainly the
appearance of the day was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much
more buoyant-hearted individual than himself.&nbsp; It had rained, without
a moment&rsquo;s cessation, since eight o&rsquo;clock; everybody that
passed up Cheapside, and down Cheapside, looked wet, cold, and dirty.&nbsp;
All sorts of forgotten and long-concealed umbrellas had been put into
requisition.&nbsp; Cabs whisked about, with the &lsquo;fare&rsquo; as
carefully boxed up behind two glazed calico curtains as any mysterious
picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe&rsquo;s castles; omnibus horses
smoked like steam-engines; nobody thought of &lsquo;standing up&rsquo;
under doorways or arches; they were painfully convinced it was a hopeless
case; and so everybody went hastily along, jumbling and jostling, and
swearing and perspiring, and slipping about, like amateur skaters behind
wooden chairs on the Serpentine on a frosty Sunday.</p>
<p>Dumps paused; he could not think of walking, being rather smart for
the christening.&nbsp; If he took a cab he was sure to be spilt, and
a hackney-coach was too expensive for his economical ideas.&nbsp; An
omnibus was waiting at the opposite corner&mdash;it was a desperate
case&mdash;he had never heard of an omnibus upsetting or running away,
and if the cad did knock him down, he could &lsquo;pull him up&rsquo;
in return.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, sir!&rsquo; cried the young gentleman who officiated
as &lsquo;cad&rsquo; to the &lsquo;Lads of the Village,&rsquo; which
was the name of the machine just noticed.&nbsp; Dumps crossed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;This vay, sir!&rsquo; shouted the driver of the &lsquo;Hark-away,&rsquo;
pulling up his vehicle immediately across the door of the opposition&mdash;&lsquo;This
vay, sir&mdash;he&rsquo;s full.&rsquo;&nbsp; Dumps hesitated, whereupon
the &lsquo;Lads of the Village&rsquo; commenced pouring out a torrent
of abuse against the &lsquo;Hark-away;&rsquo; but the conductor of the
&lsquo;Admiral Napier&rsquo; settled the contest in a most satisfactory
manner, for all parties, by seizing Dumps round the waist, and thrusting
him into the middle of his vehicle which had just come up and only wanted
the sixteenth inside.</p>
<p>&lsquo;All right,&rsquo; said the &lsquo;Admiral,&rsquo; and off
the thing thundered, like a fire-engine at full gallop, with the kidnapped
customer inside, standing in the position of a half doubled-up bootjack,
and falling about with every jerk of the machine, first on the one side,
and then on the other, like a &lsquo;Jack-in-the-green,&rsquo; on May-day,
setting to the lady with a brass ladle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;For Heaven&rsquo;s sake, where am I to sit?&rsquo; inquired
the miserable man of an old gentleman, into whose stomach he had just
fallen for the fourth time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Anywhere but on my <i>chest</i>, sir,&rsquo; replied the old
gentleman in a surly tone.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Perhaps the <i>box</i> would suit the gentleman better,&rsquo;
suggested a very damp lawyer&rsquo;s clerk, in a pink shirt, and a smirking
countenance.</p>
<p>After a great deal of struggling and falling about, Dumps at last
managed to squeeze himself into a seat, which, in addition to the slight
disadvantage of being between a window that would not shut, and a door
that must be open, placed him in close contact with a passenger, who
had been walking about all the morning without an umbrella, and who
looked as if he had spent the day in a full water-butt&mdash;only wetter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t bang the door so,&rsquo; said Dumps to the conductor,
as he shut it after letting out four of the passengers; I am very nervous&mdash;it
destroys me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did any gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n say anythink?&rsquo; replied
the cad, thrusting in his head, and trying to look as if he didn&rsquo;t
understand the request.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I told you not to bang the door so!&rsquo; repeated Dumps,
with an expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in convulsions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! vy, it&rsquo;s rather a sing&rsquo;ler circumstance about
this here door, sir, that it von&rsquo;t shut without banging,&rsquo;
replied the conductor; and he opened the door very wide, and shut it
again with a terrific bang, in proof of the assertion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rsquo; said a little prim, wheezing
old gentleman, sitting opposite Dumps, &lsquo;I beg your pardon; but
have you ever observed, when you have been in an omnibus on a wet day,
that four people out of five always come in with large cotton umbrellas,
without a handle at the top, or the brass spike at the bottom?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Why, sir,&rsquo; returned Dumps, as he heard the clock strike
twelve, &lsquo;it never struck me before; but now you mention it, I&mdash;Hollo!
hollo!&rsquo; shouted the persecuted individual, as the omnibus dashed
past Drury-lane, where he had directed to be set down.&mdash;&lsquo;Where
is the cad?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think he&rsquo;s on the box, sir,&rsquo; said the young
gentleman before noticed in the pink shirt, which looked like a white
one ruled with red ink.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want to be set down!&rsquo; said Dumps in a faint voice,
overcome by his previous efforts.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think these cads want to be <i>set down</i>,&rsquo; returned
the attorney&rsquo;s clerk, chuckling at his sally.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hollo!&rsquo; cried Dumps again.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hollo!&rsquo; echoed the passengers.&nbsp; The omnibus passed
St. Giles&rsquo;s church.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hold hard!&rsquo; said the conductor; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m blowed
if we ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t forgot the gen&rsquo;lm&rsquo;n as vas to be
set down at Doory-lane.&mdash;Now, sir, make haste, if you please,&rsquo;
he added, opening the door, and assisting Dumps out with as much coolness
as if it was &lsquo;all right.&rsquo;&nbsp; Dumps&rsquo;s indignation
was for once getting the better of his cynical equanimity.&nbsp; &lsquo;Drury-lane!&rsquo;
he gasped, with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Doory-lane, sir?&mdash;yes, sir,&mdash;third turning on the
right-hand side, sir.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Dumps&rsquo;s passion was paramount: he clutched his umbrella, and
was striding off with the firm determination of not paying the fare.&nbsp;
The cad, by a remarkable coincidence, happened to entertain a directly
contrary opinion, and Heaven knows how far the altercation would have
proceeded, if it had not been most ably and satisfactorily brought to
a close by the driver.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hollo!&rsquo; said that respectable person, standing up on
the box, and leaning with one hand on the roof of the omnibus.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Hollo, Tom! tell the gentleman if so be as he feels aggrieved,
we will take him up to the Edge-er (Edgeware) Road for nothing, and
set him down at Doory-lane when we comes back.&nbsp; He can&rsquo;t
reject that, anyhow.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The argument was irresistible: Dumps paid the disputed sixpence,
and in a quarter of an hour was on the staircase of No. 14, Great Russell-street.</p>
<p>Everything indicated that preparations were making for the reception
of &lsquo;a few friends&rsquo; in the evening.&nbsp; Two dozen extra
tumblers, and four ditto wine-glasses&mdash;looking anything but transparent,
with little bits of straw in them on the slab in the passage, just arrived.&nbsp;
There was a great smell of nutmeg, port wine, and almonds, on the staircase;
the covers were taken off the stair-carpet, and the figure of Venus
on the first landing looked as if she were ashamed of the composition-candle
in her right hand, which contrasted beautifully with the lamp-blacked
drapery of the goddess of love.&nbsp; The female servant (who looked
very warm and bustling) ushered Dumps into a front drawing-room, very
prettily furnished, with a plentiful sprinkling of little baskets, paper
table-mats, china watchmen, pink and gold albums, and rainbow-bound
little books on the different tables.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, uncle!&rsquo; said Mr. Kitterbell, &lsquo;how d&rsquo;ye
do?&nbsp; Allow me&mdash;Jemima, my dear&mdash;my uncle.&nbsp; I think
you&rsquo;ve seen Jemima before, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Have had the <i>pleasure</i>,&rsquo; returned big Dumps, his
tone and look making it doubtful whether in his life he had ever experienced
the sensation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;m sure,&rsquo; said Mrs. Kitterbell, with a languid
smile, and a slight cough.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sure&mdash;hem&mdash;any
friend&mdash;of Charles&rsquo;s&mdash;hem&mdash;much less a relation,
is&mdash;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I knew you&rsquo;d say so, my love,&rsquo; said little Kitterbell,
who, while he appeared to be gazing on the opposite houses, was looking
at his wife with a most affectionate air: &lsquo;Bless you!&rsquo;&nbsp;
The last two words were accompanied with a simper, and a squeeze of
the hand, which stirred up all Uncle Dumps&rsquo;s bile.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Jane, tell nurse to bring down baby,&rsquo; said Mrs. Kitterbell,
addressing the servant.&nbsp; Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall, thin young
lady, with very light hair, and a particularly white face&mdash;one
of those young women who almost invariably, though one hardly knows
why, recall to one&rsquo;s mind the idea of a cold fillet of veal.&nbsp;
Out went the servant, and in came the nurse, with a remarkably small
parcel in her arms, packed up in a blue mantle trimmed with white fur.&mdash;This
was the baby.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, uncle,&rsquo; said Mr. Kitterbell, lifting up that part
of the mantle which covered the infant&rsquo;s face, with an air of
great triumph, &lsquo;<i>Who</i> do you think he&rsquo;s like?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He! he!&nbsp; Yes, who?&rsquo; said Mrs. K., putting her arm
through her husband&rsquo;s, and looking up into Dumps&rsquo;s face
with an expression of as much interest as she was capable of displaying.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good God, how small he is!&rsquo; cried the amiable uncle,
starting back with well-feigned surprise; &lsquo;<i>remarkably</i> small
indeed.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Do you think so?&rsquo; inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather
alarmed.&nbsp; &lsquo;He&rsquo;s a monster to what he was&mdash;ain&rsquo;t
he, nurse?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;He&rsquo;s a dear,&rsquo; said the nurse, squeezing the child,
and evading the question&mdash;not because she scrupled to disguise
the fact, but because she couldn&rsquo;t afford to throw away the chance
of Dumps&rsquo;s half-crown.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, but who is he like?&rsquo; inquired little Kitterbell.</p>
<p>Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only thought
at the moment of the best mode of mortifying the youthful parents.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I really don&rsquo;t know <i>who</i> he&rsquo;s like,&rsquo;
he answered, very well knowing the reply expected of him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you think he&rsquo;s like <i>me</i>?&rsquo; inquired
his nephew with a knowing air.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, <i>decidedly</i> not!&rsquo; returned Dumps, with an emphasis
not to be misunderstood.&nbsp; &lsquo;Decidedly not like you.&mdash;Oh,
certainly not.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Like Jemima?&rsquo; asked Kitterbell, faintly.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, dear no; not in the least.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m no judge, of
course, in such cases; but I really think he&rsquo;s more like one of
those little carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing
a trumpet on a tombstone!&rsquo;&nbsp; The nurse stooped down over the
child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion of mirth.&nbsp;
Pa and ma looked almost as miserable as their amiable uncle.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well!&rsquo; said the disappointed little father, &lsquo;you&rsquo;ll
be better able to tell what he&rsquo;s like by-and-by.&nbsp; You shall
see him this evening with his mantle off.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Thank you,&rsquo; said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, my love,&rsquo; said Kitterbell to his wife, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
time we were off.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re to meet the other godfather and
the godmother at the church, uncle,&mdash;Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from over
the way&mdash;uncommonly nice people.&nbsp; My love, are you well wrapped
up?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, dear.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Are you sure you won&rsquo;t have another shawl?&rsquo; inquired
the anxious husband.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, sweet,&rsquo; returned the charming mother, accepting
Dumps&rsquo;s proffered arm; and the little party entered the hackney-coach
that was to take them to the church; Dumps amusing Mrs. Kitterbell by
expatiating largely on the danger of measles, thrush, teeth-cutting,
and other interesting diseases to which children are subject.</p>
<p>The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed off without
anything particular occurring.&nbsp; The clergyman had to dine some
distance from town, and had two churchings, three christenings, and
a funeral to perform in something less than an hour.&nbsp; The godfathers
and godmother, therefore, promised to renounce the devil and all his
works&mdash;&lsquo;and all that sort of thing&rsquo;&mdash;as little
Kitterbell said&mdash;&lsquo;in less than no time;&rsquo; and with the
exception of Dumps nearly letting the child fall into the font when
he handed it to the clergyman, the whole affair went off in the usual
business-like and matter-of-course manner, and Dumps re-entered the
Bank-gates at two o&rsquo;clock with a heavy heart, and the painful
conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party.</p>
<p>Evening came&mdash;and so did Dumps&rsquo;s pumps, black silk stockings,
and white cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from
Pentonville.&nbsp; The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend&rsquo;s
counting-house, from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof,
he sallied forth&mdash;as the weather had cleared up, and the evening
was tolerably fine&mdash;to walk to Great Russell-street.&nbsp; Slowly
he paced up Cheapside, Newgate-street, down Snow-hill, and up Holborn
ditto, looking as grim as the figure-head of a man-of-war, and finding
out fresh causes of misery at every step.&nbsp; As he was crossing the
corner of Hatton-garden, a man apparently intoxicated, rushed against
him, and would have knocked him down, had he not been providentially
caught by a very genteel young man, who happened to be close to him
at the time.&nbsp; The shock so disarranged Dumps&rsquo;s nerves, as
well as his dress, that he could hardly stand.&nbsp; The gentleman took
his arm, and in the kindest manner walked with him as far as Furnival&rsquo;s
Inn.&nbsp; Dumps, for about the first time in his life, felt grateful
and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking young man parted with
mutual expressions of good will.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,&rsquo;
ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination.</p>
<p>Rat&mdash;tat&mdash;ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat&mdash;knocked a hackney-coachman
at Kitterbell&rsquo;s door, in imitation of a gentleman&rsquo;s servant,
just as Dumps reached it; and out came an old lady in a large toque,
and an old gentleman in a blue coat, and three female copies of the
old lady in pink dresses, and shoes to match.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a large party,&rsquo; sighed the unhappy godfather,
wiping the perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the area-railings.&nbsp;
It was some time before the miserable man could muster up courage to
knock at the door, and when he did, the smart appearance of a neighbouring
greengrocer (who had been hired to wait for seven and sixpence, and
whose calves alone were worth double the money), the lamp in the passage,
and the Venus on the landing, added to the hum of many voices, and the
sound of a harp and two violins, painfully convinced him that his surmises
were but too well founded.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How are you?&rsquo; said little Kitterbell, in a greater bustle
than ever, bolting out of the little back parlour with a cork-screw
in his hand, and various particles of sawdust, looking like so many
inverted commas, on his inexpressibles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good God!&rsquo; said Dumps, turning into the aforesaid parlour
to put his shoes on, which he had brought in his coat-pocket, and still
more appalled by the sight of seven fresh-drawn corks, and a corresponding
number of decanters.&nbsp; &lsquo;How many people are there up-stairs?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, not above thirty-five.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve had the carpet
taken up in the back drawing-room, and the piano and the card-tables
are in the front.&nbsp; Jemima thought we&rsquo;d better have a regular
sit-down supper in the front parlour, because of the speechifying, and
all that.&nbsp; But, Lord! uncle, what&rsquo;s the matter?&rsquo; continued
the excited little man, as Dumps stood with one shoe on, rummaging his
pockets with the most frightful distortion of visage.&nbsp; &lsquo;What
have you lost?&nbsp; Your pocket-book?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No,&rsquo; returned Dumps, diving first into one pocket and
then into the other, and speaking in a voice like Desdemona with the
pillow over her mouth.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Your card-case? snuff-box? the key of your lodgings?&rsquo;
continued Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the rapidity
of lightning.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No! no!&rsquo; ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into
his empty pockets.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Not&mdash;not&mdash;the <i>mug</i> you spoke of this morning?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, the <i>mug</i>!&rsquo; replied Dumps, sinking into a
chair.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How <i>could</i> you have done it?&rsquo; inquired Kitterbell.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Are you sure you brought it out?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes! yes!&nbsp; I see it all!&rsquo; said Dumps, starting
up as the idea flashed across his mind; &lsquo;miserable dog that I
am&mdash;I was born to suffer.&nbsp; I see it all: it was the gentlemanly-looking
young man!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Dumps!&rsquo; shouted the greengrocer in a stentorian
voice, as he ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into the drawing-room
half an hour after the above declaration.&nbsp; &lsquo;Mr. Dumps!&rsquo;&mdash;everybody
looked at the door, and in came Dumps, feeling about as much out of
place as a salmon might be supposed to be on a gravel-walk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Happy to see you again,&rsquo; said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite
unconscious of the unfortunate man&rsquo;s confusion and misery; &lsquo;you
must allow me to introduce you to a few of our friends:- my mamma, Mr.
Dumps&mdash;my papa and sisters.&rsquo;&nbsp; Dumps seized the hand
of the mother as warmly as if she was his own parent, bowed <i>to</i>
the young ladies, and <i>against</i> a gentleman behind him, and took
no notice whatever of the father, who had been bowing incessantly for
three minutes and a quarter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Uncle,&rsquo; said little Kitterbell, after Dumps had been
introduced to a select dozen or two, &lsquo;you must let me lead you
to the other end of the room, to introduce you to my friend Danton.&nbsp;
Such a splendid fellow!&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ll like him&mdash;this
way,&rsquo;&mdash;Dumps followed as tractably as a tame bear.</p>
<p>Mr. Danton was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with a considerable
stock of impudence, and a very small share of ideas: he was a great
favourite, especially with young ladies of from sixteen to twenty-six
years of age, both inclusive.&nbsp; He could imitate the French-horn
to admiration, sang comic songs most inimitably, and had the most insinuating
way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting female admirers.&nbsp;
He had acquired, somehow or other, the reputation of being a great wit,
and, accordingly, whenever he opened his mouth, everybody who knew him
laughed very heartily.</p>
<p>The introduction took place in due form.&nbsp; Mr. Danton bowed,
and twirled a lady&rsquo;s handkerchief, which he held in his hand,
in a most comic way.&nbsp; Everybody smiled.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very warm,&rsquo; said Dumps, feeling it necessary to say
something.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes.&nbsp; It was warmer yesterday,&rsquo; returned the brilliant
Mr. Danton.&mdash;A general laugh.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have great pleasure in congratulating you on your first
appearance in the character of a father, sir,&rsquo; he continued, addressing
Dumps&mdash;&lsquo;godfather, I mean.&rsquo;&mdash;The young ladies
were convulsed, and the gentlemen in ecstasies.</p>
<p>A general hum of admiration interrupted the conversation, and announced
the entrance of nurse with the baby.&nbsp; An universal rush of the
young ladies immediately took place.&nbsp; (Girls are always <i>so</i>
fond of babies in company.)</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh, you dear!&rsquo; said one.</p>
<p>&lsquo;How sweet!&rsquo; cried another, in a low tone of the most
enthusiastic admiration.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Heavenly!&rsquo; added a third.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh! what dear little arms!&rsquo; said a fourth, holding up
an arm and fist about the size and shape of the leg of a fowl cleanly
picked.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Did you ever!&rsquo;&mdash;said a little coquette with a large
bustle, who looked like a French lithograph, appealing to a gentleman
in three waistcoats&mdash;&lsquo;Did you ever!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never, in my life,&rsquo; returned her admirer, pulling up
his collar.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Oh!<i> do</i> let me take it, nurse,&rsquo; cried another
young lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;The love!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Can it open its eyes, nurse?&rsquo; inquired another, affecting
the utmost innocence.&mdash;Suffice it to say, that the single ladies
unanimously voted him an angel, and that the married ones, <i>nem. con</i>.,
agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld&mdash;except
their own.</p>
<p>The quadrilles were resumed with great spirit.&nbsp; Mr. Danton was
universally admitted to be beyond himself; several young ladies enchanted
the company and gained admirers by singing &lsquo;We met&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;I
saw her at the Fancy Fair&rsquo;&mdash;and other equally sentimental
and interesting ballads.&nbsp; &lsquo;The young men,&rsquo; as Mrs.
Kitterbell said, &lsquo;made themselves very agreeable;&rsquo; the girls
did not lose their opportunity; and the evening promised to go off excellently.&nbsp;
Dumps didn&rsquo;t mind it: he had devised a plan for himself&mdash;a
little bit of fun in his own way&mdash;and he was almost happy!&nbsp;
He played a rubber and lost every point Mr. Danton said he could not
have lost every point, because he made a point of losing: everybody
laughed tremendously.&nbsp; Dumps retorted with a better joke, and nobody
smiled, with the exception of the host, who seemed to consider it his
duty to laugh till he was black in the face, at everything.&nbsp; There
was only one drawback&mdash;the musicians did not play with quite as
much spirit as could have been wished.&nbsp; The cause, however, was
satisfactorily explained; for it appeared, on the testimony of a gentleman
who had come up from Gravesend in the afternoon, that they had been
engaged on board a steamer all day, and had played almost without cessation
all the way to Gravesend, and all the way back again.</p>
<p>The &lsquo;sit-down supper&rsquo; was excellent; there were four
barley-sugar temples on the table, which would have looked beautiful
if they had not melted away when the supper began; and a water-mill,
whose only fault was that instead of going round, it ran over the table-cloth.&nbsp;
Then there were fowls, and tongue, and trifle, and sweets, and lobster
salad, and potted beef&mdash;and everything.&nbsp; And little Kitterbell
kept calling out for clean plates, and the clean plates did not come:
and then the gentlemen who wanted the plates said they didn&rsquo;t
mind, they&rsquo;d take a lady&rsquo;s; and then Mrs. Kitterbell applauded
their gallantry, and the greengrocer ran about till he thought his seven
and sixpence was very hardly earned; and the young ladies didn&rsquo;t
eat much for fear it shouldn&rsquo;t look romantic, and the married
ladies eat as much as possible, for fear they shouldn&rsquo;t have enough;
and a great deal of wine was drunk, and everybody talked and laughed
considerably.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush! hush!&rsquo; said Mr. Kitterbell, rising and looking
very important.&nbsp; &lsquo;My love (this was addressed to his wife
at the other end of the table), take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and your
mamma, and the rest of the married ladies; the gentlemen will persuade
the young ladies to fill their glasses, I am sure.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ladies and gentlemen,&rsquo; said long Dumps, in a very sepulchral
voice and rueful accent, rising from his chair like the ghost in Don
Juan, &lsquo;will you have the kindness to charge your glasses?&nbsp;
I am desirous of proposing a toast.&rsquo;</p>
<p>A dead silence ensued, and the glasses were filled&mdash;everybody
looked serious.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ladies and gentlemen,&rsquo; slowly continued the ominous
Dumps, &lsquo;I&rsquo;&mdash;(here Mr. Danton imitated two notes from
the French-horn, in a very loud key, which electrified the nervous toast-proposer,
and convulsed his audience).</p>
<p>&lsquo;Order! order!&rsquo; said little Kitterbell, endeavouring
to suppress his laughter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Order!&rsquo; said the gentlemen.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Danton, be quiet,&rsquo; said a particular friend on the opposite
side of the table.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ladies and gentlemen,&rsquo; resumed Dumps, somewhat recovered,
and not much disconcerted, for he was always a pretty good hand at a
speech&mdash;&lsquo;In accordance with what is, I believe, the established
usage on these occasions, I, as one of the godfathers of Master Frederick
Charles William Kitterbell&mdash;(here the speaker&rsquo;s voice faltered,
for he remembered the mug)&mdash;venture to rise to propose a toast.&nbsp;
I need hardly say that it is the health and prosperity of that young
gentleman, the particular event of whose early life we are here met
to celebrate&mdash;(applause).&nbsp; Ladies and gentlemen, it is impossible
to suppose that our friends here, whose sincere well-wishers we all
are, can pass through life without some trials, considerable suffering,
severe affliction, and heavy losses!&rsquo;&mdash;Here the arch-traitor
paused, and slowly drew forth a long, white pocket-handkerchief&mdash;his
example was followed by several ladies.&nbsp; &lsquo;That these trials
may be long spared them is my most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish
(a distinct sob from the grandmother).&nbsp; I hope and trust, ladies
and gentlemen, that the infant whose christening we have this evening
met to celebrate, may not be removed from the arms of his parents by
premature decay (several cambrics were in requisition): that his young
and now <i>apparently</i> healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering
disease.&nbsp; (Here Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, for a great
sensation was manifest among the married ladies.)&nbsp; You, I am sure,
will concur with me in wishing that he may live to be a comfort and
a blessing to his parents.&nbsp; (&ldquo;Hear, hear!&rdquo; and an audible
sob from Mr. Kitterbell.)&nbsp; But should he not be what we could wish&mdash;should
he forget in after times the duty which he owes to them&mdash;should
they unhappily experience that distracting truth, &ldquo;how sharper
than a serpent&rsquo;s tooth it is to have a thankless child&rdquo;&rsquo;&mdash;Here
Mrs. Kitterbell, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and accompanied
by several ladies, rushed from the room, and went into violent hysterics
in the passage, leaving her better half in almost as bad a condition,
and a general impression in Dumps&rsquo;s favour; for people like sentiment,
after all.</p>
<p>It need hardly be added, that this occurrence quite put a stop to
the harmony of the evening.&nbsp; Vinegar, hartshorn, and cold water,
were now as much in request as negus, rout-cakes, and <i>bon-bons</i>
had been a short time before.&nbsp; Mrs. Kitterbell was immediately
conveyed to her apartment, the musicians were silenced, flirting ceased,
and the company slowly departed.&nbsp; Dumps left the house at the commencement
of the bustle, and walked home with a light step, and (for him) a cheerful
heart.&nbsp; His landlady, who slept in the next room, has offered to
make oath that she heard him laugh, in his peculiar manner, after he
had locked his door.&nbsp; The assertion, however, is so improbable,
and bears on the face of it such strong evidence of untruth, that it
has never obtained credence to this hour.</p>
<p>The family of Mr. Kitterbell has considerably increased since the
period to which we have referred; he has now two sons and a daughter;
and as he expects, at no distant period, to have another addition to
his blooming progeny, he is anxious to secure an eligible godfather
for the occasion.&nbsp; He is determined, however, to impose upon him
two conditions.&nbsp; He must bind himself, by a solemn obligation,
not to make any speech after supper; and it is indispensable that he
should be in no way connected with &lsquo;the most miserable man in
the world.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER XII&mdash;THE DRUNKARD&rsquo;S DEATH</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We will be bold to say, that there is scarcely a man in the constant
habit of walking, day after day, through any of the crowded thoroughfares
of London, who cannot recollect among the people whom he &lsquo;knows
by sight,&rsquo; to use a familiar phrase, some being of abject and
wretched appearance whom he remembers to have seen in a very different
condition, whom he has observed sinking lower and lower, by almost imperceptible
degrees, and the shabbiness and utter destitution of whose appearance,
at last, strike forcibly and painfully upon him, as he passes by.&nbsp;
Is there any man who has mixed much with society, or whose avocations
have caused him to mingle, at one time or other, with a great number
of people, who cannot call to mind the time when some shabby, miserable
wretch, in rags and filth, who shuffles past him now in all the squalor
of disease and poverty, with a respectable tradesman, or clerk, or a
man following some thriving pursuit, with good prospects, and decent
means?&mdash;or cannot any of our readers call to mind from among the
list of their <i>quondam</i> acquaintance, some fallen and degraded
man, who lingers about the pavement in hungry misery&mdash;from whom
every one turns coldly away, and who preserves himself from sheer starvation,
nobody knows how?&nbsp; Alas! such cases are of too frequent occurrence
to be rare items in any man&rsquo;s experience; and but too often arise
from one cause&mdash;drunkenness&mdash;that fierce rage for the slow,
sure poison, that oversteps every other consideration; that casts aside
wife, children, friends, happiness, and station; and hurries its victims
madly on to degradation and death.</p>
<p>Some of these men have been impelled, by misfortune and misery, to
the vice that has degraded them.&nbsp; The ruin of worldly expectations,
the death of those they loved, the sorrow that slowly consumes, but
will not break the heart, has driven them wild; and they present the
hideous spectacle of madmen, slowly dying by their own hands.&nbsp;
But by far the greater part have wilfully, and with open eyes, plunged
into the gulf from which the man who once enters it never rises more,
but into which he sinks deeper and deeper down, until recovery is hopeless.</p>
<p>Such a man as this once stood by the bedside of his dying wife, while
his children knelt around, and mingled loud bursts of grief with their
innocent prayers.&nbsp; The room was scantily and meanly furnished;
and it needed but a glance at the pale form from which the light of
life was fast passing away, to know that grief, and want, and anxious
care, had been busy at the heart for many a weary year.&nbsp; An elderly
woman, with her face bathed in tears, was supporting the head of the
dying woman&mdash;her daughter&mdash;on her arm.&nbsp; But it was not
towards her that the was face turned; it was not her hand that the cold
and trembling fingers clasped; they pressed the husband&rsquo;s arm;
the eyes so soon to be closed in death rested on his face, and the man
shook beneath their gaze.&nbsp; His dress was slovenly and disordered,
his face inflamed, his eyes bloodshot and heavy.&nbsp; He had been summoned
from some wild debauch to the bed of sorrow and death.</p>
<p>A shaded lamp by the bed-side cast a dim light on the figures around,
and left the remainder of the room in thick, deep shadow.&nbsp; The
silence of night prevailed without the house, and the stillness of death
was in the chamber.&nbsp; A watch hung over the mantel-shelf; its low
ticking was the only sound that broke the profound quiet, but it was
a solemn one, for well they knew, who heard it, that before it had recorded
the passing of another hour, it would beat the knell of a departed spirit.</p>
<p>It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death;
to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count
the dreary hours through long, long nights&mdash;such nights as only
watchers by the bed of sickness know.&nbsp; It chills the blood to hear
the dearest secrets of the heart&mdash;the pent-up, hidden secrets of
many years&mdash;poured forth by the unconscious, helpless being before
you; and to think how little the reserve and cunning of a whole life
will avail, when fever and delirium tear off the mask at last.&nbsp;
Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men; tales so
full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the sick person&rsquo;s
couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they should be scared to
madness by what they heard and saw; and many a wretch has died alone,
raving of deeds the very name of which has driven the boldest man away.</p>
<p>But no such ravings were to be heard at the bed-side by which the
children knelt.&nbsp; Their half-stifled sobs and moaning alone broke
the silence of the lonely chamber.&nbsp; And when at last the mother&rsquo;s
grasp relaxed, and, turning one look from the children to the father,
she vainly strove to speak, and fell backward on the pillow, all was
so calm and tranquil that she seemed to sink to sleep.&nbsp; They leant
over her; they called upon her name, softly at first, and then in the
loud and piercing tones of desperation.&nbsp; But there was no reply.&nbsp;
They listened for her breath, but no sound came.&nbsp; They felt for
the palpitation of the heart, but no faint throb responded to the touch.&nbsp;
That heart was broken, and she was dead!</p>
<p>The husband sunk into a chair by the bed-side, and clasped his hands
upon his burning forehead.&nbsp; He gazed from child to child, but when
a weeping eye met his, he quailed beneath its look.&nbsp; No word of
comfort was whispered in his ear, no look of kindness lighted on his
face.&nbsp; All shrunk from and avoided him; and when at last he staggered
from the room, no one sought to follow or console the widower.</p>
<p>The time had been when many a friend would have crowded round him
in his affliction, and many a heartfelt condolence would have met him
in his grief.&nbsp; Where were they now?&nbsp; One by one, friends,
relations, the commonest acquaintance even, had fallen off from and
deserted the drunkard.&nbsp; His wife alone had clung to him in good
and evil, in sickness and poverty, and how had he rewarded her?&nbsp;
He had reeled from the tavern to her bed-side in time to see her die.</p>
<p>He rushed from the house, and walked swiftly through the streets.&nbsp;
Remorse, fear, shame, all crowded on his mind.&nbsp; Stupefied with
drink, and bewildered with the scene he had just witnessed, he re-entered
the tavern he had quitted shortly before.&nbsp; Glass succeeded glass.&nbsp;
His blood mounted, and his brain whirled round.&nbsp; Death!&nbsp; Every
one must die, and why not <i>she</i>?&nbsp; She was too good for him;
her relations had often told him so.&nbsp; Curses on them!&nbsp; Had
they not deserted her, and left her to whine away the time at home?&nbsp;
Well&mdash;she was dead, and happy perhaps.&nbsp; It was better as it
was.&nbsp; Another glass&mdash;one more!&nbsp; Hurrah!&nbsp; It was
a merry life while it lasted; and he would make the most of it.</p>
<p>Time went on; the three children who were left to him, grew up, and
were children no longer.&nbsp; The father remained the same&mdash;poorer,
shabbier, and more dissolute-looking, but the same confirmed and irreclaimable
drunkard.&nbsp; The boys had, long ago, run wild in the streets, and
left him; the girl alone remained, but she worked hard, and words or
blows could always procure him something for the tavern.&nbsp; So he
went on in the old course, and a merry life he led.</p>
<p>One night, as early as ten o&rsquo;clock&mdash;for the girl had been
sick for many days, and there was, consequently, little to spend at
the public-house&mdash;he bent his steps homeward, bethinking himself
that if he would have her able to earn money, it would be as well to
apply to the parish surgeon, or, at all events, to take the trouble
of inquiring what ailed her, which he had not yet thought it worth while
to do.&nbsp; It was a wet December night; the wind blew piercing cold,
and the rain poured heavily down.&nbsp; He begged a few halfpence from
a passer-by, and having bought a small loaf (for it was his interest
to keep the girl alive, if he could), he shuffled onwards as fast as
the wind and rain would let him.</p>
<p>At the back of Fleet-street, and lying between it and the water-side,
are several mean and narrow courts, which form a portion of Whitefriars:
it was to one of these that he directed his steps.</p>
<p>The alley into which he turned, might, for filth and misery, have
competed with the darkest corner of this ancient sanctuary in its dirtiest
and most lawless time.&nbsp; The houses, varying from two stories in
height to four, were stained with every indescribable hue that long
exposure to the weather, damp, and rottenness can impart to tenements
composed originally of the roughest and coarsest materials.&nbsp; The
windows were patched with paper, and stuffed with the foulest rags;
the doors were falling from their hinges; poles with lines on which
to dry clothes, projected from every casement, and sounds of quarrelling
or drunkenness issued from every room.</p>
<p>The solitary oil lamp in the centre of the court had been blown out,
either by the violence of the wind or the act of some inhabitant who
had excellent reasons for objecting to his residence being rendered
too conspicuous; and the only light which fell upon the broken and uneven
pavement, was derived from the miserable candles that here and there
twinkled in the rooms of such of the more fortunate residents as could
afford to indulge in so expensive a luxury.&nbsp; A gutter ran down
the centre of the alley&mdash;all the sluggish odours of which had been
called forth by the rain; and as the wind whistled through the old houses,
the doors and shutters creaked upon their hinges, and the windows shook
in their frames, with a violence which every moment seemed to threaten
the destruction of the whole place.</p>
<p>The man whom we have followed into this den, walked on in the darkness,
sometimes stumbling into the main gutter, and at others into some branch
repositories of garbage which had been formed by the rain, until he
reached the last house in the court.&nbsp; The door, or rather what
was left of it, stood ajar, for the convenience of the numerous lodgers;
and he proceeded to grope his way up the old and broken stair, to the
attic story.</p>
<p>He was within a step or two of his room door, when it opened, and
a girl, whose miserable and emaciated appearance was only to be equalled
by that of the candle which she shaded with her hand, peeped anxiously
out.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Is that you, father?&rsquo; said the girl.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who else should it be?&rsquo; replied the man gruffly.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What are you trembling at?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s little enough that
I&rsquo;ve had to drink to-day, for there&rsquo;s no drink without money,
and no money without work.&nbsp; What the devil&rsquo;s the matter with
the girl?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am not well, father&mdash;not at all well,&rsquo; said the
girl, bursting into tears.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; replied the man, in the tone of a person who is
compelled to admit a very unpleasant fact, to which he would rather
remain blind, if he could.&nbsp; &lsquo;You must get better somehow,
for we must have money.&nbsp; You must go to the parish doctor, and
make him give you some medicine.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re paid for it, damn
&rsquo;em.&nbsp; What are you standing before the door for?&nbsp; Let
me come in, can&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Father,&rsquo; whispered the girl, shutting the door behind
her, and placing herself before it, &lsquo;William has come back.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Who!&rsquo; said the man with a start.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush,&rsquo; replied the girl, &lsquo;William; brother William.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what does he want?&rsquo; said the man, with an effort
at composure&mdash;&lsquo;money? meat? drink?&nbsp; He&rsquo;s come
to the wrong shop for that, if he does.&nbsp; Give me the candle&mdash;give
me the candle, fool&mdash;I ain&rsquo;t going to hurt him.&rsquo;&nbsp;
He snatched the candle from her hand, and walked into the room.</p>
<p>Sitting on an old box, with his head resting on his hand, and his
eyes fixed on a wretched cinder fire that was smouldering on the hearth,
was a young man of about two-and-twenty, miserably clad in an old coarse
jacket and trousers.&nbsp; He started up when his father entered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Fasten the door, Mary,&rsquo; said the young man hastily&mdash;&lsquo;Fasten
the door.&nbsp; You look as if you didn&rsquo;t know me, father.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s long enough, since you drove me from home; you may well forget
me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And what do you want here, now?&rsquo; said the father, seating
himself on a stool, on the other side of the fireplace.&nbsp; &lsquo;What
do you want here, now?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Shelter,&rsquo; replied the son.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m in
trouble: that&rsquo;s enough.&nbsp; If I&rsquo;m caught I shall swing;
that&rsquo;s certain.&nbsp; Caught I shall be, unless I stop here; that&rsquo;s
<i>as</i> certain.&nbsp; And there&rsquo;s an end of it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You mean to say, you&rsquo;ve been robbing, or murdering,
then?&rsquo; said the father.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Yes, I do,&rsquo; replied the son.&nbsp; &lsquo;Does it surprise
you, father?&rsquo;&nbsp; He looked steadily in the man&rsquo;s face,
but he withdrew his eyes, and bent them on the ground.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where&rsquo;s your brothers?&rsquo; he said, after a long
pause.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where they&rsquo;ll never trouble you,&rsquo; replied his
son: &lsquo;John&rsquo;s gone to America, and Henry&rsquo;s dead.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dead!&rsquo; said the father, with a shudder, which even he
could not express.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dead,&rsquo; replied the young man.&nbsp; &lsquo;He died in
my arms&mdash;shot like a dog, by a gamekeeper.&nbsp; He staggered back,
I caught him, and his blood trickled down my hands.&nbsp; It poured
out from his side like water.&nbsp; He was weak, and it blinded him,
but he threw himself down on his knees, on the grass, and prayed to
God, that if his mother was in heaven, He would hear her prayers for
pardon for her youngest son.&nbsp; &ldquo;I was her favourite boy, Will,&rdquo;
he said, &ldquo;and I am glad to think, now, that when she was dying,
though I was a very young child then, and my little heart was almost
bursting, I knelt down at the foot of the bed, and thanked God for having
made me so fond of her as to have never once done anything to bring
the tears into her eyes.&nbsp; O Will, why was she taken away, and father
left?&rdquo;&nbsp; There&rsquo;s his dying words, father,&rsquo; said
the young man; &lsquo;make the best you can of &rsquo;em.&nbsp; You
struck him across the face, in a drunken fit, the morning we ran away;
and here&rsquo;s the end of it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The girl wept aloud; and the father, sinking his head upon his knees,
rocked himself to and fro.</p>
<p>&lsquo;If I am taken,&rsquo; said the young man, &lsquo;I shall be
carried back into the country, and hung for that man&rsquo;s murder.&nbsp;
They cannot trace me here, without your assistance, father.&nbsp; For
aught I know, you may give me up to justice; but unless you do, here
I stop, until I can venture to escape abroad.&rsquo;</p>
<p>For two whole days, all three remained in the wretched room, without
stirring out.&nbsp; On the third evening, however, the girl was worse
than she had been yet, and the few scraps of food they had were gone.&nbsp;
It was indispensably necessary that somebody should go out; and as the
girl was too weak and ill, the father went, just at nightfall.</p>
<p>He got some medicine for the girl, and a trifle in the way of pecuniary
assistance.&nbsp; On his way back, he earned sixpence by holding a horse;
and he turned homewards with enough money to supply their most pressing
wants for two or three days to come.&nbsp; He had to pass the public-house.&nbsp;
He lingered for an instant, walked past it, turned back again, lingered
once more, and finally slunk in.&nbsp; Two men whom he had not observed,
were on the watch.&nbsp; They were on the point of giving up their search
in despair, when his loitering attracted their attention; and when he
entered the public-house, they followed him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll drink with me, master,&rsquo; said one of them,
proffering him a glass of liquor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And me too,&rsquo; said the other, replenishing the glass
as soon as it was drained of its contents.</p>
<p>The man thought of his hungry children, and his son&rsquo;s danger.&nbsp;
But they were nothing to the drunkard.&nbsp; He <i>did</i> drink; and
his reason left him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A wet night, Warden,&rsquo; whispered one of the men in his
ear, as he at length turned to go away, after spending in liquor one-half
of the money on which, perhaps, his daughter&rsquo;s life depended.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The right sort of night for our friends in hiding, Master
Warden,&rsquo; whispered the other.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sit down here,&rsquo; said the one who had spoken first, drawing
him into a corner.&nbsp; &lsquo;We have been looking arter the young
un.&nbsp; We came to tell him, it&rsquo;s all right now, but we couldn&rsquo;t
find him &rsquo;cause we hadn&rsquo;t got the precise direction.&nbsp;
But that ain&rsquo;t strange, for I don&rsquo;t think he know&rsquo;d
it himself, when he come to London, did he?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, he didn&rsquo;t,&rsquo; replied the father.</p>
<p>The two men exchanged glances.</p>
<p>&lsquo;There&rsquo;s a vessel down at the docks, to sail at midnight,
when it&rsquo;s high water,&rsquo; resumed the first speaker, &lsquo;and
we&rsquo;ll put him on board.&nbsp; His passage is taken in another
name, and what&rsquo;s better than that, it&rsquo;s paid for.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s lucky we met you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very,&rsquo; said the second.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Capital luck,&rsquo; said the first, with a wink to his companion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Great,&rsquo; replied the second, with a slight nod of intelligence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Another glass here; quick&rsquo;&mdash;said the first speaker.&nbsp;
And in five minutes more, the father had unconsciously yielded up his
own son into the hangman&rsquo;s hands.</p>
<p>Slowly and heavily the time dragged along, as the brother and sister,
in their miserable hiding-place, listened in anxious suspense to the
slightest sound.&nbsp; At length, a heavy footstep was heard upon the
stair; it approached nearer; it reached the landing; and the father
staggered into the room.</p>
<p>The girl saw that he was intoxicated, and advanced with the candle
in her hand to meet him; she stopped short, gave a loud scream, and
fell senseless on the ground.&nbsp; She had caught sight of the shadow
of a man reflected on the floor.&nbsp; They both rushed in, and in another
instant the young man was a prisoner, and handcuffed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Very quietly done,&rsquo; said one of the men to his companion,
&lsquo;thanks to the old man.&nbsp; Lift up the girl, Tom&mdash;come,
come, it&rsquo;s no use crying, young woman.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all over
now, and can&rsquo;t be helped.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The young man stooped for an instant over the girl, and then turned
fiercely round upon his father, who had reeled against the wall, and
was gazing on the group with drunken stupidity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Listen to me, father,&rsquo; he said, in a tone that made
the drunkard&rsquo;s flesh creep.&nbsp; &lsquo;My brother&rsquo;s blood,
and mine, is on your head: I never had kind look, or word, or care,
from you, and alive or dead, I never will forgive you.&nbsp; Die when
you will, or how, I will be with you.&nbsp; I speak as a dead man now,
and I warn you, father, that as surely as you must one day stand before
your Maker, so surely shall your children be there, hand in hand, to
cry for judgment against you.&rsquo;&nbsp; He raised his manacled hands
in a threatening attitude, fixed his eyes on his shrinking parent, and
slowly left the room; and neither father nor sister ever beheld him
more, on this side of the grave.</p>
<p>When the dim and misty light of a winter&rsquo;s morning penetrated
into the narrow court, and struggled through the begrimed window of
the wretched room, Warden awoke from his heavy sleep, and found himself
alone.&nbsp; He rose, and looked round him; the old flock mattress on
the floor was undisturbed; everything was just as he remembered to have
seen it last: and there were no signs of any one, save himself, having
occupied the room during the night.&nbsp; He inquired of the other lodgers,
and of the neighbours; but his daughter had not been seen or heard of.&nbsp;
He rambled through the streets, and scrutinised each wretched face among
the crowds that thronged them, with anxious eyes.&nbsp; But his search
was fruitless, and he returned to his garret when night came on, desolate
and weary.</p>
<p>For many days he occupied himself in the same manner, but no trace
of his daughter did he meet with, and no word of her reached his ears.&nbsp;
At length he gave up the pursuit as hopeless.&nbsp; He had long thought
of the probability of her leaving him, and endeavouring to gain her
bread in quiet, elsewhere.&nbsp; She had left him at last to starve
alone.&nbsp; He ground his teeth, and cursed her!</p>
<p>He begged his bread from door to door.&nbsp; Every halfpenny he could
wring from the pity or credulity of those to whom he addressed himself,
was spent in the old way.&nbsp; A year passed over his head; the roof
of a jail was the only one that had sheltered him for many months.&nbsp;
He slept under archways, and in brickfields&mdash;anywhere, where there
was some warmth or shelter from the cold and rain.&nbsp; But in the
last stage of poverty, disease, and houseless want, he was a drunkard
still.</p>
<p>At last, one bitter night, he sunk down on a door-step faint and
ill.&nbsp; The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him to
the bone.&nbsp; His cheeks were hollow and livid; his eyes were sunken,
and their sight was dim.&nbsp; His legs trembled beneath his weight,
and a cold shiver ran through every limb.</p>
<p>And now the long-forgotten scenes of a misspent life crowded thick
and fast upon him.&nbsp; He thought of the time when he had a home&mdash;a
happy, cheerful home&mdash;and of those who peopled it, and flocked
about him then, until the forms of his elder children seemed to rise
from the grave, and stand about him&mdash;so plain, so clear, and so
distinct they were that he could touch and feel them.&nbsp; Looks that
he had long forgotten were fixed upon him once more; voices long since
hushed in death sounded in his ears like the music of village bells.&nbsp;
But it was only for an instant.&nbsp; The rain beat heavily upon him;
and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart again.</p>
<p>He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further.&nbsp;
The street was silent and empty; the few passengers who passed by, at
that late hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost
in the violence of the storm.&nbsp; Again that heavy chill struck through
his frame, and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it.&nbsp; He coiled
himself up in a projecting doorway, and tried to sleep.</p>
<p>But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes.&nbsp; His mind
wandered strangely, but he was awake, and conscious.&nbsp; The well-known
shout of drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips,
the board was covered with choice rich food&mdash;they were before him:
he could see them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them&mdash;and,
though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting
alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered
on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches&mdash;and that
there were none to care for or help him.</p>
<p>Suddenly he started up, in the extremity of terror.&nbsp; He had
heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what, or
why.&nbsp; Hark!&nbsp; A groan!&mdash;another!&nbsp; His senses were
leaving him: half-formed and incoherent words burst from his lips; and
his hands sought to tear and lacerate his flesh.&nbsp; He was going
mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed him.</p>
<p>He raised his head, and looked up the long dismal street.&nbsp; He
recollected that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and
night in those dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with
their own loneliness.&nbsp; He remembered to have heard many years before
that a homeless wretch had once been found in a solitary corner, sharpening
a rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that
endless, weary, wandering to and fro.&nbsp; In an instant his resolve
was taken, his limbs received new life; he ran quickly from the spot,
and paused not for breath until he reached the river-side.</p>
<p>He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that lead from the commencement
of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water&rsquo;s level.&nbsp; He crouched
into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed.&nbsp; Never
did prisoner&rsquo;s heart throb with the hope of liberty and life half
so eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death.&nbsp;
The watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved; and after
waiting till the sound of footsteps had died away in the distance, he
cautiously descended, and stood beneath the gloomy arch that forms the
landing-place from the river.</p>
<p>The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet.&nbsp; The rain
had ceased, the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still
and quiet&mdash;so quiet, that the slightest sound on the opposite bank,
even the rippling of the water against the barges that were moored there,
was distinctly audible to his ear.&nbsp; The stream stole languidly
and sluggishly on.&nbsp; Strange and fantastic forms rose to the surface,
and beckoned him to approach; dark gleaming eyes peered from the water,
and seemed to mock his hesitation, while hollow murmurs from behind,
urged him onwards.&nbsp; He retreated a few paces, took a short run,
desperate leap, and plunged into the river.</p>
<p>Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water&rsquo;s surface&mdash;but
what a change had taken place in that short time, in all his thoughts
and feelings!&nbsp; Life&mdash;life in any form, poverty, misery, starvation&mdash;anything
but death.&nbsp; He fought and struggled with the water that closed
over his head, and screamed in agonies of terror.&nbsp; The curse of
his own son rang in his ears.&nbsp; The shore&mdash;but one foot of
dry ground&mdash;he could almost touch the step.&nbsp; One hand&rsquo;s
breadth nearer, and he was saved&mdash;but the tide bore him onward,
under the dark arches of the bridge, and he sank to the bottom.</p>
<p>Again he rose, and struggled for life.&nbsp; For one instant&mdash;for
one brief instant&mdash;the buildings on the river&rsquo;s banks, the
lights on the bridge through which the current had borne him, the black
water, and the fast-flying clouds, were distinctly visible&mdash;once
more he sunk, and once again he rose.&nbsp; Bright flames of fire shot
up from earth to heaven, and reeled before his eyes, while the water
thundered in his ears, and stunned him with its furious roar.</p>
<p>A week afterwards the body was washed ashore, some miles down the
river, a swollen and disfigured mass.&nbsp; Unrecognised and unpitied,
it was borne to the grave; and there it has long since mouldered away!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>TO THE YOUNG LADIES<br />OF THE<br />UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND;<br />ALSO<br />THE YOUNG LADIES<br />OF<br />THE PRINCIPALITY
OF WALES,<br />AND LIKEWISE<br />THE YOUNG LADIES<br />RESIDENT IN THE
ISLES OF<br />GUERNSEY, JERSEY, ALDERNEY, AND SARK,<br />THE HUMBLE
DEDICATION OF THEIR DEVOTED ADMIRER,</p>
<p>SHEWETH, -</p>
<p>THAT your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous indignation,
a work purporting to be &lsquo;Sketches of Young Ladies;&rsquo; written
by Quiz, illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume, square twelvemo.</p>
<p>THAT after an attentive and vigilant perusal of the said work, your
Dedicator is humbly of opinion that so many libels, upon your Honourable
sex, were never contained in any previously published work, in twelvemo
or any other mo.</p>
<p>THAT in the title page and preface to the said work, your Honourable
sex are described and classified as animals; and although your Dedicator
is not at present prepared to deny that you <i>are</i> animals, still
he humbly submits that it is not polite to call you so.</p>
<p>THAT in the aforesaid preface, your Honourable sex are also described
as Troglodites, which, being a hard word, may, for aught your Honourable
sex or your Dedicator can say to the contrary, be an injurious and disrespectful
appellation.</p>
<p>THAT the author of the said work applied himself to his task in malice
prepense and with wickedness aforethought; a fact which, your Dedicator
contends, is sufficiently demonstrated, by his assuming the name of
Quiz, which, your Dedicator submits, denotes a foregone conclusion,
and implies an intention of quizzing.</p>
<p>THAT in the execution of his evil design, the said Quiz, or author
of the said work, must have betrayed some trust or confidence reposed
in him by some members of your Honourable sex, otherwise he never could
have acquired so much information relative to the manners and customs
of your Honourable sex in general.</p>
<p>THAT actuated by these considerations, and further moved by various
slanders and insinuations respecting your Honourable sex contained in
the said work, square twelvemo, entitled &lsquo;Sketches of Young Ladies,&rsquo;
your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square twelvemo, entitled
&lsquo;Sketches of Young Gentlemen,&rsquo; of which he now solicits
your acceptance and approval.</p>
<p>THAT as the Young Ladies are the best companions of the Young Gentlemen,
so the Young Gentlemen should be the best companions of the Young Ladies;
and extending the comparison from animals (to quote the disrespectful
language of the said Quiz) to inanimate objects, your Dedicator humbly
suggests, that such of your Honourable sex as purchased the bane should
possess themselves of the antidote, and that those of your Honourable
sex who were not rash enough to take the first, should lose no time
in swallowing the last,&mdash;prevention being in all cases better than
cure, as we are informed upon the authority, not only of general acknowledgment,
but also of traditionary wisdom.</p>
<p>THAT with reference to the said bane and antidote, your Dedicator
has no further remarks to make, than are comprised in the printed directions
issued with Doctor Morison&rsquo;s pills; namely, that whenever your
Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1, you will be pleased to
take fifty of Number 2, without delay.</p>
<p>And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &amp;c.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day, opposite
a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he irresistibly
attracted our attention.</p>
<p>This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as good a promise
of light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very velvet-like,
soft-looking countenance.&nbsp; We do not use the latter term invidiously,
but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump, highly-coloured cheeks
of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather remarkable for the fresh
hue of the lips than for any marked or striking expression it presented.&nbsp;
His whole face was suffused with a crimson blush, and bore that downcast,
timid, retiring look, which betokens a man ill at ease with himself.</p>
<p>There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing
remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful young
gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room above-stairs,
into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his way towards
us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting several persons
who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with visible emotion, and
pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good couple of minutes, after
which he dived in a nervous manner across the room, oversetting in his
way a fine little girl of six years and a quarter old&mdash;and shrouding
himself behind some hangings, was seen no more, until the eagle eye
of the hostess detecting him in his concealment, on the announcement
of dinner, he was requested to pair off with a lively single lady, of
two or three and thirty.</p>
<p>This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have
gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high respect,
and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if we had not
suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in making a desperate
effort to get through the ceremony of introduction, had, in the bewilderment
of his ideas, shaken hands with us at random.&nbsp; This impression
was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of the bashful young
gentleman in question, which we noted particularly, with the view of
ascertaining whether we were right in our conjecture.</p>
<p>The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings,
and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his
loquacious neighbour, overset his bread.&nbsp; There was nothing very
bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and
say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would
have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful
attempts to prevent its fall, played with it a little, as gentlemen
in the streets may be seen to do with their hats on a windy day, and
then giving the roll a smart rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked
it with great adroitness into a tureen of white soup at some distance,
to the unspeakable terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman,
who was dispensing the contents.&nbsp; We thought the bashful young
gentleman would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon
the violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this catastrophe.</p>
<p>From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that
it was &lsquo;all up&rsquo; with the bashful young gentleman, and so
indeed it was.&nbsp; Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve
his embarrassment by taking wine with him, but finding that it only
augmented his sufferings, and that after mingling sherry, champagne,
hock, and moselle together, he applied the greater part of the mixture
externally, instead of internally, they gradually dropped off, and left
him to the exclusive care of the talkative lady, who, not noting the
wildness of his eye, firmly believed she had secured a listener.&nbsp;
He broke a glass or two in the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly
afterwards; it is inferred that he went away in some confusion, inasmuch
as he left the house in another gentleman&rsquo;s coat, and the footman&rsquo;s
hat.</p>
<p>This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent characteristics
of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this portable volume
will be the great text-book of young ladies in all future generations,
we record them here for their guidance and behoof.</p>
<p>If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance
to stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance,
nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation.&nbsp; His first impulse
is to make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does
until, observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to
do so or not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them
to do the same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary
dodging and falling up against the other passengers, he returns and
shakes hands most affectionately with all of them, in doing which he
knocks out of their grasp sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks
up, and returns very muddy and disordered.&nbsp; The chances are that
the bashful young gentleman then observes it is very fine weather, and
being reminded that it has only just left off raining for the first
time these three days, he blushes very much, and smiles as if he had
said a very good thing.&nbsp; The young lady who was most anxious to
speak, here inquires, with an air of great commiseration, how his dear
sister Harriet is to-day; to which the young gentleman, without the
slightest consideration, replies with many thanks, that she is remarkably
well.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, Mr. Hopkins!&rsquo; cries the young lady, &lsquo;why,
we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been perfectly miserable
about her.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, ah,&rsquo; says the young gentleman,
&lsquo;so she was.&nbsp; Oh, she&rsquo;s very ill, very ill indeed.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The young gentleman then shakes his head, and looks very desponding
(he has been smiling perpetually up to this time), and after a short
pause, gives his glove a great wrench at the wrist, and says, with a
strong emphasis on the adjective, &lsquo;<i>Good</i> morning, <i>good</i>
morning.&rsquo;&nbsp; And making a great number of bows in acknowledgment
of several little messages to his sister, walks backward a few paces,
and comes with great violence against a lamp-post, knocking his hat
off in the contact, which in his mental confusion and bodily pain he
is going to walk away without, until a great roar from a carter attracts
his attention, when he picks it up, and tries to smile cheerfully to
the young ladies, who are looking back, and who, he has the satisfaction
of seeing, are all laughing heartily.</p>
<p>At a quadrille party, the bashful young gentleman always remains
as near the entrance of the room as possible, from which position he
smiles at the people he knows as they come in, and sometimes steps forward
to shake hands with more intimate friends: a process which on each repetition
seems to turn him a deeper scarlet than before.&nbsp; He declines dancing
the first set or two, observing, in a faint voice, that he would rather
wait a little; but at length is absolutely compelled to allow himself
to be introduced to a partner, when he is led, in a great heat and blushing
furiously, across the room to a spot where half-a-dozen unknown ladies
are congregated together.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next quadrille.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously.&nbsp; Mr. Hopkins bows, and
his fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr. Hopkins, as he too well
knows, to make himself agreeable.&nbsp; The young lady more than half
expects that the bashful young gentleman will say something, and the
bashful young gentleman feeling this, seriously thinks whether he has
got anything to say, which, upon mature reflection, he is rather disposed
to conclude he has not, since nothing occurs to him.&nbsp; Meanwhile,
the young lady, after several inspections of her <i>bouquet</i>, all
made in the expectation that the bashful young gentleman is going to
talk, whispers her mamma, who is sitting next her, which whisper the
bashful young gentleman immediately suspects (and possibly with very
good reason) must be about <i>him</i>.&nbsp; In this comfortable condition
he remains until it is time to &lsquo;stand up,&rsquo; when murmuring
a &lsquo;Will you allow me?&rsquo; he gives the young lady his arm,
and after inquiring where she will stand, and receiving a reply that
she has no choice, conducts her to the remotest corner of the quadrille,
and making one attempt at conversation, which turns out a desperate
failure, preserves a profound silence until it is all over, when he
walks her twice round the room, deposits her in her old seat, and retires
in confusion.</p>
<p>A married bashful gentleman&mdash;for these bashful gentlemen do
get married sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to
us&mdash;a married bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear
bold by contrast, or merges her proper importance in his own insignificance.&nbsp;
Bashful young gentlemen should be cured, or avoided.&nbsp; They are
never hopeless, and never will be, while female beauty and attractions
retain their influence, as any young lady will find, who may think it
worth while on this confident assurance to take a patient in hand.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes&mdash;those
who have something to do, and those who have nothing.&nbsp; I shall
commence with the former, because that species come more frequently
under the notice of young ladies, whom it is our province to warn and
to instruct.</p>
<p>The out-and-out young gentleman is usually no great dresser, his
instructions to his tailor being all comprehended in the one general
direction to &lsquo;make that what&rsquo;s-a-name a regular bang-up
sort of thing.&rsquo;&nbsp; For some years past, the favourite costume
of the out-and-out young gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with
two gilt hooks and eyes to the velvet collar; buttons somewhat larger
than crown-pieces; a black or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a wide-brimmed
hat, with a low crown; tightish inexpressibles, and iron-shod boots.&nbsp;
Out of doors he sometimes carries a large ash stick, but only on special
occasions, for he prefers keeping his hands in his coat pockets.&nbsp;
He smokes at all hours, of course, and swears considerably.</p>
<p>The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-house
or solicitor&rsquo;s office, in which he does as little as he possibly
can: his chief places of resort are, the streets, the taverns, and the
theatres.&nbsp; In the streets at evening time, out-and-out young gentlemen
have a pleasant custom of walking six or eight abreast, thus driving
females and other inoffensive persons into the road, which never fails
to afford them the highest satisfaction, especially if there be any
immediate danger of their being run over, which enhances the fun of
the thing materially.&nbsp; In all places of public resort, the out-and-outers
are careful to select each a seat to himself, upon which he lies at
full length, and (if the weather be very dirty, but not in any other
case) he lies with his knees up, and the soles of his boots planted
firmly on the cushion, so that if any low fellow should ask him to make
room for a lady, he takes ample revenge upon her dress, without going
at all out of his way to do it.&nbsp; He always sits with his hat on,
and flourishes his stick in the air while the play is proceeding, with
a dignified contempt of the performance; if it be possible for one or
two out-and-out young gentlemen to get up a little crowding in the passages,
they are quite in their element, squeezing, pushing, whooping, and shouting
in the most humorous manner possible.&nbsp; If they can only succeed
in irritating the gentleman who has a family of daughters under his
charge, they are like to die with laughing, and boast of it among their
companions for a week afterwards, adding, that one or two of them were
&lsquo;devilish fine girls,&rsquo; and that they really thought the
youngest would have fainted, which was the only thing wanted to render
the joke complete.</p>
<p>If the out-and-out young gentleman have a mother and sisters, of
course he treats them with becoming contempt, inasmuch as they (poor
things!) having no notion of life or gaiety, are far too weak-spirited
and moping for him.&nbsp; Sometimes, however, on a birth-day or at Christmas-time,
he cannot very well help accompanying them to a party at some old friend&rsquo;s,
with which view he comes home when they have been dressed an hour or
two, smelling very strongly of tobacco and spirits, and after exchanging
his rough coat for some more suitable attire (in which however he loses
nothing of the out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all
the way at his own good nature: his bitter reflections aggravated by
the recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little impromptu
dinner at a fighting man&rsquo;s, and that a set-to was to take place
on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-in-law,
which is probably &lsquo;coming off&rsquo; at that very instant.</p>
<p>As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in
ladies&rsquo; society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room
when they reach the friend&rsquo;s, and unless one of his sisters is
kind enough to talk to him, remains there without being much troubled
by the attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside
the door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and manner
(for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a brother
out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his way.&nbsp;
Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the second out-and-outer
confidentially informs the first, that he is one of the rough sort and
hates that kind of thing, only he couldn&rsquo;t very well be off coming;
to which the other replies, that that&rsquo;s just his case&mdash;&lsquo;and
I&rsquo;ll tell you what,&rsquo; continues the out-and-outer in a whisper,
&lsquo;I should like a glass of warm brandy and water just now,&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Or
a pint of stout and a pipe,&rsquo; suggests the other out-and-outer.</p>
<p>The discovery is at once made that they are sympathetic souls; each
of them says at the same moment, that he sees the other understands
what&rsquo;s what: and they become fast friends at once, more especially
when it appears, that the second out-and-outer is no other than a gentleman,
long favourably known to his familiars as &lsquo;Mr. Warmint Blake,&rsquo;
who upon divers occasions has distinguished himself in a manner that
would not have disgraced the fighting man, and who&mdash;having been
a pretty long time about town&mdash;had the honour of once shaking hands
with the celebrated Mr. Thurtell himself.</p>
<p>At supper, these gentlemen greatly distinguish themselves, brightening
up very much when the ladies leave the table, and proclaiming aloud
their intention of beginning to spend the evening&mdash;a process which
is generally understood to be satisfactorily performed, when a great
deal of wine is drunk and a great deal of noise made, both of which
feats the out-and-out young gentlemen execute to perfection.&nbsp; Having
protracted their sitting until long after the host and the other guests
have adjourned to the drawing-room, and finding that they have drained
the decanters empty, they follow them thither with complexions rather
heightened, and faces rather bloated with wine; and the agitated lady
of the house whispers her friends as they waltz together, to the great
terror of the whole room, that &lsquo;both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins
are very nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric
persons, and unfortunately <i>rather too wild</i>!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The remaining class of out-and-out young gentlemen is composed of
persons, who, having no money of their own and a soul above earning
any, enjoy similar pleasures, nobody knows how.&nbsp; These respectable
gentlemen, without aiming quite so much at the out-and-out in external
appearance, are distinguished by all the same amiable and attractive
characteristics, in an equal or perhaps greater degree, and now and
then find their way into society, through the medium of the other class
of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes carry them home,
and who usually pay their tavern bills.&nbsp; As they are equally gentlemanly,
clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and well-bred, we need scarcely have
recommended them to the peculiar consideration of the young ladies,
if it were not that some of the gentle creatures whom we hold in such
high respect, are perhaps a little too apt to confound a great many
heavier terms with the light word eccentricity, which we beg them henceforth
to take in a strictly Johnsonian sense, without any liberality or latitude
of construction.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We know&mdash;and all people know&mdash;so many specimens of this
class, that in selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take
from a great number, we have been induced to give the very friendly
young gentleman the preference over many others, to whose claims upon
a more cursory view of the question we had felt disposed to assign the
priority.</p>
<p>The very friendly young gentleman is very friendly to everybody,
but he attaches himself particularly to two, or at most to three families:
regulating his choice by their dinners, their circle of acquaintance,
or some other criterion in which he has an immediate interest.&nbsp;
He is of any age between twenty and forty, unmarried of course, must
be fond of children, and is expected to make himself generally useful
if possible.&nbsp; Let us illustrate our meaning by an example, which
is the shortest mode and the clearest.</p>
<p>We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had lost
sight for some years, and who&mdash;expressing a strong anxiety to renew
our former intimacy&mdash;urged us to dine with him on an early day,
that we might talk over old times.&nbsp; We readily assented, adding,
that we hoped we should be alone.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, certainly, certainly,&rsquo;
said our friend, &lsquo;not a soul with us but Mincin.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;And who is Mincin?&rsquo; was our natural inquiry.&nbsp; &lsquo;O
don&rsquo;t mind him,&rsquo; replied our friend, &lsquo;he&rsquo;s a
most particular friend of mine, and a very friendly fellow you will
find him;&rsquo; and so he left us.</p>
<p>&lsquo;We thought no more about Mincin until we duly presented ourselves
at the house next day, when, after a hearty welcome, our friend motioned
towards a gentleman who had been previously showing his teeth by the
fireplace, and gave us to understand that it was Mr. Mincin, of whom
he had spoken.&nbsp; It required no great penetration on our part to
discover at once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a very friendly
young gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am delighted,&rsquo; said Mincin, hastily advancing, and
pressing our hand warmly between both of his, &lsquo;I am delighted,
I am sure, to make your acquaintance&mdash;(here he smiled)&mdash;very
much delighted indeed&mdash;(here he exhibited a little emotion)&mdash;I
assure you that I have looked forward to it anxiously for a very long
time:&rsquo; here he released our hands, and rubbing his own, observed,
that the day was severe, but that he was delighted to perceive from
our appearance that it agreed with us wonderfully; and then went on
to observe, that, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, he had
that morning seen in the paper an exceedingly curious paragraph, to
the effect, that there was now in the garden of Mr. Wilkins of Chichester,
a pumpkin, measuring four feet in height, and eleven feet seven inches
in circumference, which he looked upon as a very extraordinary piece
of intelligence.&nbsp; We ventured to remark, that we had a dim recollection
of having once or twice before observed a similar paragraph in the public
prints, upon which Mr. Mincin took us confidentially by the button,
and said, Exactly, exactly, to be sure, we were very right, and he wondered
what the editors meant by putting in such things.&nbsp; Who the deuce,
he should like to know, did they suppose cared about them? that struck
him as being the best of it.</p>
<p>The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s
friendliness, as will readily be supposed, suffered no diminution in
consequence; he exerted much strength and skill in wheeling a large
easy-chair up to the fire, and the lady being seated in it, carefully
closed the door, stirred the fire, and looked to the windows to see
that they admitted no air; having satisfied himself upon all these points,
he expressed himself quite easy in his mind, and begged to know how
she found herself to-day.&nbsp; Upon the lady&rsquo;s replying very
well, Mr. Mincin (who it appeared was a medical gentleman) offered some
general remarks upon the nature and treatment of colds in the head,
which occupied us agreeably until dinner-time.&nbsp; During the meal,
he devoted himself to complimenting everybody, not forgetting himself,
so that we were an uncommonly agreeable quartette.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Capper,&rsquo; said Mr. Mincin to
our host, as he closed the room door after the lady had retired, &lsquo;you
have very great reason to be fond of your wife.&nbsp; Sweet woman, Mrs.
Capper, sir!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Nay, Mincin&mdash;I beg,&rsquo; interposed
the host, as we were about to reply that Mrs. Capper unquestionably
was particularly sweet.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray, Mincin, don&rsquo;t.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Mincin, &lsquo;why not?&nbsp; Why
should you feel any delicacy before your old friend&mdash;<i>our</i>
old friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, sir; why should you,
I ask?&rsquo;&nbsp; We of course wished to know why he should also,
upon which our friend admitted that Mrs. Capper <i>was</i> a very sweet
woman, at which admission Mr. Mincin cried &lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo; and
begged to propose Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our
host said, &lsquo;Thank you, Mincin,&rsquo; with deep feeling; and gave
us, in a low voice, to understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper&rsquo;s
cousin&rsquo;s life no less than fourteen times in a year and a half,
which he considered no common circumstance&mdash;an opinion to which
we most cordially subscribed.</p>
<p>Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with conversation,
Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s extreme friendliness became every moment more apparent;
he was so amazingly friendly, indeed, that it was impossible to talk
about anything in which he had not the chief concern.&nbsp; We happened
to allude to some affairs in which our friend and we had been mutually
engaged nearly fourteen years before, when Mr. Mincin was all at once
reminded of a joke which our friend had made on that day four years,
which he positively must insist upon telling&mdash;and which he did
tell accordingly, with many pleasant recollections of what he said,
and what Mrs. Capper said, and how he well remembered that they had
been to the play with orders on the very night previous, and had seen
Romeo and Juliet, and the pantomime, and how Mrs. Capper being faint
had been led into the lobby, where she smiled, said it was nothing after
all, and went back again, with many other interesting and absorbing
particulars: after which the friendly young gentleman went on to assure
us, that our friend had experienced a marvellously prophetic opinion
of that same pantomime, which was of such an admirable kind, that two
morning papers took the same view next day: to this our friend replied,
with a little triumph, that in that instance he had some reason to think
he had been correct, which gave the friendly young gentleman occasion
to believe that our friend was always correct; and so we went on, until
our friend, filling a bumper, said he must drink one glass to his dear
friend Mincin, than whom he would say no man saved the lives of his
acquaintances more, or had a more friendly heart.&nbsp; Finally, our
friend having emptied his glass, said, &lsquo;God bless you, Mincin,&rsquo;&mdash;and
Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much affection and
earnestness.</p>
<p>But great as the friendly young gentleman is, in a limited scene
like this, he plays the same part on a larger scale with increased <i>&eacute;clat</i>.&nbsp;
Mr. Mincin is invited to an evening party with his dear friends the
Martins, where he meets his dear friends the Cappers, and his dear friends
the Watsons, and a hundred other dear friends too numerous to mention.&nbsp;
He is as much at home with the Martins as with the Cappers; but how
exquisitely he balances his attentions, and divides them among his dear
friends!&nbsp; If he flirts with one of the Miss Watsons, he has one
little Martin on the sofa pulling his hair, and the other little Martin
on the carpet riding on his foot.&nbsp; He carries Mrs. Watson down
to supper on one arm, and Miss Martin on the other, and takes wine so
judiciously, and in such exact order, that it is impossible for the
most punctilious old lady to consider herself neglected.&nbsp; If any
young lady, being prevailed upon to sing, become nervous afterwards,
Mr. Mincin leads her tenderly into the next room, and restores her with
port wine, which she must take medicinally.&nbsp; If any gentleman be
standing by the piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin
seizes him by the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating
time the while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception
of the delicacy of the passage.&nbsp; If anybody&rsquo;s self-love is
to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand.&nbsp; If anybody&rsquo;s overweening
vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it.&nbsp; What wonder
that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s friendliness;
that he is universally allowed to be handsome as amiable; that mothers
think him an oracle, daughters a dear, brothers a beau, and fathers
a wonder!&nbsp; And who would not have the reputation of the very friendly
young gentleman?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE MILITARY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We are rather at a loss to imagine how it has come to pass that military
young gentlemen have obtained so much favour in the eyes of the young
ladies of this kingdom.&nbsp; We cannot think so lightly of them as
to suppose that the mere circumstance of a man&rsquo;s wearing a red
coat ensures him a ready passport to their regard; and even if this
were the case, it would be no satisfactory explanation of the circumstance,
because, although the analogy may in some degree hold good in the case
of mail coachmen and guards, still general postmen wear red coats, and
<i>they</i> are not to our knowledge better received than other men;
nor are firemen either, who wear (or used to wear) not only red coats,
but very resplendent and massive badges besides&mdash;much larger than
epaulettes.&nbsp; Neither do the twopenny post-office boys, if the result
of our inquiries be correct, find any peculiar favour in woman&rsquo;s
eyes, although they wear very bright red jackets, and have the additional
advantage of constantly appearing in public on horseback, which last
circumstance may be naturally supposed to be greatly in their favour.</p>
<p>We have sometimes thought that this phenomenon may take its rise
in the conventional behaviour of captains and colonels and other gentlemen
in red coats on the stage, where they are invariably represented as
fine swaggering fellows, talking of nothing but charming girls, their
king and country, their honour, and their debts, and crowing over the
inferior classes of the community, whom they occasionally treat with
a little gentlemanly swindling, no less to the improvement and pleasure
of the audience, than to the satisfaction and approval of the choice
spirits who consort with them.&nbsp; But we will not devote these pages
to our speculations upon the subject, inasmuch as our business at the
present moment is not so much with the young ladies who are bewitched
by her Majesty&rsquo;s livery as with the young gentlemen whose heads
are turned by it.&nbsp; For &lsquo;heads&rsquo; we had written &lsquo;brains;&rsquo;
but upon consideration, we think the former the more appropriate word
of the two.</p>
<p>These young gentlemen may be divided into two classes&mdash;young
gentlemen who are actually in the army, and young gentlemen who, having
an intense and enthusiastic admiration for all things appertaining to
a military life, are compelled by adverse fortune or adverse relations
to wear out their existence in some ignoble counting-house.&nbsp; We
will take this latter description of military young gentlemen first.</p>
<p>The whole heart and soul of the military young gentleman are concentrated
in his favourite topic.&nbsp; There is nothing that he is so learned
upon as uniforms; he will tell you, without faltering for an instant,
what the habiliments of any one regiment are turned up with, what regiment
wear stripes down the outside and inside of the leg, and how many buttons
the Tenth had on their coats; he knows to a fraction how many yards
and odd inches of gold lace it takes to make an ensign in the Guards;
is deeply read in the comparative merits of different bands, and the
apparelling of trumpeters; and is very luminous indeed in descanting
upon &lsquo;crack regiments,&rsquo; and the &lsquo;crack&rsquo; gentlemen
who compose them, of whose mightiness and grandeur he is never tired
of telling.</p>
<p>We were suggesting to a military young gentleman only the other day,
after he had related to us several dazzling instances of the profusion
of half-a-dozen honourable ensign somebodies or nobodies in the articles
of kid gloves and polished boots, that possibly &lsquo;cracked&rsquo;
regiments would be an improvement upon &lsquo;crack,&rsquo; as being
a more expressive and appropriate designation, when he suddenly interrupted
us by pulling out his watch, and observing that he must hurry off to
the Park in a cab, or he would be too late to hear the band play.&nbsp;
Not wishing to interfere with so important an engagement, and being
in fact already slightly overwhelmed by the anecdotes of the honourable
ensigns afore-mentioned, we made no attempt to detain the military young
gentleman, but parted company with ready good-will.</p>
<p>Some three or four hours afterwards, we chanced to be walking down
Whitehall, on the Admiralty side of the way, when, as we drew near to
one of the little stone places in which a couple of horse soldiers mount
guard in the daytime, we were attracted by the motionless appearance
and eager gaze of a young gentleman, who was devouring both man and
horse with his eyes, so eagerly, that he seemed deaf and blind to all
that was passing around him.&nbsp; We were not much surprised at the
discovery that it was our friend, the military young gentleman, but
we <i>were</i> a little astonished when we returned from a walk to South
Lambeth to find him still there, looking on with the same intensity
as before.&nbsp; As it was a very windy day, we felt bound to awaken
the young gentleman from his reverie, when he inquired of us with great
enthusiasm, whether &lsquo;that was not a glorious spectacle,&rsquo;
and proceeded to give us a detailed account of the weight of every article
of the spectacle&rsquo;s trappings, from the man&rsquo;s gloves to the
horse&rsquo;s shoes.</p>
<p>We have made it a practice since, to take the Horse Guards in our
daily walk, and we find it is the custom of military young gentlemen
to plant themselves opposite the sentries, and contemplate them at leisure,
in periods varying from fifteen minutes to fifty, and averaging twenty-five.&nbsp;
We were much struck a day or two since, by the behaviour of a very promising
young butcher who (evincing an interest in the service, which cannot
be too strongly commanded or encouraged), after a prolonged inspection
of the sentry, proceeded to handle his boots with great curiosity, and
as much composure and indifference as if the man were wax-work.</p>
<p>But the really military young gentleman is waiting all this time,
and at the very moment that an apology rises to our lips, he emerges
from the barrack gate (he is quartered in a garrison town), and takes
the way towards the high street.&nbsp; He wears his undress uniform,
which somewhat mars the glory of his outward man; but still how great,
how grand, he is!&nbsp; What a happy mixture of ease and ferocity in
his gait and carriage, and how lightly he carries that dreadful sword
under his arm, making no more ado about it than if it were a silk umbrella!&nbsp;
The lion is sleeping: only think if an enemy were in sight, how soon
he&rsquo;d whip it out of the scabbard, and what a terrible fellow he
would be!</p>
<p>But he walks on, thinking of nothing less than blood and slaughter;
and now he comes in sight of three other military young gentlemen, arm-in-arm,
who are bearing down towards him, clanking their iron heels on the pavement,
and clashing their swords with a noise, which should cause all peaceful
men to quail at heart.&nbsp; They stop to talk.&nbsp; See how the flaxen-haired
young gentleman with the weak legs&mdash;he who has his pocket-handkerchief
thrust into the breast of his coat-glares upon the fainthearted civilians
who linger to look upon his glory; how the next young gentleman elevates
his head in the air, and majestically places his arms a-kimbo, while
the third stands with his legs very wide apart, and clasps his hands
behind him.&nbsp; Well may we inquire&mdash;not in familiar jest, but
in respectful earnest&mdash;if you call that nothing.&nbsp; Oh! if some
encroaching foreign power&mdash;the Emperor of Russia, for instance,
or any of those deep fellows, could only see those military young gentlemen
as they move on together towards the billiard-room over the way, wouldn&rsquo;t
he tremble a little!</p>
<p>And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by command
of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison&mdash;what
a splendid sight it is!&nbsp; How sternly the defenders of their country
look round the house as if in mute assurance to the audience, that they
may make themselves comfortable regarding any foreign invasion, for
they (the military young gentlemen) are keeping a sharp look-out, and
are ready for anything.&nbsp; And what a contrast between them, and
that stage-box full of grey-headed officers with tokens of many battles
about them, who have nothing at all in common with the military young
gentlemen, and who&mdash;but for an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity
in their looks and bearing&mdash;might be common hard-working soldiers
for anything they take the pains to announce to the contrary!</p>
<p>Ah! here is a family just come in who recognise the flaxen-headed
young gentleman; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman recognises them
too, only he doesn&rsquo;t care to show it just now.&nbsp; Very well
done indeed!&nbsp; He talks louder to the little group of military young
gentlemen who are standing by him, and coughs to induce some ladies
in the next box but one to look round, in order that their faces may
undergo the same ordeal of criticism to which they have subjected, in
not a wholly inaudible tone, the majority of the female portion of the
audience.&nbsp; Oh! a gentleman in the same box looks round as if he
were disposed to resent this as an impertinence; and the flaxen-headed
young gentleman sees his friends at once, and hurries away to them with
the most charming cordiality.</p>
<p>Three young ladies, one young man, and the mamma of the party, receive
the military young gentleman with great warmth and politeness, and in
five minutes afterwards the military young gentleman, stimulated by
the mamma, introduces the two other military young gentlemen with whom
he was walking in the morning, who take their seats behind the young
ladies and commence conversation; whereat the mamma bestows a triumphant
bow upon a rival mamma, who has not succeeded in decoying any military
young gentlemen, and prepares to consider her visitors from that moment
three of the most elegant and superior young gentlemen in the whole
world.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Once upon a time&mdash;<i>not</i> in the days when pigs drank wine,
but in a more recent period of our history&mdash;it was customary to
banish politics when ladies were present.&nbsp; If this usage still
prevailed, we should have had no chapter for political young gentlemen,
for ladies would have neither known nor cared what kind of monster a
political young gentleman was.&nbsp; But as this good custom in common
with many others has &lsquo;gone out,&rsquo; and left no word when it
is likely to be home again; as political young ladies are by no means
rare, and political young gentlemen the very reverse of scarce, we are
bound in the strict discharge of our most responsible duty not to neglect
this natural division of our subject.</p>
<p>If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and
there <i>are</i> political young gentlemen in country towns sometimes),
he is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles
communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote, so
the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists his mental
vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party feeling.&nbsp;
The political young gentleman would as soon think of being struck with
the beauty of a young lady in the opposite interest, as he would dream
of marrying his sister to the opposite member.</p>
<p>If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually
some vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very clearly
explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing, and not to
be very easily got over by the other side.&nbsp; He has also some choice
sentences regarding church and state, culled from the banners in use
at the last election, with which he intersperses his conversation at
intervals with surprising effect.&nbsp; But his great topic is the constitution,
upon which he will declaim, by the hour together, with much heat and
fury; not that he has any particular information on the subject, but
because he knows that the constitution is somehow church and state,
and church and state somehow the constitution, and that the fellows
on the other side say it isn&rsquo;t, which is quite a sufficient reason
for him to say it is, and to stick to it.</p>
<p>Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people.&nbsp; If
a fight takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are broken,
and a few windows, the young gentleman throws down the newspaper with
a triumphant air, and exclaims, &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s your precious people!&rsquo;&nbsp;
If half-a-dozen boys run across the course at race time, when it ought
to be kept clear, the young gentleman looks indignantly round, and begs
you to observe the conduct of the people; if the gallery demand a hornpipe
between the play and the afterpiece, the same young gentleman cries
&lsquo;No&rsquo; and &lsquo;Shame&rsquo; till he is hoarse, and then
inquires with a sneer what you think of popular moderation <i>now</i>;
in short, the people form a never-failing theme for him; and when the
attorney, on the side of his candidate, dwells upon it with great power
of eloquence at election time, as he never fails to do, the young gentleman
and his friends, and the body they head, cheer with great violence against
<i>the other people</i>, with whom, of course, they have no possible
connexion.&nbsp; In much the same manner the audience at a theatre never
fail to be highly amused with any jokes at the expense of the public&mdash;always
laughing heartily at some other public, and never at themselves.</p>
<p>If the political young gentleman be a Radical, he is usually a very
profound person indeed, having great store of theoretical questions
to put to you, with an infinite variety of possible cases and logical
deductions therefrom.&nbsp; If he be of the utilitarian school, too,
which is more than probable, he is particularly pleasant company, having
many ingenious remarks to offer upon the voluntary principle and various
cheerful disquisitions connected with the population of the country,
the position of Great Britain in the scale of nations, and the balance
of power.&nbsp; Then he is exceedingly well versed in all doctrines
of political economy as laid down in the newspapers, and knows a great
many parliamentary speeches by heart; nay, he has a small stock of aphorisms,
none of them exceeding a couple of lines in length, which will settle
the toughest question and leave you nothing to say.&nbsp; He gives all
the young ladies to understand, that Miss Martineau is the greatest
woman that ever lived; and when they praise the good looks of Mr. Hawkins
the new member, says he&rsquo;s very well for a representative, all
things considered, but he wants a little calling to account, and he
is more than half afraid it will be necessary to bring him down on his
knees for that vote on the miscellaneous estimates.&nbsp; At this, the
young ladies express much wonderment, and say surely a Member of Parliament
is not to be brought upon his knees so easily; in reply to which the
political young gentleman smiles sternly, and throws out dark hints
regarding the speedy arrival of that day, when Members of Parliament
will be paid salaries, and required to render weekly accounts of their
proceedings, at which the young ladies utter many expressions of astonishment
and incredulity, while their lady-mothers regard the prophecy as little
else than blasphemous.</p>
<p>It is extremely improving and interesting to hear two political young
gentlemen, of diverse opinions, discuss some great question across a
dinner-table; such as, whether, if the public were admitted to Westminster
Abbey for nothing, they would or would not convey small chisels and
hammers in their pockets, and immediately set about chipping all the
noses off the statues; or whether, if they once got into the Tower for
a shilling, they would not insist upon trying the crown on their own
heads, and loading and firing off all the small arms in the armoury,
to the great discomposure of Whitechapel and the Minories.&nbsp; Upon
these, and many other momentous questions which agitate the public mind
in these desperate days, they will discourse with great vehemence and
irritation for a considerable time together, both leaving off precisely
where they began, and each thoroughly persuaded that he has got the
better of the other.</p>
<p>In society, at assemblies, balls, and playhouses, these political
young gentlemen are perpetually on the watch for a political allusion,
or anything which can be tortured or construed into being one; when,
thrusting themselves into the very smallest openings for their favourite
discourse, they fall upon the unhappy company tooth and nail.&nbsp;
They have recently had many favourable opportunities of opening in churches,
but as there the clergyman has it all his own way, and must not be contradicted,
whatever politics he preaches, they are fain to hold their tongues until
they reach the outer door, though at the imminent risk of bursting in
the effort.</p>
<p>As such discussions can please nobody but the talkative parties concerned,
we hope they will henceforth take the hint and discontinue them, otherwise
we now give them warning, that the ladies have our advice to discountenance
such talkers altogether.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Let us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon.&nbsp;
We are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this place,
he will answer our purpose without another word of comment.</p>
<p>Felix, then, is a young gentleman who lives at home with his mother,
just within the twopenny-post office circle of three miles from St.
Martin-le-Grand.&nbsp; He wears Indiarubber goloshes when the weather
is at all damp, and always has a silk handkerchief neatly folded up
in the right-hand pocket of his great-coat, to tie over his mouth when
he goes home at night; moreover, being rather near-sighted, he carries
spectacles for particular occasions, and has a weakish tremulous voice,
of which he makes great use, for he talks as much as any old lady breathing.</p>
<p>The two chief subjects of Felix&rsquo;s discourse, are himself and
his mother, both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and interesting
persons.&nbsp; As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in body, so
Felix and his mother are scarcely ever separate in spirit.&nbsp; If
you ask Felix how he finds himself to-day, he prefaces his reply with
a long and minute bulletin of his mother&rsquo;s state of health; and
the good lady in her turn, edifies her acquaintance with a circumstantial
and alarming account, how he sneezed four times and coughed once after
being out in the rain the other night, but having his feet promptly
put into hot water, and his head into a flannel-something, which we
will not describe more particularly than by this delicate allusion,
was happily brought round by the next morning, and enabled to go to
business as usual.</p>
<p>Our friend is not a very adventurous or hot-headed person, but he
has passed through many dangers, as his mother can testify: there is
one great story in particular, concerning a hackney coachman who wanted
to overcharge him one night for bringing them home from the play, upon
which Felix gave the aforesaid coachman a look which his mother thought
would have crushed him to the earth, but which did not crush him quite,
for he continued to demand another sixpence, notwithstanding that Felix
took out his pocket-book, and, with the aid of a flat candle, pointed
out the fare in print, which the coachman obstinately disregarding,
he shut the street-door with a slam which his mother shudders to think
of; and then, roused to the most appalling pitch of passion by the coachman
knocking a double knock to show that he was by no means convinced, he
broke with uncontrollable force from his parent and the servant girl,
and running into the street without his hat, actually shook his fist
at the coachman, and came back again with a face as white, Mrs. Nixon
says, looking about her for a simile, as white as that ceiling.&nbsp;
She never will forget his fury that night, Never!</p>
<p>To this account Felix listens with a solemn face, occasionally looking
at you to see how it affects you, and when his mother has made an end
of it, adds that he looked at every coachman he met for three weeks
afterwards, in hopes that he might see the scoundrel; whereupon Mrs.
Nixon, with an exclamation of terror, requests to know what he would
have done to him if he <i>had</i> seen him, at which Felix smiling darkly
and clenching his right fist, she exclaims, &lsquo;Goodness gracious!&rsquo;
with a distracted air, and insists upon extorting a promise that he
never will on any account do anything so rash, which her dutiful son&mdash;it
being something more than three years since the offence was committed&mdash;reluctantly
concedes, and his mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with
a sigh that his spirit will lead him into something violent yet.&nbsp;
The discourse then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which
glows within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes
eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used
to sit up till two o&rsquo;clock in the morning reading French, and
how his mother used to say, &lsquo;Felix, you will make yourself ill,
I know you will;&rsquo; and how <i>he</i> used to say, &lsquo;Mother,
I don&rsquo;t care&mdash;I will do it;&rsquo; and how at last his mother
privately procured a doctor to come and see him, who declared, the moment
he felt his pulse, that if he had gone on reading one night more&mdash;only
one night more&mdash;he must have put a blister on each temple, and
another between his shoulders; and who, as it was, sat down upon the
instant, and writing a prescription for a blue pill, said it must be
taken immediately, or he wouldn&rsquo;t answer for the consequences.&nbsp;
The recital of these and many other moving perils of the like nature,
constantly harrows up the feelings of Mr. Nixon&rsquo;s friends.</p>
<p>Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance,
being a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the unmarried
girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues of her son,
hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins him, but that
they must mind their P&rsquo;s and Q&rsquo;s, for he is very particular,
and terribly severe upon young ladies.&nbsp; At this last caution the
young ladies resident in the same row, who happen to be spending the
evening there, put their pocket-handkerchiefs before their mouths, and
are troubled with a short cough; just then Felix knocks at the door,
and his mother drawing the tea-table nearer the fire, calls out to him
as he takes off his boots in the back parlour that he needn&rsquo;t
mind coming in in his slippers, for there are only the two Miss Greys
and Miss Thompson, and she is quite sure they will excuse <i>him</i>,
and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she adds, in a whisper, that Julia
Thompson is a great favourite with Felix, at which intelligence the
short cough comes again, and Miss Thompson in particular is greatly
troubled with it, till Felix coming in, very faint for want of his tea,
changes the subject of discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly
and tell Amelia Grey not to be so foolish.&nbsp; Here they all three
laugh, and Mrs. Nixon says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the
proceedings, Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the
grateful herb that &lsquo;cheers but not inebriates,&rsquo; removes
his cup from his countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all
girls are; whereat his admiring mamma pats him on the back and tells
him not to be sly, which calls forth a general laugh from the young
ladies, and another smile from Felix, who, thinking he looks very sly
indeed, is perfectly satisfied.</p>
<p>Tea being over, the young ladies resume their work, and Felix insists
upon holding a skein of silk while Miss Thompson winds it on a card.&nbsp;
This process having been performed to the satisfaction of all parties,
he brings down his flute in compliance with a request from the youngest
Miss Grey, and plays divers tunes out of a very small music-book till
supper-time, when he is very facetious and talkative indeed.&nbsp; Finally,
after half a tumblerful of warm sherry and water, he gallantly puts
on his goloshes over his slippers, and telling Miss Thompson&rsquo;s
servant to run on first and get the door open, escorts that young lady
to her house, five doors off: the Miss Greys who live in the next house
but one stopping to peep with merry faces from their own door till he
comes back again, when they call out &lsquo;Very well, Mr. Felix,&rsquo;
and trip into the passage with a laugh more musical than any flute that
was ever played.</p>
<p>Felix is rather prim in his appearance, and perhaps a little priggish
about his books and flute, and so forth, which have all their peculiar
corners of peculiar shelves in his bedroom; indeed all his female acquaintance
(and they are good judges) have long ago set him down as a thorough
old bachelor.&nbsp; He is a favourite with them however, in a certain
way, as an honest, inoffensive, kind-hearted creature; and as his peculiarities
harm nobody, not even himself, we are induced to hope that many who
are not personally acquainted with him will take our good word in his
behalf, and be content to leave him to a long continuance of his harmless
existence.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE CENSORIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There is an amiable kind of young gentleman going about in society,
upon whom, after much experience of him, and considerable turning over
of the subject in our mind, we feel it our duty to affix the above appellation.&nbsp;
Young ladies mildly call him a &lsquo;sarcastic&rsquo; young gentleman,
or a &lsquo;severe&rsquo; young gentleman.&nbsp; We, who know better,
beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a censorious young
gentleman, and nothing else.</p>
<p>The censorious young gentleman has the reputation among his familiars
of a remarkably clever person, which he maintains by receiving all intelligence
and expressing all opinions with a dubious sneer, accompanied with a
half smile, expressive of anything you please but good-humour.&nbsp;
This sets people about thinking what on earth the censorious young gentleman
means, and they speedily arrive at the conclusion that he means something
very deep indeed; for they reason in this way&mdash;&lsquo;This young
gentleman looks so very knowing that he must mean something, and as
I am by no means a dull individual, what a very deep meaning he must
have if I can&rsquo;t find it out!&rsquo;&nbsp; It is extraordinary
how soon a censorious young gentleman may make a reputation in his own
small circle if he bear this in his mind, and regulate his proceedings
accordingly.</p>
<p>As young ladies are generally&mdash;not curious, but laudably desirous
to acquire information, the censorious young gentleman is much talked
about among them, and many surmises are hazarded regarding him.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I wonder,&rsquo; exclaims the eldest Miss Greenwood, laying down
her work to turn up the lamp, &lsquo;I wonder whether Mr. Fairfax will
ever be married.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Bless me, dear,&rsquo; cries Miss
Marshall, &lsquo;what ever made you think of him?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Really
I hardly know,&rsquo; replies Miss Greenwood; &lsquo;he is such a very
mysterious person, that I often wonder about him.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,
to tell you the truth,&rsquo; replies Miss Marshall, &lsquo;and so do
I.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here two other young ladies profess that they are constantly
doing the like, and all present appear in the same condition except
one young lady, who, not scrupling to state that she considers Mr. Fairfax
&lsquo;a horror,&rsquo; draws down all the opposition of the others,
which having been expressed in a great many ejaculatory passages, such
as &lsquo;Well, did I ever!&rsquo;&mdash;and &lsquo;Lor, Emily, dear!&rsquo;
ma takes up the subject, and gravely states, that she must say she does
not think Mr. Fairfax by any means a horror, but rather takes him to
be a young man of very great ability; &lsquo;and I am quite sure,&rsquo;
adds the worthy lady, &lsquo;he always means a great deal more than
he says.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The door opens at this point of the disclosure, and who of all people
alive walks into the room, but the very Mr. Fairfax, who has been the
subject of conversation!&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, it really is curious,&rsquo;
cries ma, &lsquo;we were at that very moment talking about you.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;You did me great honour,&rsquo; replies Mr. Fairfax; &lsquo;may
I venture to ask what you were saying?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Why, if you
must know,&rsquo; returns the eldest girl, &lsquo;we were remarking
what a very mysterious man you are.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ay, ay!&rsquo;
observes Mr. Fairfax, &lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo;&nbsp; Now Mr. Fairfax says
this ay, ay, and indeed, which are slight words enough in themselves,
with so very unfathomable an air, and accompanies them with such a very
equivocal smile, that ma and the young ladies are more than ever convinced
that he means an immensity, and so tell him he is a very dangerous man,
and seems to be always thinking ill of somebody, which is precisely
the sort of character the censorious young gentleman is most desirous
to establish; wherefore he says, &lsquo;Oh, dear, no,&rsquo; in a tone,
obviously intended to mean, &lsquo;You have me there,&rsquo; and which
gives them to understand that they have hit the right nail on the very
centre of its head.</p>
<p>When the conversation ranges from the mystery overhanging the censorious
young gentleman&rsquo;s behaviour, to the general topics of the day,
he sustains his character to admiration.&nbsp; He considers the new
tragedy well enough for a new tragedy, but Lord bless us&mdash;well,
no matter; he could say a great deal on that point, but he would rather
not, lest he should be thought ill-natured, as he knows he would be.&nbsp;
&lsquo;But is not Mr. So-and-so&rsquo;s performance truly charming?&rsquo;
inquires a young lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Charming!&rsquo; replies the censorious
young gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, dear, yes, certainly; very charming&mdash;oh,
very charming indeed.&rsquo;&nbsp; After this, he stirs the fire, smiling
contemptuously all the while: and a modest young gentleman, who has
been a silent listener, thinks what a great thing it must be, to have
such a critical judgment.&nbsp; Of music, pictures, books, and poetry,
the censorious young gentleman has an equally fine conception.&nbsp;
As to men and women, he can tell all about them at a glance.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now
let us hear your opinion of young Mrs. Barker,&rsquo; says some great
believer in the powers of Mr. Fairfax, &lsquo;but don&rsquo;t be too
severe.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I never am severe,&rsquo; replies the censorious
young gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, never mind that now.&nbsp; She is
very lady-like, is she not?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Lady-like!&rsquo; repeats
the censorious young gentleman (for he always repeats when he is at
a loss for anything to say).&nbsp; &lsquo;Did you observe her manner?&nbsp;
Bless my heart and soul, Mrs. Thompson, did you observe her manner?&mdash;that&rsquo;s
all I ask.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I thought I had done so,&rsquo; rejoins
the poor lady, much perplexed; &lsquo;I did not observe it very closely
perhaps.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, not very closely,&rsquo; rejoins the
censorious young gentleman, triumphantly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Very good; then
<i>I</i> did.&nbsp; Let us talk no more about her.&rsquo;&nbsp; The
censorious young gentleman purses up his lips, and nods his head sagely,
as he says this; and it is forthwith whispered about, that Mr. Fairfax
(who, though he is a little prejudiced, must be admitted to be a very
excellent judge) has observed something exceedingly odd in Mrs. Barker&rsquo;s
manner.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE FUNNY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>As one funny young gentleman will serve as a sample of all funny
young Gentlemen we purpose merely to note down the conduct and behaviour
of an individual specimen of this class, whom we happened to meet at
an annual family Christmas party in the course of this very last Christmas
that ever came.</p>
<p>We were all seated round a blazing fire which crackled pleasantly
as the guests talked merrily and the urn steamed cheerily&mdash;for,
being an old-fashioned party, there <i>was</i> an urn, and a teapot
besides&mdash;when there came a postman&rsquo;s knock at the door, so
violent and sudden, that it startled the whole circle, and actually
caused two or three very interesting and most unaffected young ladies
to scream aloud and to exhibit many afflicting symptoms of terror and
distress, until they had been several times assured by their respective
adorers, that they were in no danger.&nbsp; We were about to remark
that it was surely beyond post-time, and must have been a runaway knock,
when our host, who had hitherto been paralysed with wonder, sank into
a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and offered to lay twenty
pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins.&nbsp; He had no sooner said
this, than the majority of the company and all the children of the house
burst into a roar of laughter too, as if some inimitable joke flashed
upon them simultaneously, and gave vent to various exclamations of&mdash;To
be sure it must be Griggins, and How like him that was, and What spirits
he was always in! with many other commendatory remarks of the like nature.</p>
<p>Not having the happiness to know Griggins, we became extremely desirous
to see so pleasant a fellow, the more especially as a stout gentleman
with a powdered head, who was sitting with his breeches buckles almost
touching the hob, whispered us he was a wit of the first water, when
the door opened, and Mr. Griggins being announced, presented himself,
amidst another shout of laughter and a loud clapping of hands from the
younger branches.&nbsp; This welcome he acknowledged by sundry contortions
of countenance, imitative of the clown in one of the new pantomimes,
which were so extremely successful, that one stout gentleman rolled
upon an ottoman in a paroxysm of delight, protesting, with many gasps,
that if somebody didn&rsquo;t make that fellow Griggins leave off, he
would be the death of him, he knew.&nbsp; At this the company only laughed
more boisterously than before, and as we always like to accommodate
our tone and spirit if possible to the humour of any society in which
we find ourself, we laughed with the rest, and exclaimed, &lsquo;Oh!
capital, capital!&rsquo; as loud as any of them.</p>
<p>When he had quite exhausted all beholders, Mr. Griggins received
the welcomes and congratulations of the circle, and went through the
needful introductions with much ease and many puns.&nbsp; This ceremony
over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody&rsquo;s lap unless
the young ladies made room for him on the sofa, which being done, after
a great deal of tittering and pleasantry, he squeezed himself among
them, and likened his condition to that of love among the roses.&nbsp;
At this novel jest we all roared once more.&nbsp; &lsquo;You should
consider yourself highly honoured, sir,&rsquo; said we.&nbsp; &lsquo;Sir,&rsquo;
replied Mr. Griggins, &lsquo;you do me proud.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here everybody
laughed again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our
ear that Griggins was making a dead set at us.</p>
<p>The tea-things having been removed, we all sat down to a round game,
and here Mr. Griggins shone forth with peculiar brilliancy, abstracting
other people&rsquo;s fish, and looking over their hands in the most
comical manner.&nbsp; He made one most excellent joke in snuffing a
candle, which was neither more nor less than setting fire to the hair
of a pale young gentleman who sat next him, and afterwards begging his
pardon with considerable humour.&nbsp; As the young gentleman could
not see the joke however, possibly in consequence of its being on the
top of his own head, it did not go off quite as well as it might have
done; indeed, the young gentleman was heard to murmur some general references
to &lsquo;impertinence,&rsquo; and a &lsquo;rascal,&rsquo; and to state
the number of his lodgings in an angry tone&mdash;a turn of the conversation
which might have been productive of slaughterous consequences, if a
young lady, betrothed to the young gentleman, had not used her immediate
influence to bring about a reconciliation: emphatically declaring in
an agitated whisper, intended for his peculiar edification but audible
to the whole table, that if he went on in that way, she never would
think of him otherwise than as a friend, though as that she must always
regard him.&nbsp; At this terrible threat the young gentleman became
calm, and the young lady, overcome by the revulsion of feeling, instantaneously
fainted.</p>
<p>Mr. Griggins&rsquo;s spirits were slightly depressed for a short
period by this unlooked-for result of such a harmless pleasantry, but
being promptly elevated by the attentions of the host and several glasses
of wine, he soon recovered, and became even more vivacious than before,
insomuch that the stout gentleman previously referred to, assured us
that although he had known him since he was <i>that</i> high (something
smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld him in such excellent
cue.</p>
<p>When the round game and several games at blind man&rsquo;s buff which
followed it were all over, and we were going down to supper, the inexhaustible
Mr. Griggins produced a small sprig of mistletoe from his waistcoat
pocket, and commenced a general kissing of the assembled females, which
occasioned great commotion and much excitement.&nbsp; We observed that
several young gentlemen&mdash;including the young gentleman with the
pale countenance&mdash;were greatly scandalised at this indecorous proceeding,
and talked very big among themselves in corners; and we observed too,
that several young ladies when remonstrated with by the aforesaid young
gentlemen, called each other to witness how they had struggled, and
protested vehemently that it was very rude, and that they were surprised
at Mrs. Brown&rsquo;s allowing it, and that they couldn&rsquo;t bear
it, and had no patience with such impertinence.&nbsp; But such is the
gentle and forgiving nature of woman, that although we looked very narrowly
for it, we could not detect the slightest harshness in the subsequent
treatment of Mr. Griggins.&nbsp; Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us
that among the ladies he seemed rather more popular than before!</p>
<p>To recount all the drollery of Mr. Griggins at supper, would fill
such a tiny volume as this, to the very bottom of the outside cover.&nbsp;
How he drank out of other people&rsquo;s glasses, and ate of other people&rsquo;s
bread, how he frightened into screaming convulsions a little boy who
was sitting up to supper in a high chair, by sinking below the table
and suddenly reappearing with a mask on; how the hostess was really
surprised that anybody could find a pleasure in tormenting children,
and how the host frowned at the hostess, and felt convinced that Mr.
Griggins had done it with the very best intentions; how Mr. Griggins
explained, and how everybody&rsquo;s good-humour was restored but the
child&rsquo;s;&mdash;to tell these and a hundred other things ever so
briefly, would occupy more of our room and our readers&rsquo; patience,
than either they or we can conveniently spare.&nbsp; Therefore we change
the subject, merely observing that we have offered no description of
the funny young gentleman&rsquo;s personal appearance, believing that
almost every society has a Griggins of its own, and leaving all readers
to supply the deficiency, according to the particular circumstances
of their particular case.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE THEATRICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>All gentlemen who love the drama&mdash;and there are few gentlemen
who are not attached to the most intellectual and rational of all our
amusements&mdash;do not come within this definition.&nbsp; As we have
no mean relish for theatrical entertainments ourself, we are disinterestedly
anxious that this should be perfectly understood.</p>
<p>The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information
on all theatrical topics.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; says he, abruptly,
when you meet him in the street, &lsquo;here&rsquo;s a pretty to-do.&nbsp;
Flimkins has thrown up his part in the melodrama at the Surrey.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;And
what&rsquo;s to be done?&rsquo; you inquire with as much gravity as
you can counterfeit.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s the point,&rsquo;
replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; &lsquo;Boozle
declines it; positively declines it.&nbsp; From all I am told, I should
say it was decidedly in Boozle&rsquo;s line, and that he would be very
likely to make a great hit in it; but he objects on the ground of Flimkins
having been put up in the part first, and says no earthly power shall
induce him to take the character.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a fine part, too&mdash;excellent
business, I&rsquo;m told.&nbsp; He has to kill six people in the course
of the piece, and to fight over a bridge in red fire, which is as safe
a card, you know, as can be.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t mention it; but I hear
that the last scene, when he is first poisoned, and then stabbed, by
Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora, will be the greatest thing that has been
done these many years.&rsquo;&nbsp; With this piece of news, and laying
his finger on his lips as a caution for you not to excite the town with
it, the theatrical young gentleman hurries away.</p>
<p>The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the different
theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for them all.&nbsp;
Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane, the Victoria
the vic, and the Olympic the pic.&nbsp; Actresses, too, are always designated
by their surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett, Faucit, Honey; that talented
and lady-like girl Sheriff, that clever little creature Horton, and
so on.&nbsp; In the same manner he prefixes Christian names when he
mentions actors, as Charley Young, Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul
Bedford.&nbsp; When he is at a loss for a Christian name, the word &lsquo;old&rsquo;
applied indiscriminately answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews
at Vestris&rsquo;s, old Harley, and old Braham.&nbsp; He has a great
knowledge of the private proceedings of actresses, especially of their
getting married, and can tell you in a breath half-a-dozen who have
changed their names without avowing it.&nbsp; Whenever an alteration
of this kind is made in the playbills, he will remind you that he let
you into the secret six months ago.</p>
<p>The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that
is connected with the stage department of the different theatres.&nbsp;
He would, at any time, prefer going a street or two out of his way,
to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he always looks with
a curious and searching eye.&nbsp; If he can only identify a popular
actor in the street, he is in a perfect transport of delight; and no
sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a few paces in front
of him, so that he can turn round from time to time, and have a good
stare at his features.&nbsp; He looks upon a theatrical-fund dinner
as one of the most enchanting festivities ever known; and thinks that
to be a member of the Garrick Club, and see so many actors in their
plain clothes, must be one of the highest gratifications the world can
bestow.</p>
<p>The theatrical young gentleman is a constant half-price visitor at
one or other of the theatres, and has an infinite relish for all pieces
which display the fullest resources of the establishment.&nbsp; He likes
to place implicit reliance upon the play-bills when he goes to see a
show-piece, and works himself up to such a pitch of enthusiasm, as not
only to believe (if the bills say so) that there are three hundred and
seventy-five people on the stage at one time in the last scene, but
is highly indignant with you, unless you believe it also.&nbsp; He considers
that if the stage be opened from the foot-lights to the back wall, in
any new play, the piece is a triumph of dramatic writing, and applauds
accordingly.&nbsp; He has a great notion of trap-doors too; and thinks
any character going down or coming up a trap (no matter whether he be
an angel or a demon&mdash;they both do it occasionally) one of the most
interesting feats in the whole range of scenic illusion.</p>
<p>Besides these acquirements, he has several veracious accounts to
communicate of the private manners and customs of different actors,
which, during the pauses of a quadrille, he usually communicates to
his partner, or imparts to his neighbour at a supper table.&nbsp; Thus
he is advised, that Mr. Liston always had a footman in gorgeous livery
waiting at the side-scene with a brandy bottle and tumbler, to administer
half a pint or so of spirit to him every time he came off, without which
assistance he must infallibly have fainted.&nbsp; He knows for a fact,
that, after an arduous part, Mr. George Bennett is put between two feather
beds, to absorb the perspiration; and is credibly informed, that Mr.
Baker has, for many years, submitted to a course of lukewarm toast-and-water,
to qualify him to sustain his favourite characters.&nbsp; He looks upon
Mr. Fitz Ball as the principal dramatic genius and poet of the day;
but holds that there are great writers extant besides him,&mdash;in
proof whereof he refers you to various dramas and melodramas recently
produced, of which he takes in all the sixpenny and three-penny editions
as fast as they appear.</p>
<p>The theatrical young gentleman is a great advocate for violence of
emotion and redundancy of action.&nbsp; If a father has to curse a child
upon the stage, he likes to see it done in the thorough-going style,
with no mistake about it: to which end it is essential that the child
should follow the father on her knees, and be knocked violently over
on her face by the old gentleman as he goes into a small cottage, and
shuts the door behind him.&nbsp; He likes to see a blessing invoked
upon the young lady, when the old gentleman repents, with equal earnestness,
and accompanied by the usual conventional forms, which consist of the
old gentleman looking anxiously up into the clouds, as if to see whether
it rains, and then spreading an imaginary tablecloth in the air over
the young lady&rsquo;s head&mdash;soft music playing all the while.&nbsp;
Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young
gentleman is a great critic indeed.&nbsp; He is likewise very acute
in judging of natural expressions of the passions, and knows precisely
the frown, wink, nod, or leer, which stands for any one of them, or
the means by which it may be converted into any other: as jealousy,
with a good stamp of the right foot, becomes anger; or wildness, with
the hands clasped before the throat, instead of tearing the wig, is
passionate love.&nbsp; If you venture to express a doubt of the accuracy
of any of these portraitures, the theatrical young gentleman assures
you, with a haughty smile, that it always has been done in that way,
and he supposes they are not going to change it at this time of day
to please you; to which, of course, you meekly reply that you suppose
not.</p>
<p>There are innumerable disquisitions of this nature, in which the
theatrical young gentleman is very profound, especially to ladies whom
he is most in the habit of entertaining with them; but as we have no
space to recapitulate them at greater length, we must rest content with
calling the attention of the young ladies in general to the theatrical
young gentlemen of their own acquaintance.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic
raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the influence
of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down their shirt
collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets with bare throats
and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an astonished public.&nbsp;
These were poetical young gentlemen.&nbsp; The custom was gradually
found to be inconvenient, as involving the necessity of too much clean
linen and too large washing bills, and these outward symptoms have consequently
passed away; but we are disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the
number of poetical young gentlemen is considerably on the increase.</p>
<p>We know a poetical young gentleman&mdash;a very poetical young gentleman.&nbsp;
We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in
any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and melancholy
cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction of soul: he seldom
has his hair cut, and often talks about being an outcast and wanting
a kindred spirit; from which, as well as from many general observations
in which he is wont to indulge, concerning mysterious impulses, and
yearnings of the heart, and the supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly
things with the glowing magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all
his friends that he has been stricken poetical.</p>
<p>The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging
on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt upright
in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the opposite
wall.&nbsp; When he is in one of these positions, his mother, who is
a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to bespeak your
attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and whisper with a
shake of the head, that John&rsquo;s imagination is at some extraordinary
work or other, you may take her word for it.&nbsp; Hereupon John looks
more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before, and suddenly snatching
a pencil from his pocket, puts down three words, and a cross on the
back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once or twice across the room, inflicts
a most unmerciful slap upon his head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.</p>
<p>The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of
things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical obliquity
of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted.&nbsp; For instance,
when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched woman was affording
delicious food wherewithal to gorge the insatiable curiosity of the
public, our friend the poetical young gentleman was in ecstasies&mdash;not
of disgust, but admiration.&nbsp; &lsquo;Heavens!&rsquo; cried the poetical
young gentleman, &lsquo;how grand; how great!&rsquo;&nbsp; We ventured
deferentially to inquire upon whom these epithets were bestowed: our
humble thoughts oscillating between the police officer who found the
criminal, and the lock-keeper who found the head.&nbsp; &lsquo;Upon
whom!&rsquo; exclaimed the poetical young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry,
&lsquo;Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!&rsquo;&mdash;and
thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer
was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man
of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist
and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies
with the great and noble of the land.&nbsp; We held our peace, and meekly
signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions&mdash;firstly,
because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young gentleman;
and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use our entering
into any disputation, if we were: being perfectly convinced that the
respectable and immoral hero in question is not the first and will not
be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false sympathy or diseased curiosity
will be plentifully expended.</p>
<p>This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman.&nbsp;
In his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his neckcloth,
and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a Lady&rsquo;s
Magazine, or the &lsquo;Poets&rsquo; Corner&rsquo; of some country newspaper;
or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the rainbow
leaves of a lady&rsquo;s album.&nbsp; These are generally written upon
some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by midnight,
or beholding Saint Paul&rsquo;s in a snow-storm; and when these gloomy
objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his soul in a
touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that he is no longer
a child, but has gradually grown up.</p>
<p>The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his
favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school.&nbsp;
He has a great deal to say too about the world, and is much given to
opining, especially if he has taken anything strong to drink, that there
is nothing in it worth living for.&nbsp; He gives you to understand,
however, that for the sake of society, he means to bear his part in
the tiresome play, manfully resisting the gratification of his own strong
desire to make a premature exit; and consoles himself with the reflection,
that immortality has some chosen nook for himself and the other great
spirits whom earth has chafed and wearied.</p>
<p>When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are
all superlatives.&nbsp; Everything is of the grandest, greatest, noblest,
mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest, vilest, and
most pitiful.&nbsp; He knows no medium: for enthusiasm is the soul of
poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young gentleman?&nbsp;
&lsquo;Mr. Milkwash,&rsquo; says a young lady as she unlocks her album
to receive the young gentleman&rsquo;s original impromptu contribution,
&lsquo;how very silent you are!&nbsp; I think you must be in love.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Love!&rsquo; cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from
his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at full
speed, &lsquo;Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of
the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart.&nbsp; Love!&nbsp; The withering,
blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted.&nbsp;
Love did you say!&nbsp; Ha! ha! ha!&rsquo;</p>
<p>With this, the poetical young gentleman laughs a laugh belonging
only to poets and Mr. O. Smith of the Adelphi Theatre, and sits down,
pen in hand, to throw off a page or two of verse in the biting, semi-atheistical
demoniac style, which, like the poetical young gentleman himself, is
full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE &lsquo;THROWING-OFF&rsquo; YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There is a certain kind of impostor&mdash;a bragging, vaunting, puffing
young gentleman&mdash;against whom we are desirous to warn that fairer
part of the creation, to whom we more peculiarly devote these our labours.&nbsp;
And we are particularly induced to lay especial stress upon this division
of our subject, by a little dialogue we held some short time ago, with
an esteemed young lady of our acquaintance, touching a most gross specimen
of this class of men.&nbsp; We had been urging all the absurdities of
his conduct and conversation, and dwelling upon the impossibilities
he constantly recounted&mdash;to which indeed we had not scrupled to
prefix a certain hard little word of one syllable and three letters&mdash;when
our fair friend, unable to maintain the contest any longer, reluctantly
cried, &lsquo;Well; he certainly has a habit of throwing-off, but then&mdash;&rsquo;&nbsp;
What then?&nbsp; Throw him off yourself, said we.&nbsp; And so she did,
but not at our instance, for other reasons appeared, and it might have
been better if she had done so at first.</p>
<p>The throwing-off young gentleman has so often a father possessed
of vast property in some remote district of Ireland, that we look with
some suspicion upon all young gentlemen who volunteer this description
of themselves.&nbsp; The deceased grandfather of the throwing-off young
gentleman was a man of immense possessions, and untold wealth; the throwing-off
young gentleman remembers, as well as if it were only yesterday, the
deceased baronet&rsquo;s library, with its long rows of scarce and valuable
books in superbly embossed bindings, arranged in cases, reaching from
the lofty ceiling to the oaken floor; and the fine antique chairs and
tables, and the noble old castle of Ballykillbabaloo, with its splendid
prospect of hill and dale, and wood, and rich wild scenery, and the
fine hunting stables and the spacious court-yards, &lsquo;and&mdash;and&mdash;everything
upon the same magnificent scale,&rsquo; says the throwing-off young
gentleman, &lsquo;princely; quite princely.&nbsp; Ah!&rsquo;&nbsp; And
he sighs as if mourning over the fallen fortunes of his noble house.</p>
<p>The throwing-off young gentleman is a universal genius; at walking,
running, rowing, swimming, and skating, he is unrivalled; at all games
of chance or skill, at hunting, shooting, fishing, riding, driving,
or amateur theatricals, no one can touch him&mdash;that is <i>could</i>
not, because he gives you carefully to understand, lest there should
be any opportunity of testing his skill, that he is quite out of practice
just now, and has been for some years.&nbsp; If you mention any beautiful
girl of your common acquaintance in his hearing, the throwing-off young
gentleman starts, smiles, and begs you not to mind him, for it was quite
involuntary: people do say indeed that they were once engaged, but no&mdash;although
she is a very fine girl, he was so situated at that time that he couldn&rsquo;t
possibly encourage the&mdash;&lsquo;but it&rsquo;s of no use talking
about it!&rsquo; he adds, interrupting himself.&nbsp; &lsquo;She has
got over it now, and I firmly hope and trust is happy.&rsquo;&nbsp;
With this benevolent aspiration he nods his head in a mysterious manner,
and whistling the first part of some popular air, thinks perhaps it
will be better to change the subject.</p>
<p>There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young gentleman,
which is, that he &lsquo;happens to be acquainted&rsquo; with a most
extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world.&nbsp; Thus
in all disputed questions, when the throwing-off young gentleman has
no argument to bring forward, he invariably happens to be acquainted
with some distant person, intimately connected with the subject, whose
testimony decides the point against you, to the great&mdash;may we say
it&mdash;to the great admiration of three young ladies out of every
four, who consider the throwing-off young gentleman a very highly-connected
young man, and a most charming person.</p>
<p>Sometimes the throwing-off young gentleman happens to look in upon
a little family circle of young ladies who are quietly spending the
evening together, and then indeed is he at the very height and summit
of his glory; for it is to be observed that he by no means shines to
equal advantage in the presence of men as in the society of over-credulous
young ladies, which is his proper element.&nbsp; It is delightful to
hear the number of pretty things the throwing-off young gentleman gives
utterance to, during tea, and still more so to observe the ease with
which, from long practice and study, he delicately blends one compliment
to a lady with two for himself.&nbsp; &lsquo;Did you ever see a more
lovely blue than this flower, Mr. Caveton?&rsquo; asks a young lady
who, truth to tell, is rather smitten with the throwing-off young gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Never,&rsquo; he replies, bending over the object of admiration,
&lsquo;never but in your eyes.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, Mr. Caveton,&rsquo;
cries the young lady, blushing of course.&nbsp; &lsquo;Indeed I speak
the truth,&rsquo; replies the throwing-off young gentleman, &lsquo;I
never saw any approach to them.&nbsp; I used to think my cousin&rsquo;s
blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside yours.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!&rsquo; replies the young
lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing characteristic
of all young ladies; &lsquo;an affair, of course.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No;
indeed, indeed you wrong me,&rsquo; rejoins the throwing-off young gentleman
with great energy.&nbsp; &lsquo;I fervently hope that her attachment
towards me may be nothing but the natural result of our close intimacy
in childhood, and that in change of scene and among new faces she may
soon overcome it.&nbsp; <i>I</i> love her!&nbsp; Think not so meanly
of me, Miss Lowfield, I beseech, as to suppose that title, lands, riches,
and beauty, can influence <i>my</i> choice.&nbsp; The heart, the heart,
Miss Lowfield.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here the throwing-off young gentleman sinks
his voice to a still lower whisper; and the young lady duly proclaims
to all the other young ladies when they go up-stairs, to put their bonnets
on, that Mr. Caveton&rsquo;s relations are all immensely rich, and that
he is hopelessly beloved by title, lands, riches, and beauty.</p>
<p>We have seen a throwing-off young gentleman who, to our certain knowledge,
was innocent of a note of music, and scarcely able to recognise a tune
by ear, volunteer a Spanish air upon the guitar when he had previously
satisfied himself that there was not such an instrument within a mile
of the house.</p>
<p>We have heard another throwing-off young gentleman, after striking
a note or two upon the piano, and accompanying it correctly (by dint
of laborious practice) with his voice, assure a circle of wondering
listeners that so acute was his ear that he was wholly unable to sing
out of tune, let him try as he would.&nbsp; We have lived to witness
the unmasking of another throwing-off young gentleman, who went out
a visiting in a military cap with a gold band and tassel, and who, after
passing successfully for a captain and being lauded to the skies for
his red whiskers, his bravery, his soldierly bearing and his pride,
turned out to be the dishonest son of an honest linen-draper in a small
country town, and whom, if it were not for this fortunate exposure,
we should not yet despair of encountering as the fortunate husband of
some rich heiress.&nbsp; Ladies, ladies, the throwing-off young gentlemen
are often swindlers, and always fools.&nbsp; So pray you avoid them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE YOUNG LADIES&rsquo; YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>This young gentleman has several titles.&nbsp; Some young ladies
consider him &lsquo;a nice young man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a fine young
man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;quite a lady&rsquo;s man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a
handsome man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a remarkably good-looking young man.&rsquo;&nbsp;
With some young ladies he is &lsquo;a perfect angel,&rsquo; and with
others &lsquo;quite a love.&rsquo;&nbsp; He is likewise a charming creature,
a duck, and a dear.</p>
<p>The young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman has usually a fresh colour
and very white teeth, which latter articles, of course, he displays
on every possible opportunity.&nbsp; He has brown or black hair, and
whiskers of the same, if possible; but a slight tinge of red, or the
hue which is vulgarly known as <i>sandy</i>, is not considered an objection.&nbsp;
If his head and face be large, his nose prominent, and his figure square,
he is an uncommonly fine young man, and worshipped accordingly.&nbsp;
Should his whiskers meet beneath his chin, so much the better, though
this is not absolutely insisted on; but he must wear an under-waistcoat,
and smile constantly.</p>
<p>There was a great party got up by some party-loving friends of ours
last summer, to go and dine in Epping Forest.&nbsp; As we hold that
such wild expeditions should never be indulged in, save by people of
the smallest means, who have no dinner at home, we should indubitably
have excused ourself from attending, if we had not recollected that
the projectors of the excursion were always accompanied on such occasions
by a choice sample of the young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman, whom
we were very anxious to have an opportunity of meeting.&nbsp; This determined
us, and we went.</p>
<p>We were to make for Chigwell in four glass coaches, each with a trifling
company of six or eight inside, and a little boy belonging to the projectors
on the box&mdash;and to start from the residence of the projectors,
Woburn-place, Russell-square, at half-past ten precisely.&nbsp; We arrived
at the place of rendezvous at the appointed time, and found the glass
coaches and the little boys quite ready, and divers young ladies and
young gentlemen looking anxiously over the breakfast-parlour blinds,
who appeared by no means so much gratified by our approach as we might
have expected, but evidently wished we had been somebody else.&nbsp;
Observing that our arrival in lieu of the unknown occasioned some disappointment,
we ventured to inquire who was yet to come, when we found from the hasty
reply of a dozen voices, that it was no other than the young ladies&rsquo;
young gentleman.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I cannot imagine,&rsquo; said the mamma, &lsquo;what has become
of Mr. Balim&mdash;always so punctual, always so pleasant and agreeable.&nbsp;
I am sure I can-<i>not</i> think.&rsquo;&nbsp; As these last words were
uttered in that measured, emphatic manner which painfully announces
that the speaker has not quite made up his or her mind what to say,
but is determined to talk on nevertheless, the eldest daughter took
up the subject, and hoped no accident had happened to Mr. Balim, upon
which there was a general chorus of &lsquo;Dear Mr. Balim!&rsquo; and
one young lady, more adventurous than the rest, proposed that an express
should be straightway sent to dear Mr. Balim&rsquo;s lodgings.&nbsp;
This, however, the papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short
young lady behind us termed &lsquo;quite a bearish way,&rsquo; that
if Mr. Balim didn&rsquo;t choose to come, he might stop at home.&nbsp;
At this all the daughters raised a murmur of &lsquo;Oh pa!&rsquo; except
one sprightly little girl of eight or ten years old, who, taking advantage
of a pause in the discourse, remarked, that perhaps Mr. Balim might
have been married that morning&mdash;for which impertinent suggestion
she was summarily ejected from the room by her eldest sister.</p>
<p>We were all in a state of great mortification and uneasiness, when
one of the little boys, running into the room as airily as little boys
usually run who have an unlimited allowance of animal food in the holidays,
and keep their hands constantly forced down to the bottoms of very deep
trouser-pockets when they take exercise, joyfully announced that Mr.
Balim was at that moment coming up the street in a hackney-cab; and
the intelligence was confirmed beyond all doubt a minute afterwards
by the entry of Mr. Balim himself, who was received with repeated cries
of &lsquo;Where have you been, you naughty creature?&rsquo; whereunto
the naughty creature replied, that he had been in bed, in consequence
of a late party the night before, and had only just risen.&nbsp; The
acknowledgment awakened a variety of agonizing fears that he had taken
no breakfast; which appearing after a slight cross-examination to be
the real state of the case, breakfast for one was immediately ordered,
notwithstanding Mr. Balim&rsquo;s repeated protestations that he couldn&rsquo;t
think of it.&nbsp; He did think of it though, and thought better of
it too, for he made a remarkably good meal when it came, and was assiduously
served by a select knot of young ladies.&nbsp; It was quite delightful
to see how he ate and drank, while one pair of fair hands poured out
his coffee, and another put in the sugar, and another the milk; the
rest of the company ever and anon casting angry glances at their watches,
and the glass coaches,&mdash;and the little boys looking on in an agony
of apprehension lest it should begin to rain before we set out; it might
have rained all day, after we were once too far to turn back again,
and welcome, for aught they cared.</p>
<p>However, the cavalcade moved at length, every coachman being accommodated
with a hamper between his legs something larger than a wheelbarrow;
and the company being packed as closely as they possibly could in the
carriages, &lsquo;according,&rsquo; as one married lady observed, &lsquo;to
the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion of gipsy parties.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Thinking it very likely it might be (we have never been able to discover
the other half), we submitted to be stowed away with a cheerful aspect,
and were fortunate enough to occupy one corner of a coach in which were
one old lady, four young ladies, and the renowned Mr. Balim the young
ladies&rsquo; young gentleman.</p>
<p>We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies&rsquo; young
gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady to
inquire whether he had danced to that the night before.&nbsp; &lsquo;By
Heaven, then, I did,&rsquo; replied the young gentleman, &lsquo;and
with a lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;You seem rather struck,&rsquo; observed another young lady.&nbsp;
&lsquo;&rsquo;Gad she was a sweet creature,&rsquo; returned the young
gentleman, arranging his hair.&nbsp; &lsquo;Of course <i>she</i> was
struck too?&rsquo; inquired the first young lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;How can
you ask, love?&rsquo; interposed the second; &lsquo;could she fail to
be?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, honestly I think she was,&rsquo; observed
the young gentleman.&nbsp; At this point of the dialogue, the young
lady who had spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman&rsquo;s
right, struck him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said
he was a vain man&mdash;whereupon the young gentleman insisted on having
the rosebud, and the young lady appealing for help to the other young
ladies, a charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the
young gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud.&nbsp; This little skirmish
over, the married lady, who was the mother of the rosebud, smiled sweetly
upon the young gentleman, and accused him of being a flirt; the young
gentleman pleading not guilty, a most interesting discussion took place
upon the important point whether the young gentleman was a flirt or
not, which being an agreeable conversation of a light kind, lasted a
considerable time.&nbsp; At length, a short silence occurring, the young
ladies on either side of the young gentleman fell suddenly fast asleep;
and the young gentleman, winking upon us to preserve silence, won a
pair of gloves from each, thereby causing them to wake with equal suddenness
and to scream very loud.&nbsp; The lively conversation to which this
pleasantry gave rise, lasted for the remainder of the ride, and would
have eked out a much longer one.</p>
<p>We dined rather more comfortably than people usually do under such
circumstances, nothing having been left behind but the cork-screw and
the bread.&nbsp; The married gentlemen were unusually thirsty, which
they attributed to the heat of the weather; the little boys ate to inconvenience;
mammas were very jovial, and their daughters very fascinating; and the
attendants being well-behaved men, got exceedingly drunk at a respectful
distance.</p>
<p>We had our eye on Mr. Balim at dinner-time, and perceived that he
flourished wonderfully, being still surrounded by a little group of
young ladies, who listened to him as an oracle, while he ate from their
plates and drank from their glasses in a manner truly captivating from
its excessive playfulness.&nbsp; His conversation, too, was exceedingly
brilliant.&nbsp; In fact, one elderly lady assured us, that in the course
of a little lively <i>badinage</i> on the subject of ladies&rsquo; dresses,
he had evinced as much knowledge as if he had been born and bred a milliner.</p>
<p>As such of the fat people who did not happen to fall asleep after
dinner entered upon a most vigorous game at ball, we slipped away alone
into a thicker part of the wood, hoping to fall in with Mr. Balim, the
greater part of the young people having dropped off in twos and threes
and the young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman among them.&nbsp; Nor were
we disappointed, for we had not walked far, when, peeping through the
trees, we discovered him before us, and truly it was a pleasant thing
to contemplate his greatness.</p>
<p>The young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman was seated upon the ground,
at the feet of a few young ladies who were reclining on a bank; he was
so profusely decked with scarfs, ribands, flowers, and other pretty
spoils, that he looked like a lamb&mdash;or perhaps a calf would be
a better simile&mdash;adorned for the sacrifice.&nbsp; One young lady
supported a parasol over his interesting head, another held his hat,
and a third his neck-cloth, which in romantic fashion he had thrown
off; the young gentleman himself, with his hand upon his breast, and
his face moulded into an expression of the most honeyed sweetness, was
warbling forth some choice specimens of vocal music in praise of female
loveliness, in a style so exquisitely perfect, that we burst into an
involuntary shout of laughter, and made a hasty retreat.</p>
<p>What charming fellows these young ladies&rsquo; young gentlemen are!&nbsp;
Ducks, dears, loves, angels, are all terms inadequate to express their
merit.&nbsp; They are such amazingly, uncommonly, wonderfully, nice
men.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>As we have placed before the young ladies so many specimens of young
gentlemen, and have also in the dedication of this volume given them
to understand how much we reverence and admire their numerous virtues
and perfections; as we have given them such strong reasons to treat
us with confidence, and to banish, in our case, all that reserve and
distrust of the male sex which, as a point of general behaviour, they
cannot do better than preserve and maintain&mdash;we say, as we have
done all this, we feel that now, when we have arrived at the close of
our task, they may naturally press upon us the inquiry, what particular
description of young gentlemen we can conscientiously recommend.</p>
<p>Here we are at a loss.&nbsp; We look over our list, and can neither
recommend the bashful young gentleman, nor the out-and-out young gentleman,
nor the very friendly young gentleman, nor the military young gentleman,
nor the political young gentleman, nor the domestic young gentleman,
nor the censorious young gentleman, nor the funny young gentleman, nor
the theatrical young gentleman, nor the poetical young gentleman, nor
the throwing-off young gentleman, nor the young ladies&rsquo; young
gentleman.</p>
<p>As there are some good points about many of them, which still are
not sufficiently numerous to render any one among them eligible, as
a whole, our respectful advice to the young ladies is, to seek for a
young gentleman who unites in himself the best qualities of all, and
the worst weaknesses of none, and to lead him forthwith to the hymeneal
altar, whether he will or no.&nbsp; And to the young lady who secures
him, we beg to tender one short fragment of matrimonial advice, selected
from many sound passages of a similar tendency, to be found in a letter
written by Dean Swift to a young lady on her marriage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preserve
the esteem of your husband.&nbsp; Neither good-nature nor virtue will
suffer him to <i>esteem</i> you against his judgment; and although he
is not capable of using you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing indifferent
and perhaps contemptible; unless you can supply the loss of youth and
beauty with more durable qualities.&nbsp; You have but a very few years
to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months
to be so in the eyes of a husband who is not a fool; for I hope you
do not still dream of charms and raptures, which marriage ever did,
and ever will, put a sudden end to.&rsquo;</p>
<p>From the anxiety we express for the proper behaviour of the fortunate
lady after marriage, it may possibly be inferred that the young gentleman
to whom we have so delicately alluded, is no other than ourself.&nbsp;
Without in any way committing ourself upon this point, we have merely
to observe, that we are ready to receive sealed offers containing a
full specification of age, temper, appearance, and condition; but we
beg it to be distinctly understood that we do not pledge ourself to
accept the highest bidder.</p>
<p>These offers may be forwarded to the Publishers, Messrs. Chapman
and Hall, London; to whom all pieces of plate and other testimonials
of approbation from the young ladies generally, are respectfully requested
to be addressed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>AN URGENT REMONSTRANCE, &amp;c</p>
<p>TO THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND,</p>
<p>(BEING BACHELORS OR WIDOWERS,)</p>
<p>THE REMONSTRANCE OF THEIR FAITHFUL FELLOW-SUBJECT,</p>
<p>SHEWETH,-</p>
<p>THAT Her Most Gracious Majesty, Victoria, by the Grace of God of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the
Faith, did, on the 23rd day of November last past, declare and pronounce
to Her Most Honourable Privy Council, Her Majesty&rsquo;s Most Gracious
intention of entering into the bonds of wedlock.</p>
<p>THAT Her Most Gracious Majesty, in so making known Her Most Gracious
intention to Her Most Honourable Privy Council as aforesaid, did use
and employ the words&mdash;&lsquo;It is my intention to ally myself
in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.&rsquo;</p>
<p>THAT the present is Bissextile, or Leap Year, in which it is held
and considered lawful for any lady to offer and submit proposals of
marriage to any gentleman, and to enforce and insist upon acceptance
of the same, under pain of a certain fine or penalty; to wit, one silk
or satin dress of the first quality, to be chosen by the lady and paid
(or owed) for, by the gentleman.</p>
<p>THAT these and other the horrors and dangers with which the said
Bissextile, or Leap Year, threatens the gentlemen of England on every
occasion of its periodical return, have been greatly aggravated and
augmented by the terms of Her Majesty&rsquo;s said Most Gracious communication,
which have filled the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with
certain new ideas destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered
their imagination before.</p>
<p>THAT a case has occurred in Camberwell, in which a young lady informed
her Papa that &lsquo;she intended to ally herself in marriage&rsquo;
with Mr. Smith of Stepney; and that another, and a very distressing
case, has occurred at Tottenham, in which a young lady not only stated
her intention of allying herself in marriage with her cousin John, but,
taking violent possession of her said cousin, actually married him.</p>
<p>THAT similar outrages are of constant occurrence, not only in the
capital and its neighbourhood, but throughout the kingdom, and that
unless the excited female populace be speedily checked and restrained
in their lawless proceedings, most deplorable results must ensue therefrom;
among which may be anticipated a most alarming increase in the population
of the country, with which no efforts of the agricultural or manufacturing
interest can possibly keep pace.</p>
<p>THAT there is strong reason to suspect the existence of a most extensive
plot, conspiracy, or design, secretly contrived by vast numbers of single
ladies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and now extending
its ramifications in every quarter of the land; the object and intent
of which plainly appears to be the holding and solemnising of an enormous
and unprecedented number of marriages, on the day on which the nuptials
of Her said Most Gracious Majesty are performed.</p>
<p>THAT such plot, conspiracy, or design, strongly savours of Popery,
as tending to the discomfiture of the Clergy of the Established Church,
by entailing upon them great mental and physical exhaustion; and that
such Popish plots are fomented and encouraged by Her Majesty&rsquo;s
Ministers, which clearly appears&mdash;not only from Her Majesty&rsquo;s
principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs traitorously getting
married while holding office under the Crown; but from Mr. O&rsquo;Connell
having been heard to declare and avow that, if he had a daughter to
marry, she should be married on the same day as Her said Most Gracious
Majesty.</p>
<p>THAT such arch plots, conspiracies, and designs, besides being fraught
with danger to the Established Church, and (consequently) to the State,
cannot fail to bring ruin and bankruptcy upon a large class of Her Majesty&rsquo;s
subjects; as a great and sudden increase in the number of married men
occasioning the comparative desertion (for a time) of Taverns, Hotels,
Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, will deprive the Proprietors of their
accustomed profits and returns.&nbsp; And in further proof of the depth
and baseness of such designs, it may be here observed, that all proprietors
of Taverns, Hotels, Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, are (especially
the last) solemnly devoted to the Protestant religion.</p>
<p>FOR all these reasons, and many others of no less gravity and import,
an urgent appeal is made to the gentlemen of England (being bachelors
or widowers) to take immediate steps for convening a Public meeting;
To consider of the best and surest means of averting the dangers with
which they are threatened by the recurrence of Bissextile, or Leap Year,
and the additional sensation created among single ladies by the terms
of Her Majesty&rsquo;s Most Gracious Declaration; To take measures,
without delay, for resisting the said single Ladies, and counteracting
their evil designs; And to pray Her Majesty to dismiss her present Ministers,
and to summon to her Councils those distinguished Gentlemen in various
Honourable Professions who, by insulting on all occasions the only Lady
in England who can be insulted with safety, have given a sufficient
guarantee to Her Majesty&rsquo;s Loving Subjects that they, at least,
are qualified to make war with women, and are already expert in the
use of those weapons which are common to the lowest and most abandoned
of the sex.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE YOUNG COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There is to be a wedding this morning at the corner house in the
terrace.&nbsp; The pastry-cook&rsquo;s people have been there half-a-dozen
times already; all day yesterday there was a great stir and bustle,
and they were up this morning as soon as it was light.&nbsp; Miss Emma
Fielding is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey.</p>
<p>Heaven alone can tell in what bright colours this marriage is painted
upon the mind of the little housemaid at number six, who has hardly
slept a wink all night with thinking of it, and now stands on the unswept
door-steps leaning upon her broom, and looking wistfully towards the
enchanted house.&nbsp; Nothing short of omniscience can divine what
visions of the baker, or the green-grocer, or the smart and most insinuating
butterman, are flitting across her mind&mdash;what thoughts of how she
would dress on such an occasion, if she were a lady&mdash;of how she
would dress, if she were only a bride&mdash;of how cook would dress,
being bridesmaid, conjointly with her sister &lsquo;in place&rsquo;
at Fulham, and how the clergyman, deeming them so many ladies, would
be quite humbled and respectful.&nbsp; What day-dreams of hope and happiness&mdash;of
life being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to
grant or withhold it&mdash;of every Sunday being a Sunday out&mdash;of
pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine
heads of hair in caps&mdash;what pictures of happiness, vast and immense
to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder the brain of the little
housemaid at number six, all called into existence by the wedding at
the corner!</p>
<p>We smile at such things, and so we should, though perhaps for a better
reason than commonly presents itself.&nbsp; It should be pleasant to
us to know that there are notions of happiness so moderate and limited,
since upon those who entertain them, happiness and lightness of heart
are very easily bestowed.</p>
<p>But the little housemaid is awakened from her reverie, for forth
from the door of the magical corner house there runs towards her, all
fluttering in smart new dress and streaming ribands, her friend Jane
Adams, who comes all out of breath to redeem a solemn promise of taking
her in, under cover of the confusion, to see the breakfast table spread
forth in state, and&mdash;sight of sights!&mdash;her young mistress
ready dressed for church.</p>
<p>And there, in good truth, when they have stolen up-stairs on tip-toe
and edged themselves in at the chamber-door&mdash;there is Miss Emma
&lsquo;looking like the sweetest picter,&rsquo; in a white chip bonnet
and orange flowers, and all other elegancies becoming a bride, (with
the make, shape, and quality of every article of which the girl is perfectly
familiar in one moment, and never forgets to her dying day)&mdash;and
there is Miss Emma&rsquo;s mamma in tears, and Miss Emma&rsquo;s papa
comforting her, and saying how that of course she has been long looking
forward to this, and how happy she ought to be&mdash;and there too is
Miss Emma&rsquo;s sister with her arms round her neck, and the other
bridesmaid all smiles and tears, quieting the children, who would cry
more but that they are so finely dressed, and yet sob for fear sister
Emma should be taken away&mdash;and it is all so affecting, that the
two servant-girls cry more than anybody; and Jane Adams, sitting down
upon the stairs, when they have crept away, declares that her legs tremble
so that she don&rsquo;t know what to do, and that she will say for Miss
Emma, that she never had a hasty word from her, and that she does hope
and pray she may be happy.</p>
<p>But Jane soon comes round again, and then surely there never was
anything like the breakfast table, glittering with plate and china,
and set out with flowers and sweets, and long-necked bottles, in the
most sumptuous and dazzling manner.&nbsp; In the centre, too, is the
mighty charm, the cake, glistening with frosted sugar, and garnished
beautifully.&nbsp; They agree that there ought to be a little Cupid
under one of the barley-sugar temples, or at least two hearts and an
arrow; but, with this exception, there is nothing to wish for, and a
table could not be handsomer.&nbsp; As they arrive at this conclusion,
who should come in but Mr. John! to whom Jane says that its only Anne
from number six; and John says <i>he</i> knows, for he&rsquo;s often
winked his eye down the area, which causes Anne to blush and look confused.&nbsp;
She is going away, indeed; when Mr. John will have it that she must
drink a glass of wine, and he says never mind it&rsquo;s being early
in the morning, it won&rsquo;t hurt her: so they shut the door and pour
out the wine; and Anne drinking lane&rsquo;s health, and adding, &lsquo;and
here&rsquo;s wishing you yours, Mr. John,&rsquo; drinks it in a great
many sips,&mdash;Mr. John all the time making jokes appropriate to the
occasion.&nbsp; At last Mr. John, who has waxed bolder by degrees, pleads
the usage at weddings, and claims the privilege of a kiss, which he
obtains after a great scuffle; and footsteps being now heard on the
stairs, they disperse suddenly.</p>
<p>By this time a carriage has driven up to convey the bride to church,
and Anne of number six prolonging the process of &lsquo;cleaning her
door,&rsquo; has the satisfaction of beholding the bride and bridesmaids,
and the papa and mamma, hurry into the same and drive rapidly off.&nbsp;
Nor is this all, for soon other carriages begin to arrive with a posse
of company all beautifully dressed, at whom she could stand and gaze
for ever; but having something else to do, is compelled to take one
last long look and shut the street-door.</p>
<p>And now the company have gone down to breakfast, and tears have given
place to smiles, for all the corks are out of the long-necked bottles,
and their contents are disappearing rapidly.&nbsp; Miss Emma&rsquo;s
papa is at the top of the table; Miss Emma&rsquo;s mamma at the bottom;
and beside the latter are Miss Emma herself and her husband,&mdash;admitted
on all hands to be the handsomest and most interesting young couple
ever known.&nbsp; All down both sides of the table, too, are various
young ladies, beautiful to see, and various young gentlemen who seem
to think so; and there, in a post of honour, is an unmarried aunt of
Miss Emma&rsquo;s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, and to have
expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her favourite niece
and new nephew.&nbsp; This lady has been very liberal and generous already,
as the jewels worn by the bride abundantly testify, but that is nothing
to what she means to do, or even to what she has done, for she put herself
in close communication with the dressmaker three months ago, and prepared
a wardrobe (with some articles worked by her own hands) fit for a Princess.&nbsp;
People may call her an old maid, and so she may be, but she is neither
cross nor ugly for all that; on the contrary, she is very cheerful and
pleasant-looking, and very kind and tender-hearted: which is no matter
of surprise except to those who yield to popular prejudices without
thinking why, and will never grow wiser and never know better.</p>
<p>Of all the company though, none are more pleasant to behold or better
pleased with themselves than two young children, who, in honour of the
day, have seats among the guests.&nbsp; Of these, one is a little fellow
of six or eight years old, brother to the bride,&mdash;and the other
a girl of the same age, or something younger, whom he calls &lsquo;his
wife.&rsquo;&nbsp; The real bride and bridegroom are not more devoted
than they: he all love and attention, and she all blushes and fondness,
toying with a little bouquet which he gave her this morning, and placing
the scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature&rsquo;s own coquettishness.&nbsp;
They have dreamt of each other in their quiet dreams, these children,
and their little hearts have been nearly broken when the absent one
has been dispraised in jest.&nbsp; When will there come in after-life
a passion so earnest, generous, and true as theirs; what, even in its
gentlest realities, can have the grace and charm that hover round such
fairy lovers!</p>
<p>By this time the merriment and happiness of the feast have gained
their height; certain ominous looks begin to be exchanged between the
bridesmaids, and somehow it gets whispered about that the carriage which
is to take the young couple into the country has arrived.&nbsp; Such
members of the party as are most disposed to prolong its enjoyments,
affect to consider this a false alarm, but it turns out too true, being
speedily confirmed, first by the retirement of the bride and a select
file of intimates who are to prepare her for the journey, and secondly
by the withdrawal of the ladies generally.&nbsp; To this there ensues
a particularly awkward pause, in which everybody essays to be facetious,
and nobody succeeds; at length the bridegroom makes a mysterious disappearance
in obedience to some equally mysterious signal; and the table is deserted.</p>
<p>Now, for at least six weeks last past it has been solemnly devised
and settled that the young couple should go away in secret; but they
no sooner appear without the door than the drawing-room windows are
blocked up with ladies waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their
hands, and the dining-room panes with gentlemen&rsquo;s faces beaming
farewell in every queer variety of its expression.&nbsp; The hall and
steps are crowded with servants in white favours, mixed up with particular
friends and relations who have darted out to say good-bye; and foremost
in the group are the tiny lovers arm in arm, thinking, with fluttering
hearts, what happiness it would be to dash away together in that gallant
coach, and never part again.</p>
<p>The bride has barely time for one hurried glance at her old home,
when the steps rattle, the door slams, the horses clatter on the pavement,
and they have left it far away.</p>
<p>A knot of women servants still remain clustered in the hall, whispering
among themselves, and there of course is Anne from number six, who has
made another escape on some plea or other, and been an admiring witness
of the departure.&nbsp; There are two points on which Anne expatiates
over and over again, without the smallest appearance of fatigue or intending
to leave off; one is, that she &lsquo;never see in all her life such
a&mdash;oh such a angel of a gentleman as Mr. Harvey&rsquo;&mdash;and
the other, that she &lsquo;can&rsquo;t tell how it is, but it don&rsquo;t
seem a bit like a work-a-day, or a Sunday neither&mdash;it&rsquo;s all
so unsettled and unregular.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE FORMAL COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The formal couple are the most prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory
people on the face of the earth.&nbsp; Their faces, voices, dress, house,
furniture, walk, and manner, are all the essence of formality, unrelieved
by one redeeming touch of frankness, heartiness, or nature.</p>
<p>Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of
form.&nbsp; They don&rsquo;t call upon you on your account, but their
own; not to see how you are, but to show how they are: it is not a ceremony
to do honour to you, but to themselves,&mdash;not due to your position,
but to theirs.&nbsp; If one of a friend&rsquo;s children die, the formal
couple are as sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker;
if a friend&rsquo;s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more
attentive than they.&nbsp; The formal couple, in fact, joyfully seize
all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise observance
of the little usages of society; and for you, who are the means to this
end, they care as much as a man does for the tailor who has enabled
him to cut a figure, or a woman for the milliner who has assisted her
to a conquest.</p>
<p>Having an extensive connexion among that kind of people who make
acquaintances and eschew friends, the formal gentleman attends from
time to time a great many funerals, to which he is formally invited,
and to which he formally goes, as returning a call for the last time.&nbsp;
Here his deportment is of the most faultless description; he knows the
exact pitch of voice it is proper to assume, the sombre look he ought
to wear, the melancholy tread which should be his gait for the day.&nbsp;
He is perfectly acquainted with all the dreary courtesies to be observed
in a mourning-coach; knows when to sigh, and when to hide his nose in
the white handkerchief; and looks into the grave and shakes his head
when the ceremony is concluded, with the sad formality of a mute.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What kind of funeral was it?&rsquo; says the formal lady,
when he returns home.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; replies the formal gentleman,
&lsquo;there never was such a gross and disgusting impropriety; there
were no feathers.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No feathers!&rsquo; cries the
lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people fly to Heaven, and,
lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere.&nbsp; Her husband
shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of
plum-cake, and that it was all white wine.&nbsp; &lsquo;All white wine!&rsquo;
exclaims his wife.&nbsp; &lsquo;Nothing but sherry and madeira,&rsquo;
says the husband.&nbsp; &lsquo;What! no port?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Not
a drop.&rsquo;&nbsp; No port, no plums, and no feathers!&nbsp; &lsquo;You
will recollect, my dear,&rsquo; says the formal lady, in a voice of
stately reproof, &lsquo;that when we first met this poor man who is
now dead and gone, and he took that very strange course of addressing
me at dinner without being previously introduced, I ventured to express
my opinion that the family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and very
imperfectly acquainted with the decencies of life.&nbsp; You have now
had a good opportunity of judging for yourself, and all I have to say
is, that I trust you will never go to a funeral <i>there</i> again.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; replies the formal gentleman, &lsquo;I never
will.&rsquo;&nbsp; So the informal deceased is cut in his grave; and
the formal couple, when they tell the story of the funeral, shake their
heads, and wonder what some people&rsquo;s feelings <i>are</i> made
of, and what their notions of propriety <i>can</i> be!</p>
<p>If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes have), they
are not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed men and women;
and so exquisitely brought up, that they might be very old dwarfs for
anything that appeareth to the contrary.&nbsp; Indeed, they are so acquainted
with forms and conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such strict
decorum, that to see the little girl break a looking-glass in some wild
outbreak, or the little boy kick his parents, would be to any visitor
an unspeakable relief and consolation.</p>
<p>The formal couple are always sticklers for what is rigidly proper,
and have a great readiness in detecting hidden impropriety of speech
or thought, which by less scrupulous people would be wholly unsuspected.&nbsp;
Thus, if they pay a visit to the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect
agony lest anything improper or immoral should proceed from the stage;
and if anything should happen to be said which admits of a double construction,
they never fail to take it up directly, and to express by their looks
the great outrage which their feelings have sustained.&nbsp; Perhaps
this is their chief reason for absenting themselves almost entirely
from places of public amusement.&nbsp; They go sometimes to the Exhibition
of the Royal Academy;&mdash;but that is often more shocking than the
stage itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is high time
Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of.</p>
<p>We made one at a christening party not long since, where there were
amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture
from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut&mdash;and very
likely dried also&mdash;by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly
gentleman, who, being highly popular with the rest of the company, had
it all his own way, and was in great spirits.&nbsp; It was at supper-time
that this gentleman came out in full force.&nbsp; We&mdash;being of
a grave and quiet demeanour&mdash;had been chosen to escort the formal
lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a favourable opportunity
of observing her emotions.</p>
<p>We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning, and in the
first blush&mdash;literally the first blush&mdash;of the matter, the
formal lady had not felt quite certain whether the being present at
such a ceremony, and encouraging, as it were, the public exhibition
of a baby, was not an act involving some degree of indelicacy and impropriety;
but certain we are that when that baby&rsquo;s health was drunk, and
allusions were made, by a grey-headed gentleman proposing it, to the
time when he had dandled in his arms the young Christian&rsquo;s mother,&mdash;certain
we are that then the formal lady took the alarm, and recoiled from the
old gentleman as from a hoary profligate.&nbsp; Still she bore it; she
fanned herself with an indignant air, but still she bore it.&nbsp; A
comic song was sung, involving a confession from some imaginary gentleman
that he had kissed a female, and yet the formal lady bore it.&nbsp;
But when at last, the health of the godfather before-mentioned being
drunk, the godfather rose to return thanks, and in the course of his
observations darkly hinted at babies yet unborn, and even contemplated
the possibility of the subject of that festival having brothers and
sisters, the formal lady could endure no more, but, bowing slightly
round, and sweeping haughtily past the offender, left the room in tears,
under the protection of the formal gentleman.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE LOVING COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There cannot be a better practical illustration of the wise saw and
ancient instance, that there may be too much of a good thing, than is
presented by a loving couple.&nbsp; Undoubtedly it is meet and proper
that two persons joined together in holy matrimony should be loving,
and unquestionably it is pleasant to know and see that they are so;
but there is a time for all things, and the couple who happen to be
always in a loving state before company, are well-nigh intolerable.</p>
<p>And in taking up this position we would have it distinctly understood
that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in whose objection
to loving couples we recognise interested motives and personal considerations.&nbsp;
We grant that to that unfortunate class of society there may be something
very irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to witness
those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving couples
are quite the ordinary business of life.&nbsp; But while we recognise
the natural character of the prejudice to which these unhappy men are
subject, we can neither receive their biassed evidence, nor address
ourself to their inflamed and angered minds.&nbsp; Dispassionate experience
is our only guide; and in these moral essays we seek no less to reform
hymeneal offenders than to hold out a timely warning to all rising couples,
and even to those who have not yet set forth upon their pilgrimage towards
the matrimonial market.</p>
<p>Let all couples, present or to come, therefore profit by the example
of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, themselves a loving couple in the first degree.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a widow lady
who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself about the
same-time&mdash;for by her own count she has never since grown five
years older&mdash;to be a perfect model of wedded felicity.&nbsp; &lsquo;You
would suppose,&rsquo; says the romantic lady, &lsquo;that they were
lovers only just now engaged.&nbsp; Never was such happiness!&nbsp;
They are so tender, so affectionate, so attached to each other, so enamoured,
that positively nothing can be more charming!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Augusta, my soul,&rsquo; says Mr. Leaver.&nbsp; &lsquo;Augustus,
my life,&rsquo; replies Mrs. Leaver.&nbsp; &lsquo;Sing some little ballad,
darling,&rsquo; quoth Mr. Leaver.&nbsp; &lsquo;I couldn&rsquo;t, indeed,
dearest,&rsquo; returns Mrs. Leaver.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do, my dove,&rsquo;
says Mr. Leaver.&nbsp; &lsquo;I couldn&rsquo;t possibly, my love,&rsquo;
replies Mrs. Leaver; &lsquo;and it&rsquo;s very naughty of you to ask
me.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Naughty, darling!&rsquo; cries Mr. Leaver.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Yes, very naughty, and very cruel,&rsquo; returns Mrs. Leaver,
&lsquo;for you know I have a sore throat, and that to sing would give
me great pain.&nbsp; You&rsquo;re a monster, and I hate you.&nbsp; Go
away!&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Leaver has said &lsquo;go away,&rsquo; because
Mr. Leaver has tapped her under the chin: Mr. Leaver not doing as he
is bid, but on the contrary, sitting down beside her, Mrs. Leaver slaps
Mr. Leaver; and Mr. Leaver in return slaps Mrs. Leaver, and it being
now time for all persons present to look the other way, they look the
other way, and hear a still small sound as of kissing, at which Mrs.
Starling is thoroughly enraptured, and whispers her neighbour that if
all married couples were like that, what a heaven this earth would be!</p>
<p>The loving couple are at home when this occurs, and maybe only three
or four friends are present, but, unaccustomed to reserve upon this
interesting point, they are pretty much the same abroad.&nbsp; Indeed
upon some occasions, such as a pic-nic or a water-party, their lovingness
is even more developed, as we had an opportunity last summer of observing
in person.</p>
<p>There was a great water-party made up to go to Twickenham and dine,
and afterwards dance in an empty villa by the river-side, hired expressly
for the purpose.&nbsp; Mr. and Mrs. Leaver were of the company; and
it was our fortune to have a seat in the same boat, which was an eight-oared
galley, manned by amateurs, with a blue striped awning of the same pattern
as their Guernsey shirts, and a dingy red flag of the same shade as
the whiskers of the stroke oar.&nbsp; A coxswain being appointed, and
all other matters adjusted, the eight gentlemen threw themselves into
strong paroxysms, and pulled up with the tide, stimulated by the compassionate
remarks of the ladies, who one and all exclaimed, that it seemed an
immense exertion&mdash;as indeed it did.&nbsp; At first we raced the
other boat, which came alongside in gallant style; but this being found
an unpleasant amusement, as giving rise to a great quantity of splashing,
and rendering the cold pies and other viands very moist, it was unanimously
voted down, and we were suffered to shoot a-head, while the second boat
followed ingloriously in our wake.</p>
<p>It was at this time that we first recognised Mr. Leaver.&nbsp; There
were two firemen-watermen in the boat, lying by until somebody was exhausted;
and one of them, who had taken upon himself the direction of affairs,
was heard to cry in a gruff voice, &lsquo;Pull away, number two&mdash;give
it her, number two&mdash;take a longer reach, number two&mdash;now,
number two, sir, think you&rsquo;re winning a boat.&rsquo;&nbsp; The
greater part of the company had no doubt begun to wonder which of the
striped Guernseys it might be that stood in need of such encouragement,
when a stifled shriek from Mrs. Leaver confirmed the doubtful and informed
the ignorant; and Mr. Leaver, still further disguised in a straw hat
and no neckcloth, was observed to be in a fearful perspiration, and
failing visibly.&nbsp; Nor was the general consternation diminished
at this instant by the same gentleman (in the performance of an accidental
aquatic feat, termed &lsquo;catching a crab&rsquo;) plunging suddenly
backward, and displaying nothing of himself to the company, but two
violently struggling legs.&nbsp; Mrs. Leaver shrieked again several
times, and cried piteously&mdash;&lsquo;Is he dead?&nbsp; Tell me the
worst.&nbsp; Is he dead?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Now, a moment&rsquo;s reflection might have convinced the loving
wife, that unless her husband were endowed with some most surprising
powers of muscular action, he never could be dead while he kicked so
hard; but still Mrs. Leaver cried, &lsquo;Is he dead? is he dead?&rsquo;
and still everybody else cried&mdash;&lsquo;No, no, no,&rsquo; until
such time as Mr. Leaver was replaced in a sitting posture, and his oar
(which had been going through all kinds of wrong-headed performances
on its own account) was once more put in his hand, by the exertions
of the two firemen-watermen.&nbsp; Mr. Leaver then exclaimed, &lsquo;Augustus,
my child, come to me;&rsquo; and Mr. Leaver said, &lsquo;Augusta, my
love, compose yourself, I am not injured.&rsquo;&nbsp; But Mrs. Leaver
cried again more piteously than before, &lsquo;Augustus, my child, come
to me;&rsquo; and now the company generally, who seemed to be apprehensive
that if Mr. Leaver remained where he was, he might contribute more than
his proper share towards the drowning of the party, disinterestedly
took part with Mrs. Leaver, and said he really ought to go, and that
he was not strong enough for such violent exercise, and ought never
to have undertaken it.&nbsp; Reluctantly, Mr. Leaver went, and laid
himself down at Mrs. Leaver&rsquo;s feet, and Mrs. Leaver stooping over
him, said, &lsquo;Oh Augustus, how could you terrify me so?&rsquo; and
Mr. Leaver said, &lsquo;Augusta, my sweet, I never meant to terrify
you;&rsquo; and Mrs. Leaver said, &lsquo;You are faint, my dear;&rsquo;
and Mr. Leaver said, &lsquo;I am rather so, my love;&rsquo; and they
were very loving indeed under Mrs. Leaver&rsquo;s veil, until at length
Mr. Leaver came forth again, and pleasantly asked if he had not heard
something said about bottled stout and sandwiches.</p>
<p>Mrs. Starling, who was one of the party, was perfectly delighted
with this scene, and frequently murmured half-aside, &lsquo;What a loving
couple you are!&rsquo; or &lsquo;How delightful it is to see man and
wife so happy together!&rsquo;&nbsp; To us she was quite poetical, (for
we are a kind of cousins,) observing that hearts beating in unison like
that made life a paradise of sweets; and that when kindred creatures
were drawn together by sympathies so fine and delicate, what more than
mortal happiness did not our souls partake!&nbsp; To all this we answered
&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Very true,&rsquo; or merely sighed,
as the case might be.&nbsp; At every new act of the loving couple, the
widow&rsquo;s admiration broke out afresh; and when Mrs. Leaver would
not permit Mr. Leaver to keep his hat off, lest the sun should strike
to his head, and give him a brain fever, Mrs. Starling actually shed
tears, and said it reminded her of Adam and Eve.</p>
<p>The loving couple were thus loving all the way to Twickenham, but
when we arrived there (by which time the amateur crew looked very thirsty
and vicious) they were more playful than ever, for Mrs. Leaver threw
stones at Mr. Leaver, and Mr. Leaver ran after Mrs. Leaver on the grass,
in a most innocent and enchanting manner.&nbsp; At dinner, too, Mr.
Leaver <i>would</i> steal Mrs. Leaver&rsquo;s tongue, and Mrs. Leaver
<i>would</i> retaliate upon Mr. Leaver&rsquo;s fowl; and when Mrs. Leaver
was going to take some lobster salad, Mr. Leaver wouldn&rsquo;t let
her have any, saying that it made her ill, and she was always sorry
for it afterwards, which afforded Mrs. Leaver an opportunity of pretending
to be cross, and showing many other prettinesses.&nbsp; But this was
merely the smiling surface of their loves, not the mighty depths of
the stream, down to which the company, to say the truth, dived rather
unexpectedly, from the following accident.&nbsp; It chanced that Mr.
Leaver took upon himself to propose the bachelors who had first originated
the notion of that entertainment, in doing which, he affected to regret
that he was no longer of their body himself, and pretended grievously
to lament his fallen state.&nbsp; This Mrs. Leaver&rsquo;s feelings
could not brook, even in jest, and consequently, exclaiming aloud, &lsquo;He
loves me not, he loves me not!&rsquo; she fell in a very pitiable state
into the arms of Mrs. Starling, and, directly becoming insensible, was
conveyed by that lady and her husband into another room.&nbsp; Presently
Mr. Leaver came running back to know if there was a medical gentleman
in company, and as there was, (in what company is there not?) both Mr.
Leaver and the medical gentleman hurried away together.</p>
<p>The medical gentleman was the first who returned, and among his intimate
friends he was observed to laugh and wink, and look as unmedical as
might be; but when Mr. Leaver came back he was very solemn, and in answer
to all inquiries, shook his head, and remarked that Augusta was far
too sensitive to be trifled with&mdash;an opinion which the widow subsequently
confirmed.&nbsp; Finding that she was in no imminent peril, however,
the rest of the party betook themselves to dancing on the green, and
very merry and happy they were, and a vast quantity of flirtation there
was; the last circumstance being no doubt attributable, partly to the
fineness of the weather, and partly to the locality, which is well known
to be favourable to all harmless recreations.</p>
<p>In the bustle of the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Leaver stole down to the
boat, and disposed themselves under the awning, Mrs. Leaver reclining
her head upon Mr. Leaver&rsquo;s shoulder, and Mr. Leaver grasping her
hand with great fervour, and looking in her face from time to time with
a melancholy and sympathetic aspect.&nbsp; The widow sat apart, feigning
to be occupied with a book, but stealthily observing them from behind
her fan; and the two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank
hard by, nudged each other, and grinned in enjoyment of the joke.&nbsp;
Very few of the party missed the loving couple; and the few who did,
heartily congratulated each other on their disappearance.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE CONTRADICTORY COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>One would suppose that two people who are to pass their whole lives
together, and must necessarily be very often alone with each other,
could find little pleasure in mutual contradiction; and yet what is
more common than a contradictory couple?</p>
<p>The contradictory couple agree in nothing but contradiction.&nbsp;
They return home from Mrs. Bluebottle&rsquo;s dinner-party, each in
an opposite corner of the coach, and do not exchange a syllable until
they have been seated for at least twenty minutes by the fireside at
home, when the gentleman, raising his eyes from the stove, all at once
breaks silence:</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a very extraordinary thing it is,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;that
you <i>will</i> contradict, Charlotte!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>I</i>
contradict!&rsquo; cries the lady, &lsquo;but that&rsquo;s just like
you.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;What&rsquo;s like me?&rsquo; says the gentleman
sharply.&nbsp; &lsquo;Saying that I contradict you,&rsquo; replies the
lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do you mean to say that you do <i>not</i> contradict
me?&rsquo; retorts the gentleman; &lsquo;do you mean to say that you
have not been contradicting me the whole of this day?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Do
you mean to tell me now, that you have not?&nbsp; I mean to tell you
nothing of the kind,&rsquo; replies the lady quietly; &lsquo;when you
are wrong, of course I shall contradict you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>During this dialogue the gentleman has been taking his brandy-and-water
on one side of the fire, and the lady, with her dressing-case on the
table, has been curling her hair on the other.&nbsp; She now lets down
her back hair, and proceeds to brush it; preserving at the same time
an air of conscious rectitude and suffering virtue, which is intended
to exasperate the gentleman&mdash;and does so.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I do believe,&rsquo; he says, taking the spoon out of his
glass, and tossing it on the table, &lsquo;that of all the obstinate,
positive, wrong-headed creatures that were ever born, you are the most
so, Charlotte.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Certainly, certainly, have it your
own way, pray.&nbsp; You see how much <i>I</i> contradict you,&rsquo;
rejoins the lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Of course, you didn&rsquo;t contradict
me at dinner-time&mdash;oh no, not you!&rsquo; says the gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Yes, I did,&rsquo; says the lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, you did,&rsquo;
cries the gentleman &lsquo;you admit that?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;If you
call that contradiction, I do,&rsquo; the lady answers; &lsquo;and I
say again, Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I will contradict
you.&nbsp; I am not your slave.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Not my slave!&rsquo;
repeats the gentleman bitterly; &lsquo;and you still mean to say that
in the Blackburns&rsquo; new house there are not more than fourteen
doors, including the door of the wine-cellar!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I
mean to say,&rsquo; retorts the lady, beating time with her hair-brush
on the palm of her hand, &lsquo;that in that house there are fourteen
doors and no more.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well then&mdash;&rsquo; cries
the gentleman, rising in despair, and pacing the room with rapid strides.&nbsp;
&lsquo;By G-, this is enough to destroy a man&rsquo;s intellect, and
drive him mad!&rsquo;</p>
<p>By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing his hand gloomily
across his forehead, reseats himself in his former chair.&nbsp; There
is a long silence, and this time the lady begins.&nbsp; &lsquo;I appealed
to Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to me on the sofa in the drawing-room during
tea&mdash;&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Morgan, you mean,&rsquo; interrupts the
gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;I do not mean anything of the kind,&rsquo; answers
the lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now, by all that is aggravating and impossible
to bear,&rsquo; cries the gentleman, clenching his hands and looking
upwards in agony, &lsquo;she is going to insist upon it that Morgan
is Jenkins!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Do you take me for a perfect fool?&rsquo;
exclaims the lady; &lsquo;do you suppose I don&rsquo;t know the one
from the other?&nbsp; Do you suppose I don&rsquo;t know that the man
in the blue coat was Mr. Jenkins?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Jenkins in a blue
coat!&rsquo; cries the gentleman with a groan; &lsquo;Jenkins in a blue
coat! a man who would suffer death rather than wear anything but brown!&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Do you dare to charge me with telling an untruth?&rsquo; demands
the lady, bursting into tears.&nbsp; &lsquo;I charge you, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo;
retorts the gentleman, starting up, &lsquo;with being a monster of contradiction,
a monster of aggravation, a&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;Jenkins in a blue
coat!&mdash;what have I done that I should be doomed to hear such statements!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Expressing himself with great scorn and anguish, the gentleman takes
up his candle and stalks off to bed, where feigning to be fast asleep
when the lady comes up-stairs drowned in tears, murmuring lamentations
over her hard fate and indistinct intentions of consulting her brothers,
he undergoes the secret torture of hearing her exclaim between whiles,
&lsquo;I know there are only fourteen doors in the house, I know it
was Mr. Jenkins, I know he had a blue coat on, and I would say it as
positively as I do now, if they were the last words I had to speak!&rsquo;</p>
<p>If the contradictory couple are blessed with children, they are not
the less contradictory on that account.&nbsp; Master James and Miss
Charlotte present themselves after dinner, and being in perfect good
humour, and finding their parents in the same amiable state, augur from
these appearances half a glass of wine a-piece and other extraordinary
indulgences.&nbsp; But unfortunately Master James, growing talkative
upon such prospects, asks his mamma how tall Mrs. Parsons is, and whether
she is not six feet high; to which his mamma replies, &lsquo;Yes, she
should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very tall lady indeed; quite
a giantess.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;For Heaven&rsquo;s sake, Charlotte,&rsquo;
cries her husband, &lsquo;do not tell the child such preposterous nonsense.&nbsp;
Six feet high!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; replies the lady, &lsquo;surely
I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion is, that she is six
feet high&mdash;at least six feet.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Now you know,
Charlotte,&rsquo; retorts the gentleman sternly, &lsquo;that that is
<i>not</i> your opinion&mdash;that you have no such idea&mdash;and that
you only say this for the sake of contradiction.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;You
are exceedingly polite,&rsquo; his wife replies; &lsquo;to be wrong
about such a paltry question as anybody&rsquo;s height, would be no
great crime; but I say again, that I believe Mrs. Parsons to be six
feet&mdash;more than six feet; nay, I believe you know her to be full
six feet, and only say she is not, because I say she is.&rsquo;&nbsp;
This taunt disposes the gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks himself,
and is content to mutter, in a haughty tone, &lsquo;Six feet&mdash;ha!
ha!&nbsp; Mrs. Parsons six feet!&rsquo; and the lady answers, &lsquo;Yes,
six feet.&nbsp; I am sure I am glad you are amused, and I&rsquo;ll say
it again&mdash;six feet.&rsquo;&nbsp; Thus the subject gradually drops
off, and the contradiction begins to be forgotten, when Master James,
with some undefined notion of making himself agreeable, and putting
things to rights again, unfortunately asks his mamma what the moon&rsquo;s
made of; which gives her occasion to say that he had better not ask
her, for she is always wrong and never can be right; that he only exposes
her to contradiction by asking any question of her; and that he had
better ask his papa, who is infallible, and never can be wrong.&nbsp;
Papa, smarting under this attack, gives a terrible pull at the bell,
and says, that if the conversation is to proceed in this way, the children
had better be removed.&nbsp; Removed they are, after a few tears and
many struggles; and Pa having looked at Ma sideways for a minute or
two, with a baleful eye, draws his pocket-handkerchief over his face,
and composes himself for his after-dinner nap.</p>
<p>The friends of the contradictory couple often deplore their frequent
disputes, though they rather make light of them at the same time: observing,
that there is no doubt they are very much attached to each other, and
that they never quarrel except about trifles.&nbsp; But neither the
friends of the contradictory couple, nor the contradictory couple themselves,
reflect, that as the most stupendous objects in nature are but vast
collections of minute particles, so the slightest and least considered
trifles make up the sum of human happiness or misery.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The couple who dote upon their children have usually a great many
of them: six or eight at least.&nbsp; The children are either the healthiest
in all the world, or the most unfortunate in existence.&nbsp; In either
case, they are equally the theme of their doting parents, and equally
a source of mental anguish and irritation to their doting parents&rsquo;
friends.</p>
<p>The couple who dote upon their children recognise no dates but those
connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or remarkable deeds.&nbsp;
They keep a mental almanack with a vast number of Innocents&rsquo;-days,
all in red letters.&nbsp; They recollect the last coronation, because
on that day little Tom fell down the kitchen stairs; the anniversary
of the Gunpowder Plot, because it was on the fifth of November that
Ned asked whether wooden legs were made in heaven and cocked hats grew
in gardens.&nbsp; Mrs. Whiffler will never cease to recollect the last
day of the old year as long as she lives, for it was on that day that
the baby had the four red spots on its nose which they took for measles:
nor Christmas-day, for twenty-one days after Christmas-day the twins
were born; nor Good Friday, for it was on a Good Friday that she was
frightened by the donkey-cart when she was in the family way with Georgiana.&nbsp;
The movable feasts have no motion for Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler, but remain
pinned down tight and fast to the shoulders of some small child, from
whom they can never be separated any more.&nbsp; Time was made, according
to their creed, not for slaves but for girls and boys; the restless
sands in his glass are but little children at play.</p>
<p>As we have already intimated, the children of this couple can know
no medium.&nbsp; They are either prodigies of good health or prodigies
of bad health; whatever they are, they must be prodigies.&nbsp; Mr.
Whiffler must have to describe at his office such excruciating agonies
constantly undergone by his eldest boy, as nobody else&rsquo;s eldest
boy ever underwent; or he must be able to declare that there never was
a child endowed with such amazing health, such an indomitable constitution,
and such a cast-iron frame, as his child.&nbsp; His children must be,
in some respect or other, above and beyond the children of all other
people.&nbsp; To such an extent is this feeling pushed, that we were
once slightly acquainted with a lady and gentleman who carried their
heads so high and became so proud after their youngest child fell out
of a two-pair-of-stairs window without hurting himself much, that the
greater part of their friends were obliged to forego their acquaintance.&nbsp;
But perhaps this may be an extreme case, and one not justly entitled
to be considered as a precedent of general application.</p>
<p>If a friend happen to dine in a friendly way with one of these couples
who dote upon their children, it is nearly impossible for him to divert
the conversation from their favourite topic.&nbsp; Everything reminds
Mr. Whiffler of Ned, or Mrs. Whiffler of Mary Anne, or of the time before
Ned was born, or the time before Mary Anne was thought of.&nbsp; The
slightest remark, however harmless in itself, will awaken slumbering
recollections of the twins.&nbsp; It is impossible to steer clear of
them.&nbsp; They will come uppermost, let the poor man do what he may.&nbsp;
Ned has been known to be lost sight of for half an hour, Dick has been
forgotten, the name of Mary Anne has not been mentioned, but the twins
will out.&nbsp; Nothing can keep down the twins.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a very extraordinary thing, Saunders,&rsquo; says
Mr. Whiffler to the visitor, &lsquo;but&mdash;you have seen our little
babies, the&mdash;the&mdash;twins?&rsquo;&nbsp; The friend&rsquo;s heart
sinks within him as he answers, &lsquo;Oh, yes&mdash;often.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Your talking of the Pyramids,&rsquo; says Mr. Whiffler, quite
as a matter of course, &lsquo;reminds me of the twins.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
a very extraordinary thing about those babies&mdash;what colour should
you say their eyes were?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Upon my word,&rsquo; the
friend stammers, &lsquo;I hardly know how to answer&rsquo;&mdash;the
fact being, that except as the friend does not remember to have heard
of any departure from the ordinary course of nature in the instance
of these twins, they might have no eyes at all for aught he has observed
to the contrary.&nbsp; &lsquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t say they were red,
I suppose?&rsquo; says Mr. Whiffler.&nbsp; The friend hesitates, and
rather thinks they are; but inferring from the expression of Mr. Whiffler&rsquo;s
face that red is not the colour, smiles with some confidence, and says,
&lsquo;No, no! very different from that.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;What should
you say to blue?&rsquo; says Mr. Whiffler.&nbsp; The friend glances
at him, and observing a different expression in his face, ventures to
say, &lsquo;I should say they <i>were</i> blue&mdash;a decided blue.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;To be sure!&rsquo; cries Mr. Whiffler, triumphantly, &lsquo;I
knew you would!&nbsp; But what should you say if I was to tell you that
the boy&rsquo;s eyes are blue and the girl&rsquo;s hazel, eh?&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Impossible!&rsquo; exclaims the friend, not at all knowing why
it should be impossible.&nbsp; &lsquo;A fact, notwithstanding,&rsquo;
cries Mr. Whiffler; &lsquo;and let me tell you, Saunders, <i>that&rsquo;s</i>
not a common thing in twins, or a circumstance that&rsquo;ll happen
every day.&rsquo;</p>
<p>In this dialogue Mrs. Whiffler, as being deeply responsible for the
twins, their charms and singularities, has taken no share; but she now
relates, in broken English, a witticism of little Dick&rsquo;s bearing
upon the subject just discussed, which delights Mr. Whiffler beyond
measure, and causes him to declare that he would have sworn that was
Dick&rsquo;s if he had heard it anywhere.&nbsp; Then he requests that
Mrs. Whiffler will tell Saunders what Tom said about mad bulls; and
Mrs. Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different
character of Tom&rsquo;s wit and Dick&rsquo;s wit, from which it appears
that Dick&rsquo;s humour is of a lively turn, while Tom&rsquo;s style
is the dry and caustic.&nbsp; This discussion being enlivened by various
illustrations, lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler
instructing the footman to ring the nursery bell, as the children were
promised that they should come down and taste the pudding.</p>
<p>The friend turns pale when this order is given, and paler still when
it is followed up by a great pattering on the staircase, (not unlike
the sound of rain upon a skylight,) a violent bursting open of the dining-room
door, and the tumultuous appearance of six small children, closely succeeded
by a strong nursery-maid with a twin in each arm.&nbsp; As the whole
eight are screaming, shouting, or kicking&mdash;some influenced by a
ravenous appetite, some by a horror of the stranger, and some by a conflict
of the two feelings&mdash;a pretty long space elapses before all their
heads can be ranged round the table and anything like order restored;
in bringing about which happy state of things both the nurse and footman
are severely scratched.&nbsp; At length Mrs. Whiffler is heard to say,
&lsquo;Mr. Saunders, shall I give you some pudding?&rsquo;&nbsp; A breathless
silence ensues, and sixteen small eyes are fixed upon the guest in expectation
of his reply.&nbsp; A wild shout of joy proclaims that he has said &lsquo;No,
thank you.&rsquo;&nbsp; Spoons are waved in the air, legs appear above
the table-cloth in uncontrollable ecstasy, and eighty short fingers
dabble in damson syrup.</p>
<p>While the pudding is being disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler look
on with beaming countenances, and Mr. Whiffler nudging his friend Saunders,
begs him to take notice of Tom&rsquo;s eyes, or Dick&rsquo;s chin, or
Ned&rsquo;s nose, or Mary Anne&rsquo;s hair, or Emily&rsquo;s figure,
or little Bob&rsquo;s calves, or Fanny&rsquo;s mouth, or Carry&rsquo;s
head, as the case may be.&nbsp; Whatever the attention of Mr. Saunders
is called to, Mr. Saunders admires of course; though he is rather confused
about the sex of the youngest branches and looks at the wrong children,
turning to a girl when Mr. Whiffler directs his attention to a boy,
and falling into raptures with a boy when he ought to be enchanted with
a girl.&nbsp; Then the dessert comes, and there is a vast deal of scrambling
after fruit, and sudden spirting forth of juice out of tight oranges
into infant eyes, and much screeching and wailing in consequence.&nbsp;
At length it becomes time for Mrs. Whiffler to retire, and all the children
are by force of arms compelled to kiss and love Mr. Saunders before
going up-stairs, except Tom, who, lying on his back in the hall, proclaims
that Mr. Saunders &lsquo;is a naughty beast;&rsquo; and Dick, who having
drunk his father&rsquo;s wine when he was looking another way, is found
to be intoxicated and is carried out, very limp and helpless.</p>
<p>Mr. Whiffler and his friend are left alone together, but Mr. Whiffler&rsquo;s
thoughts are still with his family, if his family are not with him.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Saunders,&rsquo; says he, after a short silence, &lsquo;if you
please, we&rsquo;ll drink Mrs. Whiffler and the children.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Mr. Saunders feels this to be a reproach against himself for not proposing
the same sentiment, and drinks it in some confusion.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo;
Mr. Whiffler sighs, &lsquo;these children, Saunders, make one quite
an old man.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Saunders thinks that if they were his,
they would make him a very old man; but he says nothing.&nbsp; &lsquo;And
yet,&rsquo; pursues Mr. Whiffler, &lsquo;what can equal domestic happiness?
what can equal the engaging ways of children!&nbsp; Saunders, why don&rsquo;t
you get married?&rsquo;&nbsp; Now, this is an embarrassing question,
because Mr. Saunders has been thinking that if he had at any time entertained
matrimonial designs, the revelation of that day would surely have routed
them for ever.&nbsp; &lsquo;I am glad, however,&rsquo; says Mr. Whiffler,
&lsquo;that you <i>are</i> a bachelor,&mdash;glad on one account, Saunders;
a selfish one, I admit.&nbsp; Will you do Mrs. Whiffler and myself a
favour?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Saunders is surprised&mdash;evidently surprised;
but he replies, &lsquo;with the greatest pleasure.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Then,
will you, Saunders,&rsquo; says Mr. Whiffler, in an impressive manner,
&lsquo;will you cement and consolidate our friendship by coming into
the family (so to speak) as a godfather?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I shall
be proud and delighted,&rsquo; replies Mr. Saunders: &lsquo;which of
the children is it? really, I thought they were all christened; or&mdash;&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Saunders,&rsquo; Mr. Whiffler interposes, &lsquo;they <i>are</i>
all christened; you are right.&nbsp; The fact is, that Mrs. Whiffler
is&mdash;in short, we expect another.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Not a ninth!&rsquo;
cries the friend, all aghast at the idea.&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, Saunders,&rsquo;
rejoins Mr. Whiffler, solemnly, &lsquo;a ninth.&nbsp; Did we drink Mrs.
Whiffler&rsquo;s health?&nbsp; Let us drink it again, Saunders, and
wish her well over it!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but one idea,
which was a wrong one.&nbsp; The couple who dote upon their children
are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in
all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have
no sphere beyond.&nbsp; They relate the clever things their offspring
say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity.&nbsp;
Mr. Whiffler takes a friend by the button at a street corner on a windy
day to tell him a <i>bon mot</i> of his youngest boy&rsquo;s; and Mrs.
Whiffler, calling to see a sick acquaintance, entertains her with a
cheerful account of all her own past sufferings and present expectations.&nbsp;
In such cases the sins of the fathers indeed descend upon the children;
for people soon come to regard them as predestined little bores.&nbsp;
The couple who dote upon their children cannot be said to be actuated
by a general love for these engaging little people (which would be a
great excuse); for they are apt to underrate and entertain a jealousy
of any children but their own.&nbsp; If they examined their own hearts,
they would, perhaps, find at the bottom of all this, more self-love
and egotism than they think of.&nbsp; Self-love and egotism are bad
qualities, of which the unrestrained exhibition, though it may be sometimes
amusing, never fails to be wearisome and unpleasant.&nbsp; Couples who
dote upon their children, therefore, are best avoided.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE COOL COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>There is an old-fashioned weather-glass representing a house with
two doorways, in one of which is the figure of a gentleman, in the other
the figure of a lady.&nbsp; When the weather is to be fine the lady
comes out and the gentleman goes in; when wet, the gentleman comes out
and the lady goes in.&nbsp; They never seek each other&rsquo;s society,
are never elevated and depressed by the same cause, and have nothing
in common.&nbsp; They are the model of a cool couple, except that there
is something of politeness and consideration about the behaviour of
the gentleman in the weather-glass, in which, neither of the cool couple
can be said to participate.</p>
<p>The cool couple are seldom alone together, and when they are, nothing
can exceed their apathy and dulness: the gentleman being for the most
part drowsy, and the lady silent.&nbsp; If they enter into conversation,
it is usually of an ironical or recriminatory nature.&nbsp; Thus, when
the gentleman has indulged in a very long yawn and settled himself more
snugly in his easy-chair, the lady will perhaps remark, &lsquo;Well,
I am sure, Charles!&nbsp; I hope you&rsquo;re comfortable.&rsquo;&nbsp;
To which the gentleman replies, &lsquo;Oh yes, he&rsquo;s quite comfortable
quite.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;There are not many married men, I hope,&rsquo;
returns the lady, &lsquo;who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications
as you do.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Nor many wives who seek comfort in such
selfish gratifications as <i>you</i> do, I hope,&rsquo; retorts the
gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Whose fault is that?&rsquo; demands the lady.&nbsp;
The gentleman becoming more sleepy, returns no answer.&nbsp; &lsquo;Whose
fault is that?&rsquo; the lady repeats.&nbsp; The gentleman still returning
no answer, she goes on to say that she believes there never was in all
this world anybody so attached to her home, so thoroughly domestic,
so unwilling to seek a moment&rsquo;s gratification or pleasure beyond
her own fireside as she.&nbsp; God knows that before she was married
she never thought or dreamt of such a thing; and she remembers that
her poor papa used to say again and again, almost every day of his life,
&lsquo;Oh, my dear Louisa, if you only marry a man who understands you,
and takes the trouble to consider your happiness and accommodate himself
a very little to your disposition, what a treasure he will find in you!&rsquo;&nbsp;
She supposes her papa knew what her disposition was&mdash;he had known
her long enough&mdash;he ought to have been acquainted with it, but
what can she do?&nbsp; If her home is always dull and lonely, and her
husband is always absent and finds no pleasure in her society, she is
naturally sometimes driven (seldom enough, she is sure) to seek a little
recreation elsewhere; she is not expected to pine and mope to death,
she hopes.&nbsp; &lsquo;Then come, Louisa,&rsquo; says the gentleman,
waking up as suddenly as he fell asleep, &lsquo;stop at home this evening,
and so will I.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I should be sorry to suppose, Charles,
that you took a pleasure in aggravating me,&rsquo; replies the lady;
&lsquo;but you know as well as I do that I am particularly engaged to
Mrs. Mortimer, and that it would be an act of the grossest rudeness
and ill-breeding, after accepting a seat in her box and preventing her
from inviting anybody else, not to go.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah! there
it is!&rsquo; says the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders, &lsquo;I
knew that perfectly well.&nbsp; I knew you couldn&rsquo;t devote an
evening to your own home.&nbsp; Now all I have to say, Louisa, is this&mdash;recollect
that <i>I</i> was quite willing to stay at home, and that it&rsquo;s
no fault of <i>mine</i> we are not oftener together.&rsquo;</p>
<p>With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old appointment at his
club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs. Mortimer&rsquo;s; and
neither thinks of the other until by some odd chance they find themselves
alone again.</p>
<p>But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are habitually a
quarrelsome one.&nbsp; Quite the contrary.&nbsp; These differences are
only occasions for a little self-excuse,&mdash;nothing more.&nbsp; In
general they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any
common acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put
each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves.</p>
<p>When they meet in society, the cool couple are the best-bred people
in existence.&nbsp; The lady is seated in a corner among a little knot
of lady friends, one of whom exclaims, &lsquo;Why, I vow and declare
there is your husband, my dear!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Whose?&mdash;mine?&rsquo;
she says, carelessly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ay, yours, and coming this way too.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;How very odd!&rsquo; says the lady, in a languid tone, &lsquo;I
thought he had been at Dover.&rsquo;&nbsp; The gentleman coming up,
and speaking to all the other ladies and nodding slightly to his wife,
it turns out that he has been at Dover, and has just now returned.&nbsp;
&lsquo;What a strange creature you are!&rsquo; cries his wife; &lsquo;and
what on earth brought you here, I wonder?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I came
to look after you, <i>of course</i>,&rsquo; rejoins her husband.&nbsp;
This is so pleasant a jest that the lady is mightily amused, as are
all the other ladies similarly situated who are within hearing; and
while they are enjoying it to the full, the gentleman nods again, turns
upon his heel, and saunters away.</p>
<p>There are times, however, when his company is not so agreeable, though
equally unexpected; such as when the lady has invited one or two particular
friends to tea and scandal, and he happens to come home in the very
midst of their diversion.&nbsp; It is a hundred chances to one that
he remains in the house half an hour, but the lady is rather disturbed
by the intrusion, notwithstanding, and reasons within herself,&mdash;&lsquo;I
am sure I never interfere with him, and why should he interfere with
me?&nbsp; It can scarcely be accidental; it never happens that I have
a particular reason for not wishing him to come home, but he always
comes.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s very provoking and tiresome; and I am sure when
he leaves me so much alone for his own pleasure, the least he could
do would be to do as much for mine.&rsquo;&nbsp; Observing what passes
in her mind, the gentleman, who has come home for his own accommodation,
makes a merit of it with himself; arrives at the conclusion that it
is the very last place in which he can hope to be comfortable; and determines,
as he takes up his hat and cane, never to be so virtuous again.</p>
<p>Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold couples,
and the grave has closed over their folly and indifference.&nbsp; Loss
of name, station, character, life itself, has ensued from causes as
slight as these, before now; and when gossips tell such tales, and aggravate
their deformities, they elevate their hands and eyebrows, and call each
other to witness what a cool couple Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so always were,
even in the best of times.</p>
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<h3>THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE</h3>
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<p>The plausible couple have many titles.&nbsp; They are &lsquo;a delightful
couple,&rsquo; an &lsquo;affectionate couple,&rsquo; &lsquo;a most agreeable
couple, &lsquo;a good-hearted couple,&rsquo; and &lsquo;the best-natured
couple in existence.&rsquo;&nbsp; The truth is, that the plausible couple
are people of the world; and either the way of pleasing the world has
grown much easier than it was in the days of the old man and his ass,
or the old man was but a bad hand at it, and knew very little of the
trade.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But is it really possible to please the world!&rsquo; says
some doubting reader.&nbsp; It is indeed.&nbsp; Nay, it is not only
very possible, but very easy.&nbsp; The ways are crooked, and sometimes
foul and low.&nbsp; What then?&nbsp; A man need but crawl upon his hands
and knees, know when to close his eyes and when his ears, when to stoop
and when to stand upright; and if by the world is meant that atom of
it in which he moves himself, he shall please it, never fear.</p>
<p>Now, it will be readily seen, that if a plausible man or woman have
an easy means of pleasing the world by an adaptation of self to all
its twistings and twinings, a plausible man <i>and</i> woman, or, in
other words, a plausible couple, playing into each other&rsquo;s hands,
and acting in concert, have a manifest advantage.&nbsp; Hence it is
that plausible couples scarcely ever fail of success on a pretty large
scale; and hence it is that if the reader, laying down this unwieldy
volume at the next full stop, will have the goodness to review his or
her circle of acquaintance, and to search particularly for some man
and wife with a large connexion and a good name, not easily referable
to their abilities or their wealth, he or she (that is, the male or
female reader) will certainly find that gentleman or lady, on a very
short reflection, to be a plausible couple.</p>
<p>The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people living: the most
sensitive people&mdash;to merit&mdash;on the face of the earth.&nbsp;
Nothing clever or virtuous escapes them.&nbsp; They have microscopic
eyes for such endowments, and can find them anywhere.&nbsp; The plausible
couple never fawn&mdash;oh no!&nbsp; They don&rsquo;t even scruple to
tell their friends of their faults.&nbsp; One is too generous, another
too candid; a third has a tendency to think all people like himself,
and to regard mankind as a company of angels; a fourth is kind-hearted
to a fault.&nbsp; &lsquo;We never flatter, my dear Mrs. Jackson,&rsquo;
say the plausible couple; &lsquo;we speak our minds.&nbsp; Neither you
nor Mr. Jackson have faults enough.&nbsp; It may sound strangely, but
it is true.&nbsp; You have not faults enough.&nbsp; You know our way,&mdash;we
must speak out, and always do.&nbsp; Quarrel with us for saying so,
if you will; but we repeat it,&mdash;you have not faults enough!&rsquo;</p>
<p>The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other than to
third parties.&nbsp; They are always loving and harmonious.&nbsp; The
plausible gentleman calls his wife &lsquo;darling,&rsquo; and the plausible
lady addresses him as &lsquo;dearest.&rsquo;&nbsp; If it be Mr. and
Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs. Widger is &lsquo;Lavinia, darling,&rsquo;
and Mr. Widger is &lsquo;Bobtail, dearest.&rsquo;&nbsp; Speaking of
each other, they observe the same tender form.&nbsp; Mrs. Widger relates
what &lsquo;Bobtail&rsquo; said, and Mr. Widger recounts what &lsquo;darling&rsquo;
thought and did.</p>
<p>If you sit next to the plausible lady at a dinner-table, she takes
the earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you are acquainted
with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the Clickits speak of you&mdash;she
must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a flatterer.&nbsp;
You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately
launches out in their praise.&nbsp; She quite loves the Clickits.&nbsp;
Were there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people&mdash;such
a gentle, interesting little woman as Mrs. Clickit, or such a frank,
unaffected creature as Mr. Clickit? were there ever two people, in short,
so little spoiled by the world as they are?&nbsp; &lsquo;As who, darling?&rsquo;
cries Mr. Widger, from the opposite side of the table.&nbsp; &lsquo;The
Clickits, dearest,&rsquo; replies Mrs. Widger.&nbsp; &lsquo;Indeed you
are right, darling,&rsquo; Mr. Widger rejoins; &lsquo;the Clickits are
a very high-minded, worthy, estimable couple.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Widger
remarking that Bobtail always grows quite eloquent upon this subject,
Mr. Widger admits that he feels very strongly whenever such people as
the Clickits and some other friends of his (here he glances at the host
and hostess) are mentioned; for they are an honour to human nature,
and do one good to think of.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>You</i> know the Clickits,
Mrs. Jackson?&rsquo; he says, addressing the lady of the house.&nbsp;
&lsquo;No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,&rsquo; she replies.&nbsp;
&lsquo;You astonish me!&rsquo; exclaims Mr. Widger: &lsquo;not know
the Clickits! why, you are the very people of all others who ought to
be their bosom friends.&nbsp; You are kindred beings; you are one and
the same thing:- not know the Clickits!&nbsp; Now <i>will</i> you know
the Clickits?&nbsp; Will you make a point of knowing them?&nbsp; Will
you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening, and be acquainted
with them?&rsquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Jackson will be quite delighted; nothing
would give her more pleasure.&nbsp; &lsquo;Then, Lavinia, my darling,&rsquo;
says Mr. Widger, &lsquo;mind you don&rsquo;t lose sight of that; now,
pray take care that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know the Clickits without loss
of time.&nbsp; Such people ought not to be strangers to each other.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Mrs. Widger books both families as the centre of attraction for her
next party; and Mr. Widger, going on to expatiate upon the virtues of
the Clickits, adds to their other moral qualities, that they keep one
of the neatest phaetons in town, and have two thousand a year.</p>
<p>As the plausible couple never laud the merits of any absent person,
without dexterously contriving that their praises shall reflect upon
somebody who is present, so they never depreciate anything or anybody,
without turning their depreciation to the same account.&nbsp; Their
friend, Mr. Slummery, say they, is unquestionably a clever painter,
and would no doubt be very popular, and sell his pictures at a very
high price, if that cruel Mr. Fithers had not forestalled him in his
department of art, and made it thoroughly and completely his own;&mdash;Fithers,
it is to be observed, being present and within hearing, and Slummery
elsewhere.&nbsp; Is Mrs. Tabblewick really as beautiful as people say?&nbsp;
Why, there indeed you ask them a very puzzling question, because there
is no doubt that she is a very charming woman, and they have long known
her intimately.&nbsp; She is no doubt beautiful, very beautiful; they
once thought her the most beautiful woman ever seen; still if you press
them for an honest answer, they are bound to say that this was before
they had ever seen our lovely friend on the sofa, (the sofa is hard
by, and our lovely friend can&rsquo;t help hearing the whispers in which
this is said;) since that time, perhaps, they have been hardly fair
judges; Mrs. Tabblewick is no doubt extremely handsome,&mdash;very like
our friend, in fact, in the form of the features,&mdash;but in point
of expression, and soul, and figure, and air altogether&mdash;oh dear!</p>
<p>But while the plausible couple depreciate, they are still careful
to preserve their character for amiability and kind feeling; indeed
the depreciation itself is often made to grow out of their excessive
sympathy and good will.&nbsp; The plausible lady calls on a lady who
dotes upon her children, and is sitting with a little girl upon her
knee, enraptured by her artless replies, and protesting that there is
nothing she delights in so much as conversing with these fairies; when
the other lady inquires if she has seen young Mrs. Finching lately,
and whether the baby has turned out a finer one than it promised to
be.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh dear!&rsquo; cries the plausible lady, &lsquo;you
cannot think how often Bobtail and I have talked about poor Mrs. Finching&mdash;she
is such a dear soul, and was so anxious that the baby should be a fine
child&mdash;and very naturally, because she was very much here at one
time, and there is, you know, a natural emulation among mothers&mdash;that
it is impossible to tell you how much we have felt for her.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;Is it weak or plain, or what?&rsquo; inquires the other.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Weak or plain, my love,&rsquo; returns the plausible lady, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s
a fright&mdash;a perfect little fright; you never saw such a miserable
creature in all your days.&nbsp; Positively you must not let her see
one of these beautiful dears again, or you&rsquo;ll break her heart,
you will indeed.&mdash;Heaven bless this child, see how she is looking
in my face! can you conceive anything prettier than that?&nbsp; If poor
Mrs. Finching could only hope&mdash;but that&rsquo;s impossible&mdash;and
the gifts of Providence, you know&mdash;What <i>did</i> I do with my
pocket-handkerchief!&rsquo;</p>
<p>What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to comment
to her lord that evening on the plausible lady&rsquo;s engaging qualities
and feeling heart, and what is it that procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail
Widger an immediate invitation to dinner?</p>
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<h3>THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE</h3>
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<p>A custom once prevailed in old-fashioned circles, that when a lady
or gentleman was unable to sing a song, he or she should enliven the
company with a story.&nbsp; As we find ourself in the predicament of
not being able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples
in the abstract, we purpose telling in this place a little story about
a nice little couple of our acquaintance.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in question.&nbsp;
Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner
of a small bird.&nbsp; Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women,
and has the prettiest little figure conceivable.&nbsp; She has the neatest
little foot, and the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little
smile, and the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes,
and the quietest little manner, and is, in short, altogether one of
the most engaging of all little women, dead or alive.&nbsp; She is a
condensation of all the domestic virtues,&mdash;a pocket edition of
the young man&rsquo;s best companion,&mdash;a little woman at a very
high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and usefulness in
an exceedingly small space.&nbsp; Little as she is, Mrs. Chirrup might
furnish forth matter for the moral equipment of a score of housewives,
six feet high in their stockings&mdash;if, in the presence of ladies,
we may be allowed the expression&mdash;and of corresponding robustness.</p>
<p>Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he rather takes
on that he don&rsquo;t.&nbsp; Accordingly he is very proud of his better-half,
and evidently considers himself, as all other people consider him, rather
fortunate in having her to wife.&nbsp; We say evidently, because Mr.
Chirrup is a warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when
he has been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a certain
complacent twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a half-expressed
toss of the head, which as clearly indicates what has been passing in
his mind as if he had put it into words, and shouted it out through
a speaking-trumpet.&nbsp; Moreover, Mr. Chirrup has a particularly mild
and bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup &lsquo;my dear;&rsquo;
and&mdash;for he is of a jocose turn&mdash;of cutting little witticisms
upon her, and making her the subject of various harmless pleasantries,
which nobody enjoys more thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself.&nbsp;
Mr. Chirrup, too, now and then affects to deplore his bachelor-days,
and to bemoan (with a marvellously contented and smirking face) the
loss of his freedom, and the sorrow of his heart at having been taken
captive by Mrs. Chirrup&mdash;all of which circumstances combine to
show the secret triumph and satisfaction of Mr. Chirrup&rsquo;s soul.</p>
<p>We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable
housewife.&nbsp; In all the arts of domestic arrangement and management,
in all the mysteries of confectionery-making, pickling, and preserving,
never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body.&nbsp; She
is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special
hand at marketing to the very best advantage.&nbsp; But if there be
one branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly unparalleled
and unprecedented extent, it is in the important one of carving.&nbsp;
A roast goose is universally allowed to be the great stumbling-block
in the way of young aspirants to perfection in this department of science;
many promising carvers, beginning with legs of mutton, and preserving
a good reputation through fillets of veal, sirloins of beef, quarters
of lamb, fowls, and even ducks, have sunk before a roast goose, and
lost caste and character for ever.&nbsp; To Mrs. Chirrup the resolving
a goose into its smallest component parts is a pleasant pastime&mdash;a
practical joke&mdash;a thing to be done in a minute or so, without the
smallest interruption to the conversation of the time.&nbsp; No handing
the dish over to an unfortunate man upon her right or left, no wild
sharpening of the knife, no hacking and sawing at an unruly joint, no
noise, no splash, no heat, no leaving off in despair; all is confidence
and cheerfulness.&nbsp; The dish is set upon the table, the cover is
removed; for an instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs.
Chirrup&rsquo;s attention is distracted; she smiles, but heareth not.&nbsp;
You proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering knife is slowly
upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup&rsquo;s wrists are slightly but not ungracefully
agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into a
smile, and all is over.&nbsp; The legs of the bird slide gently down
into a pool of gravy, the wings seem to melt from the body, the breast
separates into a row of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated
parts of his anatomy are perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is
revealed, and the goose is gone!</p>
<p>To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the pleasantest things
in the world.&nbsp; Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who lived with
him in his own days of single blessedness, and to whom he is mightily
attached.&nbsp; Contrary to the usual custom, this bachelor friend is
no less a friend of Mrs. Chirrup&rsquo;s, and, consequently, whenever
you dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup, you meet the bachelor friend.&nbsp;
It would put any reasonably-conditioned mortal into good-humour to observe
the entire unanimity which subsists between these three; but there is
a quiet welcome dimpling in Mrs. Chirrup&rsquo;s face, a bustling hospitality
oozing as it were out of the waistcoat-pockets of Mr. Chirrup, and a
patronising enjoyment of their cordiality and satisfaction on the part
of the bachelor friend, which is quite delightful.&nbsp; On these occasions
Mr. Chirrup usually takes an opportunity of rallying the friend on being
single, and the friend retorts on Mr. Chirrup for being married, at
which moments some single young ladies present are like to die of laughter;
and we have more than once observed them bestow looks upon the friend,
which convinces us that his position is by no means a safe one, as,
indeed, we hold no bachelor&rsquo;s to be who visits married friends
and cracks jokes on wedlock, for certain it is that such men walk among
traps and nets and pitfalls innumerable, and often find themselves down
upon their knees at the altar rails, taking M. or N. for their wedded
wives, before they know anything about the matter.</p>
<p>However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup&rsquo;s, who talks, and
laughs, and drinks his wine, and laughs again, and talks more, until
it is time to repair to the drawing-room, where, coffee served and over,
Mrs. Chirrup prepares for a round game, by sorting the nicest possible
little fish into the nicest possible little pools, and calling Mr. Chirrup
to assist her, which Mr. Chirrup does.&nbsp; As they stand side by side,
you find that Mr. Chirrup is the least possible shadow of a shade taller
than Mrs. Chirrup, and that they are the neatest and best-matched little
couple that can be, which the chances are ten to one against your observing
with such effect at any other time, unless you see them in the street
arm-in-arm, or meet them some rainy day trotting along under a very
small umbrella.&nbsp; The round game (at which Mr. Chirrup is the merriest
of the party) being done and over, in course of time a nice little tray
appears, on which is a nice little supper; and when that is finished
likewise, and you have said &lsquo;Good night,&rsquo; you find yourself
repeating a dozen times, as you ride home, that there never was such
a nice little couple as Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup.</p>
<p>Whether it is that pleasant qualities, being packed more closely
in small bodies than in large, come more readily to hand than when they
are diffused over a wider space, and have to be gathered together for
use, we don&rsquo;t know, but as a general rule,&mdash;strengthened
like all other rules by its exceptions,&mdash;we hold that little people
are sprightly and good-natured.&nbsp; The more sprightly and good-natured
people we have, the better; therefore, let us wish well to all nice
little couples, and hope that they may increase and multiply.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Egotism in couples is of two kinds.&mdash;It is our purpose to show
this by two examples.</p>
<p>The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged, well to do,
or ill to do; they may have a small family, a large family, or no family
at all.&nbsp; There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple
may be known and avoided.&nbsp; They come upon you unawares; there is
no guarding against them.&nbsp; No man can of himself be forewarned
or forearmed against an egotistical couple.</p>
<p>The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and experienced
every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is susceptible.&nbsp;
You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple anything they
don&rsquo;t know, or describe to them anything they have not felt.&nbsp;
They have been everything but dead.&nbsp; Sometimes we are tempted to
wish they had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments,
which are few and far between.</p>
<p>We happened the other day, in the course of a morning call, to encounter
an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain long in ignorance
of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the lady of the house brought
them into active and vigorous operation.&nbsp; The inquiry was of course
touching the lady&rsquo;s health, and the answer happened to be, that
she had not been very well.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, my dear!&rsquo; said the
egotistical lady, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t talk of not being well.&nbsp; We
have been in <i>such</i> a state since we saw you last!&rsquo;&mdash;The
lady of the house happening to remark that her lord had not been well
either, the egotistical gentleman struck in: &lsquo;Never let Briggs
complain of not being well&mdash;never let Briggs complain, my dear
Mrs. Briggs, after what I have undergone within these six weeks.&nbsp;
He doesn&rsquo;t know what it is to be ill, he hasn&rsquo;t the least
idea of it; not the faintest conception.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo;
interposed his wife smiling, &lsquo;you talk as if it were almost a
crime in Mr. Briggs not to have been as ill as we have been, instead
of feeling thankful to Providence that both he and our dear Mrs. Briggs
are in such blissful ignorance of real suffering.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;My
love,&rsquo; returned the egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious
voice, &lsquo;you mistake me;&mdash;I feel grateful&mdash;very grateful.&nbsp;
I trust our friends may never purchase their experience as dearly as
we have bought ours; I hope they never may!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the question
thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few preliminary
remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he had in his
mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the Dowager Lady
Snorflerer.&nbsp; On our replying in the negative, he presumed we had
often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate
terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog.&nbsp; Finding that we were equally
unable to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great
astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile, inquired
who it was that had told that capital story about the mashed potatoes.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Who, my dear?&rsquo; returned the egotistical lady, &lsquo;why
Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you ask!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you remember
his applying it to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like
the Prince and Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;To be sure, I remember that,&rsquo; said the egotistical gentleman,
&lsquo;but are you quite certain that didn&rsquo;t apply to the other
anecdote about the Emperor of Austria and the pump?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Upon
my word then, I think it did,&rsquo; replied his wife.&nbsp; &lsquo;To
be sure it did,&rsquo; said the egotistical gentleman, &lsquo;it was
Slang&rsquo;s story, I remember now, perfectly.&rsquo;&nbsp; However,
it turned out, a few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman&rsquo;s
memory was rather treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that
the story had been told by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last
time they dined there; but there appearing, on further consideration,
strong circumstantial evidence tending to show that this couldn&rsquo;t
be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been, on the occasion
in question, wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the egotistical
gentleman recanted this opinion; and after laying the story at the doors
of a great many great people, happily left it at last with the Duke
of Scuttlewig:- observing that it was not extraordinary he had forgotten
his Grace hitherto, as it often happened that the names of those with
whom we were upon the most familiar footing were the very last to present
themselves to our thoughts.</p>
<p>It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody,
but that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred
for many years with which they had not been in some way or other connected.&nbsp;
Thus we learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of George
the Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical
gentleman&rsquo;s grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first
man who collared him; and that the egotistical lady&rsquo;s aunt, sitting
within a few boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the audience
who heard his Majesty exclaim, &lsquo;Charlotte, Charlotte, don&rsquo;t
be frightened, don&rsquo;t be frightened; they&rsquo;re letting off
squibs, they&rsquo;re letting off squibs.&rsquo;&nbsp; When the fire
broke out, which ended in the destruction of the two Houses of Parliament,
the egotistical couple, being at the time at a drawing-room window on
Blackheath, then and there simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment
of a whole party&mdash;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s the House of Lords!&rsquo;&nbsp;
Nor was this a solitary instance of their peculiar discernment, for
chancing to be (as by a comparison of dates and circumstances they afterwards
found) in the same omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim&rsquo;s
head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular twitching
in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street Hill,
a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his lady&mdash;slightly
casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument&mdash;&lsquo;There&rsquo;s
a boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s very strange.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t like it.&mdash;In five seconds afterwards, Sir,&rsquo;
says the egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands together with one
violent clap&mdash;&lsquo;the lad was over!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others of the
same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute account
of what weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and diet
disagreed with them, and at what time they usually got up, and at what
time went to bed, with many other particulars of their domestic economy
too numerous to mention; the egotistical couple at length took their
leave, and afforded us an opportunity of doing the same.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another class,
for all the lady&rsquo;s egotism is about her husband, and all the gentleman&rsquo;s
about his wife.&nbsp; For example:- Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical gentleman,
and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do.&nbsp; If
you happen to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so engaged,
Mrs. Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn whisper,
as if there were at least three or four particular friends up-stairs,
all upon the point of death, implores you to be very silent, for Mr.
Sliverstone is composing, and she need not say how very important it
is that he should not be disturbed.&nbsp; Unwilling to interrupt anything
so serious, you hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but this Mrs.
Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she knows you would
like to see him, as it is very natural you should, and that she is determined
to make a trial for you, as you are a great favourite.&nbsp; So you
are led up-stairs&mdash;still on tip-toe&mdash;to the door of a little
back room, in which, as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone
always writes.&nbsp; No answer being returned to a couple of soft taps,
the lady opens the door, and there, sure enough, is Mr. Sliverstone,
with dishevelled hair, powdering away with pen, ink, and paper, at a
rate which, if he has any power of sustaining it, would settle the longest
sermon in no time.&nbsp; At first he is too much absorbed to be roused
by this intrusion; but presently looking up, says faintly, &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo;
and pointing to his desk with a weary and languid smile, extends his
hand, and hopes you&rsquo;ll forgive him.&nbsp; Then Mrs. Sliverstone
sits down beside him, and taking his hand in hers, tells you how that
Mr. Sliverstone has been shut up there ever since nine o&rsquo;clock
in the morning, (it is by this time twelve at noon,) and how she knows
it cannot be good for his health, and is very uneasy about it.&nbsp;
Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that &lsquo;It must be done;&rsquo;
which agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell
you that such were Mr. Sliverstone&rsquo;s labours last week&mdash;what
with the buryings, marryings, churchings, christenings, and all together,&mdash;that
when he was going up the pulpit stairs on Sunday evening, he was obliged
to hold on by the rails, or he would certainly have fallen over into
his own pew.&nbsp; Mr. Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling
meekly, says, &lsquo;Not quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!&rsquo;
he admits though, on cross-examination, that he <i>was</i> very near
falling upon the verger who was following him up to bolt the door; but
adds, that it was his duty as a Christian to fall upon him, if need
were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone, and (possibly the verger too) ought
to glory in it.</p>
<p>This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, who
launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone&rsquo;s worth and excellence,
to which he listens in the same meek silence, save when he puts in a
word of self-denial relative to some question of fact, as&mdash;&lsquo;Not
seventy-two christenings that week, my dear.&nbsp; Only seventy-one,
only seventy-one.&rsquo;&nbsp; At length his lady has quite concluded,
and then he says, Why should he repine, why should he give way, why
should he suffer his heart to sink within him?&nbsp; Is it he alone
who toils and suffers?&nbsp; What has she gone through, he should like
to know?&nbsp; What does she go through every day for him and for society?</p>
<p>With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into glowing praises
of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the production of eight young
children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same; and
thus the husband magnifies the wife, and the wife the husband.</p>
<p>This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone kept it to
themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but they do not.&nbsp;
The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become,
and the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits.&nbsp;
Perhaps this is the worst kind of egotism.&nbsp; It has not even the
poor excuse of being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate
system and malice aforethought.&nbsp; Mere empty-headed conceit excites
our pity, but ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mrs. Merrywinkle&rsquo;s maiden name was Chopper.&nbsp; She was the
only child of Mr. and Mrs. Chopper.&nbsp; Her father died when she was,
as the play-books express it, &lsquo;yet an infant;&rsquo; and so old
Mrs. Chopper, when her daughter married, made the house of her son-in-law
her home from that time henceforth, and set up her staff of rest with
Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; and
the venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the same.</p>
<p>Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, middle-aged
and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the head.&nbsp;
Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair, and
is exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder.&nbsp; The venerable
Mrs. Chopper&mdash;who is strictly entitled to the appellation, her
daughter not being very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time
of her marriage, which was some years ago&mdash;is a mysterious old
lady who lurks behind a pair of spectacles, and is afflicted with a
chronic disease, respecting which she has taken a vast deal of medical
advice, and referred to a vast number of medical books, without meeting
any definition of symptoms that at all suits her, or enables her to
say, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s my complaint.&rsquo;&nbsp; Indeed, the absence
of authentic information upon the subject of this complaint would seem
to be Mrs. Chopper&rsquo;s greatest ill, as in all other respects she
is an uncommonly hale and hearty gentlewoman.</p>
<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity of flannel,
and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural
extent.&nbsp; They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds,
and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated spirits
and other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago.</p>
<p>Mr. Merrywinkle&rsquo;s leaving home to go to business on a damp
or wet morning is a very elaborate affair.&nbsp; He puts on wash-leather
socks over his stockings, and India-rubber shoes above his boots, and
wears under his waistcoat a cuirass of hare-skin.&nbsp; Besides these
precautions, he winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up
his mouth with a large silk handkerchief.&nbsp; Thus accoutred, and
furnished besides with a great-coat and umbrella, he braves the dangers
of the streets; travelling in severe weather at a gentle trot, the better
to preserve the circulation, and bringing his mouth to the surface to
take breath, but very seldom, and with the utmost caution.&nbsp; His
office-door opened, he shoots past his clerk at the same pace, and diving
into his own private room, closes the door, examines the window-fastenings,
and gradually unrobes himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the
fender to air, and determining to write to the newspapers about the
fog, which, he says, &lsquo;has really got to that pitch that it is
quite unbearable.&rsquo;</p>
<p>In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected mother fully
concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues are occupied
with the same subject, which is their constant theme all day.&nbsp;
If anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that they must assuredly
be mad, and her first salutation is, &lsquo;Why, what in the name of
goodness can bring you out in such weather?&nbsp; You know you <i>must</i>
catch your death.&rsquo;&nbsp; This assurance is corroborated by Mrs.
Chopper, who adds, in further confirmation, a dismal legend concerning
an individual of her acquaintance who, making a call under precisely
parallel circumstances, and being then in the best health and spirits,
expired in forty-eight hours afterwards, of a complication of inflammatory
disorders.&nbsp; The visitor, rendered not altogether comfortable perhaps
by this and other precedents, inquires very affectionately after Mr.
Merrywinkle, but by so doing brings about no change of the subject;
for Mr. Merrywinkle&rsquo;s name is inseparably connected with his complaints,
and his complaints are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle&rsquo;s;
and when these are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her
time, cuts in with the chronic disorder&mdash;a subject upon which the
amiable old lady never leaves off speaking until she is left alone,
and very often not then.</p>
<p>But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner.&nbsp; He is received by
Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper, who, on his remarking that he thinks
his feet are damp, turn pale as ashes and drag him up-stairs, imploring
him to have them rubbed directly with a dry coarse towel.&nbsp; Rubbed
they are, one by Mrs. Merrywinkle and one by Mrs. Chopper, until the
friction causes Mr. Merrywinkle to make horrible faces, and look as
if he had been smelling very powerful onions; when they desist, and
the patient, provided for his better security with thick worsted stockings
and list slippers, is borne down-stairs to dinner.&nbsp; Now, the dinner
is always a good one, the appetites of the diners being delicate, and
requiring a little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls &lsquo;tittivation;&rsquo;
the secret of which is understood to lie in good cookery and tasteful
spices, and which process is so successfully performed in the present
instance, that both Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle eat a remarkably good dinner,
and even the afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much
of the spirit and elasticity of youth.&nbsp; But Mr. Merrywinkle, in
his desire to gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health,
for he has a bottle of carbonate of soda with which to qualify his porter,
and a little pair of scales in which to weigh it out.&nbsp; Neither
in his anxiety to take care of his body is he unmindful of the welfare
of his immortal part, as he always prays that for what he is going to
receive he may be made truly thankful; and in order that he may be as
thankful as possible, eats and drinks to the utmost.</p>
<p>Either from eating and drinking so much, or from being the victim
of this constitutional infirmity, among others, Mr. Merrywinkle, after
two or three glasses of wine, falls fast asleep; and he has scarcely
closed his eyes, when Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper fall asleep
likewise.&nbsp; It is on awakening at tea-time that their most alarming
symptoms prevail; for then Mr. Merrywinkle feels as if his temples were
tightly bound round with the chain of the street-door, and Mrs. Merrywinkle
as if she had made a hearty dinner of half-hundredweights, and Mrs.
Chopper as if cold water were running down her back, and oyster-knives
with sharp points were plunging of their own accord into her ribs.&nbsp;
Symptoms like these are enough to make people peevish, and no wonder
that they remain so until supper-time, doing little more than doze and
complain, unless Mr. Merrywinkle calls out very loudly to a servant
&lsquo;to keep that draught out,&rsquo; or rushes into the passage to
flourish his fist in the countenance of the twopenny-postman, for daring
to give such a knock as he had just performed at the door of a private
gentleman with nerves.</p>
<p>Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some gentle provocative;
and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition, and again&mdash;done
honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and abetted by
Mrs. Chopper.&nbsp; After supper, it is ten to one but the last-named
old lady becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint
in full vigour.&nbsp; Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having administered
to her a warm cordial, which is something of the strongest, then repair
to their own room, where Mr. Merrywinkle, with his legs and feet in
hot water, superintends the mulling of some wine which he is to drink
at the very moment he plunges into bed, while Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments
whose nature is unknown to and unimagined by all but married men, takes
four small pills with a spasmodic look between each, and finally comes
to something hot and fragrant out of another little saucepan, which
serves as her composing-draught for the night.</p>
<p>There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who do
so at a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are niggardly
and parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough to coddle their
visitors too.&nbsp; It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers
may rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:- that
all couples who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,&mdash;that
they charge upon every wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every
vapour that hangs in the air, the evils which arise from their own imprudence
or the gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,&mdash;and that
all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who fall into exclusive
habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy and close
connexion with everybody and everything in the world around them, not
only neglect the first duty of life, but, by a happy retributive justice,
deprive themselves of its truest and best enjoyment.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE OLD COUPLE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and
have great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair
is grey, their step tottering and infirm.&nbsp; Is this the lightsome
pair whose wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown
old so soon!</p>
<p>It seems but yesterday&mdash;and yet what a host of cares and griefs
are crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them, lengthens
out into a century!&nbsp; How many new associations have wreathed themselves
about their hearts since then!&nbsp; The old time is gone, and a new
time has come for others&mdash;not for them.&nbsp; They are but the
rusting link that feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its
hold and dropping asunder.</p>
<p>It seems but yesterday&mdash;and yet three of their children have
sunk into the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old.&nbsp;
One was an infant&mdash;they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight
young thing too delicate for earth&mdash;her loss was hard indeed to
bear.&nbsp; The third, a man.&nbsp; That was the worst of all, but even
that grief is softened now.</p>
<p>It seems but yesterday&mdash;and yet how the gay and laughing faces
of that bright morning have changed and vanished from above ground!&nbsp;
Faint likenesses of some remain about them yet, but they are very faint
and scarcely to be traced.&nbsp; The rest are only seen in dreams, and
even they are unlike what they were, in eyes so old and dim.</p>
<p>One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet preserved.&nbsp;
They are of a quaint and antique fashion, and seldom seen except in
pictures.&nbsp; White has turned yellow, and brighter hues have faded.&nbsp;
Do you wonder, child?&nbsp; The wrinkled face was once as smooth as
yours, the eyes as bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate.&nbsp;
It is the work of hands that have been dust these many years.</p>
<p>Where are the fairy lovers of that happy day whose annual return
comes upon the old man and his wife, like the echo of some village bell
which has long been silent?&nbsp; Let yonder peevish bachelor, racked
by rheumatic pains, and quarrelling with the world, let him answer to
the question.&nbsp; He recollects something of a favourite playmate;
her name was Lucy&mdash;so they tell him.&nbsp; He is not sure whether
she was married, or went abroad, or died.&nbsp; It is a long while ago,
and he don&rsquo;t remember.</p>
<p>Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think, or act,
as in days of yore?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; There is an aged woman who once
lived servant with the old lady&rsquo;s father, and is sheltered in
an alms-house not far off.&nbsp; She is still attached to the family,
and loves them all; she nursed the children in her lap, and tended in
their sickness those who are no more.&nbsp; Her old mistress has still
something of youth in her eyes; the young ladies are like what she was
but not quite so handsome, nor are the gentlemen as stately as Mr. Harvey
used to be.&nbsp; She has seen a great deal of trouble; her husband
and her son died long ago; but she has got over that, and is happy now&mdash;quite
happy.</p>
<p>If ever her attachment to her old protectors were disturbed by fresher
cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former current.&nbsp;
It has filled the void in the poor creature&rsquo;s heart, and replaced
the love of kindred.&nbsp; Death has not left her alone, and this, with
a roof above her head, and a warm hearth to sit by, makes her cheerful
and contented.&nbsp; Does she remember the marriage of great-grandmamma?&nbsp;
Ay, that she does, as well&mdash;as if it was only yesterday.&nbsp;
You wouldn&rsquo;t think it to look at her now, and perhaps she ought
not to say so of herself, but she was as smart a young girl then as
you&rsquo;d wish to see.&nbsp; She recollects she took a friend of hers
up-stairs to see Miss Emma dressed for church; her name was&mdash;ah!
she forgets the name, but she remembers that she was a very pretty girl,
and that she married not long afterwards, and lived&mdash;it has quite
passed out of her mind where she lived, but she knows she had a bad
husband who used her ill, and that she died in Lambeth work-house.&nbsp;
Dear, dear, in Lambeth workhouse!</p>
<p>And the old couple&mdash;have they no comfort or enjoyment of existence?&nbsp;
See them among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren; how garrulous
they are, how they compare one with another, and insist on likenesses
which no one else can see; how gently the old lady lectures the girls
on points of breeding and decorum, and points the moral by anecdotes
of herself in her young days&mdash;how the old gentleman chuckles over
boyish feats and roguish tricks, and tells long stories of a &lsquo;barring-out&rsquo;
achieved at the school he went to: which was very wrong, he tells the
boys, and never to be imitated of course, but which he cannot help letting
them know was very pleasant too&mdash;especially when he kissed the
master&rsquo;s niece.&nbsp; This last, however, is a point on which
the old lady is very tender, for she considers it a shocking and indelicate
thing to talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned, never
failing to observe that he ought to be very penitent for having been
so sinful.&nbsp; So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the
schoolmaster&rsquo;s niece said afterwards (which he is always going
to tell) is lost to posterity.</p>
<p>The old gentleman is eighty years old, to-day&mdash;&lsquo;Eighty
years old, Crofts, and never had a headache,&rsquo; he tells the barber
who shaves him (the barber being a young fellow, and very subject to
that complaint).&nbsp; &lsquo;That&rsquo;s a great age, Crofts,&rsquo;
says the old gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s
sich a wery great age, Sir,&rsquo; replied the barber.&nbsp; &lsquo;Crofts,&rsquo;
rejoins the old gentleman, &lsquo;you&rsquo;re talking nonsense to me.&nbsp;
Eighty not a great age?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s a wery great
age, Sir, for a gentleman to be as healthy and active as you are,&rsquo;
returns the barber; &lsquo;but my grandfather, Sir, he was ninety-four.&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;You don&rsquo;t mean that, Crofts?&rsquo; says the old gentleman.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I do indeed, Sir,&rsquo; retorts the barber, &lsquo;and as wiggerous
as Julius Caesar, my grandfather was.&rsquo;&nbsp; The old gentleman
muses a little time, and then says, &lsquo;What did he die of, Crofts?&rsquo;&nbsp;
&lsquo;He died accidentally, Sir,&rsquo; returns the barber; &lsquo;he
didn&rsquo;t mean to do it.&nbsp; He always would go a running about
the streets&mdash;walking never satisfied <i>his</i> spirit&mdash;and
he run against a post and died of a hurt in his chest.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The old gentleman says no more until the shaving is concluded, and then
he gives Crofts half-a-crown to drink his health.&nbsp; He is a little
doubtful of the barber&rsquo;s veracity afterwards, and telling the
anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of it&mdash;though
to be sure (he adds) there was old Parr, and in some parts of England,
ninety-five or so is a common age, quite a common age.</p>
<p>This morning the old couple are cheerful but serious, recalling old
times as well as they can remember them, and dwelling upon many passages
in their past lives which the day brings to mind.&nbsp; The old lady
reads aloud, in a tremulous voice, out of a great Bible, and the old
gentleman with his hand to his ear, listens with profound respect.&nbsp;
When the book is closed, they sit silent for a short space, and afterwards
resume their conversation, with a reference perhaps to their dead children,
as a subject not unsuited to that they have just left.&nbsp; By degrees
they are led to consider which of those who survive are the most like
those dearly-remembered objects, and so they fall into a less solemn
strain, and become cheerful again.</p>
<p>How many people in all, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and one
or two intimate friends of the family, dine together to-day at the eldest
son&rsquo;s to congratulate the old couple, and wish them many happy
returns, is a calculation beyond our powers; but this we know, that
the old couple no sooner present themselves, very sprucely and carefully
attired, than there is a violent shouting and rushing forward of the
younger branches with all manner of presents, such as pocket-books,
pencil-cases, pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions, sleeve-buckles,
worked-slippers, watch-guards, and even a nutmeg-grater: the latter
article being presented by a very chubby and very little boy, who exhibits
it in great triumph as an extraordinary variety.&nbsp; The old couple&rsquo;s
emotion at these tokens of remembrance occasions quite a pathetic scene,
of which the chief ingredients are a vast quantity of kissing and hugging,
and repeated wipings of small eyes and noses with small square pocket-handkerchiefs,
which don&rsquo;t come at all easily out of small pockets.&nbsp; Even
the peevish bachelor is moved, and he says, as he presents the old gentleman
with a queer sort of antique ring from his own finger, that he&rsquo;ll
be de&rsquo;ed if he doesn&rsquo;t think he looks younger than he did
ten years ago.</p>
<p>But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and wine are
on the table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, and they
are all gathered in a large circle round the fire, for it is then&mdash;the
glasses being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast&mdash;that
two great-grandchildren rush out at a given signal, and presently return,
dragging in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched stick, and trembling
with age and pleasure.&nbsp; Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse
and story-teller in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as
she, striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey, while tears of
pleasure steal down her withered cheeks!</p>
<p>The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like yesterday
indeed.&nbsp; Looking back upon the path they have travelled, its dust
and ashes disappear; the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly
again upon its borders, and they grow young once more in the youth of
those about them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral essays, twelve
samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large stock on
hand, open to the inspection of all comers.&nbsp; These samples are
intended for the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and,
for their more easy and pleasant information, have been separately ticketed
and labelled in the manner they have seen.</p>
<p>We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in which
the lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of a
very unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous deformities,
only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.</p>
<p>And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to those
young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the church,
awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws of attraction
shall draw them towards it in couples, we are desirous of addressing
a few last words.</p>
<p>Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all their
hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them
cherish the faith that in home, and all the English virtues which the
love of home engenders, lies the only true source of domestic felicity;
let them believe that round the household gods, contentment and tranquillity
cluster in their gentlest and most graceful forms; and that many weary
hunters of happiness through the noisy world, have learnt this truth
too late, and found a cheerful spirit and a quiet mind only at home
at last.</p>
<p>How much may depend on the education of daughters and the conduct
of mothers; how much of the brightest part of our old national character
may be perpetuated by their wisdom or frittered away by their folly&mdash;how
much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger of
vanishing every day&mdash;are questions too weighty for discussion here,
but well deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples
nevertheless.</p>
<p>To that one young couple on whose bright destiny the thoughts of
nations are fixed, may the youth of England look, and not in vain, for
an example.&nbsp; From that one young couple, blessed and favoured as
they are, may they learn that even the glare and glitter of a court,
the splendour of a palace, and the pomp and glory of a throne, yield
in their power of conferring happiness, to domestic worth and virtue.&nbsp;
From that one young couple may they learn that the crown of a great
empire, costly and jewelled though it be, gives place in the estimation
of a Queen to the plain gold ring that links her woman&rsquo;s nature
to that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in her
woman&rsquo;s heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast
shall be that it knows no Royalty save Nature&rsquo;s own, and no pride
of birth but being the child of heaven!</p>
<p>So shall the highest young couple in the land for once hear the truth,
when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving shouts -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>GOD BLESS THEM.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE MUDFOG AND OTHER SKETCHES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE&mdash;ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mudfog is a pleasant town&mdash;a remarkably pleasant town&mdash;situated
in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog
derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, a roving
population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen,
and a great many other maritime advantages.&nbsp; There is a good deal
of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town for
a watering-place, either.&nbsp; Water is a perverse sort of element
at the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so.&nbsp; In
winter, it comes oozing down the streets and tumbling over the fields,&mdash;nay,
rushes into the very cellars and kitchens of the houses, with a lavish
prodigality that might well be dispensed with; but in the hot summer
weather it <i>will</i> dry up, and turn green: and, although green is
a very good colour in its way, especially in grass, still it certainly
is not becoming to water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of
Mudfog is rather impaired, even by this trifling circumstance.&nbsp;
Mudfog is a healthy place&mdash;very healthy;&mdash;damp, perhaps, but
none the worse for that.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s quite a mistake to suppose
that damp is unwholesome: plants thrive best in damp situations, and
why shouldn&rsquo;t men?&nbsp; The inhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous
in asserting that there exists not a finer race of people on the face
of the earth; here we have an indisputable and veracious contradiction
of the vulgar error at once.&nbsp; So, admitting Mudfog to be damp,
we distinctly state that it is salubrious.</p>
<p>The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque.&nbsp; Limehouse and
Ratcliff Highway are both something like it, but they give you a very
faint idea of Mudfog.&nbsp; There are a great many more public-houses
in Mudfog&mdash;more than in Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse put together.&nbsp;
The public buildings, too, are very imposing.&nbsp; We consider the
town-hall one of the finest specimens of shed architecture, extant:
it is a combination of the pig-sty and tea-garden-box orders; and the
simplicity of its design is of surpassing beauty.&nbsp; The idea of
placing a large window on one side of the door, and a small one on the
other, is particularly happy.&nbsp; There is a fine old Doric beauty,
too, about the padlock and scraper, which is strictly in keeping with
the general effect.</p>
<p>In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together
in solemn council for the public weal.&nbsp; Seated on the massive wooden
benches, which, with the table in the centre, form the only furniture
of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of Mudfog spend hour after
hour in grave deliberation.&nbsp; Here they settle at what hour of the
night the public-houses shall be closed, at what hour of the morning
they shall be permitted to open, how soon it shall be lawful for people
to eat their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions;
and sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant
lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off
stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in
the two unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants
of Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and better-known
body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, and not a whit more
profound, are patriotically dozing away in company, far into the night,
for their country&rsquo;s good.</p>
<p>Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently
distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his appearance
and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known coal-dealer.&nbsp;
However exciting the subject of discussion, however animated the tone
of the debate, or however warm the personalities exchanged, (and even
in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas Tulrumble was always
the same.&nbsp; To say truth, Nicholas, being an industrious man, and
always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a debate began, and to
remain asleep till it was over, when he would wake up very much refreshed,
and give his vote with the greatest complacency.&nbsp; The fact was,
that Nicholas Tulrumble, knowing that everybody there had made up his
mind beforehand, considered the talking as just a long botheration about
nothing at all; and to the present hour it remains a question, whether,
on this point at all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty near
right.</p>
<p>Time, which strews a man&rsquo;s head with silver, sometimes fills
his pockets with gold.&nbsp; As he gradually performed one good office
for Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other.&nbsp;
Nicholas began life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with a
capital of two and ninepence, and a stock in trade of three bushels
and a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump which hung, by way
of sign-board, outside.&nbsp; Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a
truck; then he left the shed, and the truck too, and started a donkey
and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved again and set up a cart; the cart
was soon afterwards exchanged for a waggon; and so he went on like his
great predecessor Whittington&mdash;only without a cat for a partner&mdash;increasing
in wealth and fame, until at last he gave up business altogether, and
retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and family to Mudfog Hall, which he had
himself erected, on something which he attempted to delude himself into
the belief was a hill, about a quarter of a mile distant from the town
of Mudfog.</p>
<p>About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas
Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success
had corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the natural
goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for a public
character, and a great gentleman, and affected to look down upon his
old companions with compassion and contempt.&nbsp; Whether these reports
were at the time well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. Tulrumble
very shortly afterwards started a four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall
postilion in a yellow cap,&mdash;that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking
cigars, and calling the footman a &lsquo;feller,&rsquo;&mdash;and that
Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was no more seen in his old seat
in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman&rsquo;s Arms at night.&nbsp;
This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to be observed that Mr.
Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporation meetings more frequently
than heretofore; and he no longer went to sleep as he had done for so
many years, but propped his eyelids open with his two forefingers; that
he read the newspapers by himself at home; and that he was in the habit
of indulging abroad in distant and mysterious allusions to &lsquo;masses
of people,&rsquo; and &lsquo;the property of the country,&rsquo; and
&lsquo;productive power,&rsquo; and &lsquo;the monied interest:&rsquo;
all of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad,
or worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog amazingly.</p>
<p>At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble
and family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs. Tulrumble
informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height of the fashionable
season.</p>
<p>Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving
air of Mudfog, the Mayor died.&nbsp; It was a most extraordinary circumstance;
he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five years.&nbsp; The corporation
didn&rsquo;t understand it at all; indeed it was with great difficulty
that one old gentleman, who was a great stickler for forms, was dissuaded
from proposing a vote of censure on such unaccountable conduct.&nbsp;
Strange as it was, however, die he did, without taking the slightest
notice of the corporation; and the corporation were imperatively called
upon to elect his successor.&nbsp; So, they met for the purpose; and
being very full of Nicholas Tulrumble just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble
being a very important man, they elected him, and wrote off to London
by the very next post to acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his new elevation.</p>
<p>Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in
the capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor&rsquo;s
show and dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he, Mr.
Tulrumble, was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflection would force
itself on his mind, that, had he been born in London instead of in Mudfog,
he might have been a Lord Mayor too, and have patronized the judges,
and been affable to the Lord Chancellor, and friendly with the Premier,
and coldly condescending to the Secretary to the Treasury, and have
dined with a flag behind his back, and done a great many other acts
and deeds which unto Lord Mayors of London peculiarly appertain.&nbsp;
The more he thought of the Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage
he seemed.&nbsp; To be a King was all very well; but what was the King
to the Lord Mayor!&nbsp; When the King made a speech, everybody knew
it was somebody else&rsquo;s writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor,
talking away for half an hour-all out of his own head&mdash;amidst the
enthusiastic applause of the whole company, while it was notorious that
the King might talk to his parliament till he was black in the face
without getting so much as a single cheer.&nbsp; As all these reflections
passed through the mind of Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble, the Lord Mayor of
London appeared to him the greatest sovereign on the face of the earth,
beating the Emperor of Russia all to nothing, and leaving the Great
Mogul immeasurably behind.</p>
<p>Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering over these things, and inwardly
cursing the fate which had pitched his coal-shed in Mudfog, when the
letter of the corporation was put into his hand.&nbsp; A crimson flush
mantled over his face as he read it, for visions of brightness were
already dancing before his imagination.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, &lsquo;they
have elected me, Mayor of Mudfog.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor-a-mussy!&rsquo; said Mrs. Tulrumble: &lsquo;why what&rsquo;s
become of old Sniggs?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble
sharply, for he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously
designating a gentleman who filled the high office of Mayor, as &lsquo;Old
Sniggs,&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is
dead.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only ejaculated
&lsquo;Lor-a-mussy!&rsquo; once again, as if a Mayor were a mere ordinary
Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What a pity &rsquo;tan&rsquo;t in London, ain&rsquo;t it?&rsquo;
said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a short pause; &lsquo;what a pity &rsquo;tan&rsquo;t
in London, where you might have had a show.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I <i>might</i> have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper,
I apprehend,&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Lor! so you might, I declare,&rsquo; replied Mrs. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And a good one too,&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Delightful!&rsquo; exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there,&rsquo;
said Mr. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It would kill them with envy,&rsquo; said Mrs. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>So it was agreed that his Majesty&rsquo;s lieges in Mudfog should
be astonished with splendour, and slaughtered with envy, and that such
a show should take place as had never been seen in that town, or in
any other town before,&mdash;no, not even in London itself.</p>
<p>On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the
tall postilion in a post-chaise,&mdash;not upon one of the horses, but
inside&mdash;actually inside the chaise,&mdash;and, driving up to the
very door of the town-hall, where the corporation were assembled, delivered
a letter, written by the Lord knows who, and signed by Nicholas Tulrumble,
in which Nicholas said, all through four sides of closely-written, gilt-edged,
hot-pressed, Bath post letter paper, that he responded to the call of
his fellow-townsmen with feelings of heartfelt delight; that he accepted
the arduous office which their confidence had imposed upon him; that
they would never find him shrinking from the discharge of his duty;
that he would endeavour to execute his functions with all that dignity
which their magnitude and importance demanded; and a great deal more
to the same effect.&nbsp; But even this was not all.&nbsp; The tall
postilion produced from his right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of that
afternoon&rsquo;s number of the county paper; and there, in large type,
running the whole length of the very first column, was a long address
from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants of Mudfog, in which he said
that he cheerfully complied with their requisition, and, in short, as
if to prevent any mistake about the matter, told them over again what
a grand fellow he meant to be, in very much the same terms as those
in which he had already told them all about the matter in his letter.</p>
<p>The corporation stared at one another very hard at all this, and
then looked as if for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the
tall postilion was intently contemplating the gold tassel on the top
of his yellow cap, and could have afforded no explanation whatever,
even if his thoughts had been entirely disengaged, they contented themselves
with coughing very dubiously, and looking very grave.&nbsp; The tall
postilion then delivered another letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble
informed the corporation, that he intended repairing to the town-hall,
in grand state and gorgeous procession, on the Monday afternoon next
ensuing.&nbsp; At this the corporation looked still more solemn; but,
as the epistle wound up with a formal invitation to the whole body to
dine with the Mayor on that day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog,
they began to see the fun of the thing directly, and sent back their
compliments, and they&rsquo;d be sure to come.</p>
<p>Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does
happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and perhaps
in foreign dominions too&mdash;we think it very likely, but, being no
great traveller, cannot distinctly say&mdash;there happened to be, in
Mudfog, a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond,
with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable attachment
to strong beer and spirits, whom everybody knew, and nobody, except
his wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors
the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the <i>sobriquet</i>
of Bottle-nosed Ned.&nbsp; He was drunk upon the average once a day,
and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and when
he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin
intoxication.&nbsp; He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow,
with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his
hand to anything when he chose to do it.&nbsp; He was by no means opposed
to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match
by the day together,&mdash;running, and catching, and batting, and bowling,
and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave.&nbsp; He would
have been invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a natural
taste for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing furniture
out of two-pair-of-stairs&rsquo; windows: nor was this the only element
in which he was at home; he was a humane society in himself, a portable
drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved more people, in his
time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-boat, or Captain Manby&rsquo;s
apparatus.&nbsp; With all these qualifications, notwithstanding his
dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general favourite; and the authorities
of Mudfog, remembering his numerous services to the population, allowed
him in return to get drunk in his own way, without the fear of stocks,
fine, or imprisonment.&nbsp; He had a general licence, and he showed
his sense of the compliment by making the most of it.</p>
<p>We have been thus particular in describing the character and avocations
of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introduce a fact politely,
without hauling it into the reader&rsquo;s presence with indecent haste
by the head and shoulders, and brings us very naturally to relate, that
on the very same evening on which Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble and family
returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble&rsquo;s new secretary, just imported
from London, with a pale face and light whiskers, thrust his head down
to the very bottom of his neckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of
the Lighterman&rsquo;s Arms, and inquiring whether one Ned Twigger was
luxuriating within, announced himself as the bearer of a message from
Nicholas Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger&rsquo;s immediate
attendance at the hall, on private and particular business.&nbsp; It
being by no means Mr. Twigger&rsquo;s interest to affront the Mayor,
he rose from the fireplace with a slight sigh, and followed the light-whiskered
secretary through the dirt and wet of Mudfog streets, up to Mudfog Hall,
without further ado.</p>
<p>Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a skylight,
which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the procession
on a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the secretary ushered
Ned Twigger.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, Twigger!&rsquo; said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly.</p>
<p>There was a time when Twigger would have replied, &lsquo;Well, Nick!&rsquo;
but that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before
the donkey; so, he only bowed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want you to go into training, Twigger,&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What for, sir?&rsquo; inquired Ned, with a stare.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Hush, hush, Twigger!&rsquo; said the Mayor.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shut
the door, Mr. Jennings.&nbsp; Look here, Twigger.&rsquo;</p>
<p>As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed
a complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I want you to wear this next Monday, Twigger,&rsquo; said
the Mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Bless your heart and soul, sir!&rsquo; replied Ned, &lsquo;you
might as well ask me to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron
boiler.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nonsense, Twigger, nonsense!&rsquo; said the Mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I couldn&rsquo;t stand under it, sir,&rsquo; said Twigger;
&lsquo;it would make mashed potatoes of me, if I attempted it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Pooh, pooh, Twigger!&rsquo; returned the Mayor.&nbsp; &lsquo;I
tell you I have seen it done with my own eyes, in London, and the man
wasn&rsquo;t half such a man as you are, either.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I should as soon have thought of a man&rsquo;s wearing the
case of an eight-day clock to save his linen,&rsquo; said Twigger, casting
a look of apprehension at the brass suit.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s the easiest thing in the world,&rsquo; rejoined
the Mayor.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It&rsquo;s nothing,&rsquo; said Mr. Jennings.</p>
<p>&lsquo;When you&rsquo;re used to it,&rsquo; added Ned.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You do it by degrees,&rsquo; said the Mayor.&nbsp; &lsquo;You
would begin with one piece to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on,
till you had got it all on.&nbsp; Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass
of rum.&nbsp; Just try the breast-plate, Twigger.&nbsp; Stay; take another
glass of rum first.&nbsp; Help me to lift it, Mr. Jennings.&nbsp; Stand
firm, Twigger!&nbsp; There!&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t half as heavy as it
looks, is it?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of
staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breastplate, and
even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about
in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain.&nbsp; He made a trial of
the helmet, but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped over
instantly,&mdash;an accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly demonstrated
to be occasioned by his not having a counteracting weight of brass on
his legs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,&rsquo;
said Tulrumble, &lsquo;and I&rsquo;ll make your fortune.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll try what I can do, sir,&rsquo; said Twigger.</p>
<p>&lsquo;It must be kept a profound secret,&rsquo; said Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Of course, sir,&rsquo; replied Twigger.</p>
<p>&lsquo;And you must be sober,&rsquo; said Tulrumble; &lsquo;perfectly
sober.&rsquo;&nbsp; Mr. Twigger at once solemnly pledged himself to
be as sober as a judge, and Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although,
had we been Nicholas, we should certainly have exacted some promise
of a more specific nature; inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes
in the evening more than once, we can solemnly testify to having seen
judges with very strong symptoms of dinner under their wigs.&nbsp; However,
that&rsquo;s neither here nor there.</p>
<p>The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned
Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the sky-light,
hard at work at the armour.&nbsp; With every additional piece he could
manage to stand upright in, he had an additional glass of rum; and at
last, after many partial suffocations, he contrived to get on the whole
suit, and to stagger up and down the room in it, like an intoxicated
effigy from Westminster Abbey.</p>
<p>Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman
so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble&rsquo;s wife.&nbsp; Here was a sight
for the common people of Mudfog!&nbsp; A live man in brass armour!&nbsp;
Why, they would go wild with wonder!</p>
<p>The day&mdash;<i>the</i> Monday&mdash;arrived.</p>
<p>If the morning had been made to order, it couldn&rsquo;t have been
better adapted to the purpose.&nbsp; They never showed a better fog
in London on Lord Mayor&rsquo;s day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog
on that eventful occasion.&nbsp; It had risen slowly and surely from
the green and stagnant water with the first light of morning, until
it reached a little above the lamp-post tops; and there it had stopped,
with a sleepy, sluggish obstinacy, which bade defiance to the sun, who
had got up very blood-shot about the eyes, as if he had been at a drinking-party
over-night, and was doing his day&rsquo;s work with the worst possible
grace.&nbsp; The thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze
curtain.&nbsp; All was dim and dismal.&nbsp; The church steeples had
bidden a temporary adieu to the world below; and every object of lesser
importance&mdash;houses, barns, hedges, trees, and barges&mdash;had
all taken the veil.</p>
<p>The church-clock struck one.&nbsp; A cracked trumpet from the front
garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic
person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out
came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, intended to represent
a herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court-card on
horseback.&nbsp; This was one of the Circus people, who always came
down to Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by
Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for the occasion.&nbsp; There was the horse,
whisking his tail about, balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing
away with his fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts
and souls of any reasonable crowd.&nbsp; But a Mudfog crowd never was
a reasonable one, and in all probability never will be.&nbsp; Instead
of scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most indubitably
to have done, and were fully intended to do, by Nicholas Tulrumble,
they no sooner recognized the herald, than they began to growl forth
the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding
like any other man.&nbsp; If he had come out on his head indeed, or
jumping through a hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even standing
on one leg with his other foot in his mouth, they might have had something
to say to him; but for a professional gentleman to sit astride in the
saddle, with his feet in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke.&nbsp;
So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great
energy, as he pranced ingloriously away.</p>
<p>On the procession came.&nbsp; We are afraid to say how many supernumeraries
there were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, to imitate the
London watermen, or how many base imitations of running-footmen, or
how many banners, which, owing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, could
by no means be prevailed on to display their inscriptions: still less
do we feel disposed to relate how the men who played the wind instruments,
looking up into the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked
through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the powdered
heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that looked curious,
but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer put on the wrong
stop, and played one tune while the band played another; or how the
horses, being used to the arena, and not to the streets, would stand
still and dance, instead of going on and prancing;&mdash;all of which
are matters which might be dilated upon to great advantage, but which
we have not the least intention of dilating upon, notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold a corporation in
glass coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas Tulrumble,
coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning, and to watch the
attempts the corporation made to look great and solemn, when Nicholas
Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise, with the tall postilion,
rolled out after them, with Mr. Jennings on one side to look like a
chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an old life-guardsman&rsquo;s
sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling down
the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment.&nbsp; This was
beautiful! and so was the appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble and son, as they
bowed with grave dignity out of their coach-window to all the dirty
faces that were laughing around them: but it is not even with this that
we have to do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at another
blast of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence ensued,
and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident anticipation
of some new wonder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;They won&rsquo;t laugh now, Mr. Jennings,&rsquo; said Nicholas
Tulrumble.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I think not, sir,&rsquo; said Mr. Jennings.</p>
<p>&lsquo;See how eager they look,&rsquo; said Nicholas Tulrumble.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Aha! the laugh will be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No doubt of that, sir,&rsquo; replied Mr. Jennings; and Nicholas
Tulrumble, in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four-wheel
chaise, and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress behind.</p>
<p>While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into
the kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants
with a private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town;
and, somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid
so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer
of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something&mdash;just to
drink success to master in.</p>
<p>So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of
the kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for by the
unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable footman,
drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned laid by his
helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable footman put
it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable delight of
the cook and housemaid.&nbsp; The companionable footman was very facetious
to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns.&nbsp;
They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went
briskly round.</p>
<p>At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people:
and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by
the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly
cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude.</p>
<p>The crowd roared&mdash;it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise;
it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;What!&rsquo; said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel
chaise.&nbsp; &lsquo;Laughing?&nbsp; If they laugh at a man in real
brass armour, they&rsquo;d laugh when their own fathers were dying.&nbsp;
Why doesn&rsquo;t he go into his place, Mr. Jennings?&nbsp; What&rsquo;s
he rolling down towards us for? he has no business here!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am afraid, sir&mdash;&rsquo; faltered Mr. Jennings.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Afraid of what, sir?&rsquo; said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking
up into the secretary&rsquo;s face.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am afraid he&rsquo;s drunk, sir,&rsquo; replied Mr. Jennings.</p>
<p>Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that
was bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the
arm, uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.</p>
<p>It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to demand
a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour,
got, by some means or other, rather out of his calculation in the hurry
and confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a piece
instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went on the
top of it.&nbsp; Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow of
perspiration, and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we are
not scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger
no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than he also
found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication; and hence
his extraordinary style of progressing.&nbsp; This was bad enough, but,
as if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr.
Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it
into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just
when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with.&nbsp;
Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring
to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief
with white spots,&mdash;an article not strictly in keeping with a suit
of armour some three hundred years old, or thereabouts.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Twigger, you villain!&rsquo; said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite
forgetting his dignity, &lsquo;go back.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Never,&rsquo; said Ned.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m a miserable
wretch.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll never leave you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations
of &lsquo;That&rsquo;s right, Ned; don&rsquo;t!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t intend it,&rsquo; said Ned, with all the obstinacy
of a very tipsy man.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;m very unhappy.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m
the wretched father of an unfortunate family; but I am very faithful,
sir.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll never leave you.&rsquo;&nbsp; Having reiterated
this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to harangue the
crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the excessive
respectability of his character, and other topics of the like nature.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Here! will anybody lead him away?&rsquo; said Nicholas: &lsquo;if
they&rsquo;ll call on me afterwards, I&rsquo;ll reward them well.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off,
when the secretary interposed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Take care! take care!&rsquo; said Mr. Jennings.&nbsp; &lsquo;I
beg your pardon, sir; but they&rsquo;d better not go too near him, because,
if he falls over, he&rsquo;ll certainly crush somebody.&rsquo;</p>
<p>At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful
distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle
of his own.</p>
<p>&lsquo;But, Mr. Jennings,&rsquo; said Nicholas Tulrumble, &lsquo;he&rsquo;ll
be suffocated.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry for it, sir,&rsquo; replied Mr. Jennings;
&lsquo;but nobody can get that armour off, without his own assistance.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m quite certain of it from the way he put it on.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner
that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts
of stone, and they laughed heartily.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Dear me, Mr. Jennings,&rsquo; said Nicholas, turning pale
at the possibility of Ned&rsquo;s being smothered in his antique costume&mdash;&lsquo;Dear
me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done with him?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Nothing at all,&rsquo; replied Ned, &lsquo;nothing at all.&nbsp;
Gentlemen, I&rsquo;m an unhappy wretch.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a body, gentlemen,
in a brass coffin.&rsquo;&nbsp; At this poetical idea of his own conjuring
up, Ned cried so much that the people began to get sympathetic, and
to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such a machine
as that; and one individual in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk,
who had previously expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn&rsquo;t been
a poor man, Nicholas wouldn&rsquo;t have dared do it, hinted at the
propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas&rsquo;s head,
or both, which last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider
a very good notion.</p>
<p>It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached,
when Ned Twigger&rsquo;s wife made her appearance abruptly in the little
circle before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face
and form, than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home
just as fast as his legs could carry him; and that was not very quick
in the present instance either, for, however ready they might have been
to carry <i>him</i>, they couldn&rsquo;t get on very well under the
brass armour.&nbsp; So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty of time to denounce
Nicholas Tulrumble to his face: to express her opinion that he was a
decided monster; and to intimate that, if her ill-used husband sustained
any personal damage from the brass armour, she would have the law of
Nicholas Tulrumble for manslaughter.&nbsp; When she had said all this
with due vehemence, she posted after Ned, who was dragging himself along
as best he could, and deploring his unhappiness in most dismal tones.</p>
<p>What a wailing and screaming Ned&rsquo;s children raised when he
got home at last!&nbsp; Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first
in one place, and then in another, but she couldn&rsquo;t manage it;
so she tumbled Ned into bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all.&nbsp;
Such a creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned&rsquo;s weight in his
new suit!&nbsp; It didn&rsquo;t break down though; and there Ned lay,
like the anonymous vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till next day, drinking
barley-water, and looking miserable: and every time he groaned, his
good lady said it served him right, which was all the consolation Ned
Twigger got.</p>
<p>Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to
the town-hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators, who
had suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr.&nbsp;
Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in acknowledgment
of which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech, composed by the
secretary, which was very long, and no doubt very good, only the noise
of the people outside prevented anybody from hearing it, but Nicholas
Tulrumble himself.&nbsp; After which, the procession got back to Mudfog
Hall any how it could; and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to
dinner.</p>
<p>But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed.&nbsp; They
were such dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation.&nbsp; Nicholas
made quite as long speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay,
he said the very same things that the Lord Mayor of London had said,
and the deuce a cheer the corporation gave him.&nbsp; There was only
one man in the party who was thoroughly awake; and he was insolent,
and called him Nick.&nbsp; Nick!&nbsp; What would be the consequence,
thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London
&lsquo;Nick!&rsquo;&nbsp; He should like to know what the sword-bearer
would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast-master, or any other
of the great officers of the city.&nbsp; They&rsquo;d nick him.</p>
<p>But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble&rsquo;s doings.&nbsp;
If they had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have
talked till he lost his voice.&nbsp; He contracted a relish for statistics,
and got philosophical; and the statistics and the philosophy together,
led him into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his
downfall.</p>
<p>At the very end of the Mudfog High-street, and abutting on the river-side,
stands the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned low-roofed, bay-windowed
house, with a bar, kitchen, and tap-room all in one, and a large fireplace
with a kettle to correspond, round which the working men have congregated
time out of mind on a winter&rsquo;s night, refreshed by draughts of
good strong beer, and cheered by the sounds of a fiddle and tambourine:
the Jolly Boatmen having been duly licensed by the Mayor and corporation,
to scrape the fiddle and thumb the tambourine from time, whereof the
memory of the oldest inhabitants goeth not to the contrary.&nbsp; Now
Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime, and parliamentary
reports,&mdash;or had made the secretary read them to him, which is
the same thing in effect,&mdash;and he at once perceived that this fiddle
and tambourine must have done more to demoralize Mudfog, than any other
operating causes that ingenuity could imagine.&nbsp; So he read up for
the subject, and determined to come out on the corporation with a burst,
the very next time the licence was applied for.</p>
<p>The licensing day came, and the red-faced landlord of the Jolly Boatmen
walked into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need be, having actually
put on an extra fiddle for that night, to commemorate the anniversary
of the Jolly Boatmen&rsquo;s music licence.&nbsp; It was applied for
in due form, and was just about to be granted as a matter of course,
when up rose Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned the astonished corporation
in a torrent of eloquence.&nbsp; He descanted in glowing terms upon
the increasing depravity of his native town of Mudfog, and the excesses
committed by its population.&nbsp; Then, he related how shocked he had
been, to see barrels of beer sliding down into the cellar of the Jolly
Boatmen week after week; and how he had sat at a window opposite the
Jolly Boatmen for two days together, to count the people who went in
for beer between the hours of twelve and one o&rsquo;clock alone&mdash;which,
by-the-bye, was the time at which the great majority of the Mudfog people
dined.&nbsp; Then, he went on to state, how the number of people who
came out with beer-jugs, averaged twenty-one in five minutes, which,
being multiplied by twelve, gave two hundred and fifty-two people with
beer-jugs in an hour, and multiplied again by fifteen (the number of
hours during which the house was open daily) yielded three thousand
seven hundred and eighty people with beer-jugs per day, or twenty-six
thousand four hundred and sixty people with beer-jugs, per week.&nbsp;
Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine and moral degradation were
synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious propensities wholly inseparable.&nbsp;
All these arguments he strengthened and demonstrated by frequent references
to a large book with a blue cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex
magistrates; and in the end, the corporation, who were posed with the
figures, and sleepy with the speech, and sadly in want of dinner into
the bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tulrumble, and refused the
music licence to the Jolly Boatmen.</p>
<p>But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short.&nbsp; He
carried on the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time
when he was glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other,
till the people hated, and his old friends shunned him.&nbsp; He grew
tired of the lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned
towards the Lighterman&rsquo;s Arms.&nbsp; He wished he had never set
up as a public man, and sighed for the good old times of the coal-shop,
and the chimney corner.</p>
<p>At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of
grace, paid the secretary a quarter&rsquo;s wages in advance, and packed
him off to London by the next coach.&nbsp; Having taken this step, he
put his hat on his head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked down
to the old room at the Lighterman&rsquo;s Arms.&nbsp; There were only
two of the old fellows there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as
he proffered his hand.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?&rsquo; said
one.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Or trace the progress of crime to &lsquo;bacca?&rsquo; growled
another.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Neither,&rsquo; replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands
with them both, whether they would or not.&nbsp; &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come
down to say that I&rsquo;m very sorry for having made a fool of myself,
and that I hope you&rsquo;ll give me up the old chair, again.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The old fellows opened their eyes, and three or four more old fellows
opened the door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, thrust out
his hand too, and told the same story.&nbsp; They raised a shout of
joy, that made the bells in the ancient church-tower vibrate again,
and wheeling the old chair into the warm corner, thrust old Nicholas
down into it, and ordered in the very largest-sized bowl of hot punch,
with an unlimited number of pipes, directly.</p>
<p>The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next night,
old Nicholas and Ned Twigger&rsquo;s wife led off a dance to the music
of the fiddle and tambourine, the tone of which seemed mightily improved
by a little rest, for they never had played so merrily before.&nbsp;
Ned Twigger was in the very height of his glory, and he danced hornpipes,
and balanced chairs on his chin, and straws on his nose, till the whole
company, including the corporation, were in raptures of admiration at
the brilliancy of his acquirements.</p>
<p>Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn&rsquo;t make up his mind to be anything
but magnificent, so he went up to London and drew bills on his father;
and when he had overdrawn, and got into debt, he grew penitent, and
came home again.</p>
<p>As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of
public life, never tried it any more.&nbsp; He went to sleep in the
town-hall at the very next meeting; and, in full proof of his sincerity,
has requested us to write this faithful narrative.&nbsp; We wish it
could have the effect of reminding the Tulrumbles of another sphere,
that puffed-up conceit is not dignity, and that snarling at the little
pleasures they were once glad to enjoy, because they would rather forget
the times when they were of lower station, renders them objects of contempt
and ridicule.</p>
<p>This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from
this particular source.&nbsp; Perhaps, at some future period, we may
venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>FULL REPORT OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have made the most unparalleled and extraordinary exertions to
place before our readers a complete and accurate account of the proceedings
at the late grand meeting of the Mudfog Association, holden in the town
of Mudfog; it affords us great happiness to lay the result before them,
in the shape of various communications received from our able, talented,
and graphic correspondent, expressly sent down for the purpose, who
has immortalized us, himself, Mudfog, and the association, all at one
and the same time.&nbsp; We have been, indeed, for some days unable
to determine who will transmit the greatest name to posterity; ourselves,
who sent our correspondent down; our correspondent, who wrote an account
of the matter; or the association, who gave our correspondent something
to write about.&nbsp; We rather incline to the opinion that we are the
greatest man of the party, inasmuch as the notion of an exclusive and
authentic report originated with us; this may be prejudice: it may arise
from a prepossession on our part in our own favour.&nbsp; Be it so.&nbsp;
We have no doubt that every gentleman concerned in this mighty assemblage
is troubled with the same complaint in a greater or less degree; and
it is a consolation to us to know that we have at least this feeling
in common with the great scientific stars, the brilliant and extraordinary
luminaries, whose speculations we record.</p>
<p>We give our correspondent&rsquo;s letters in the order in which they
reached us.&nbsp; Any attempt at amalgamating them into one beautiful
whole, would only destroy that glowing tone, that dash of wildness,
and rich vein of picturesque interest, which pervade them throughout.</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Mudfog, Monday night, seven o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;We are in a state of great excitement here.&nbsp; Nothing
is spoken of, but the approaching meeting of the association.&nbsp;
The inn-doors are thronged with waiters anxiously looking for the expected
arrivals; and the numerous bills which are wafered up in the windows
of private houses, intimating that there are beds to let within, give
the streets a very animated and cheerful appearance, the wafers being
of a great variety of colours, and the monotony of printed inscriptions
being relieved by every possible size and style of hand-writing.&nbsp;
It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have
engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box.&nbsp;
I give you the rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch
for its accuracy.&nbsp; The moment I have been enabled to obtain any
certain information upon this interesting point, you may depend upon
receiving it.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past seven.</i></p>
<p>I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord
of the Pig and Tinder-box.&nbsp; He speaks confidently of the probability
of Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy taking up their residence at his
house during the sitting of the association, but denies that the beds
have been yet engaged; in which representation he is confirmed by the
chambermaid&mdash;a girl of artless manners, and interesting appearance.&nbsp;
The boots denies that it is at all likely that Professors Snore, Doze,
and Wheezy will put up here; but I have reason to believe that this
man has been suborned by the proprietor of the Original Pig, which is
the opposition hotel.&nbsp; Amidst such conflicting testimony it is
difficult to arrive at the real truth; but you may depend upon receiving
authentic information upon this point the moment the fact is ascertained.&nbsp;
The excitement still continues.&nbsp; A boy fell through the window
of the pastrycook&rsquo;s shop at the corner of the High-street about
half an hour ago, which has occasioned much confusion.&nbsp; The general
impression is, that it was an accident.&nbsp; Pray heaven it may prove
so!&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Tuesday, noon.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches
struck seven o&rsquo;clock; the effect of which, in the present lively
state of the town, was extremely singular.&nbsp; While I was at breakfast,
a yellow gig, drawn by a dark grey horse, with a patch of white over
his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the
Original Pig stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman has
arrived here for the purpose of attending the association, and, from
what I have heard, I consider it extremely probable, although nothing
decisive is yet known regarding him.&nbsp; You may conceive the anxiety
with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the four o&rsquo;clock
coach this afternoon.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Notwithstanding the excited state of the populace, no outrage
has yet been committed, owing to the admirable discipline and discretion
of the police, who are nowhere to be seen.&nbsp; A barrel-organ is playing
opposite my window, and groups of people, offering fish and vegetables
for sale, parade the streets.&nbsp; With these exceptions everything
is quiet, and I trust will continue so.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Five o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;It is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, that Professors Snore,
Doze, and Wheezy will <i>not</i> repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but
have actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig.&nbsp; This intelligence
is <i>exclusive</i>; and I leave you and your readers to draw their
own inferences from it.&nbsp; Why Professor Wheezy, of all people in
the world, should repair to the Original Pig in preference to the Pig
and Tinder-box, it is not easy to conceive.&nbsp; The professor is a
man who should be above all such petty feelings.&nbsp; Some people here
openly impute treachery, and a distinct breach of faith to Professors
Snore and Doze; while others, again, are disposed to acquit them of
any culpability in the transaction, and to insinuate that the blame
rests solely with Professor Wheezy.&nbsp; I own that I incline to the
latter opinion; and although it gives me great pain to speak in terms
of censure or disapprobation of a man of such transcendent genius and
acquirements, still I am bound to say that, if my suspicions be well
founded, and if all the reports which have reached my ears be true,
I really do not well know what to make of the matter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived
this afternoon by the four o&rsquo;clock stage.&nbsp; His complexion
is a dark purple, and he has a habit of sighing constantly.&nbsp; He
looked extremely well, and appeared in high health and spirits.&nbsp;
Mr. Woodensconce also came down in the same conveyance.&nbsp; The distinguished
gentleman was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am informed by the guard
that he had been so the whole way.&nbsp; He was, no doubt, preparing
for his approaching fatigues; but what gigantic visions must those be
that flit through the brain of such a man when his body is in a state
of torpidity!</p>
<p>&lsquo;The influx of visitors increases every moment.&nbsp; I am
told (I know not how truly) that two post-chaises have arrived at the
Original Pig within the last half-hour, and I myself observed a wheelbarrow,
containing three carpet bags and a bundle, entering the yard of the
Pig and Tinder-box no longer ago than five minutes since.&nbsp; The
people are still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations; but there
is a wildness in their eyes, and an unwonted rigidity in the muscles
of their countenances, which shows to the observant spectator that their
expectations are strained to the very utmost pitch.&nbsp; I fear, unless
some very extraordinary arrivals take place to-night, that consequences
may arise from this popular ferment, which every man of sense and feeling
would deplore.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Twenty minutes past six.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&rsquo;s
window last night has died of the fright.&nbsp; He was suddenly called
upon to pay three and sixpence for the damage done, and his constitution,
it seems, was not strong enough to bear up against the shock.&nbsp;
The inquest, it is said, will be held to-morrow.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Three-quarters part seven.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel
door; they at once ordered dinner with great condescension.&nbsp; We
are all very much delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and
the ease with which they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies
of ordinary life.&nbsp; Immediately on their arrival they sent for the
head waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog,&mdash;as
cheap a one as he could meet with,&mdash;and to send him up after dinner,
with a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean plate.&nbsp; It is conjectured
that some experiments will be tried upon the dog to-night; if any particulars
should transpire, I will forward them by express.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past eight.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The animal has been procured.&nbsp; He is a pug-dog, of rather
intelligent appearance, in good condition, and with very short legs.&nbsp;
He has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is howling dreadfully.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Ten minutes to nine.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The dog has just been rung for.&nbsp; With an instinct which
would appear almost the result of reason, the sagacious animal seized
the waiter by the calf of the leg when he approached to take him, and
made a desperate, though ineffectual resistance.&nbsp; I have not been
able to procure admission to the apartment occupied by the scientific
gentlemen; but, judging from the sounds which reached my ears when I
stood upon the landing-place outside the door, just now, I should be
disposed to say that the dog had retreated growling beneath some article
of furniture, and was keeping the professors at bay.&nbsp; This conjecture
is confirmed by the testimony of the ostler, who, after peeping through
the keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw Professor Nogo on his
knees, holding forth a small bottle of prussic acid, to which the animal,
who was crouched beneath an arm-chair, obstinately declined to smell.&nbsp;
You cannot imagine the feverish state of irritation we are in, lest
the interests of science should be sacrificed to the prejudices of a
brute creature, who is not endowed with sufficient sense to foresee
the incalculable benefits which the whole human race may derive from
so very slight a concession on his part.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Nine o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The dog&rsquo;s tail and ears have been sent down-stairs to
be washed; from which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more.&nbsp;
His forelegs have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which strengthens
the supposition.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half after ten.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;My feelings are so overpowered by what has taken place in
the course of the last hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength
to detail the rapid succession of events which have quite bewildered
all those who are cognizant of their occurrence.&nbsp; It appears that
the pug-dog mentioned in my last was surreptitiously obtained,&mdash;stolen,
in fact,&mdash;by some person attached to the stable department, from
an unmarried lady resident in this town.&nbsp; Frantic on discovering
the loss of her favourite, the lady rushed distractedly into the street,
calling in the most heart-rending and pathetic manner upon the passengers
to restore her, her Augustus,&mdash;for so the deceased was named, in
affectionate remembrance of a former lover of his mistress, to whom
he bore a striking personal resemblance, which renders the circumstances
additionally affecting.&nbsp; I am not yet in a condition to inform
you what circumstance induced the bereaved lady to direct her steps
to the hotel which had witnessed the last struggles of her <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i>.&nbsp;
I can only state that she arrived there, at the very instant when his
detached members were passing through the passage on a small tray.&nbsp;
Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears!&nbsp; I grieve to say that
the expressive features of Professor Muff were much scratched and lacerated
by the injured lady; and that Professor Nogo, besides sustaining several
severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair from the same cause.&nbsp;
It must be some consolation to these gentlemen to know that their ardent
attachment to scientific pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant
consequences; for which the sympathy of a grateful country will sufficiently
reward them.&nbsp; The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box,
and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I need scarcely tell you that this unlooked-for catastrophe
has cast a damp and gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilaration;
natural in any case, but greatly enhanced in this, by the amiable qualities
of the deceased animal, who appears to have been much and deservedly
respected by the whole of his acquaintance.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Twelve o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform
you that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&rsquo;s window is not
dead, as was universally believed, but alive and well.&nbsp; The report
appears to have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance.&nbsp;
He was found half an hour since on the premises of a sweet-stuff maker,
where a raffle had been announced for a second-hand seal-skin cap and
a tambourine; and where&mdash;a sufficient number of members not having
been obtained at first&mdash;he had patiently waited until the list
was completed.&nbsp; This fortunate discovery has in some degree restored
our gaiety and cheerfulness.&nbsp; It is proposed to get up a subscription
for him without delay.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will
bring forth.&nbsp; If any one should arrive in the course of the night,
I have left strict directions to be called immediately.&nbsp; I should
have sat up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been
too much for me.</p>
<p>&lsquo;No news yet of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy.&nbsp;
It is very strange!&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Wednesday afternoon.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length
enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest.&nbsp; The three professors
arrived at ten minutes after two o&rsquo;clock, and, instead of taking
up their quarters at the Original Pig, as it was universally understood
in the course of yesterday that they would assuredly have done, drove
straight to the Pig and Tinder-box, where they threw off the mask at
once, and openly announced their intention of remaining.&nbsp; Professor
Wheezy may reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with <i>his</i>
notions of fair and equitable dealing, but I would recommend Professor
Wheezy to be cautious how he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation.&nbsp;
How such a man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary,
such an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be
mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally inquire.&nbsp;
Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear
to give utterance to them just now.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Four o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for
a bed and refused.&nbsp; Several gentlemen were under the necessity
last night of sleeping in the brick fields, and on the steps of doors,
for which they were taken before the magistrates in a body this morning,
and committed to prison as vagrants for various terms.&nbsp; One of
these persons I understand to be a highly-respectable tinker, of great
practical skill, who had forwarded a paper to the President of Section
D. Mechanical Science, on the construction of pipkins with copper bottoms
and safety-values, of which report speaks highly.&nbsp; The incarceration
of this gentleman is greatly to be regretted, as his absence will preclude
any discussion on the subject.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings
are being secured on almost any terms.&nbsp; I have heard of fifteen
shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance, but
I can scarcely believe it.&nbsp; The excitement is dreadful.&nbsp; I
was informed this morning that the civil authorities, apprehensive of
some outbreak of popular feeling, had commanded a recruiting sergeant
and two corporals to be under arms; and that, with the view of not irritating
the people unnecessarily by their presence, they had been requested
to take up their position before daybreak in a turnpike, distant about
a quarter of a mile from the town.&nbsp; The vigour and promptness of
these measures cannot be too highly extolled.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female,
in a state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention
to &ldquo;do&rdquo; for Mr. Slug.&nbsp; Some statistical returns compiled
by that gentleman, relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors
in this place, are supposed to be the cause of the wretch&rsquo;s animosity.&nbsp;
It is added that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of persons
who had assembled on the spot; and that one man had the boldness to
designate Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of &ldquo;Stick-in-the-mud!&rdquo;&nbsp;
It is earnestly to be hoped that now, when the moment has arrived for
their interference, the magistrates will not shrink from the exercise
of that power which is vested in them by the constitution of our common
country.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past ten.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely
quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody.&nbsp; She had a pail
of cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses
great contrition and uneasiness.&nbsp; We are all in a fever of anticipation
about to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few hours of the meeting
of the association, and at last enjoy the proud consciousness of having
its illustrious members amongst us, I trust and hope everything may
go off peaceably.&nbsp; I shall send you a full report of to-morrow&rsquo;s
proceedings by the night coach.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Eleven o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred
since I folded it up.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Thursday.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The sun rose this morning at the usual hour.&nbsp; I did not
observe anything particular in the aspect of the glorious planet, except
that he appeared to me (it might have been a delusion of my heightened
fancy) to shine with more than common brilliancy, and to shed a refulgent
lustre upon the town, such as I had never observed before.&nbsp; This
is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly cloudless, and the
atmosphere peculiarly fine.&nbsp; At half-past nine o&rsquo;clock the
general committee assembled, with the last year&rsquo;s president in
the chair.&nbsp; The report of the council was read; and one passage,
which stated that the council had corresponded with no less than three
thousand five hundred and seventy-one persons, (all of whom paid their
own postage,) on no fewer than seven thousand two hundred and forty-three
topics, was received with a degree of enthusiasm which no efforts could
suppress.&nbsp; The various committees and sections having been appointed,
and the more formal business transacted, the great proceedings of the
meeting commenced at eleven o&rsquo;clock precisely.&nbsp; I had the
happiness of occupying a most eligible position at that time, in</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION A.&mdash;ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.<br />GREAT ROOM, PIG
AND TINDER-BOX.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President&mdash;</i>Professor Snore.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents&mdash;</i>Professors
Doze and Wheezy.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The scene at this moment was particularly striking.&nbsp;
The sun streamed through the windows of the apartments, and tinted the
whole scene with its brilliant rays, bringing out in strong relief the
noble visages of the professors and scientific gentlemen, who, some
with bald heads, some with red heads, some with brown heads, some with
grey heads, some with black heads, some with block heads, presented
a <i>coup d&rsquo;oeil</i> which no eye-witness will readily forget.&nbsp;
In front of these gentlemen were papers and inkstands; and round the
room, on elevated benches extending as far as the forms could reach,
were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and elegant women
for which Mudfog is justly acknowledged to be without a rival in the
whole world.&nbsp; The contrast between their fair faces and the dark
coats and trousers of the scientific gentlemen I shall never cease to
remember while Memory holds her seat.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Time having been allowed for a slight confusion, occasioned
by the falling down of the greater part of the platforms, to subside,
the president called on one of the secretaries to read a communication
entitled, &ldquo;Some remarks on the industrious fleas, with considerations
on the importance of establishing infant-schools among that numerous
class of society; of directing their industry to useful and practical
ends; and of applying the surplus fruits thereof, towards providing
for them a comfortable and respectable maintenance in their old age.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;The author stated, that, having long turned his attention
to the moral and social condition of these interesting animals, he had
been induced to visit an exhibition in Regent-street, London, commonly
known by the designation of &ldquo;The Industrious Fleas.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He had there seen many fleas, occupied certainly in various pursuits
and avocations, but occupied, he was bound to add, in a manner which
no man of well-regulated mind could fail to regard with sorrow and regret.&nbsp;
One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of burden, was drawing about
a miniature gig, containing a particularly small effigy of His Grace
the Duke of Wellington; while another was staggering beneath the weight
of a golden model of his great adversary Napoleon Bonaparte.&nbsp; Some,
brought up as mountebanks and ballet-dancers, were performing a figure-dance
(he regretted to observe, that, of the fleas so employed, several were
females); others were in training, in a small card-board box, for pedestrians,&mdash;mere
sporting characters&mdash;and two were actually engaged in the cold-blooded
and barbarous occupation of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity
recoiled with horror and disgust.&nbsp; He suggested that measures should
be immediately taken to employ the labour of these fleas as part and
parcel of the productive power of the country, which might easily be
done by the establishment among them of infant schools and houses of
industry, in which a system of virtuous education, based upon sound
principles, should be observed, and moral precepts strictly inculcated.&nbsp;
He proposed that every flea who presumed to exhibit, for hire, music,
or dancing, or any species of theatrical entertainment, without a licence,
should be considered a vagabond, and treated accordingly; in which respect
he only placed him upon a level with the rest of mankind.&nbsp; He would
further suggest that their labour should be placed under the control
and regulation of the state, who should set apart from the profits,
a fund for the support of superannuated or disabled fleas, their widows
and orphans.&nbsp; With this view, he proposed that liberal premiums
should be offered for the three best designs for a general almshouse;
from which&mdash;as insect architecture was well known to be in a very
advanced and perfect state&mdash;we might possibly derive many valuable
hints for the improvement of our metropolitan universities, national
galleries, and other public edifices.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to be informed how the ingenious gentleman
proposed to open a communication with fleas generally, in the first
instance, so that they might be thoroughly imbued with a sense of the
advantages they must necessarily derive from changing their mode of
life, and applying themselves to honest labour.&nbsp; This appeared
to him, the only difficulty.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE AUTHOR submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome,
or rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case.&nbsp; Obviously
the course to be pursued, if Her Majesty&rsquo;s government could be
prevailed upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure at a remunerative
salary the individual to whom he had alluded as presiding over the exhibition
in Regent-street at the period of his visit.&nbsp; That gentleman would
at once be able to put himself in communication with the mass of the
fleas, and to instruct them in pursuance of some general plan of education,
to be sanctioned by Parliament, until such time as the more intelligent
among them were advanced enough to officiate as teachers to the rest.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The President and several members of the section highly complimented
the author of the paper last read, on his most ingenious and important
treatise.&nbsp; It was determined that the subject should be recommended
to the immediate consideration of the council.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. WIGSBY produced a cauliflower somewhat larger than a chaise-umbrella,
which had been raised by no other artificial means than the simple application
of highly carbonated soda-water as manure.&nbsp; He explained that by
scooping out the head, which would afford a new and delicious species
of nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in principle something similar
to that constructed by M. Garnerin, was at once obtained; the stalk
of course being kept downwards.&nbsp; He added that he was perfectly
willing to make a descent from a height of not less than three miles
and a quarter; and had in fact already proposed the same to the proprietors
of Vauxhall Gardens, who in the handsomest manner at once consented
to his wishes, and appointed an early day next summer for the undertaking;
merely stipulating that the rim of the cauliflower should be previously
broken in three or four places to ensure the safety of the descent.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT congratulated the public on the <i>grand gala</i>
in store for them, and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the establishment
alluded to, for their love of science, and regard for the safety of
human life, both of which did them the highest honour.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Member wished to know how many thousand additional lamps
the royal property would be illuminated with, on the night after the
descent.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. WIGSBY replied that the point was not yet finally decided;
but he believed it was proposed, over and above the ordinary illuminations,
to exhibit in various devices eight millions and a-half of additional
lamps.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The Member expressed himself much gratified with this announcement.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. BLUNDERUM delighted the section with a most interesting
and valuable paper &ldquo;on the last moments of the learned pig,&rdquo;
which produced a very strong impression on the assembly, the account
being compiled from the personal recollections of his favourite attendant.&nbsp;
The account stated in the most emphatic terms that the animal&rsquo;s
name was not Toby, but Solomon; and distinctly proved that he could
have no near relatives in the profession, as many designing persons
had falsely stated, inasmuch as his father, mother, brothers and sisters,
had all fallen victims to the butcher at different times.&nbsp; An uncle
of his indeed, had with very great labour been traced to a sty in Somers
Town; but as he was in a very infirm state at the time, being afflicted
with measles, and shortly afterwards disappeared, there appeared too
much reason to conjecture that he had been converted into sausages.&nbsp;
The disorder of the learned pig was originally a severe cold, which,
being aggravated by excessive trough indulgence, finally settled upon
the lungs, and terminated in a general decay of the constitution.&nbsp;
A melancholy instance of a presentiment entertained by the animal of
his approaching dissolution, was recorded.&nbsp; After gratifying a
numerous and fashionable company with his performances, in which no
falling off whatever was visible, he fixed his eyes on the biographer,
and, turning to the watch which lay on the floor, and on which he was
accustomed to point out the hour, deliberately passed his snout twice
round the dial.&nbsp; In precisely four-and-twenty hours from that time
he had ceased to exist!</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR WHEEZY inquired whether, previous to his demise,
the animal had expressed, by signs or otherwise, any wishes regarding
the disposal of his little property.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. BLUNDERUM replied, that, when the biographer took up the
pack of cards at the conclusion of the performance, the animal grunted
several times in a significant manner, and nodding his head as he was
accustomed to do, when gratified.&nbsp; From these gestures it was understood
that he wished the attendant to keep the cards, which he had ever since
done.&nbsp; He had not expressed any wish relative to his watch, which
had accordingly been pawned by the same individual.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any Member of the section
had ever seen or conversed with the pig-faced lady, who was reported
to have worn a black velvet mask, and to have taken her meals from a
golden trough.</p>
<p>&lsquo;After some hesitation a Member replied that the pig-faced
lady was his mother-in-law, and that he trusted the President would
not violate the sanctity of private life.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT begged pardon.&nbsp; He had considered the pig-faced
lady a public character.&nbsp; Would the honourable member object to
state, with a view to the advancement of science, whether she was in
any way connected with the learned pig?</p>
<p>&lsquo;The Member replied in the same low tone, that, as the question
appeared to involve a suspicion that the learned pig might be his half-brother,
he must decline answering it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION B.&mdash;ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.<br />COACH-HOUSE, PIG
AND TINDER-BOX.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Dr. Toorell.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Professors
Muff and Nogo.</p>
<p>DR. KUTANKUMAGEN (of Moscow) read to the section a report of a case
which had occurred within his own practice, strikingly illustrative
of the power of medicine, as exemplified in his successful treatment
of a virulent disorder.&nbsp; He had been called in to visit the patient
on the 1st of April, 1837.&nbsp; He was then labouring under symptoms
peculiarly alarming to any medical man.&nbsp; His frame was stout and
muscular, his step firm and elastic, his cheeks plump and red, his voice
loud, his appetite good, his pulse full and round.&nbsp; He was in the
constant habit of eating three meals <i>per</i> <i>diem</i>, and of
drinking at least one bottle of wine, and one glass of spirituous liquors
diluted with water, in the course of the four-and-twenty hours.&nbsp;
He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a manner that it was terrible
to hear him.&nbsp; By dint of powerful medicine, low diet, and bleeding,
the symptoms in the course of three days perceptibly decreased.&nbsp;
A rigid perseverance in the same course of treatment for only one week,
accompanied with small doses of water-gruel, weak broth, and barley-water,
led to their entire disappearance.&nbsp; In the course of a month he
was sufficiently recovered to be carried down-stairs by two nurses,
and to enjoy an airing in a close carriage, supported by soft pillows.&nbsp;
At the present moment he was restored so far as to walk about, with
the slight assistance of a crutch and a boy.&nbsp; It would perhaps
be gratifying to the section to learn that he ate little, drank little,
slept little, and was never heard to laugh by any accident whatever.</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. W. R. FEE, in complimenting the honourable member upon
the triumphant cure he had effected, begged to ask whether the patient
still bled freely?</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN replied in the affirmative.</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. W. R. FEE.&mdash;And you found that he bled freely during
the whole course of the disorder?</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN.&mdash;Oh dear, yes; most freely.</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. NEESHAWTS supposed, that if the patient had not submitted
to be bled with great readiness and perseverance, so extraordinary a
cure could never, in fact, have been accomplished.&nbsp; Dr. Kutankumagen
rejoined, certainly not.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. KNIGHT BELL (M.R.C.S.) exhibited a wax preparation of
the interior of a gentleman who in early life had inadvertently swallowed
a door-key.&nbsp; It was a curious fact that a medical student of dissipated
habits, being present at the <i>post mortem</i> examination, found means
to escape unobserved from the room, with that portion of the coats of
the stomach upon which an exact model of the instrument was distinctly
impressed, with which he hastened to a locksmith of doubtful character,
who made a new key from the pattern so shown to him.&nbsp; With this
key the medical student entered the house of the deceased gentleman,
and committed a burglary to a large amount, for which he was subsequently
tried and executed.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what became of the original key
after the lapse of years.&nbsp; Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman
was always much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had
gradually devoured it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. NEESHAWTS and several of the members were of opinion that
the key must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman&rsquo;s
stomach.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. KNIGHT BELL believed it did at first.&nbsp; It was worthy
of remark, perhaps, that for some years the gentleman was troubled with
a night-mare, under the influence of which he always imagined himself
a wine-cellar door.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR MUFF related a very extraordinary and convincing
proof of the wonderful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal doses,
which the section were doubtless aware was based upon the theory that
the very minutest amount of any given drug, properly dispersed through
the human frame, would be productive of precisely the same result as
a very large dose administered in the usual manner.&nbsp; Thus, the
fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five-grain
calomel pill, and so on in proportion throughout the whole range of
medicine.&nbsp; He had tried the experiment in a curious manner upon
a publican who had been brought into the hospital with a broken head,
and was cured upon the infinitesimal system in the incredibly short
space of three months.&nbsp; This man was a hard drinker.&nbsp; He (Professor
Muff) had dispersed three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and
requested the man to drink the whole.&nbsp; What was the result?&nbsp;
Before he had drunk a quart, he was in a state of beastly intoxication;
and five other men were made dead drunk with the remainder.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose
of soda-water would have recovered them?&nbsp; Professor Muff replied
that the twenty-fifth part of a teaspoonful, properly administered to
each patient, would have sobered him immediately.&nbsp; The President
remarked that this was a most important discovery, and he hoped the
Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patronize it immediately.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Member begged to be informed whether it would be possible
to administer&mdash;say, the twentieth part of a grain of bread and
cheese to all grown-up paupers, and the fortieth part to children, with
the same satisfying effect as their present allowance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR MUFF was willing to stake his professional reputation
on the perfect adequacy of such a quantity of food to the support of
human life&mdash;in workhouses; the addition of the fifteenth part of
a grain of pudding twice a week would render it a high diet.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR NOGO called the attention of the section to a very
extraordinary case of animal magnetism.&nbsp; A private watchman, being
merely looked at by the operator from the opposite side of a wide street,
was at once observed to be in a very drowsy and languid state.&nbsp;
He was followed to his box, and being once slightly rubbed on the palms
of the hands, fell into a sound sleep, in which he continued without
intermission for ten hours.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION C.&mdash;STATISTICS.<br />HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG.</p>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Mr. Woodensconce.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Mr.
Ledbrain and Mr. Timbered.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. SLUG stated to the section the result of some calculations
he had made with great difficulty and labour, regarding the state of
infant education among the middle classes of London.&nbsp; He found
that, within a circle of three miles from the Elephant and Castle, the
following were the names and numbers of children&rsquo;s books principally
in circulation:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<pre>&lsquo;Jack the Giant-killer&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  7,943
Ditto and Bean-stalk&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  8,621
Ditto and Eleven Brothers&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2,845
Ditto and Jill&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  1,998
Total&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  21,407</pre>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;He found that the proportion of Robinson Crusoes to Philip
Quarlls was as four and a half to one; and that the preponderance of
Valentine and Orsons over Goody Two Shoeses was as three and an eighth
of the former to half a one of the latter; a comparison of Seven Champions
with Simple Simons gave the same result.&nbsp; The ignorance that prevailed,
was lamentable.&nbsp; One child, on being asked whether he would rather
be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly
replied, &ldquo;Taint George of Ingling.&rdquo;&nbsp; Another, a little
boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly impressed with a belief
in the existence of dragons, and openly stated that it was his intention
when he grew up, to rush forth sword in hand for the deliverance of
captive princesses, and the promiscuous slaughter of giants.&nbsp; Not
one child among the number interrogated had ever heard of Mungo Park,&mdash;some
inquiring whether he was at all connected with the black man that swept
the crossing; and others whether he was in any way related to the Regent&rsquo;s
Park.&nbsp; They had not the slightest conception of the commonest principles
of mathematics, and considered Sindbad the Sailor the most enterprising
voyager that the world had ever produced.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Member strongly deprecating the use of all the other books
mentioned, suggested that Jack and Jill might perhaps be exempted from
the general censure, inasmuch as the hero and heroine, in the very outset
of the tale, were depicted as going <i>up</i> a hill to fetch a pail
of water, which was a laborious and useful occupation,&mdash;supposing
the family linen was being washed, for instance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. SLUG feared that the moral effect of this passage was
more than counterbalanced by another in a subsequent part of the poem,
in which very gross allusion was made to the mode in which the heroine
was personally chastised by her mother</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;For laughing at Jack&rsquo;s disaster;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>besides, the whole work had this one great fault, <i>it was not true.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT complimented the honourable member on the excellent
distinction he had drawn.&nbsp; Several other Members, too, dwelt upon
the immense and urgent necessity of storing the minds of children with
nothing but facts and figures; which process the President very forcibly
remarked, had made them (the section) the men they were.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. SLUG then stated some curious calculations respecting
the dogs&rsquo;-meat barrows of London.&nbsp; He found that the total
number of small carts and barrows engaged in dispensing provision to
the cats and dogs of the metropolis was, one thousand seven hundred
and forty-three.&nbsp; The average number of skewers delivered daily
with the provender, by each dogs&rsquo;-meat cart or barrow, was thirty-six.&nbsp;
Now, multiplying the number of skewers so delivered by the number of
barrows, a total of sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight
skewers daily would be obtained.&nbsp; Allowing that, of these sixty-two
thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers, the odd two thousand
seven hundred and forty-eight were accidentally devoured with the meat,
by the most voracious of the animals supplied, it followed that sixty
thousand skewers per day, or the enormous number of twenty-one millions
nine hundred thousand skewers annually, were wasted in the kennels and
dustholes of London; which, if collected and warehoused, would in ten
years&rsquo; time afford a mass of timber more than sufficient for the
construction of a first-rate vessel of war for the use of her Majesty&rsquo;s
navy, to be called &ldquo;The Royal Skewer,&rdquo; and to become under
that name the terror of all the enemies of this island.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. X. LEDBRAIN read a very ingenious communication, from
which it appeared that the total number of legs belonging to the manufacturing
population of one great town in Yorkshire was, in round numbers, forty
thousand, while the total number of chair and stool legs in their houses
was only thirty thousand, which, upon the very favourable average of
three legs to a seat, yielded only ten thousand seats in all.&nbsp;
From this calculation it would appear,&mdash;not taking wooden or cork
legs into the account, but allowing two legs to every person,&mdash;that
ten thousand individuals (one-half of the whole population) were either
destitute of any rest for their legs at all, or passed the whole of
their leisure time in sitting upon boxes.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION D.&mdash;MECHANICAL SCIENCE.<br />COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL
PIG.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Mr. Carter.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Mr.
Truck and Mr. Waghorn.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK exhibited an elegant model of a portable
railway, neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket.&nbsp;
By attaching this beautiful instrument to his boots, any Bank or public-office
clerk could transport himself from his place of residence to his place
of business, at the easy rate of sixty-five miles an hour, which, to
gentlemen of sedentary pursuits, would be an incalculable advantage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT was desirous of knowing whether it was necessary
to have a level surface on which the gentleman was to run.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK explained that City gentlemen would run
in trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or unpleasantness.&nbsp;
For instance, trains would start every morning at eight, nine, and ten
o&rsquo;clock, from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and
various other places in which City gentlemen are accustomed to reside.&nbsp;
It would be necessary to have a level, but he had provided for this
difficulty by proposing that the best line that the circumstances would
admit of, should be taken through the sewers which undermine the streets
of the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas pipes
which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and commodious
arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying
umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed with.&nbsp; In
reply to another question, Professor Queerspeck stated that no substitute
for the purposes to which these arcades were at present devoted had
yet occurred to him, but that he hoped no fanciful objection on this
head would be allowed to interfere with so great an undertaking.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. JOBBA produced a forcing-machine on a novel plan, for
bringing joint-stock railway shares prematurely to a premium.&nbsp;
The instrument was in the form of an elegant gilt weather-glass, of
most dazzling appearance, and was worked behind, by strings, after the
manner of a pantomime trick, the strings being always pulled by the
directors of the company to which the machine belonged.&nbsp; The quicksilver
was so ingeniously placed, that when the acting directors held shares
in their pockets, figures denoting very small expenses and very large
returns appeared upon the glass; but the moment the directors parted
with these pieces of paper, the estimate of needful expenditure suddenly
increased itself to an immense extent, while the statements of certain
profits became reduced in the same proportion.&nbsp; Mr. Jobba stated
that the machine had been in constant requisition for some months past,
and he had never once known it to fail.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A Member expressed his opinion that it was extremely neat
and pretty.&nbsp; He wished to know whether it was not liable to accidental
derangement?&nbsp; Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly
liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR NOGO arrived from the anatomical section to exhibit
a model of a safety fire-escape, which could be fixed at any time, in
less than half an hour, and by means of which, the youngest or most
infirm persons (successfully resisting the progress of the flames until
it was quite ready) could be preserved if they merely balanced themselves
for a few minutes on the sill of their bedroom window, and got into
the escape without falling into the street.&nbsp; The Professor stated
that the number of boys who had been rescued in the daytime by this
machine from houses which were not on fire, was almost incredible.&nbsp;
Not a conflagration had occurred in the whole of London for many months
past to which the escape had not been carried on the very next day,
and put in action before a concourse of persons.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT inquired whether there was not some difficulty
in ascertaining which was the top of the machine, and which the bottom,
in cases of pressing emergency.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR NOGO explained that of course it could not be expected
to act quite as well when there was a fire, as when there was not a
fire; but in the former case he thought it would be of equal service
whether the top were up or down.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>With the last section our correspondent concludes his most able and
faithful Report, which will never cease to reflect credit upon him for
his scientific attainments, and upon us for our enterprising spirit.&nbsp;
It is needless to take a review of the subjects which have been discussed;
of the mode in which they have been examined; of the great truths which
they have elicited.&nbsp; They are now before the world, and we leave
them to read, to consider, and to profit.</p>
<p>The place of meeting for next year has undergone discussion, and
has at length been decided, regard being had to, and evidence being
taken upon, the goodness of its wines, the supply of its markets, the
hospitality of its inhabitants, and the quality of its hotels.&nbsp;
We hope at this next meeting our correspondent may again be present,
and that we may be once more the means of placing his communications
before the world.&nbsp; Until that period we have been prevailed upon
to allow this number of our Miscellany to be retailed to the public,
or wholesaled to the trade, without any advance upon our usual price.</p>
<p>We have only to add, that the committees are now broken up, and that
Mudfog is once again restored to its accustomed tranquillity,&mdash;that
Professors and Members have had balls, and <i>soir&eacute;es</i>, and
suppers, and great mutual complimentations, and have at length dispersed
to their several homes,&mdash;whither all good wishes and joys attend
them, until next year!</p>
<p>Signed BOZ.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>FULL REPORT OF THE SECOND MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION FOR
THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERYTHING</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>In October last, we did ourselves the immortal credit of recording,
at an enormous expense, and by dint of exertions unnpralleled in the
history of periodical publication, the proceedings of the Mudfog Association
for the Advancement of Everything, which in that month held its first
great half-yearly meeting, to the wonder and delight of the whole empire.&nbsp;
We announced at the conclusion of that extraordinary and most remarkable
Report, that when the Second Meeting of the Society should take place,
we should be found again at our post, renewing our gigantic and spirited
endeavours, and once more making the world ring with the accuracy, authenticity,
immeasurable superiority, and intense remarkability of our account of
its proceedings.&nbsp; In redemption of this pledge, we caused to be
despatched per steam to Oldcastle (at which place this second meeting
of the Society was held on the 20th instant), the same superhumanly-endowed
gentleman who furnished the former report, and who,&mdash;gifted by
nature with transcendent abilities, and furnished by us with a body
of assistants scarcely inferior to himself,&mdash;has forwarded a series
of letters, which, for faithfulness of description, power of language,
fervour of thought, happiness of expression, and importance of subject-matter,
have no equal in the epistolary literature of any age or country.&nbsp;
We give this gentleman&rsquo;s correspondence entire, and in the order
in which it reached our office.</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Saloon of Steamer, Thursday night, half-past eight.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;When I left New Burlington Street this evening in the hackney
cabriolet, number four thousand two hundred and eighty-five, I experienced
sensations as novel as they were oppressive.&nbsp; A sense of the importance
of the task I had undertaken, a consciousness that I was leaving London,
and, stranger still, going somewhere else, a feeling of loneliness and
a sensation of jolting, quite bewildered my thoughts, and for a time
rendered me even insensible to the presence of my carpet-bag and hat-box.&nbsp;
I shall ever feel grateful to the driver of a Blackwall omnibus who,
by thrusting the pole of his vehicle through the small door of the cabriolet,
awakened me from a tumult of imaginings that are wholly indescribable.&nbsp;
But of such materials is our imperfect nature composed!</p>
<p>&lsquo;I am happy to say that I am the first passenger on board,
and shall thus be enabled to give you an account of all that happens
in the order of its occurrence.&nbsp; The chimney is smoking a good
deal, and so are the crew; and the captain, I am informed, is very drunk
in a little house upon deck, something like a black turnpike.&nbsp;
I should infer from all I hear that he has got the steam up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;You will readily guess with what feelings I have just made
the discovery that my berth is in the same closet with those engaged
by Professor Woodensconce, Mr. Slug, and Professor Grime.&nbsp; Professor
Woodensconce has taken the shelf above me, and Mr. Slug and Professor
Grime the two shelves opposite.&nbsp; Their luggage has already arrived.&nbsp;
On Mr. Slug&rsquo;s bed is a long tin tube of about three inches in
diameter, carefully closed at both ends.&nbsp; What can this contain?&nbsp;
Some powerful instrument of a new construction, doubtless.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Ten minutes past nine.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Nobody has yet arrived, nor has anything fresh come in my
way except several joints of beef and mutton, from which I conclude
that a good plain dinner has been provided for to-morrow.&nbsp; There
is a singular smell below, which gave me some uneasiness at first; but
as the steward says it is always there, and never goes away, I am quite
comfortable again.&nbsp; I learn from this man that the different sections
will be distributed at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache, and the Boot-jack
and Countenance.&nbsp; If this intelligence be true (and I have no reason
to doubt it), your readers will draw such conclusions as their different
opinions may suggest.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I write down these remarks as they occur to me, or as the
facts come to my knowledge, in order that my first impressions may lose
nothing of their original vividness.&nbsp; I shall despatch them in
small packets as opportunities arise.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;<i>Half past nine.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Some dark object has just appeared upon the wharf.&nbsp; I
think it is a travelling carriage.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;A quarter to ten.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;No, it isn&rsquo;t.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past ten.</i></p>
<p>The passengers are pouring in every instant.&nbsp; Four omnibuses
full have just arrived upon the wharf, and all is bustle and activity.&nbsp;
The noise and confusion are very great.&nbsp; Cloths are laid in the
cabins, and the steward is placing blue plates&mdash;full of knobs of
cheese at equal distances down the centre of the tables.&nbsp; He drops
a great many knobs; but, being used to it, picks them up again with
great dexterity, and, after wiping them on his sleeve, throws them back
into the plates.&nbsp; He is a young man of exceedingly prepossessing
appearance&mdash;either dirty or a mulatto, but I think the former.</p>
<p>&lsquo;An interesting old gentleman, who came to the wharf in an
omnibus, has just quarrelled violently with the porters, and is staggering
towards the vessel with a large trunk in his arms.&nbsp; I trust and
hope that he may reach it in safety; but the board he has to cross is
narrow and slippery.&nbsp; Was that a splash?&nbsp; Gracious powers!</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have just returned from the deck.&nbsp; The trunk is standing
upon the extreme brink of the wharf, but the old gentleman is nowhere
to be seen.&nbsp; The watchman is not sure whether he went down or not,
but promises to drag for him the first thing to-morrow morning.&nbsp;
May his humane efforts prove successful!</p>
<p>&lsquo;Professor Nogo has this moment arrived with his nightcap on
under his hat.&nbsp; He has ordered a glass of cold brandy and water,
with a hard biscuit and a basin, and has gone straight to bed.&nbsp;
What can this mean?</p>
<p>&lsquo;The three other scientific gentlemen to whom I have already
alluded have come on board, and have all tried their beds, with the
exception of Professor Woodensconce, who sleeps in one of the top ones,
and can&rsquo;t get into it.&nbsp; Mr. Slug, who sleeps in the other
top one, is unable to get out of his, and is to have his supper handed
up by a boy.&nbsp; I have had the honour to introduce myself to these
gentlemen, and we have amicably arranged the order in which we shall
retire to rest; which it is necessary to agree upon, because, although
the cabin is very comfortable, there is not room for more than one gentleman
to be out of bed at a time, and even he must take his boots off in the
passage.</p>
<p>&lsquo;As I anticipated, the knobs of cheese were provided for the
passengers&rsquo; supper, and are now in course of consumption.&nbsp;
Your readers will be surprised to hear that Professor Woodensconce has
abstained from cheese for eight years, although he takes butter in considerable
quantities.&nbsp; Professor Grime having lost several teeth, is unable,
I observe, to eat his crusts without previously soaking them in his
bottled porter.&nbsp; How interesting are these peculiarities!&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past eleven.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Professors Woodensconce and Grime, with a degree of good humour
that delights us all, have just arranged to toss for a bottle of mulled
port.&nbsp; There has been some discussion whether the payment should
be decided by the first toss or the best out of three.&nbsp; Eventually
the latter course has been determined on.&nbsp; Deeply do I wish that
both gentlemen could win; but that being impossible, I own that my personal
aspirations (I speak as an individual, and do not compromise either
you or your readers by this expression of feeling) are with Professor
Woodensconce.&nbsp; I have backed that gentleman to the amount of eighteenpence.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Twenty minutes to twelve.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Professor Grime has inadvertently tossed his half-crown out
of one of the cabin-windows, and it has been arranged that the steward
shall toss for him.&nbsp; Bets are offered on any side to any amount,
but there are no takers.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Professor Woodensconce has just called &ldquo;woman;&rdquo;
but the coin having lodged in a beam, is a long time coming down again.&nbsp;
The interest and suspense of this one moment are beyond anything that
can be imagined.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Twelve o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The mulled port is smoking on the table before me, and Professor
Grime has won.&nbsp; Tossing is a game of chance; but on every ground,
whether of public or private character, intellectual endowments, or
scientific attainments, I cannot help expressing my opinion that Professor
Woodensconce <i>ought</i> to have come off victorious.&nbsp; There is
an exultation about Professor Grime incompatible, I fear, with true
greatness.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;A quarter past twelve.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Professor Grime continues to exult, and to boast of his victory
in no very measured terms, observing that he always does win, and that
he knew it would be a &ldquo;head&rdquo; beforehand, with many other
remarks of a similar nature.&nbsp; Surely this gentleman is not so lost
to every feeling of decency and propriety as not to feel and know the
superiority of Professor Woodensconce?&nbsp; Is Professor Grime insane?
or does he wish to be reminded in plain language of his true position
in society, and the precise level of his acquirements and abilities?&nbsp;
Professor Grime will do well to look to this.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;One o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I am writing in bed.&nbsp; The small cabin is illuminated
by the feeble light of a flickering lamp suspended from the ceiling;
Professor Grime is lying on the opposite shelf on the broad of his back,
with his mouth wide open.&nbsp; The scene is indescribably solemn.&nbsp;
The rippling of the tide, the noise of the sailors&rsquo; feet overhead,
the gruff voices on the river, the dogs on the shore, the snoring of
the passengers, and a constant creaking of every plank in the vessel,
are the only sounds that meet the ear.&nbsp; With these exceptions,
all is profound silence.</p>
<p>&lsquo;My curiosity has been within the last moment very much excited.&nbsp;
Mr. Slug, who lies above Professor Grime, has cautiously withdrawn the
curtains of his berth, and, after looking anxiously out, as if to satisfy
himself that his companions are asleep, has taken up the tin tube of
which I have before spoken, and is regarding it with great interest.&nbsp;
What rare mechanical combination can be contained in that mysterious
case?&nbsp; It is evidently a profound secret to all.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;A quarter past one.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The behaviour of Mr. Slug grows more and more mysterious.&nbsp;
He has unscrewed the top of the tube, and now renews his observations
upon his companions, evidently to make sure that he is wholly unobserved.&nbsp;
He is clearly on the eve of some great experiment.&nbsp; Pray heaven
that it be not a dangerous one; but the interests of science must be
promoted, and I am prepared for the worst.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Five minutes later.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;He has produced a large pair of scissors, and drawn a roll
of some substance, not unlike parchment in appearance, from the tin
case.&nbsp; The experiment is about to begin.&nbsp; I must strain my
eyes to the utmost, in the attempt to follow its minutest operation.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Twenty minutes before two.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I have at length been enabled to ascertain that the tin tube
contains a few yards of some celebrated plaster, recommended&mdash;as
I discover on regarding the label attentively through my eye-glass&mdash;as
a preservative against sea-sickness.&nbsp; Mr. Slug has cut it up into
small portions, and is now sticking it over himself in every direction.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Three o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;Precisely a quarter of an hour ago we weighed anchor, and
the machinery was suddenly put in motion with a noise so appalling,
that Professor Woodensconce (who had ascended to his berth by means
of a platform of carpet-bags arranged by himself on geometrical principals)
darted from his shelf head foremost, and, gaining his feet with all
the rapidity of extreme terror, ran wildly into the ladies&rsquo; cabin,
under the impression that we were sinking, and uttering loud cries for
aid.&nbsp; I am assured that the scene which ensued baffles all description.&nbsp;
There were one hundred and forty-seven ladies in their respective berths
at the time.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mr. Slug has remarked, as an additional instance of the extreme
ingenuity of the steam-engine as applied to purposes of navigation,
that in whatever part of the vessel a passenger&rsquo;s berth may be
situated, the machinery always appears to be exactly under his pillow.&nbsp;
He intends stating this very beautiful, though simple discovery, to
the association.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past ten.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;We are still in smooth water; that is to say, in as smooth
water as a steam-vessel ever can be, for, as Professor Woodensconce
(who has just woke up) learnedly remarks, another great point of ingenuity
about a steamer is, that it always carries a little storm with it.&nbsp;
You can scarcely conceive how exciting the jerking pulsation of the
ship becomes.&nbsp; It is a matter of positive difficulty to get to
sleep.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Friday afternoon, six o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I regret to inform you that Mr. Slug&rsquo;s plaster has proved
of no avail.&nbsp; He is in great agony, but has applied several large,
additional pieces notwithstanding.&nbsp; How affecting is this extreme
devotion to science and pursuit of knowledge under the most trying circumstances!</p>
<p>&lsquo;We were extremely happy this morning, and the breakfast was
one of the most animated description.&nbsp; Nothing unpleasant occurred
until noon, with the exception of Doctor Foxey&rsquo;s brown silk umbrella
and white hat becoming entangled in the machinery while he was explaining
to a knot of ladies the construction of the steam-engine.&nbsp; I fear
the gravy soup for lunch was injudicious.&nbsp; We lost a great many
passengers almost immediately afterwards.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past six.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I am again in bed.&nbsp; Anything so heart-rending as Mr.
Slug&rsquo;s sufferings it has never yet been my lot to witness.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Seven o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;A messenger has just come down for a clean pocket-handkerchief
from Professor Woodensconce&rsquo;s bag, that unfortunate gentleman
being quite unable to leave the deck, and imploring constantly to be
thrown overboard.&nbsp; From this man I understand that Professor Nogo,
though in a state of utter exhaustion, clings feebly to the hard biscuit
and cold brandy and water, under the impression that they will yet restore
him.&nbsp; Such is the triumph of mind over matter.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Professor Grime is in bed, to all appearance quite well; but
he <i>will</i> eat, and it is disagreeable to see him.&nbsp; Has this
gentleman no sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-creatures?&nbsp;
If he has, on what principle can he call for mutton-chops&mdash;and
smile?&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Black Boy and Stomach-ache, Oldcastle, Saturday noon.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;You will be happy to learn that I have at length arrived here
in safety.&nbsp; The town is excessively crowded, and all the private
lodgings and hotels are filled with <i>savans</i> of both sexes.&nbsp;
The tremendous assemblage of intellect that one encounters in every
street is in the last degree overwhelming.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Notwithstanding the throng of people here, I have been fortunate
enough to meet with very comfortable accommodation on very reasonable
terms, having secured a sofa in the first-floor passage at one guinea
per night, which includes permission to take my meals in the bar, on
condition that I walk about the streets at all other times, to make
room for other gentlemen similarly situated.&nbsp; I have been over
the outhouses intended to be devoted to the reception of the various
sections, both here and at the Boot-jack and Countenance, and am much
delighted with the arrangements.&nbsp; Nothing can exceed the fresh
appearance of the saw-dust with which the floors are sprinkled.&nbsp;
The forms are of unplaned deal, and the general effect, as you can well
imagine, is extremely beautiful.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past nine.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The number and rapidity of the arrivals are quite bewildering.&nbsp;
Within the last ten minutes a stage-coach has driven up to the door,
filled inside and out with distinguished characters, comprising Mr.
Muddlebranes, Mr. Drawley, Professor Muff, Mr. X. Misty, Mr. X. X. Misty,
Mr. Purblind, Professor Rummun, The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long
Eers, Professor John Ketch, Sir William Joltered, Doctor Buffer, Mr.
Smith (of London), Mr. Brown (of Edinburgh), Sir Hookham Snivey, and
Professor Pumpkinskull.&nbsp; The ten last-named gentlemen were wet
through, and looked extremely intelligent.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Sunday, two o&rsquo;clock, p.m.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, accompanied by
Sir William Joltered, walked and drove this morning.&nbsp; They accomplished
the former feat in boots, and the latter in a hired fly.&nbsp; This
has naturally given rise to much discussion.</p>
<p>&lsquo;I have just learnt that an interview has taken place at the
Boot-jack and Countenance between Sowster, the active and intelligent
beadle of this place, and Professor Pumpkinskull, who, as your readers
are doubtless aware, is an influential member of the council.&nbsp;
I forbear to communicate any of the rumours to which this very extraordinary
proceeding has given rise until I have seen Sowster, and endeavoured
to ascertain the truth from him.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Half-past six.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I engaged a donkey-chaise shortly after writing the above,
and proceeded at a brisk trot in the direction of Sowster&rsquo;s residence,
passing through a beautiful expanse of country, with red brick buildings
on either side, and stopping in the marketplace to observe the spot
where Mr. Kwakley&rsquo;s hat was blown off yesterday.&nbsp; It is an
uneven piece of paving, but has certainly no appearance which would
lead one to suppose that any such event had recently occurred there.&nbsp;
From this point I proceeded&mdash;passing the gas-works and tallow-melter&rsquo;s&mdash;to
a lane which had been pointed out to me as the beadle&rsquo;s place
of residence; and before I had driven a dozen yards further, I had the
good fortune to meet Sowster himself advancing towards me.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Sowster is a fat man, with a more enlarged development of
that peculiar conformation of countenance which is vulgarly termed a
double chin than I remember to have ever seen before.&nbsp; He has also
a very red nose, which he attributes to a habit of early rising&mdash;so
red, indeed, that but for this explanation I should have supposed it
to proceed from occasional inebriety.&nbsp; He informed me that he did
not feel himself at liberty to relate what had passed between himself
and Professor Pumpkinskull, but had no objection to state that it was
connected with a matter of police regulation, and added with peculiar
significance &ldquo;Never wos sitch times!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;You will easily believe that this intelligence gave me considerable
surprise, not wholly unmixed with anxiety, and that I lost no time in
waiting on Professor Pumpkinskull, and stating the object of my visit.&nbsp;
After a few moments&rsquo; reflection, the Professor, who, I am bound
to say, behaved with the utmost politeness, openly avowed (I mark the
passage in italics) <i>that he had requested Sowster to attend</i> <i>on
the Monday morning at the Boot-jack and Countenance, to keep off</i>
<i>the boys; and that he had further desired that the under-beadle might</i>
<i>be stationed, with the same object, at the Black Boy and Stomach</i>-<i>ache</i>!</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now I leave this unconstitutional proceeding to your comments
and the consideration of your readers.&nbsp; I have yet to learn that
a beadle, without the precincts of a church, churchyard, or work-house,
and acting otherwise than under the express orders of churchwardens
and overseers in council assembled, to enforce the law against people
who come upon the parish, and other offenders, has any lawful authority
whatever over the rising youth of this country.&nbsp; I have yet to
learn that a beadle can be called out by any civilian to exercise a
domination and despotism over the boys of Britain.&nbsp; I have yet
to learn that a beadle will be permitted by the commissioners of poor
law regulation to wear out the soles and heels of his boots in illegal
interference with the liberties of people not proved poor or otherwise
criminal.&nbsp; I have yet to learn that a beadle has power to stop
up the Queen&rsquo;s highway at his will and pleasure, or that the whole
width of the street is not free and open to any man, boy, or woman in
existence, up to the very walls of the houses&mdash;ay, be they Black
Boys and Stomach-aches, or Boot-jacks and Countenances, I care not.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Nine o&rsquo;clock.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;I have procured a local artist to make a faithful sketch of
the tyrant Sowster, which, as he has acquired this infamous celebrity,
you will no doubt wish to have engraved for the purpose of presenting
a copy with every copy of your next number.&nbsp; I enclose it.</p>
<p>[Picture which cannot be reproduced]</p>
<p>The under-beadle has consented to write his life, but it is to be
strictly anonymous.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The accompanying likeness is of course from the life, and
complete in every respect.&nbsp; Even if I had been totally ignorant
of the man&rsquo;s real character, and it had been placed before me
without remark, I should have shuddered involuntarily.&nbsp; There is
an intense malignity of expression in the features, and a baleful ferocity
of purpose in the ruffian&rsquo;s eye, which appals and sickens.&nbsp;
His whole air is rampant with cruelty, nor is the stomach less characteristic
of his demoniac propensities.&rsquo;</p>
<p><i>&lsquo;Monday.</i></p>
<p>&lsquo;The great day has at length arrived.&nbsp; I have neither
eyes, nor ears, nor pens, nor ink, nor paper, for anything but the wonderful
proceedings that have astounded my senses.&nbsp; Let me collect my energies
and proceed to the account.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION A.&mdash;ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.<br />FRONT PARLOUR, BLACK
BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Sir William Joltered.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Mr.
Muddlebranes and Mr. Drawley.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. X. X. MISTY communicated some remarks on the disappearance
of dancing-bears from the streets of London, with observations on the
exhibition of monkeys as connected with barrel-organs.&nbsp; The writer
had observed, with feelings of the utmost pain and regret, that some
years ago a sudden and unaccountable change in the public taste took
place with reference to itinerant bears, who, being discountenanced
by the populace, gradually fell off one by one from the streets of the
metropolis, until not one remained to create a taste for natural history
in the breasts of the poor and uninstructed.&nbsp; One bear, indeed,&mdash;a
brown and ragged animal,&mdash;had lingered about the haunts of his
former triumphs, with a worn and dejected visage and feeble limbs, and
had essayed to wield his quarter-staff for the amusement of the multitude;
but hunger, and an utter want of any due recompense for his abilities,
had at length driven him from the field, and it was only too probable
that he had fallen a sacrifice to the rising taste for grease.&nbsp;
He regretted to add that a similar, and no less lamentable, change had
taken place with reference to monkeys.&nbsp; These delightful animals
had formerly been almost as plentiful as the organs on the tops of which
they were accustomed to sit; the proportion in the year 1829 (it appeared
by the parliamentary return) being as one monkey to three organs.&nbsp;
Owing, however, to an altered taste in musical instruments, and the
substitution, in a great measure, of narrow boxes of music for organs,
which left the monkeys nothing to sit upon, this source of public amusement
was wholly dried up.&nbsp; Considering it a matter of the deepest importance,
in connection with national education, that the people should not lose
such opportunities of making themselves acquainted with the manners
and customs of two most interesting species of animals, the author submitted
that some measures should be immediately taken for the restoration of
these pleasing and truly intellectual amusements.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT inquired by what means the honourable member
proposed to attain this most desirable end?</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE AUTHOR submitted that it could be most fully and satisfactorily
accomplished, if Her Majesty&rsquo;s Government would cause to be brought
over to England, and maintained at the public expense, and for the public
amusement, such a number of bears as would enable every quarter of the
town to be visited&mdash;say at least by three bears a week.&nbsp; No
difficulty whatever need be experienced in providing a fitting place
for the reception of these animals, as a commodious bear-garden could
be erected in the immediate neighbourhood of both Houses of Parliament;
obviously the most proper and eligible spot for such an establishment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR MULL doubted very much whether any correct ideas
of natural history were propagated by the means to which the honourable
member had so ably adverted.&nbsp; On the contrary, he believed that
they had been the means of diffusing very incorrect and imperfect notions
on the subject.&nbsp; He spoke from personal observation and personal
experience, when he said that many children of great abilities had been
induced to believe, from what they had observed in the streets, at and
before the period to which the honourable gentleman had referred, that
all monkeys were born in red coats and spangles, and that their hats
and feathers also came by nature.&nbsp; He wished to know distinctly
whether the honourable gentleman attributed the want of encouragement
the bears had met with to the decline of public taste in that respect,
or to a want of ability on the part of the bears themselves?</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. X. X. MISTY replied, that he could not bring himself to
believe but that there must be a great deal of floating talent among
the bears and monkeys generally; which, in the absence of any proper
encouragement, was dispersed in other directions.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR PUMPKINSKULL wished to take that opportunity of
calling the attention of the section to a most important and serious
point.&nbsp; The author of the treatise just read had alluded to the
prevalent taste for bears&rsquo;-grease as a means of promoting the
growth of hair, which undoubtedly was diffused to a very great and (as
it appeared to him) very alarming extent.&nbsp; No gentleman attending
that section could fail to be aware of the fact that the youth of the
present age evinced, by their behaviour in the streets, and at all places
of public resort, a considerable lack of that gallantry and gentlemanly
feeling which, in more ignorant times, had been thought becoming.&nbsp;
He wished to know whether it were possible that a constant outward application
of bears&rsquo;-grease by the young gentlemen about town had imperceptibly
infused into those unhappy persons something of the nature and quality
of the bear.&nbsp; He shuddered as he threw out the remark; but if this
theory, on inquiry, should prove to be well founded, it would at once
explain a great deal of unpleasant eccentricity of behaviour, which,
without some such discovery, was wholly unaccountable.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT highly complimented the learned gentleman on
his most valuable suggestion, which produced the greatest effect upon
the assembly; and remarked that only a week previous he had seen some
young gentlemen at a theatre eyeing a box of ladies with a fierce intensity,
which nothing but the influence of some brutish appetite could possibly
explain.&nbsp; It was dreadful to reflect that our youth were so rapidly
verging into a generation of bears.</p>
<p>&lsquo;After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it was resolved that
this important question should be immediately submitted to the consideration
of the council.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any gentleman could inform
the section what had become of the dancing-dogs?</p>
<p>&lsquo;A MEMBER replied, after some hesitation, that on the day after
three glee-singers had been committed to prison as criminals by a late
most zealous police-magistrate of the metropolis, the dogs had abandoned
their professional duties, and dispersed themselves in different quarters
of the town to gain a livelihood by less dangerous means.&nbsp; He was
given to understand that since that period they had supported themselves
by lying in wait for and robbing blind men&rsquo;s poodles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. FLUMMERY exhibited a twig, claiming to be a veritable
branch of that noble tree known to naturalists as the SHAKSPEARE, which
has taken root in every land and climate, and gathered under the shade
of its broad green boughs the great family of mankind.&nbsp; The learned
gentleman remarked that the twig had been undoubtedly called by other
names in its time; but that it had been pointed out to him by an old
lady in Warwickshire, where the great tree had grown, as a shoot of
the genuine SHAKSPEARE, by which name he begged to introduce it to his
countrymen.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what botanical definition the
honourable gentleman could afford of the curiosity.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. FLUMMERY expressed his opinion that it was A DECIDED PLANT.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION B.&mdash;DISPLAY OF MODELS AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE.<br />LARGE
ROOM, BOOT-JACK AND COUNTENANCE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Mr. Mallett.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Messrs.
Leaver and Scroo.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. CRINKLES exhibited a most beautiful and delicate machine,
of little larger size than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured entirely
by himself, and composed exclusively of steel, by the aid of which more
pockets could be picked in one hour than by the present slow and tedious
process in four-and-twenty.&nbsp; The inventor remarked that it had
been put into active operation in Fleet Street, the Strand, and other
thoroughfares, and had never been once known to fail.</p>
<p>&lsquo;After some slight delay, occasioned by the various members
of the section buttoning their pockets,</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT narrowly inspected the invention, and declared
that he had never seen a machine of more beautiful or exquisite construction.&nbsp;
Would the inventor be good enough to inform the section whether he had
taken any and what means for bringing it into general operation?</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. CRINKLES stated that, after encountering some preliminary
difficulties, he had succeeded in putting himself in communication with
Mr. Fogle Hunter, and other gentlemen connected with the swell mob,
who had awarded the invention the very highest and most unqualified
approbation.&nbsp; He regretted to say, however, that these distinguished
practitioners, in common with a gentleman of the name of Gimlet-eyed
Tommy, and other members of a secondary grade of the profession whom
he was understood to represent, entertained an insuperable objection
to its being brought into general use, on the ground that it would have
the inevitable effect of almost entirely superseding manual labour,
and throwing a great number of highly-deserving persons out of employment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT hoped that no such fanciful objections would
be allowed to stand in the way of such a great public improvement.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. CRINKLES hoped so too; but he feared that if the gentlemen
of the swell mob persevered in their objection, nothing could be done.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR GRIME suggested, that surely, in that case, Her
Majesty&rsquo;s Government might be prevailed upon to take it up.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. CRINKLES said, that if the objection were found to be
insuperable he should apply to Parliament, which he thought could not
fail to recognise the utility of the invention.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT observed that, up to this time Parliament had
certainly got on very well without it; but, as they did their business
on a very large scale, he had no doubt they would gladly adopt the improvement.&nbsp;
His only fear was that the machine might be worn out by constant working.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. COPPERNOSE called the attention of the section to a proposition
of great magnitude and interest, illustrated by a vast number of models,
and stated with much clearness and perspicuity in a treatise entitled
&ldquo;Practical Suggestions on the necessity of providing some harmless
and wholesome relaxation for the young noblemen of England.&rdquo;&nbsp;
His proposition was, that a space of ground of not less than ten miles
in length and four in breadth should be purchased by a new company,
to be incorporated by Act of Parliament, and inclosed by a brick wall
of not less than twelve feet in height.&nbsp; He proposed that it should
be laid out with highway roads, turnpikes, bridges, miniature villages,
and every object that could conduce to the comfort and glory of Four-in-hand
Clubs, so that they might be fairly presumed to require no drive beyond
it.&nbsp; This delightful retreat would be fitted up with most commodious
and extensive stables, for the convenience of such of the nobility and
gentry as had a taste for ostlering, and with houses of entertainment
furnished in the most expensive and handsome style.&nbsp; It would be
further provided with whole streets of door-knockers and bell-handles
of extra size, so constructed that they could be easily wrenched off
at night, and regularly screwed on again, by attendants provided for
the purpose, every day.&nbsp; There would also be gas lamps of real
glass, which could be broken at a comparatively small expense per dozen,
and a broad and handsome foot pavement for gentlemen to drive their
cabriolets upon when they were humorously disposed&mdash;for the full
enjoyment of which feat live pedestrians would be procured from the
workhouse at a very small charge per head.&nbsp; The place being inclosed,
and carefully screened from the intrusion of the public, there would
be no objection to gentlemen laying aside any article of their costume
that was considered to interfere with a pleasant frolic, or, indeed,
to their walking about without any costume at all, if they liked that
better.&nbsp; In short, every facility of enjoyment would be afforded
that the most gentlemanly person could possibly desire.&nbsp; But as
even these advantages would be incomplete unless there were some means
provided of enabling the nobility and gentry to display their prowess
when they sallied forth after dinner, and as some inconvenience might
be experienced in the event of their being reduced to the necessity
of pummelling each other, the inventor had turned his attention to the
construction of an entirely new police force, composed exclusively of
automaton figures, which, with the assistance of the ingenious Signor
Gagliardi, of Windmill-street, in the Haymarket, he had succeeded in
making with such nicety, that a policeman, cab-driver, or old woman,
made upon the principle of the models exhibited, would walk about until
knocked down like any real man; nay, more, if set upon and beaten by
six or eight noblemen or gentlemen, after it was down, the figure would
utter divers groans, mingled with entreaties for mercy, thus rendering
the illusion complete, and the enjoyment perfect.&nbsp; But the invention
did not stop even here; for station-houses would be built, containing
good beds for noblemen and gentlemen during the night, and in the morning
they would repair to a commodious police office, where a pantomimic
investigation would take place before the automaton magistrates,&mdash;quite
equal to life,&mdash;who would fine them in so many counters, with which
they would be previously provided for the purpose.&nbsp; This office
would be furnished with an inclined plane, for the convenience of any
nobleman or gentleman who might wish to bring in his horse as a witness;
and the prisoners would be at perfect liberty, as they were now, to
interrupt the complainants as much as they pleased, and to make any
remarks that they thought proper.&nbsp; The charge for these amusements
would amount to very little more than they already cost, and the inventor
submitted that the public would be much benefited and comforted by the
proposed arrangement.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR NOGO wished to be informed what amount of automaton
police force it was proposed to raise in the first instance.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. COPPERNOSE replied, that it was proposed to begin with
seven divisions of police of a score each, lettered from A to G inclusive.&nbsp;
It was proposed that not more than half this number should be placed
on active duty, and that the remainder should be kept on shelves in
the police office ready to be called out at a moment&rsquo;s notice.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT, awarding the utmost merit to the ingenious
gentleman who had originated the idea, doubted whether the automaton
police would quite answer the purpose.&nbsp; He feared that noblemen
and gentlemen would perhaps require the excitement of thrashing living
subjects.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. COPPERNOSE submitted, that as the usual odds in such cases
were ten noblemen or gentlemen to one policeman or cab-driver, it could
make very little difference in point of excitement whether the policeman
or cab-driver were a man or a block.&nbsp; The great advantage would
be, that a policeman&rsquo;s limbs might be all knocked off, and yet
he would be in a condition to do duty next day.&nbsp; He might even
give his evidence next morning with his head in his hand, and give it
equally well.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR MUFF.&mdash;Will you allow me to ask you, sir, of
what materials it is intended that the magistrates&rsquo; heads shall
be composed?</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. COPPERNOSE.&mdash;The magistrates will have wooden heads
of course, and they will be made of the toughest and thickest materials
that can possibly be obtained.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR MUFF.&mdash;I am quite satisfied.&nbsp; This is
a great invention.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR NOGO.&mdash;I see but one objection to it.&nbsp;
It appears to me that the magistrates ought to talk.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. COPPERNOSE no sooner heard this suggestion than he touched
a small spring in each of the two models of magistrates which were placed
upon the table; one of the figures immediately began to exclaim with
great volubility that he was sorry to see gentlemen in such a situation,
and the other to express a fear that the policeman was intoxicated.</p>
<p>&lsquo;The section, as with one accord, declared with a shout of
applause that the invention was complete; and the President, much excited,
retired with Mr. Coppernose to lay it before the council.&nbsp; On his
return,</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. TICKLE displayed his newly-invented spectacles, which
enabled the wearer to discern, in very bright colours, objects at a
great distance, and rendered him wholly blind to those immediately before
him.&nbsp; It was, he said, a most valuable and useful invention, based
strictly upon the principle of the human eye.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT required some information upon this point.&nbsp;
He had yet to learn that the human eye was remarkable for the peculiarities
of which the honourable gentleman had spoken.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. TICKLE was rather astonished to hear this, when the President
could not fail to be aware that a large number of most excellent persons
and great statesmen could see, with the naked eye, most marvellous horrors
on West India plantations, while they could discern nothing whatever
in the interior of Manchester cotton mills.&nbsp; He must know, too,
with what quickness of perception most people could discover their neighbour&rsquo;s
faults, and how very blind they were to their own.&nbsp; If the President
differed from the great majority of men in this respect, his eye was
a defective one, and it was to assist his vision that these glasses
were made.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. BLANK exhibited a model of a fashionable annual, composed
of copper-plates, gold leaf, and silk boards, and worked entirely by
milk and water.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. PROSEE, after examining the machine, declared it to be
so ingeniously composed, that he was wholly unable to discover how it
went on at all.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. BLANK.&mdash;Nobody can, and that is the beauty of it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION C.&mdash;ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.<br />BAR ROOM, BLACK
BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Dr. Soemup.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Messrs.
Pessell and Mortair.</p>
<p>&lsquo;DR. GRUMMIDGE stated to the section a most interesting case
of monomania, and described the course of treatment he had pursued with
perfect success.&nbsp; The patient was a married lady in the middle
rank of life, who, having seen another lady at an evening party in a
full suit of pearls, was suddenly seized with a desire to possess a
similar equipment, although her husband&rsquo;s finances were by no
means equal to the necessary outlay.&nbsp; Finding her wish ungratified,
she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr.
Grummidge) was called in.&nbsp; At this period the prominent tokens
of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform domestic
duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except when pearls were
mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter,
the pupils dilated, and the patient, after various incoherent exclamations,
burst into a passion of tears, and exclaimed that nobody cared for her,
and that she wished herself dead.&nbsp; Finding that the patient&rsquo;s
appetite was affected in the presence of company, he began by ordering
a total abstinence from all stimulants, and forbidding any sustenance
but weak gruel; he then took twenty ounces of blood, applied a blister
under each ear, one upon the chest, and another on the back; having
done which, and administered five grains of calomel, he left the patient
to her repose.&nbsp; The next day she was somewhat low, but decidedly
better, and all appearances of irritation were removed.&nbsp; The next
day she improved still further, and on the next again.&nbsp; On the
fourth there was some appearance of a return of the old symptoms, which
no sooner developed themselves, than he administered another dose of
calomel, and left strict orders that, unless a decidedly favourable
change occurred within two hours, the patient&rsquo;s head should be
immediately shaved to the very last curl.&nbsp; From that moment she
began to mend, and, in less than four-and-twenty hours was perfectly
restored.&nbsp; She did not now betray the least emotion at the sight
or mention of pearls or any other ornaments.&nbsp; She was cheerful
and good-humoured, and a most beneficial change had been effected in
her whole temperament and condition.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. PIPKIN (M.R.C.S.) read a short but most interesting communication
in which he sought to prove the complete belief of Sir William Courtenay,
otherwise Thorn, recently shot at Canterbury, in the Homoeopathic system.&nbsp;
The section would bear in mind that one of the Homoeopathic doctrines
was, that infinitesimal doses of any medicine which would occasion the
disease under which the patient laboured, supposing him to be in a healthy
state, would cure it.&nbsp; Now, it was a remarkable circumstance&mdash;proved
in the evidence&mdash;that the deceased Thorn employed a woman to follow
him about all day with a pail of water, assuring her that one drop (a
purely homoeopathic remedy, the section would observe), placed upon
his tongue, after death, would restore him.&nbsp; What was the obvious
inference?&nbsp; That Thorn, who was marching and countermarching in
osier beds, and other swampy places, was impressed with a presentiment
that he should be drowned; in which case, had his instructions been
complied with, he could not fail to have been brought to life again
instantly by his own prescription.&nbsp; As it was, if this woman, or
any other person, had administered an infinitesimal dose of lead and
gunpowder immediately after he fell, he would have recovered forthwith.&nbsp;
But unhappily the woman concerned did not possess the power of reasoning
by analogy, or carrying out a principle, and thus the unfortunate gentleman
had been sacrificed to the ignorance of the peasantry.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SECTION D.&mdash;STATISTICS.<br />OUT-HOUSE, BLACK BOY AND
STOMACH-ACHE.</p>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Mr. Slug.&nbsp; <i>Vice-Presidents</i>&mdash;Messrs.
Noakes and Styles.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. KWAKLEY stated the result of some most ingenious statistical
inquiries relative to the difference between the value of the qualification
of several members of Parliament as published to the world, and its
real nature and amount.&nbsp; After reminding the section that every
member of Parliament for a town or borough was supposed to possess a
clear freehold estate of three hundred pounds per annum, the honourable
gentleman excited great amusement and laughter by stating the exact
amount of freehold property possessed by a column of legislators, in
which he had included himself.&nbsp; It appeared from this table, that
the amount of such income possessed by each was 0 pounds, 0 shillings,
and 0 pence, yielding an average of the same. (Great laughter.)&nbsp;
It was pretty well known that there were accommodating gentlemen in
the habit of furnishing new members with temporary qualifications, to
the ownership of which they swore solemnly&mdash;of course as a mere
matter of form.&nbsp; He argued from these <i>data</i> that it was wholly
unnecessary for members of Parliament to possess any property at all,
especially as when they had none the public could get them so much cheaper.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;SUPPLEMENTARY SECTION, E.&mdash;UMBUGOLOGY AND DITCHWATERISICS.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><i>President</i>&mdash;Mr. Grub.&nbsp; <i>Vice Presidents</i>&mdash;Messrs.
Dull and Dummy.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A paper was read by the secretary descriptive of a bay pony
with one eye, which had been seen by the author standing in a butcher&rsquo;s
cart at the corner of Newgate Market.&nbsp; The communication described
the author of the paper as having, in the prosecution of a mercantile
pursuit, betaken himself one Saturday morning last summer from Somers
Town to Cheapside; in the course of which expedition he had beheld the
extraordinary appearance above described.&nbsp; The pony had one distinct
eye, and it had been pointed out to him by his friend Captain Blunderbore,
of the Horse Marines, who assisted the author in his search, that whenever
he winked this eye he whisked his tail (possibly to drive the flies
off), but that he always winked and whisked at the same time.&nbsp;
The animal was lean, spavined, and tottering; and the author proposed
to constitute it of the family of <i>Fitfordogsmeataurious</i>.&nbsp;
It certainly did occur to him that there was no case on record of a
pony with one clearly-defined and distinct organ of vision, winking
and whisking at the same moment.</p>
<p>&lsquo;MR. Q. J. SNUFFLETOFFLE had heard of a pony winking his eye,
and likewise of a pony whisking his tail, but whether they were two
ponies or the same pony he could not undertake positively to say.&nbsp;
At all events, he was acquainted with no authenticated instance of a
simultaneous winking and whisking, and he really could not but doubt
the existence of such a marvellous pony in opposition to all those natural
laws by which ponies were governed.&nbsp; Referring, however, to the
mere question of his one organ of vision, might he suggest the possibility
of this pony having been literally half asleep at the time he was seen,
and having closed only one eye.</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT observed that, whether the pony was half asleep
or fast asleep, there could be no doubt that the association was wide
awake, and therefore that they had better get the business over, and
go to dinner.&nbsp; He had certainly never seen anything analogous to
this pony, but he was not prepared to doubt its existence; for he had
seen many queerer ponies in his time, though he did not pretend to have
seen any more remarkable donkeys than the other gentlemen around him.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR JOHN KETCH was then called upon to exhibit the skull
of the late Mr. Greenacre, which he produced from a blue bag, remarking,
on being invited to make any observations that occurred to him, &ldquo;that
he&rsquo;d pound it as that &rsquo;ere &rsquo;spectable section had
never seed a more gamerer cove nor he vos.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;A most animated discussion upon this interesting relic ensued;
and, some difference of opinion arising respecting the real character
of the deceased gentleman, Mr. Blubb delivered a lecture upon the cranium
before him, clearly showing that Mr. Greenacre possessed the organ of
destructiveness to a most unusual extent, with a most remarkable development
of the organ of carveativeness.&nbsp; Sir Hookham Snivey was proceeding
to combat this opinion, when Professor Ketch suddenly interrupted the
proceedings by exclaiming, with great excitement of manner, &ldquo;Walker!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;THE PRESIDENT begged to call the learned gentleman to order.</p>
<p>&lsquo;PROFESSOR KETCH.&mdash;&ldquo;Order be blowed! you&rsquo;ve
got the wrong un, I tell you.&nbsp; It ain&rsquo;t no &rsquo;ed at all;
it&rsquo;s a coker-nut as my brother-in-law has been a-carvin&rsquo;,
to hornament his new baked tatur-stall wots a-comin&rsquo; down &rsquo;ere
vile the &rsquo;sociation&rsquo;s in the town.&nbsp; Hand over, vill
you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;With these words, Professor Ketch hastily repossessed himself
of the cocoa-nut, and drew forth the skull, in mistake for which he
had exhibited it.&nbsp; A most interesting conversation ensued; but
as there appeared some doubt ultimately whether the skull was Mr. Greenacre&rsquo;s,
or a hospital patient&rsquo;s, or a pauper&rsquo;s, or a man&rsquo;s,
or a woman&rsquo;s, or a monkey&rsquo;s, no particular result was obtained.&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;I cannot,&rsquo; says our talented correspondent in conclusion,
&lsquo;I cannot close my account of these gigantic researches and sublime
and noble triumphs without repeating a <i>bon mot</i> of Professor Woodensconce&rsquo;s,
which shows how the greatest minds may occasionally unbend when truth
can be presented to listening ears, clothed in an attractive and playful
form.&nbsp; I was standing by, when, after a week of feasting and feeding,
that learned gentleman, accompanied by the whole body of wonderful men,
entered the hall yesterday, where a sumptuous dinner was prepared; where
the richest wines sparkled on the board, and fat bucks&mdash;propitiatory
sacrifices to learning&mdash;sent forth their savoury odours.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Professor Woodensconce, rubbing his hands, &ldquo;this
is what we meet for; this is what inspires us; this is what keeps us
together, and beckons us onward; this is the <i>spread</i> of science,
and a glorious spread it is.&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>THE PANTOMIME OF LIFE</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>Before we plunge headlong into this paper, let us at once confess
to a fondness for pantomimes&mdash;to a gentle sympathy with clowns
and pantaloons&mdash;to an unqualified admiration of harlequins and
columbines&mdash;to a chaste delight in every action of their brief
existence, varied and many-coloured as those actions are, and inconsistent
though they occasionally be with those rigid and formal rules of propriety
which regulate the proceedings of meaner and less comprehensive minds.&nbsp;
We revel in pantomimes&mdash;not because they dazzle one&rsquo;s eyes
with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they present to us, once again,
the well-beloved chalked faces, and goggle eyes of our childhood; not
even because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth-night, and Shrove-Tuesday,
and one&rsquo;s own birthday, they come to us but once a year;&mdash;our
attachment is founded on a graver and a very different reason.&nbsp;
A pantomime is to us, a mirror of life; nay, more, we maintain that
it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it,
and that this very circumstance is the secret cause of their amusement
and delight.</p>
<p>Let us take a slight example.&nbsp; The scene is a street: an elderly
gentleman, with a large face and strongly marked features, appears.&nbsp;
His countenance beams with a sunny smile, and a perpetual dimple is
on his broad, red cheek.&nbsp; He is evidently an opulent elderly gentleman,
comfortable in circumstances, and well-to-do in the world.&nbsp; He
is not unmindful of the adornment of his person, for he is richly, not
to say gaudily, dressed; and that he indulges to a reasonable extent
in the pleasures of the table may be inferred from the joyous and oily
manner in which he rubs his stomach, by way of informing the audience
that he is going home to dinner.&nbsp; In the fulness of his heart,
in the fancied security of wealth, in the possession and enjoyment of
all the good things of life, the elderly gentleman suddenly loses his
footing, and stumbles.&nbsp; How the audience roar!&nbsp; He is set
upon by a noisy and officious crowd, who buffet and cuff him unmercifully.&nbsp;
They scream with delight!&nbsp; Every time the elderly gentleman struggles
to get up, his relentless persecutors knock him down again.&nbsp; The
spectators are convulsed with merriment!&nbsp; And when at last the
elderly gentleman does get up, and staggers away, despoiled of hat,
wig, and clothing, himself battered to pieces, and his watch and money
gone, they are exhausted with laughter, and express their merriment
and admiration in rounds of applause.</p>
<p>Is this like life?&nbsp; Change the scene to any real street;&mdash;to
the Stock Exchange, or the City banker&rsquo;s; the merchant&rsquo;s
counting-house, or even the tradesman&rsquo;s shop.&nbsp; See any one
of these men fall,&mdash;the more suddenly, and the nearer the zenith
of his pride and riches, the better.&nbsp; What a wild hallo is raised
over his prostrate carcase by the shouting mob; how they whoop and yell
as he lies humbled beneath them!&nbsp; Mark how eagerly they set upon
him when he is down; and how they mock and deride him as he slinks away.&nbsp;
Why, it is the pantomime to the very letter.</p>
<p>Of all the pantomimic <i>dramatis personae</i>, we consider the pantaloon
the most worthless and debauched.&nbsp; Independent of the dislike one
naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in pursuits
highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot conceal from
ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous, worldly-minded old villain,
constantly enticing his younger companion, the clown, into acts of fraud
or petty larceny, and generally standing aside to watch the result of
the enterprise.&nbsp; If it be successful, he never forgets to return
for his share of the spoil; but if it turn out a failure, he generally
retires with remarkable caution and expedition, and keeps carefully
aloof until the affair has blown over.&nbsp; His amorous propensities,
too, are eminently disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in
the open street at noon-day is down-right improper, being usually neither
more nor less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in
the waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed
(as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing, nevertheless,
to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very unpleasant and
immoral manner.</p>
<p>Is there any man who cannot count a dozen pantaloons in his own social
circle?&nbsp; Is there any man who has not seen them swarming at the
west end of the town on a sunshiny day or a summer&rsquo;s evening,
going through the last-named pantomimic feats with as much liquorish
energy, and as total an absence of reserve, as if they were on the very
stage itself?&nbsp; We can tell upon our fingers a dozen pantaloons
of our acquaintance at this moment&mdash;capital pantaloons, who have
been performing all kinds of strange freaks, to the great amusement
of their friends and acquaintance, for years past; and who to this day
are making such comical and ineffectual attempts to be young and dissolute,
that all beholders are like to die with laughter.</p>
<p>Take that old gentleman who has just emerged from the <i>Caf&eacute;
de</i> <i>l&rsquo;Europe</i> in the Haymarket, where he has been dining
at the expense of the young man upon town with whom he shakes hands
as they part at the door of the tavern.&nbsp; The affected warmth of
that shake of the hand, the courteous nod, the obvious recollection
of the dinner, the savoury flavour of which still hangs upon his lips,
are all characteristics of his great prototype.&nbsp; He hobbles away
humming an opera tune, and twirling his cane to and fro, with affected
carelessness.&nbsp; Suddenly he stops&mdash;&rsquo;tis at the milliner&rsquo;s
window.&nbsp; He peeps through one of the large panes of glass; and,
his view of the ladies within being obstructed by the India shawls,
directs his attentions to the young girl with the band-box in her hand,
who is gazing in at the window also.&nbsp; See! he draws beside her.&nbsp;
He coughs; she turns away from him.&nbsp; He draws near her again; she
disregards him.&nbsp; He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, retreating
a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl
bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage.&nbsp;
She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her
with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to the life!</p>
<p>&nbsp;But the close resemblance which the clowns of the stage bear
to those of every-day life is perfectly extraordinary.&nbsp; Some people
talk with a sigh of the decline of pantomime, and murmur in low and
dismal tones the name of Grimaldi.&nbsp; We mean no disparagement to
the worthy and excellent old man when we say that this is downright
nonsense.&nbsp; Clowns that beat Grimaldi all to nothing turn up every
day, and nobody patronizes them&mdash;more&rsquo;s the pity!</p>
<p>&lsquo;I know who you mean,&rsquo; says some dirty-faced patron of
Mr. Osbaldistone&rsquo;s, laying down the Miscellany when he has got
thus far, and bestowing upon vacancy a most knowing glance; &lsquo;you
mean C. J. Smith as did Guy Fawkes, and George Barnwell at the Garden.&rsquo;&nbsp;
The dirty-faced gentleman has hardly uttered the words, when he is interrupted
by a young gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat.&nbsp;
&lsquo;No, no,&rsquo; says the young gentleman; &lsquo;he means Brown,
King, and Gibson, at the &lsquo;Delphi.&rsquo;&nbsp; Now, with great
deference both to the first-named gentleman with the dirty face, and
the last-named gentleman in the non-existing shirt-collar, we do <i>not</i>
mean either the performer who so grotesquely burlesqued the Popish conspirator,
or the three unchangeables who have been dancing the same dance under
different imposing titles, and doing the same thing under various high-sounding
names for some five or six years last past.&nbsp; We have no sooner
made this avowal, than the public, who have hitherto been silent witnesses
of the dispute, inquire what on earth it is we <i>do</i> mean; and,
with becoming respect, we proceed to tell them.</p>
<p>It is very well known to all playgoers and pantomime-seers, that
the scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his
glory are those which are described in the play-bills as &lsquo;Cheesemonger&rsquo;s
shop and Crockery warehouse,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Tailor&rsquo;s shop, and
Mrs. Queertable&rsquo;s boarding-house,&rsquo; or places bearing some
such title, where the great fun of the thing consists in the hero&rsquo;s
taking lodgings which he has not the slightest intention of paying for,
or obtaining goods under false pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade
of the respectable shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse porters
as they pass under his window, or, to shorten the catalogue, in his
swindling everybody he possibly can, it only remaining to be observed
that, the more extensive the swindling is, and the more barefaced the
impudence of the swindler, the greater the rapture and ecstasy of the
audience.&nbsp; Now it is a most remarkable fact that precisely this
sort of thing occurs in real life day after day, and nobody sees the
humour of it.&nbsp; Let us illustrate our position by detailing the
plot of this portion of the pantomime&mdash;not of the theatre, but
of life.</p>
<p>The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, attended by his livery
servant Do&rsquo;em&mdash;a most respectable servant to look at, who
has grown grey in the service of the captain&rsquo;s family&mdash;views,
treats for, and ultimately obtains possession of, the unfurnished house,
such a number, such a street.&nbsp; All the tradesmen in the neighbourhood
are in agonies of competition for the captain&rsquo;s custom; the captain
is a good-natured, kind-hearted, easy man, and, to avoid being the cause
of disappointment to any, he most handsomely gives orders to all.&nbsp;
Hampers of wine, baskets of provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes
of jewellery, supplies of luxuries of the costliest description, flock
to the house of the Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where they
are received with the utmost readiness by the highly respectable Do&rsquo;em;
while the captain himself struts and swaggers about with that compound
air of conscious superiority and general blood-thirstiness which a military
captain should always, and does most times, wear, to the admiration
and terror of plebeian men.&nbsp; But the tradesmen&rsquo;s backs are
no sooner turned, than the captain, with all the eccentricity of a mighty
mind, and assisted by the faithful Do&rsquo;em, whose devoted fidelity
is not the least touching part of his character, disposes of everything
to great advantage; for, although the articles fetch small sums, still
they are sold considerably above cost price, the cost to the captain
having been nothing at all.&nbsp; After various manoeuvres, the imposture
is discovered, Fitz-Fiercy and Do&rsquo;em are recognized as confederates,
and the police office to which they are both taken is thronged with
their dupes.</p>
<p>Who can fail to recognize in this, the exact counterpart of the best
portion of a theatrical pantomime&mdash;Fitz-Whisker Fiercy by the clown;
Do&rsquo;em by the pantaloon; and supernumeraries by the tradesmen?&nbsp;
The best of the joke, too, is, that the very coal-merchant who is loudest
in his complaints against the person who defrauded him, is the identical
man who sat in the centre of the very front row of the pit last night
and laughed the most boisterously at this very same thing,&mdash;and
not so well done either.&nbsp; Talk of Grimaldi, we say again!&nbsp;
Did Grimaldi, in his best days, ever do anything in this way equal to
Da Costa?</p>
<p>The mention of this latter justly celebrated clown reminds us of
his last piece of humour, the fraudulently obtaining certain stamped
acceptances from a young gentleman in the army.&nbsp; We had scarcely
laid down our pen to contemplate for a few moments this admirable actor&rsquo;s
performance of that exquisite practical joke, than a new branch of our
subject flashed suddenly upon us.&nbsp; So we take it up again at once.</p>
<p>All people who have been behind the scenes, and most people who have
been before them, know, that in the representation of a pantomime, a
good many men are sent upon the stage for the express purpose of being
cheated, or knocked down, or both.&nbsp; Now, down to a moment ago,
we had never been able to understand for what possible purpose a great
number of odd, lazy, large-headed men, whom one is in the habit of meeting
here, and there, and everywhere, could ever have been created.&nbsp;
We see it all, now.&nbsp; They are the supernumeraries in the pantomime
of life; the men who have been thrust into it, with no other view than
to be constantly tumbling over each other, and running their heads against
all sorts of strange things.&nbsp; We sat opposite to one of these men
at a supper-table, only last week.&nbsp; Now we think of it, he was
exactly like the gentlemen with the pasteboard heads and faces, who
do the corresponding business in the theatrical pantomimes; there was
the same broad stolid simper&mdash;the same dull leaden eye&mdash;the
same unmeaning, vacant stare; and whatever was said, or whatever was
done, he always came in at precisely the wrong place, or jostled against
something that he had not the slightest business with.&nbsp; We looked
at the man across the table again and again; and could not satisfy ourselves
what race of beings to class him with.&nbsp; How very odd that this
never occurred to us before!</p>
<p>We will frankly own that we have been much troubled with the harlequin.&nbsp;
We see harlequins of so many kinds in the real living pantomime, that
we hardly know which to select as the proper fellow of him of the theatres.&nbsp;
At one time we were disposed to think that the harlequin was neither
more nor less than a young man of family and independent property, who
had run away with an opera-dancer, and was fooling his life and his
means away in light and trivial amusements.&nbsp; On reflection, however,
we remembered that harlequins are occasionally guilty of witty, and
even clever acts, and we are rather disposed to acquit our young men
of family and independent property, generally speaking, of any such
misdemeanours.&nbsp; On a more mature consideration of the subject,
we have arrived at the conclusion that the harlequins of life are just
ordinary men, to be found in no particular walk or degree, on whom a
certain station, or particular conjunction of circumstances, confers
the magic wand.&nbsp; And this brings us to a few words on the pantomime
of public and political life, which we shall say at once, and then conclude&mdash;merely
premising in this place that we decline any reference whatever to the
columbine, being in no wise satisfied of the nature of her connection
with her parti-coloured lover, and not feeling by any means clear that
we should be justified in introducing her to the virtuous and respectable
ladies who peruse our lucubrations.</p>
<p>We take it that the commencement of a Session of Parliament is neither
more nor less than the drawing up of the curtain for a grand comic pantomime,
and that his Majesty&rsquo;s most gracious speech on the opening thereof
may be not inaptly compared to the clown&rsquo;s opening speech of &lsquo;Here
we are!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;My lords and gentlemen, here we are!&rsquo;
appears, to our mind at least, to be a very good abstract of the point
and meaning of the propitiatory address of the ministry.&nbsp; When
we remember how frequently this speech is made, immediately after <i>the
change</i> too, the parallel is quite perfect, and still more singular.</p>
<p>Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than
at this day.&nbsp; We are particularly strong in clowns.&nbsp; At no
former time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or
performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the amusement
of an admiring throng.&nbsp; Their extreme readiness to exhibit, indeed,
has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it having been objected
that by exhibiting gratuitously through the country when the theatre
is closed, they reduce themselves to the level of mountebanks, and thereby
tend to degrade the respectability of the profession.&nbsp; Certainly
Grimaldi never did this sort of thing; and though Brown, King, and Gibson
have gone to the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr. C. J. Smith has ruralised
at Sadler&rsquo;s Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general
tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name unknown,
who threw summersets on behalf of the late Mr. Richardson, and who is
no authority either, because he had never been on the regular boards.</p>
<p>But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter
of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on the
proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season.&nbsp; Night after
night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three, and four o&rsquo;clock
in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and giving each other
the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly be imagined, without
evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue.&nbsp; The strange noises, the
confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which all this is done, too,
would put to shame the most turbulent sixpenny gallery that ever yelled
through a boxing-night.</p>
<p>It is especially curious to behold one of these clowns compelled
to go through the most surprising contortions by the irresistible influence
of the wand of office, which his leader or harlequin holds above his
head.&nbsp; Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will become perfectly
motionless, moving neither hand, foot, nor finger, and will even lose
the faculty of speech at an instant&rsquo;s notice; or on the other
hand, he will become all life and animation if required, pouring forth
a torrent of words without sense or meaning, throwing himself into the
wildest and most fantastic contortions, and even grovelling on the earth
and licking up the dust.&nbsp; These exhibitions are more curious than
pleasing; indeed, they are rather disgusting than otherwise, except
to the admirers of such things, with whom we confess we have no fellow-feeling.</p>
<p>Strange tricks&mdash;very strange tricks&mdash;are also performed
by the harlequin who holds for the time being the magic wand which we
have just mentioned.&nbsp; The mere waving it before a man&rsquo;s eyes
will dispossess his brains of all the notions previously stored there,
and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas; one gentle tap on the
back will alter the colour of a man&rsquo;s coat completely; and there
are some expert performers, who, having this wand held first on one
side and then on the other, will change from side to side, turning their
coats at every evolution, with so much rapidity and dexterity, that
the quickest eye can scarcely detect their motions.&nbsp; Occasionally,
the genius who confers the wand, wrests it from the hand of the temporary
possessor, and consigns it to some new performer; on which occasions
all the characters change sides, and then the race and the hard knocks
begin anew.</p>
<p>We might have extended this chapter to a much greater length&mdash;we
might have carried the comparison into the liberal professions&mdash;we
might have shown, as was in fact our original purpose, that each is
in itself a little pantomime with scenes and characters of its own,
complete; but, as we fear we have been quite lengthy enough already,
we shall leave this chapter just where it is.&nbsp; A gentleman, not
altogether unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a year or two ago
-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&lsquo;All the world&rsquo;s a stage,<br />And all the men and women
merely players:&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and we, tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely-worth-mentioning
little distance of a few millions of leagues behind, venture to add,
by way of new reading, that he meant a Pantomime, and that we are all
actors in The Pantomime of Life.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>SOME PARTICULARS CONCERNING A LION</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We have a great respect for lions in the abstract.&nbsp; In common
with most other people, we have heard and read of many instances of
their bravery and generosity.&nbsp; We have duly admired that heroic
self-denial and charming philanthropy which prompts them never to eat
people except when they are hungry, and we have been deeply impressed
with a becoming sense of the politeness they are said to display towards
unmarried ladies of a certain state.&nbsp; All natural histories teem
with anecdotes illustrative of their excellent qualities; and one old
spelling-book in particular recounts a touching instance of an old lion,
of high moral dignity and stern principle, who felt it his imperative
duty to devour a young man who had contracted a habit of swearing, as
a striking example to the rising generation.</p>
<p>All this is extremely pleasant to reflect upon, and, indeed, says
a very great deal in favour of lions as a mass.&nbsp; We are bound to
state, however, that such individual lions as we have happened to fall
in with have not put forth any very striking characteristics, and have
not acted up to the chivalrous character assigned them by their chroniclers.&nbsp;
We never saw a lion in what is called his natural state, certainly;
that is to say, we have never met a lion out walking in a forest, or
crouching in his lair under a tropical sun, waiting till his dinner
should happen to come by, hot from the baker&rsquo;s.&nbsp; But we have
seen some under the influence of captivity, and the pressure of misfortune;
and we must say that they appeared to us very apathetic, heavy-headed
fellows.</p>
<p>The lion at the Zoological Gardens, for instance.&nbsp; He is all
very well; he has an undeniable mane, and looks very fierce; but, Lord
bless us! what of that?&nbsp; The lions of the fashionable world look
just as ferocious, and are the most harmless creatures breathing.&nbsp;
A box-lobby lion or a Regent-street animal will put on a most terrible
aspect, and roar, fearfully, if you affront him; but he will never bite,
and, if you offer to attack him manfully, will fairly turn tail and
sneak off.&nbsp; Doubtless these creatures roam about sometimes in herds,
and, if they meet any especially meek-looking and peaceably-disposed
fellow, will endeavour to frighten him; but the faintest show of a vigorous
resistance is sufficient to scare them even then.&nbsp; These are pleasant
characteristics, whereas we make it matter of distinct charge against
the Zoological lion and his brethren at the fairs, that they are sleepy,
dreamy, sluggish quadrupeds.</p>
<p>We do not remember to have ever seen one of them perfectly awake,
except at feeding-time.&nbsp; In every respect we uphold the biped lions
against their four-footed namesakes, and we boldly challenge controversy
upon the subject.</p>
<p>With these opinions it may be easily imagined that our curiosity
and interest were very much excited the other day, when a lady of our
acquaintance called on us and resolutely declined to accept our refusal
of her invitation to an evening party; &lsquo;for,&rsquo; said she,
&lsquo;I have got a lion coming.&rsquo;&nbsp; We at once retracted our
plea of a prior engagement, and became as anxious to go, as we had previously
been to stay away.</p>
<p>We went early, and posted ourselves in an eligible part of the drawing-room,
from whence we could hope to obtain a full view of the interesting animal.&nbsp;
Two or three hours passed, the quadrilles began, the room filled; but
no lion appeared.&nbsp; The lady of the house became inconsolable,&mdash;for
it is one of the peculiar privileges of these lions to make solemn appointments
and never keep them,&mdash;when all of a sudden there came a tremendous
double rap at the street-door, and the master of the house, after gliding
out (unobserved as he flattered himself) to peep over the banisters,
came into the room, rubbing his hands together with great glee, and
cried out in a very important voice, &lsquo;My dear, Mr.&mdash;(naming
the lion) has this moment arrived.&rsquo;</p>
<p>Upon this, all eyes were turned towards the door, and we observed
several young ladies, who had been laughing and conversing previously
with great gaiety and good humour, grow extremely quiet and sentimental;
while some young gentlemen, who had been cutting great figures in the
facetious and small-talk way, suddenly sank very obviously in the estimation
of the company, and were looked upon with great coldness and indifference.&nbsp;
Even the young man who had been ordered from the music shop to play
the pianoforte was visibly affected, and struck several false notes
in the excess of his excitement.</p>
<p>All this time there was a great talking outside, more than once accompanied
by a loud laugh, and a cry of &lsquo;Oh! capital! excellent!&rsquo;
from which we inferred that the lion was jocose, and that these exclamations
were occasioned by the transports of his keeper and our host.&nbsp;
Nor were we deceived; for when the lion at last appeared, we overheard
his keeper, who was a little prim man, whisper to several gentlemen
of his acquaintance, with uplifted hands, and every expression of half-suppressed
admiration, that&mdash;(naming the lion again) was in <i>such</i> cue
to-night!</p>
<p>The lion was a literary one.&nbsp; Of course, there were a vast number
of people present who had admired his roarings, and were anxious to
be introduced to him; and very pleasant it was to see them brought up
for the purpose, and to observe the patient dignity with which he received
all their patting and caressing.&nbsp; This brought forcibly to our
mind what we had so often witnessed at country fairs, where the other
lions are compelled to go through as many forms of courtesy as they
chance to be acquainted with, just as often as admiring parties happen
to drop in upon them.</p>
<p>While the lion was exhibiting in this way, his keeper was not idle,
for he mingled among the crowd, and spread his praises most industriously.&nbsp;
To one gentleman he whispered some very choice thing that the noble
animal had said in the very act of coming up-stairs, which, of course,
rendered the mental effort still more astonishing; to another he murmured
a hasty account of a grand dinner that had taken place the day before,
where twenty-seven gentlemen had got up all at once to demand an extra
cheer for the lion; and to the ladies he made sundry promises of interceding
to procure the majestic brute&rsquo;s sign-manual for their albums.&nbsp;
Then, there were little private consultations in different corners,
relative to the personal appearance and stature of the lion; whether
he was shorter than they had expected to see him, or taller, or thinner,
or fatter, or younger, or older; whether he was like his portrait, or
unlike it; and whether the particular shade of his eyes was black, or
blue, or hazel, or green, or yellow, or mixture.&nbsp; At all these
consultations the keeper assisted; and, in short, the lion was the sole
and single subject of discussion till they sat him down to whist, and
then the people relapsed into their old topics of conversation&mdash;themselves
and each other.</p>
<p>We must confess that we looked forward with no slight impatience
to the announcement of supper; for if you wish to see a tame lion under
particularly favourable circumstances, feeding-time is the period of
all others to pitch upon.&nbsp; We were therefore very much delighted
to observe a sensation among the guests, which we well knew how to interpret,
and immediately afterwards to behold the lion escorting the lady of
the house down-stairs.&nbsp; We offered our arm to an elderly female
of our acquaintance, who&mdash;dear old soul!&mdash;is the very best
person that ever lived, to lead down to any meal; for, be the room ever
so small, or the party ever so large, she is sure, by some intuitive
perception of the eligible, to push and pull herself and conductor close
to the best dishes on the table;&mdash;we say we offered our arm to
this elderly female, and, descending the stairs shortly after the lion,
were fortunate enough to obtain a seat nearly opposite him.</p>
<p>Of course the keeper was there already.&nbsp; He had planted himself
at precisely that distance from his charge which afforded him a decent
pretext for raising his voice, when he addressed him, to so loud a key,
as could not fail to attract the attention of the whole company, and
immediately began to apply himself seriously to the task of bringing
the lion out, and putting him through the whole of his manoeuvres.&nbsp;
Such flashes of wit as he elicited from the lion!&nbsp; First of all,
they began to make puns upon a salt-cellar, and then upon the breast
of a fowl, and then upon the trifle; but the best jokes of all were
decidedly on the lobster salad, upon which latter subject the lion came
out most vigorously, and, in the opinion of the most competent authorities,
quite outshone himself.&nbsp; This is a very excellent mode of shining
in society, and is founded, we humbly conceive, upon the classic model
of the dialogues between Mr. Punch and his friend the proprietor, wherein
the latter takes all the up-hill work, and is content to pioneer to
the jokes and repartees of Mr. P. himself, who never fails to gain great
credit and excite much laughter thereby.&nbsp; Whatever it be founded
on, however, we recommend it to all lions, present and to come; for
in this instance it succeeded to admiration, and perfectly dazzled the
whole body of hearers.</p>
<p>When the salt-cellar, and the fowl&rsquo;s breast, and the trifle,
and the lobster salad were all exhausted, and could not afford standing-room
for another solitary witticism, the keeper performed that very dangerous
feat which is still done with some of the caravan lions, although in
one instance it terminated fatally, of putting his head in the animal&rsquo;s
mouth, and placing himself entirely at its mercy.&nbsp; Boswell frequently
presents a melancholy instance of the lamentable results of this achievement,
and other keepers and jackals have been terribly lacerated for their
daring.&nbsp; It is due to our lion to state, that he condescended to
be trifled with, in the most gentle manner, and finally went home with
the showman in a hack cab: perfectly peaceable, but slightly fuddled.</p>
<p>Being in a contemplative mood, we were led to make some reflections
upon the character and conduct of this genus of lions as we walked homewards,
and we were not long in arriving at the conclusion that our former impression
in their favour was very much strengthened and confirmed by what we
had recently seen.&nbsp; While the other lions receive company and compliments
in a sullen, moody, not to say snarling manner, these appear flattered
by the attentions that are paid them; while those conceal themselves
to the utmost of their power from the vulgar gaze, these court the popular
eye, and, unlike their brethren, whom nothing short of compulsion will
move to exertion, are ever ready to display their acquirements to the
wondering throng.&nbsp; We have known bears of undoubted ability who,
when the expectations of a large audience have been wound up to the
utmost pitch, have peremptorily refused to dance; well-taught monkeys,
who have unaccountably objected to exhibit on the slack wire; and elephants
of unquestioned genius, who have suddenly declined to turn the barrel-organ;
but we never once knew or heard of a biped lion, literary or otherwise,&mdash;and
we state it as a fact which is highly creditable to the whole species,&mdash;who,
occasion offering, did not seize with avidity on any opportunity which
was afforded him, of performing to his heart&rsquo;s content on the
first violin.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>MR. ROBERT BOLTON: THE &lsquo;GENTLEMAN CONNECTED WITH THE PRESS&rsquo;</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>In the parlour of the Green Dragon, a public-house in the immediate
neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge, everybody talks politics, every
evening, the great political authority being Mr. Robert Bolton, an individual
who defines himself as &lsquo;a gentleman connected with the press,&rsquo;
which is a definition of peculiar indefiniteness.&nbsp; Mr. Robert Bolton&rsquo;s
regular circle of admirers and listeners are an undertaker, a greengrocer,
a hairdresser, a baker, a large stomach surmounted by a man&rsquo;s
head, and placed on the top of two particularly short legs, and a thin
man in black, name, profession, and pursuit unknown, who always sits
in the same position, always displays the same long, vacant face, and
never opens his lips, surrounded as he is by most enthusiastic conversation,
except to puff forth a volume of tobacco smoke, or give vent to a very
snappy, loud, and shrill <i>hem</i>!&nbsp; The conversation sometimes
turns upon literature, Mr. Bolton being a literary character, and always
upon such news of the day as is exclusively possessed by that talented
individual.&nbsp; I found myself (of course, accidentally) in the Green
Dragon the other evening, and, being somewhat amused by the following
conversation, preserved it.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Can you lend me a ten-pound note till Christmas?&rsquo; inquired
the hairdresser of the stomach.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Where&rsquo;s your security, Mr. Clip?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;My stock in trade,&mdash;there&rsquo;s enough of it, I&rsquo;m
thinking, Mr. Thicknesse.&nbsp; Some fifty wigs, two poles, half-a-dozen
head blocks, and a dead Bruin.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;No, I won&rsquo;t, then,&rsquo; growled out Thicknesse.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I lends nothing on the security of the whigs or the Poles either.&nbsp;
As for whigs, they&rsquo;re cheats; as for the Poles, they&rsquo;ve
got no cash.&nbsp; I never have nothing to do with blockheads, unless
I can&rsquo;t awoid it (ironically), and a dead bear&rsquo;s about as
much use to me as I could be to a dead bear.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, then,&rsquo; urged the other, &lsquo;there&rsquo;s a
book as belonged to Pope, Byron&rsquo;s Poems, valued at forty pounds,
because it&rsquo;s got Pope&rsquo;s identical scratch on the back; what
do you think of that for security?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, to be sure!&rsquo; cried the baker.&nbsp; &lsquo;But
how d&rsquo;ye mean, Mr. Clip?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Mean! why, that it&rsquo;s got the <i>hottergruff</i> of Pope.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Steal not this book, for fear of hangman&rsquo;s rope;<br />For
it belongs to Alexander Pope.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>All that&rsquo;s written on the inside of the binding of the book;
so, as my son says, we&rsquo;re <i>bound</i> to believe it.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Well, sir,&rsquo; observed the undertaker, deferentially,
and in a half-whisper, leaning over the table, and knocking over the
hairdresser&rsquo;s grog as he spoke, &lsquo;that argument&rsquo;s very
easy upset.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Perhaps, sir,&rsquo; said Clip, a little flurried, &lsquo;you&rsquo;ll
pay for the first upset afore you thinks of another.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said the undertaker, bowing amicably to the hairdresser,
&lsquo;I <i>think</i>, I says I <i>think&mdash;</i>you&rsquo;ll excuse
me, Mr. Clip, I <i>think</i>, you see, that won&rsquo;t go down with
the present company&mdash;unfortunately, my master had the honour of
making the coffin of that ere Lord&rsquo;s housemaid, not no more nor
twenty year ago.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m proud on it, gentlemen;
others might be; but I hate rank of any sort.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve no more
respect for a Lord&rsquo;s footman than I have for any respectable tradesman
in this room.&nbsp; I may say no more nor I have for Mr. Clip! (bowing).&nbsp;
Therefore, that ere Lord must have been born long after Pope died.&nbsp;
And it&rsquo;s a logical interference to defer, that they neither of
them lived at the same time.&nbsp; So what I mean is this here, that
Pope never had no book, never seed, felt, never smelt no book (triumphantly)
as belonged to that ere Lord.&nbsp; And, gentlemen, when I consider
how patiently you have &rsquo;eared the ideas what I have expressed,
I feel bound, as the best way to reward you for the kindness you have
exhibited, to sit down without saying anything more&mdash;partickler
as I perceive a worthier visitor nor myself is just entered.&nbsp; I
am not in the habit of paying compliments, gentlemen; when I do, therefore,
I hope I strikes with double force.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;Ah, Mr. Murgatroyd! what&rsquo;s all this about striking with
double force?&rsquo; said the object of the above remark, as he entered.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I never excuse a man&rsquo;s getting into a rage during winter,
even when he&rsquo;s seated so close to the fire as you are.&nbsp; It
is very injudicious to put yourself into such a perspiration.&nbsp;
What is the cause of this extreme physical and mental excitement, sir?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Such was the very philosophical address of Mr. Robert Bolton, a shorthand-writer,
as he termed himself&mdash;a bit of equivoque passing current among
his fraternity, which must give the uninitiated a vast idea of the establishment
of the ministerial organ, while to the initiated it signifies that no
one paper can lay claim to the enjoyment of their services.&nbsp; Mr.
Bolton was a young man, with a somewhat sickly and very dissipated expression
of countenance.&nbsp; His habiliments were composed of an exquisite
union of gentility, slovenliness, assumption, simplicity, <i>newness</i>,
and old age.&nbsp; Half of him was dressed for the winter, the other
half for the summer.&nbsp; His hat was of the newest cut, the D&rsquo;Orsay;
his trousers had been white, but the inroads of mud and ink, etc., had
given them a pie-bald appearance; round his throat he wore a very high
black cravat, of the most tyrannical stiffness; while his <i>tout ensemble</i>
was hidden beneath the enormous folds of an old brown poodle-collared
great-coat, which was closely buttoned up to the aforesaid cravat.&nbsp;
His fingers peeped through the ends of his black kid gloves, and two
of the toes of each foot took a similar view of society through the
extremities of his high-lows.&nbsp; Sacred to the bare walls of his
garret be the mysteries of his interior dress!&nbsp; He was a short,
spare man, of a somewhat inferior deportment.&nbsp; Everybody seemed
influenced by his entry into the room, and his salutation of each member
partook of the patronizing.&nbsp; The hairdresser made way for him between
himself and the stomach.&nbsp; A minute afterwards he had taken possession
of his pint and pipe.&nbsp; A pause in the conversation took place.&nbsp;
Everybody was waiting, anxious for his first observation.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Horrid murder in Westminster this morning,&rsquo; observed
Mr. Bolton.</p>
<p>Everybody changed their positions.&nbsp; All eyes were fixed upon
the man of paragraphs.</p>
<p>&lsquo;A baker murdered his son by boiling him in a copper,&rsquo;
said Mr. Bolton.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Good heavens!&rsquo; exclaimed everybody, in simultaneous
horror.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Boiled him, gentlemen!&rsquo; added Mr. Bolton, with the most
effective emphasis; &lsquo;<i>boiled</i> him!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;And the particulars, Mr. B.,&rsquo; inquired the hairdresser,
&lsquo;the particulars?&rsquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Bolton took a very long draught of porter, and some two or three
dozen whiffs of tobacco, doubtless to instil into the commercial capacities
of the company the superiority of a gentlemen connected with the press,
and then said -</p>
<p>&lsquo;The man was a baker, gentlemen.&rsquo;&nbsp; (Every one looked
at the baker present, who stared at Bolton.)&nbsp; &lsquo;His victim,
being his son, also was necessarily the son of a baker.&nbsp; The wretched
murderer had a wife, whom he was frequently in the habit, while in an
intoxicated state, of kicking, pummelling, flinging mugs at, knocking
down, and half-killing while in bed, by inserting in her mouth a considerable
portion of a sheet or blanket.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The speaker took another draught, everybody looked at everybody else,
and exclaimed, &lsquo;Horrid!&rsquo;</p>
<p>&lsquo;It appears in evidence, gentlemen,&rsquo; continued Mr. Bolton,
&lsquo;that, on the evening of yesterday, Sawyer the baker came home
in a reprehensible state of beer.&nbsp; Mrs. S., connubially considerate,
carried him in that condition up-stairs into his chamber, and consigned
him to their mutual couch.&nbsp; In a minute or two she lay sleeping
beside the man whom the morrow&rsquo;s dawn beheld a murderer!&rsquo;&nbsp;
(Entire silence informed the reporter that his picture had attained
the awful effect he desired.)&nbsp; &lsquo;The son came home about an
hour afterwards, opened the door, and went up to bed.&nbsp; Scarcely
(gentlemen, conceive his feelings of alarm), scarcely had he taken off
his indescribables, when shrieks (to his experienced ear <i>maternal</i>
shrieks) scared the silence of surrounding night.&nbsp; He put his indescribables
on again, and ran down-stairs.&nbsp; He opened the door of the parental
bed-chamber.&nbsp; His father was dancing upon his mother.&nbsp; What
must have been his feelings!&nbsp; In the agony of the minute he rushed
at his male parent as he was about to plunge a knife into the side of
his female.&nbsp; The mother shrieked.&nbsp; The father caught the son
(who had wrested the knife from the paternal grasp) up in his arms,
carried him down-stairs, shoved him into a copper of boiling water among
some linen, closed the lid, and jumped upon the top of it, in which
position he was found with a ferocious countenance by the mother, who
arrived in the melancholy wash-house just as he had so settled himself.</p>
<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s my boy?&rdquo; shrieked the mother.</p>
<p>&lsquo;&ldquo;In that copper, boiling,&rdquo; coolly replied the
benign father.</p>
<p>&lsquo;Struck by the awful intelligence, the mother rushed from the
house, and alarmed the neighbourhood.&nbsp; The police entered a minute
afterwards.&nbsp; The father, having bolted the wash-house door, had
bolted himself.&nbsp; They dragged the lifeless body of the boiled baker
from the cauldron, and, with a promptitude commendable in men of their
station, they immediately carried it to the station-house.&nbsp; Subsequently,
the baker was apprehended while seated on the top of a lamp-post in
Parliament Street, lighting his pipe.&rsquo;</p>
<p>The whole horrible ideality of the Mysteries of Udolpho, condensed
into the pithy effect of a ten-line paragraph, could not possibly have
so affected the narrator&rsquo;s auditory.&nbsp; Silence, the purest
and most noble of all kinds of applause, bore ample testimony to the
barbarity of the baker, as well as to Bolton&rsquo;s knack of narration;
and it was only broken after some minutes had elapsed by interjectional
expressions of the intense indignation of every man present.&nbsp; The
baker wondered how a British baker could so disgrace himself and the
highly honourable calling to which he belonged; and the others indulged
in a variety of wonderments connected with the subject; among which
not the least wonderment was that which was awakened by the genius and
information of Mr. Robert Bolton, who, after a glowing eulogium on himself,
and his unspeakable influence with the daily press, was proceeding,
with a most solemn countenance, to hear the pros and cons of the Pope
autograph question, when I took up my hat, and left.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>FAMILIAR EPISTLE FROM A PARENT TO A CHILD AGED TWO YEARS AND TWO
MONTHS</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>MY CHILD,</p>
<p>To recount with what trouble I have brought you up&mdash;with what
an anxious eye I have regarded your progress,&mdash;how late and how
often I have sat up at night working for you,&mdash;and how many thousand
letters I have received from, and written to your various relations
and friends, many of whom have been of a querulous and irritable turn,&mdash;to
dwell on the anxiety and tenderness with which I have (as far as I possessed
the power) inspected and chosen your food; rejecting the indigestible
and heavy matter which some injudicious but well-meaning old ladies
would have had you swallow, and retaining only those light and pleasant
articles which I deemed calculated to keep you free from all gross humours,
and to render you an agreeable child, and one who might be popular with
society in general,&mdash;to dilate on the steadiness with which I have
prevented your annoying any company by talking politics&mdash;always
assuring you that you would thank me for it yourself some day when you
grew older,&mdash;to expatiate, in short, upon my own assiduity as a
parent, is beside my present purpose, though I cannot but contemplate
your fair appearance&mdash;your robust health, and unimpeded circulation
(which I take to be the great secret of your good looks) without the
liveliest satisfaction and delight.</p>
<p>It is a trite observation, and one which, young as you are, I have
no doubt you have often heard repeated, that we have fallen upon strange
times, and live in days of constant shiftings and changes.&nbsp; I had
a melancholy instance of this only a week or two since.&nbsp; I was
returning from Manchester to London by the Mail Train, when I suddenly
fell into another train&mdash;a mixed train&mdash;of reflection, occasioned
by the dejected and disconsolate demeanour of the Post-Office Guard.&nbsp;
We were stopping at some station where they take in water, when he dismounted
slowly from the little box in which he sits in ghastly mockery of his
old condition with pistol and blunderbuss beside him, ready to shoot
the first highwayman (or railwayman) who shall attempt to stop the horses,
which now travel (when they travel at all) <i>inside</i> and in a portable
stable invented for the purpose,&mdash;he dismounted, I say, slowly
and sadly, from his post, and looking mournfully about him as if in
dismal recollection of the old roadside public-house the blazing fire&mdash;the
glass of foaming ale&mdash;the buxom handmaid and admiring hangers-on
of tap-room and stable, all honoured by his notice; and, retiring a
little apart, stood leaning against a signal-post, surveying the engine
with a look of combined affliction and disgust which no words can describe.&nbsp;
His scarlet coat and golden lace were tarnished with ignoble smoke;
flakes of soot had fallen on his bright green shawl&mdash;his pride
in days of yore&mdash;the steam condensed in the tunnel from which we
had just emerged, shone upon his hat like rain.&nbsp; His eye betokened
that he was thinking of the coachman; and as it wandered to his own
seat and his own fast-fading garb, it was plain to see that he felt
his office and himself had alike no business there, and were nothing
but an elaborate practical joke.</p>
<p>As we whirled away, I was led insensibly into an anticipation of
those days to come, when mail-coach guards shall no longer be judges
of horse-flesh&mdash;when a mail-coach guard shall never even have seen
a horse&mdash;when stations shall have superseded stables, and corn
shall have given place to coke.&nbsp; &lsquo;In those dawning times,&rsquo;
thought I, &lsquo;exhibition-rooms shall teem with portraits of Her
Majesty&rsquo;s favourite engine, with boilers after Nature by future
Landseers.&nbsp; Some Amburgh, yet unborn, shall break wild horses by
his magic power; and in the dress of a mail-coach guard exhibit his
TRAINED ANIMALS in a mock mail-coach.&nbsp; Then, shall wondering crowds
observe how that, with the exception of his whip, it is all his eye;
and crowned heads shall see them fed on oats, and stand alone unmoved
and undismayed, while counters flee affrighted when the coursers neigh!&rsquo;</p>
<p>Such, my child, were the reflections from which I was only awakened
then, as I am now, by the necessity of attending to matters of present
though minor importance.&nbsp; I offer no apology to you for the digression,
for it brings me very naturally to the subject of change, which is the
very subject of which I desire to treat.</p>
<p>In fact, my child, you have changed hands.&nbsp; Henceforth I resign
you to the guardianship and protection of one of my most intimate and
valued friends, Mr. Ainsworth, with whom, and with you, my best wishes
and warmest feelings will ever remain.&nbsp; I reap no gain or profit
by parting from you, nor will any conveyance of your property be required,
for, in this respect, you have always been literally &lsquo;Bentley&rsquo;s&rsquo;
Miscellany, and never mine.</p>
<p>Unlike the driver of the old Manchester mail, I regard this altered
state of things with feelings of unmingled pleasure and satisfaction.</p>
<p>Unlike the guard of the new Manchester mail, <i>your</i> guard is
at home in his new place, and has roystering highwaymen and gallant
desperadoes ever within call.&nbsp; And if I might compare you, my child,
to an engine; (not a Tory engine, nor a Whig engine, but a brisk and
rapid locomotive;) your friends and patrons to passengers; and he who
now stands towards you <i>in loco parentis</i> as the skilful engineer
and supervisor of the whole, I would humbly crave leave to postpone
the departure of the train on its new and auspicious course for one
brief instant, while, with hat in hand, I approach side by side with
the friend who travelled with me on the old road, and presume to solicit
favour and kindness in behalf of him and his new charge, both for their
sakes and that of the old coachman,</p>
<p>Boz.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a>&nbsp; This paper
was written before the practice of exhibiting Members of Parliament,
like other curiosities, for the small charge of half-a-crown, was abolished.</p>
<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a>&nbsp; The regulations
of the prison relative to the confinement of prisoners during the day,
their sleeping at night, their taking their meals, and other matters
of gaol economy, have been all altered-greatly for the better&mdash;since
this sketch was first published.&nbsp; Even the construction of the
prison itself has been changed.</p>
<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a>&nbsp; These
two men were executed shortly afterwards.&nbsp; The other was respited
during his Majesty&rsquo;s pleasure.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES BY BOZ ***</p>
<pre>

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